Yet, nursed with skill, what dazzling fruits appear! Or bard sublime, if bard may e'er be so, As Milton, Shakspeare, names that ne'er shall die! Though now he crawl along the ground so low, Nor weeting how the Muse should soar on high, Wisheth, poor starveling elf! his paper kite may fly. And this perhaps, who, censuring the design, Low lays the house which that of cards doth build, Shall Dennis be! if rigid fate incline, And many an epic to his rage shall yield ; And many a poet quit the Aonian field: And, sour'd by age, profound he shall appear, As he who now with 'sdainful fury thrill'd, Surveys mine work and levels many a sneer, And furls his wrinkly front, and cries, "What stuff is here?" But now Dan Phoebus gains the middle skie, And liberty unbars her prison-door : And like a rushing torrent out they fly, And now the grassy cirque han covered o'er With boisterous revel-rout and wild uproar; A thousand ways in wanton rings they run, Heaven shield their short-lived pastimes, I imFor well may freedom erst so dearly won, [plore! Appear to British elf more gladsome than the sun. Enjoy, poor imps! enjoy your sportive trade, And chase gay flies, and cull the fairest flowers; For when my bones in grass-green sods are laid; For never may ye taste more careless hours In knightly castles or in ladies' bowers. O vain to seek delight in earthly thing! But most in courts where proud ambition towers; Deluded wight! who weens fair peace can spring Beneath the pompous dome of kesar or of king. See in each sprite some various bent appear! These rudely carol most incondite lay; Those sauntering on the green, with jocund leer Salute the stranger passing on his way; Some builden fragile tenements of clay; Some to the standing lake their courses bend, With pebbles smooth at duck-and-drake to play; Thilk to the huckster's savory cottage tend, In pastry kings and queens th' allotted mite to spend. Here, as each season yields a different store, Each season's stores in order ranged been; Apples with cabbage-net y-covered o'er, Galling full sore th' unmoney'd wight, are seen; And goose-'brie clad in livery red or green; And here of lovely dye, the catharine pear, Fine pear! as lovely for thy juice, I ween: O may no wight e'er pennyless come there, Lest smit with ardent love he pine with hopeless care! See! cherries here, ere cherries yet abound, With thread so white in tempting posies ty'd, Scattering, like blooming maid, theirglances round, With pamper'd look draw little eyes aside; And must be bought, though penury betide. The plum all azure and the nut all brown, And here each season do those cakes abide, Whose honour'd names th' inventive city own, Rendering through Britain's isle Salopia's praises known. Admired Salopia! that with venial pride Eyes her bright form in Severn's ambient wave, Famed for her loyal cares in perils try'd, Her daughters lovely, and her striplings brave: Ah! 'midst the rest, may flowers adorn his grave, Whose art did first these dulcet cates display! A motive fair to learning's imps he gave, Who cheerless o'er her darkling region stray; Till reason's morn arise, and light them on their way*. ELEGY, DESCRIBING THE SORROW OF AN INGENUOUS MIND ON THE MELANCHOLY EVENT OF A LICENTIOUS AMOUR. WHY mourns my friend? why weeps his downcast eye? That eye where mirth, where fancy used to shine! Thy cheerful meads reprove that swelling sigh; Spring ne'er enamell'd fairer meads than thine. Damon, said he, thy partial praise restrain; And my poor wounded bosom bleeds the more. My youth her vain licentious bliss admired; In Fortune's train the syren Flattery smiled, And rashly hallow'd all her queen inspired. Of folly studious, even of vices vain, Ah vices! gilded by the rich and gay! I chased the guileless daughters of the plain, [* When I bought Spenser first," says Shenstone, "I read a page or two of The Faerie Queene,' and cared not to proceed. After that Pope's Alley,' made me consider him ludicrously; and in that light, I think one may read him with pleasure." We owe the Schoolmistress to this ill-taste and this complete misconception of Spenser. Mr. Disraeli has an entertaining paper on Shenstone, but has omitted to mention that the first sketch of the Schoolmistress, in twelve stanzas, is in Shenstone's first publication.] See from the neighbouring hill, forlorn, The wretched swain your sport survey: He finds his faithful fences torn, He finds his labour'd crops a prey; He sees his flock-no more in circles feed; Haply beneath your ravage