Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

Undress'd at ev'ning, when she found
Their odours lost, their colours past,
She chang'd her look, and on the ground
Her garland and her eye she cast.

That eye dropt sense distinct and clear,
could speak;

tongue

As any muse's
When from its lid a pearly tear

Ran trickling down her beauteous cheek.
Dissembling what I knew too well,
My love, my life, said 1, explain
This change of humour: prythee tell,
That falling tear--What does it mean?
She sigh'd; she smil'd; and to the flow'rs
Pointing, the lovely moralist said:
See! friend, in some few fleeting hours,
See yonder what a change is made.
Ah me! the blooming pride of May,
And that of beauty are but one :
At morn both flourish bright and gay,
Both fade at ev'ning, pale, and gone.
At dawn poor Stella danc'd and sung;
The am'rous youth around her bow d:
At night her fatal knell was rung;
I saw, and kiss'd her in her shroud.
Such as she is, who dy'd to-day,
Such I, alas! may be to-morrow ; -
Go, Damon, bid thy muse display
The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow.

The various EFFECTS of PRIDE.

(YOUNG.)

Or folly, vice, disease, men proud we see;
And (stranger still!) of blockhead's flattery,
Whose praise defames; as if a fool should mean
By spitting on your face to make it clean.

Nor is't enough all hearts are swoln with pride,
Her power is mighty, as her realm is wide.
What can she not perform? The love of fame
Made bold Alphonsus bis Creator blame,

83

Empedocles hurl'd down the burning steep,
And (stranger still!) made Alexander weep.
Nay, it holds Delia from a second bed,

Tho' her lov'd lord has four half-months been dead.

This passion with a pimple have I seen
Retard a cause, and give a judge the spleen.
By this inspir'd (O ne'er to be forgot)

Some lords have learn'd to spell, and some to knot.
It makes Globose a speaker in the house;
He hems, and is deliver'd of his mouse.

It makes dear self on well-bred tongues prevail,
And I the little hero of each tale.

Sick with the love of fame what throngs pour in,
Unpeople courts, and leave the senate thin!
My growing subject seems but just begun,
And chariot-like, I kindle as I run.
Aid me, great Homer! with thy Epic rules
To take a catalogue of British fools.
Satire had I thy Dorset's force divine,
A knave, or fool, should perish in each line;
Tho' for the first all Westminster should plead,
And for the last all Gresham intercede.

Begin. Who first the catalogue shall grace?
To quality belongs the highest place.

My lord comes forward, forward let him come !
Ye vulgar! at your peril give him room;
He stands for fame on his forefather's feet,
By heraldry prov'd valiant or discreet.
With what a decent pride he throws his eyes
Above the man by three descents less wise!
If virtues at his noble hand you crave,
You bid him raise his fathers from the grave.
Men should press forward in fame's glorious chace,
Nobles look backward, and so lose the race.

Let high birth triumph! what can be more great} Nothing-but merit in a low estate.

To virtue's humblest son let none prefer
Vice, tho' descended from the conqueror.
Shall men, like figures, pass for high, or base,
Slight or important, only by their place?
Titles are marks of honest men, and wise;
The fool, or knave, that wears a title, lies,

They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt, instead of their discharge. Dorset, let those who proudly boast their line, Like thee, in worth hereditary shine.

CHARACTER of a Fox-HUNTER.

(YOUNG.)

THE 'Squire is proud to see his courser strain,
Or well-breath'd beagles sweep along the plain.
Say, dear Hippolitus (whose drink is ale,
Whose erudition is a Christmas tale,

Whose mistress is saluted with a smack,

And friend receiv'd with thumps upon the back)
When thy sleek gelding nimbly leaps the mound,
And Ringwood opens on the tainted ground,
Is that thy praise? Let Ringwood's fame alone,
Just Ringwood leaves each animal his own,
Nor envies when a gipsey you commit,
And shake the clumsy bench with country wit;
When you the dullest of dull things have said,
And then ask pardon for the jest you made.

CHARACTER of a FLORIST..

(YOUNG.)

