Let Study, worn with virtue's fruitless lore,
Behold this theatre, and grieve no more.
This night, distinguish'd by your smiles, shall tell,
That never Britain can in vain excel;
The slightest arts futurity shall trust,
And rising ages hasten to be just.
At length our mighty bard's victorious lays
Fill the loud voice of universal praise;
And baffled spite, with hopeless anguish dumb,
Yields to renown the centuries to come;
With ardent haste, each candidate of fame
Ambitious catches at his towering name:
He sees, and pitying sees, vain wealth bestow
Those pageant honours which he scorn'd below;
While crowds aloft the laureate bust behold,
Or trace his form on circulating gold.
Unknown-unheeded, long his offspring lay,
And Want hung threatening o'er her slow decay.
What though she shine with no Miltonian fire,
No favouring muse her morning dreams inspire!
Yet softer claims the melting heart engage,
Her youth laborious, and her blameless age;
Hers the mild merits of domestic life,
The patient sufferer, and the faithful wife.
Thus graced with humble virtue's native charms,
Her grandsire leaves her in Britannia's arms;
Secure with peace, with competence to dwell,
While tutelary nations guard her cell.
Yours is the charge, ye fair, ye wise, ye brave!
'Tis yours to crown desert beyond the grave.
TO GOLDSMITH'S COMEDY OF THE GOOD
PRESS'D by the load of life, the weary mind
Surveys the general toil of human kind,
With cool submission joins the labouring train,
And social sorrow loses half its pain:
Our anxious bard without complaint may share
This bustling season's epidemic care;
Like Cæsar's pilot dignified by fate,
Toss'd in one common storm with all the great;
Distress'd alike the statesman and the wit,
When one a borough courts, and one the pit.
The busy candidates for power and fame
Have hopes, and fears, and wishes, just the same; Disabled both to combat, or to fly,
Must hear all taunts, and hear without reply.
Uncheck'd on both, loud rabbles vent their rage,
As mongrels bay the lion in a cage.
The offended burgess hoards his angry tale
For that bless'd year when all that vote may rail;
Their schemes of spite the poet's foes dismiss
Till that glad night when all that hate may hiss.
"This day the powder'd curls and golden coat,'
Says swelling Crispin, begg'd a cobbler's vote.'—
This night our wit,' the pert apprentice cries,
'Lies at my feet; I hiss him, and he dies.'
The great, 'tis true, can charm the electing tribe;
The bard may supplicatę, but cannot bribe.
Yet, judged by those whose voices ne'er were sold,
He feels no want of ill-persuading gold;
But confident of praise, if praise be due,
Trusts without fear to merit and to you,
THE COMEDY OF A WORD TO THE WISE1.
THIS night presents a play which public rage,
Or right, or wrong, once hooted from the stage.
From zeal, or malice, now no more we dread,
For English vengeance wars not with the dead.
A generous foe regards with pitying eye
The man whom fate has laid where all must lie.
To wit, reviving from its author's dust,
Be kind, ye judges; or at least be just.
For no renew'd hostilities invade
The oblivious grave's inviolable shade.
Let one great payment every claim appease;
And him who cannot hurt, allow to please;
To please by scenes unconscious of offence,
By harmless merriment, or useful sense.
Where aught of bright or fair the piece displays,
Approve it only 'tis too late to praise !
If want of skill, or want of care appear,
Forbear to hiss-the poet cannot hear!
By all like him must praise and blame be found,
At best a fleeting gleam, or empty sound.
Yet then shall calm reflection bless the night,
When liberal pity dignified delight;
When pleasure fired her torch at virtue's flame,
And mirth was bounty with an humbler name.
1 Performed at Covent Garden Theatre for the benefit of Mrs. Kelly, widow of Hugh Kelly, Esq. (the author of the play) and her children, 1777.
2 Upon the first representation of this play, in 1770, it suffered condemnation from the violence of party.
INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN BY A LADY WHO WAS TO PERSONATE THE GHOST OF HERMIONE 1.
YE blooming train, who give despair or joy,
Bless with a smile, or with a frown destroy;
In whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait,
And with unerring shafts distribute fate;
Whose snowy breasts, whose animated eyes,
Each youth admires, though each admirer dies;
Whilst you deride their pangs in barbarous play,
Unpitying see them weep and hear them pray,
And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away;
For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains,
Where sable night in all her horror reigns;
No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades
Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids.
For kind, for tender nymphs, the myrtle blooms,
And weaves her bending boughs in pleasing glooms;
Perennial roses deck each purple vale,
And scents ambrosial breathe in every gale;
Far hence are banish'd vapours, spleen, and tears,
Tea, scandal, ivory teeth, and languid airs;
No pug, nor favourite Cupid, there enjoys
The balmy kiss, for which poor Thyrsis dies;
Form'd to delight, they use no foreign arms,
Nor torturing whalebones pinch them into charms;
1 Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act The Distressed Mother,' Johnson wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to convey privately to them.
No conscious blushes there their cheeks inflame,
For those who feel no guilt can know no shame;
Unfaded still their former charms they show,
Around them pleasures wait, and joys for ever new.
But cruel virgins meet severer fates;
Expell'd and exiled from the blissful seats,
To dismal realms, and regions void of peace,
Where furies ever howl, and serpents hiss.
O'er the sad plains perpetual tempests sigh;
And poisonous vapours, blackening all the sky,
With livid hue the fairest face o'ercast,
And every beauty withers at the blast:
Where'er they fly their lovers' ghosts pursue,
Inflicting all those ills which once they knew;
Vexation, fury, jealousy, despair,
Vex every eye, and every bosom tear;
Their foul deformities by all descried,
No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide.
Then melt, ye fair, while crowds around you sigh,
Nor let disdain sit lowering in your eye;
With pity soften every awful grace,
And beauty smile auspicious in each face;
To ease their pains exert your milder power,
So shall you guiltless reign, and all mankind adore.
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