bleed, And with no random curses loads the deed. Nor yet, ye swains, conclude That nature smiles for you alone; Your bounded souls, and your conceptions crude, O may it still reward your toil! Of clinging infants ask support in vain ? But though the various harvest gild your plains, Or the warm hope of distant gains The source of your delight profound, Unpleased ye see the thickets bloom, Unpleased the spring her flowery robe resume; Unmoved the mountain's airy pile, The dappled mead without a smile. O let a rural conscious Muse, For well she knows, your froward sense accuse; Forth to the solemn oak you bring the square, And span the massy trunk, before you cry, 'tis fair. Nor yet ye learn'd, nor yet ye courtly train, If haply from your haunts ye stray To waste with us a summer's day, Exclude the taste of every swain, Nor our untutor'd sense disdain : 'Tis Nature only gives exclusive right To relish her supreme delight; She, where she pleases kind or coy, Who furnishes the scene and forms us to enjoy. Then hither bring the fair ingenuous mind, Lo! not a hedge-row hawthorn blows, Or purple heath is tinged, in vain : And the rough barren rock grows pregnant with delight. Why brand these pleasures with the name Of soft, unsocial toils, of indolence and shame! Search but the garden, or the wood, Let yon admired carnation own, There while the seeds of future blossoms dwell, 'Tis colour'd for the sight, perfumed to please the smell. Why knows the nightingale to sing? Why flows the pine's nectareous juice? Some born to shun the solemn strife; Some for amusive tasks design'd, To soothe the certain ills of life; Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose, New founts of bliss disclose, Call forth refreshing shades, and decorate repose. ODE TO MEMORY O MEMORY! celestial maid! Who glean'st the flowerets cropt by Time; And, suffering not a leaf to fade, Preservest the blossoms of our prime ; Bring, bring those moments to my mind When life was new, and Lesbia kind. And bring that garland to my sight, With which my favour'd crook she bound; And sketch with care the Muses' bower, That shines on Cherwell's verdant side; The song it 'vails not to recite But sure, to soothe our youthful dreams, And paint that sweetly vacant scene, I breathed in verse one cordial vow: Her father he makes cabbage-nets, And through the streets does cry 'em ; Her mother she sells laces long, To such as please to buy 'em : But sure such folks could ne'er beget When she is by, I leave my work, Of all the days that's in the week, And that's the day that comes betwixt For then I'm dress'd all in my best, My master carries me to church, I leave the church in sermon time, She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. [* Carey in the third Edition of his Poems, published in 1729, before "the Ballad of Sally in our Alley," has placed this note: THE ARGUMENT. "A vulgar error having long prevailed among many persons, who imagine Sally Salisbury the subject of this ballad, the Author begs leave to undeceive and assure them it has not the least allusion to her, he being a stranger to her very name at the time this Song was composed. For as innocence and virtue were ever the boundaries to his Muse, so in this little poem he had no other view than to set forth the beauty of a chaste and disinterested passion, even in the lowest class of human life. The real occasion was this: a Shoemaker's 'Prentice making holiday with his Sweetheart, treated her with a sight of Bedlam, the puppet-shows, the flying-chairs, and all the elegancies of Moorfields: from whence proceeding to the Farthing-pie-house, he gave her a collation of buns, cheese-cakes, gammon of bacon, stuff'd beef, and bottled ale; through all which scenes the Author dodged them (charmed with the simplicity of their courtship), from whence he drew this little sketch of nature; but being then young and obscure, he was very much ridiculed by some of his acquaintance for this performance; which nevertheless made its way into the polite world, and amply recompensed him by the applause of the divine Addison, who was pleased (more than once) to mention it with approbation," p. 127. There was some attempt to rob Carey of his right to his ballad, as there was to rob Denham, Garth, and Akenside, but it did not succeed then, though it occasioned uneasiness to the author, nor will it now, when it can affect him no more.] When Christmas comes about again, I'll give it to my honey: I would it were ten thousand pounds, She is the