No traveller returns) puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all: And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.
THIS day a solemn feast the people hold To Dagon their sea-idol, and forbid Laborious works; unwillingly this rest Their superstition yields me; hence with leave Retiring from the popular noise, I seek This unfrequented place to find some ease, Ease to the body some, none to the mind, From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone, But rush upon me thronging, and present Times past, what once I was, and what am now. -But chief of all,
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eased, Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me; They creep, yet see; I dark in light exposed To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, Within doors, or without, still as a fool, In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!
O first created Beam, and thou great Word, "Let there be light, and light was over all;" Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree? The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,
When she deserts the night,
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. Since light so necessary is to life, And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the soul,
She all in every part; why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined, So obvious and so easy to be quenched? And not as feeling through all parts diffused, That she might look at will through every pore? Then had I not been thus exiled from light, As in the land of darkness, yet in light, To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried, but O yet more miserable! Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave; Buried, yet not exempt,
By privilege of death and burial,
From worst of other evils, pains, and wrongs;
But made hereby obnoxious more
To all the miseries of life,
Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
But who are these? for with joint pace I hear The tread of many feet steering this way; Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare At my affliction, and perhaps to insult, Their daily practice to afflict me more.
1. CONCLUSION OF PHIL. FUDGE's Letter TO HIS BROTHER TIM. FUDGE, ESQ., BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
AND now, my brother, guide, and friend, This somewhat tedious scrawl must end. I've gone into this long detail,
Because I saw your nerves were shaken, With anxious fears lest I should fail In this new loyal course I've taken. But, bless your heart! you need not doubt- We, Fudges, know what we 're about. Look round and say if you can see A much more thriving family.
There's Jack, the doctor-night and day Hundreds of patients so besiege him, You'd swear that all the rich and gay Fell sick on purpose to oblige him. And while they think, the precious ninnies, He's counting o'er their pulse so steady, The rogue but counts how many guineas He's fobbed for that day's work already. I shan't forget th' old maid's alarm, When, feeling thus Miss Sukey Flirt, he Said, as he dropped her shrivelled arm, Very bad this morning-only thirty.
Your dowagers, too, every one So generous are, when they call him in, That he might now retire upon The rheumatisms of three old women. Then, whatsoe'er your ailments are, He can so learnedly explain 'em. Your cold of course is a catarrh, Your headach is a hemi-cranium.— His skill, too, in young ladies' lungs, The grace with which, most mild of men, He begs them to put out their tongues, Then bids them-put them in again!
In short, there's nothing now like Jack;- Take all your doctors, great and small, Of present times and ages back, Dear Doctor Fudge is worth them all.
So much for physic-then in law too, Counsellor Tim! to thee we bow; Not one of us gives more eclat to The immortal name of Fudge than thou. Not to expatiate on the art
With which you played the patriot's part Till something good and snug should offer; Like one, who, by the way he acts The enlightening part of candle-snuffer, The manager's keen eye attracts, And is promoted thence by him To strut in robes like thee, my Tim. Who shall describe thy powers of face, Thy well-fee'd zeal in every case,
Or wrong or right-but ten times warmer (As suits thy calling) in the former- Thy glorious, lawyer-like delight In puzzling all that's clear and right, Which, though conspicuous in thy youth, Improves so with a wig and band on That all thy pride 's to way-lay Truth, And leave her not a leg to stand on- Thy potent, prime, morality,— Thy cases cited from the Bible,— Thy candour, when it falls to thee To help in trouncing for a libel ;- "Heaven knows, I, from my soul, profess "To hate all bigots and benighters! "Heaven knows that even to excess, "The sacred freedom of the press, 66 My only aim's to crush-the writers." These are the virtues, Tim, that draw The briefs into thy bag so fast; And these, O Tim,-if law be law- Will raise thee to the Bench at last.
I blush to see this letter's length,— But 't was my wish to prove to thee
How full of hope, and wealth, and strength, Are all our precious family;
And, should affairs go on as pleasant As, thank the Fates, they do at present,- I hope erelong to see the day
When England's wisest statesmen, judges, Lawyers, peers, will all be-Fudges! Good-bye-my paper's out so nearly I've only room for
Yours sincerely.
MOORE'S Fudge Family.
2.-CONTEST BETWEEN THE NOSE AND EYES.
BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose, The spectacles set them unhappily wrong; The point in dispute was, as all the world knows, To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So Tongue was the Lawyer, and argued the cause With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning, While chief-baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.
In behalf of the Nose, it will quickly appear,
And your Lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find, That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind.
Then, holding the spectacles up to the court- Your Lordship observes they are made with a straddle As wide as the ridge of the Nose is,—in short, Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle.
Again, would your Lordship a moment suppose ('T is a case that has happened, and may be again), That the visage or countenance had not a Nose, Pray who would or who could wear spectacles then?
On the whole it appears, and my argument shows, With a reasoning the court will never condemn, That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.
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