How did the village boys admire
When first he got a-top the spire!
But when he saw, so far beneath,
The woodland, meadow, cornfield, heath,
Road, river, cottage, hillock, plain,
He was you cannot think how vain :
So vain, indeed, that he design'd
To turn about the first fair wind,
And shake in scorn his yellow tongue
At the old stock from which he sprung.
A flurry's long-expected blast
Enabled him to move at last;
When, his head sparkling to the sun,
He wagg'd a while, and thus begun.
Fine company I was indeed in!
Hark ye, old log, is that your breeding?
Must a gold weathercock like me
Pay first respects to a poor tree?
In what high splendour am I borne here? You grovel in a churchyard corner.
Me all the parish come to view
Pray, do they go to look at you?
You stand in dirt, must fall, and burn;
I turn, old boy; mark that-I turn.
Your shape-enough to frighten Nick !—
Green, like a rusty candlestick!
My form how smooth! my skin how yellow!
Look, demme, what a clever fellow !
The solemn branches heave and sigh, Then murmur slowly this reply.
If we be clumsy, you be limber,
What then? We both are of one timber.
Once a plain simple stick, when sold
You got a name, and you got gold,
Given by your masters, not your friends,
To fit you for their private ends.
What made them raise you to that throne?
Your interest, coxcomb? no; their own.
"You turn," you say; we have a notion, That something regulates the motion. men study you;" vain prater,
They study but your regulator.
Yet, cocky, be of cheer: one finds
Such failings even in human minds.
Lord Lighthead's wavering foppery see:
A gilded weathercock is he;
That from the common timber hew'd,
And set up merely to be view'd,
About while fashion's light gales veer him, Thinks all who look up love or fear him; Thinks they admire, who only gaze;
And that all honour him, who praise.
EPITAPH ON DIOPHANTUS.
WITH diagrams no more to daunt us,
Here sleeps in dust old Diaphantus;
Who scorns to give you information,
Even of his age, but in equation.
A lad unskill'd in learning's ways,
He pass'd the sixth part of his days;
Within a twelfth part more, appear'd
The scatter'd blossoms of a beard.
A seventh part added to his life,
He married (for his sins) a wife ;
Who, to complete her husband's joy,
Produced, in five years, a fine boy.
The boy, by the good man's directions,
Read Euclid, Simson's Conick Sections,
Trail's Algebra-was learn'd, was happy,
And had got half as old as pappy,
When, spite of surds and biquadraticks,
Death cur'd him of the mathematicks.
Poor Diophantus, you'll believe,
Did nothing for four years but grieve,
Then died.-GIVEN of a Grecian sage
The life and death: REQUIRED the age.
HUNC Diophantus habet tumulum, qui tempora vitæ
Illius mira denotat arte tibi.
Egit sextantem juvenis ; lanugine malas
Vestire hinc cœpit parte duodecima.
Septante exori post hæc sociatur; et anno
Formosus quinto nascitur inde puer.
Semissem ætatis postquam attigit ille paternæ,
Infelix, subita morte peremptus, obit.
Estates quatuor genitor lugere superstes
Cogitur. Hinc annos illius assequere.
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