darling of my heart, My master, and the neighbours all, Make game of me and Sally; A slave, and row a galley: But when my seven long years are out, O then we'll wed, and then we'll bed, CHARLES CHURCHILL. [Born, 1731. Died, 1764.] He was the son of a respectable clergyman, who was curate and lecturer of St. John's Westminster. He was educated; at Westminster school, and entered of Trinity college, Cambridge, but not being disposed from the staget. A letter from another actor, of the name of Davis, who seems rather to have dreaded than experienced his severity, is preserved in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, in which the poor comedian deprecates the poet's censure in an expected publication, as likely to deprive him of bread. What was mean in Garrick might have been an object of compassion in this humble man; but Churchill answered him with surly contempt, and holding to the plea of justice, treated his fears with the apparent satisfaction of a hangman. His moral character, in the mean time, did not keep pace with his literary reputation. As he got above neglect he seems to have thought himself above censure. His superior, the Dean of Westminster, having had occasion to rebuke him for some irregularities, he threw aside at once the clerical habit and profession, and arrayed his ungainly form in the splendour of fashion. Amidst the remarks of his enemies, and what he pronounces the still more insulting advice of his prudent friends upon his irregular life, he published his epistle to Lloyd, entitled Night, a sort of manifesto of the impulses, for they could not be called principles, by which he professed his conduct to be influenced. The leading maxims of this epistle are, that prudence and hypocrisy in these times are the same thing! that good hours are but fine words; and that it is better to avow faults than to conceal them. Speaking of his convivial enjoyments he says "O'er crabbed authors life's gay prime to waste, Or cramp wild genius in the chains of taste," he left the university abruptly, and coming to London made a clandestine marriage in the Fleet*. His father, though much displeased at the proceeding, became reconciled to what could not be remedied, and received the imprudent couple for about a year under his roof. After this young Churchill went for some time to study theology at Sunderland, in the north of England, and having taken orders, officiated at Cadbury, in Somersetshire, and at Rainham, a living of his father's in Essex, till upon the death of his father, he succeeded in 1758 to the curacy and lectureship of St. John's Westminster. Here he conducted himself for some time with a decorum suitable to his profession, and increased his narrow income by undertaking private tuition. He got into debt, it is true; and Dr. Lloyd, of Westminster, the father of his friend the poet, was obliged to mediate with his creditors for their acceptance of a composition; but when fortune put it into his power Churchill honourably discharged all his obligations. His Rosciad appeared at first anonymously, in 1761, and was ascribed to one or other of half the wits in town; but his acknowledgment of it, and his poetical" Apology," in which he retaliated upon the critical reviewers of his poem, (not fearing to affront even Fielding and Smollett,) made him at once famous and formidable. The players, at least, felt him to be so. Garrick himself, who though extolled in the Rosciad was sarcastically alluded to in the Apology, courted him like a suppliant; and his satire had the effect of Century, vol. vi. p. 424, gives this information of Tom driving poor Tom Davies, the biographer of Garrick, though he was a tolerable performer, [* Mr. Southey believes that his marriage took place previous to his entering the university of Cambridge. Life of Cowper, vol. i. p. 70.] "Night's laughing hours unheeded slip away, Nor one dull thought foretells approach of day.” In the same description he somewhat awkwardly introduces "Wine's gay God, with TEMPERANCE by his side, Whilst HEALTH attends." + Nichols, in his Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Davies's being driven off the stage by Churchill's satire, on the authority of Dr. Johnson. This Davies was the editor of Dramatic Miscellanies, and of the Life and Works of Lillo. The name of the other poor player who implored Churchill's mercy was T. Davis, his name being differently spelt from that of Garrick's biographer. Churchill's answer to him is also preserved by Nichols. |