WARM in pursuit of foxes, and renown,
Hippolitus demands the Sylvan crown;
But Florio's fame, the product of a shower,
Grows in his garden, an illustrious flower!
Why teems the earth? why melt the vernal skies?
Why shines the sun? to make Paul Diack rise.
From morn to night has Florio gazing stood,
And wonder'd how the gods could be so good.
What shape! what hue! was ever nymph so fair?
He dotes! he dies! he too is rooted there.
O solid bliss! which nothing can destroy,
Except a cat, bird, snail, or idle boy.

In fame's full bloom lies Florio down at night,
And wakes next day a most inglorious wight!
The Tulip's dead! see thy fair Sister's fate,
Go, Cl, and be kind ere 'tis too late.

Nor are those enemies I mention'd all;
Beware, O Florist, thy ambition's fall.
A friend of mine indulg'd this noble flame;
A Quaker serv'd him; adam was his name.
To one lov'd Tulip oft the master went,

Hung o'er it, and whole days in rapture spent;

But came, and miss'd it one ill-fated hour:

He rag'd! he roar'd! "What Demon cropt my flower?" Serene, quoth Adam, "Lo! 'twas crush'd by me; "Fall'n is the Baal to which thou bow'dst thy knee.

CHARACTER of a For and of a SLOVEN.
(YOUNG.)

THESE all their care expend on outward show
For wealth, and fame; for fame alone the Beau,
Of late at White's was young Florello seen,
How blank his look! how discompos'd his mien!
So hard it proves in grief sincere to feign!
Sunk were his spirits; for his coat was plain.
Next day his breast regain'd its wonted peace,
His health was mended with a silver-lace. -
A curious artist long inur'd 'to toils

Of gentler sort, with combs, and fragrant oils,.
Whether by chance, or by some God inspir'd,
So touch'd his curls, his mighty soul was fir'd.
The well-swoln ties an equal homage claim,
And either shoulder has its share of fame ;
His sumptuous watch-case, tho' conceal'd it lies,
Like a good conscience, solid joy supplies.
He only thinks himself (so far from vain!);
Stanhope in wit, in breeding Deloraine.
Whene'er by seeming chance he throws his eye.
On mirrors flushing with his Tyrian dye,
With how sublime a transport leaps his heart!
But fate ordains that dearest friends must part.
In active measures, brought from France, he wheels,
And triumphs, conscious of his learned heels.

So have i seen, on some bright summer's day,
A calf of genius debonnair, and gay,
Dance on the bank, as if inspir'd by fame,
Fond of the pretty fellow in the stream.

Morose is sunk with shame, whene'er surpriz'd
In Linen clean, or Peruke undisguis'd.
No sublunary chance his vestments fear,
Valu'd like Leopards, as their spots appear.
A fam'd surtout he wears, which once was blue,
And his foot swims in a capacious shoe.
One day his wife (for who can wives reclaim?)
Levell'd her barbarous needle at his fame;
But open force was vain; by night she went,
And, while he slept, surpriz'd the darling rent;
Where yawn'd the frize is now become a doubt,
And glory at one entrance quite shut out.*
He scorns Florello, and Florello him;

This hates the filthy creature, that the prim:
Thus in each other both these fools despise
Their own dear selves, with undiscerning eyes;
Their methods various, but alike their aim :
The sloven and the fopling are the same...

CHARACTER of a LEVEE-HUNTER..
(YOUNG.)

Nor gaudy butterflies are Lico's game;
But, in effect, his chace is much the same;
Warm in pursuit, he levees all the great,
Staunch to the foot of title and estate..
Where'er their Lordships go, they never find
Or Lico, or their shadows, lag behind:

He sets them sure, where'er their Lordships run,
Close at their elbows as a morning-dun :
As if their grandeur, by contagion, wrought,
And fame was, like a fever, to be caught:
But after seven years dance from place to place,
The Dane § is more familiar with his Grace.
Who'd be a crutch to prop a rotten peer;

Or living pendant, dangling at his ear,
For ever whisp'ring secrets, which were blown
For months before, by trumpets, through the town?
Who'd be a glass, with flattering grimace,

Still to reflect the temper of his face;
Or happy pin to stick upon his sleeve,

When my Lord's gracious, and vouchsafes it leave;

[blocks in formation]
« ÎnapoiContinuă »