BEING AN ALLUSION IN ENGLISH VERSE TO THE EPISTLE "AD PISONES, de arte poETICA INTENDED AS A SEQUEL TO "ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS."
Athers, Capuchin Convent, March 12, 1911. WHO would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace His costly canvass with each flatter'd face, Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush, Saw cits grow centaurs underneath his brush? Or, should some limner join, for show or sale, A maid of honor to a mermaid's tail? Or low Dugost (as once the world has seen) Degrade God's creatures in his graphic spleen? Not all that forced politeness, which defends Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends. Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams, Displays a crowd of figures incomplete, Poetic nightmares, without head or feet.
Poets and painters, as all artists know,
May shoot a little with a lengthen'd bow;
We claim this mutual mercy for our task,
And grant in turn the pardon which we ask ;
A labor'd, long exordium, sometimes tends
(Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends;
And nonsense in a lofty note goes down,
As pertness passes with a legal gown:
Thus many a bard describes in pompous strain
The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain
The groves of Granta, and her gothic halls,
King's Coll., Cam's stream, stain'd windows, and
old walls:
Or in advent'rous numbers, neatly aims
To paint a rainbow or the river Thames.
You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine-
But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign;
You plan a vase-it dwindles to a pot;
Then glide down Grub-street-fasting and forgot.
Laugh'd into Lethe by some quaint review,
Whose wit is never troublesome till true.
But make not monsters spring from gentle dams-In fine, to whatsoever you aspire,
Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs.
Let it at least be simple and entire.
Incaptis gravibus plerumque et magna profess Purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter Assuitur pannus; cum lucus et ara Dianæ, Et properantis aquæ per amenos ambitus agros, Aut flumen Rhenum, aut pluvius describitur arcus. Sed nunc non erat his locus: et fortasse cupressum Scis simulare: quid hoc, si fractis enatat exspes Navibus, ære dato qui pingitur? amphora cæpit Institui: currente rotà cur urceus exit? Denique sit quod vis, simplex duntaxat et unum Maxima pars vatum, pater, et juvenes patre digni, Decipimur specie recti. Brevis esse laboro, Obscurus fio: sectantem levia, nervi Denciunt animique: professus grandia, turget: Serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procella Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam, Delphinum sylvis appingit, fluctibus aprum.
"Where pure description held the place of sense."—Pora
The greater portion of the rhyming tribe
(Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe)
Are led astray by some peculiar lure.
I labor to be brief-become obscure;
One falls while following elegance too fast;
Another soars, inflated with bombast;
Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly,
He spins his subject to satiety;
Absurdly varying, he at last engraves
Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves !
Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice
The flight from folly leads but into vice;
None are complete, all wanting in some part,
Like certain tailors, limited in art.
For galligaskins Slowshears is your man,
But coats must claim another artizan.
Now this to me, I own, seems much the same
As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frame;
Or, with a fair complexion, to expose
Black eyes, black ringlets, but-a bottle nose!
Jear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
But lucid Order, and Wit's siren voice,
Await the poet skilful in his choice;
With native eloquence he soars along,
Grace in his thoughts, and music in his song.
Let judgment teach him wisely to combine
With future parts the now omitted line;
This shall the author choose, or that reject,
Precise in style, and cautious to select.
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford
To him who furnishes a wanting word.
Then fear not if 'tis needful to produce
Some term unknown, or obsolete in use,
(As Pittt has furnish'd us a word or two,
Which lexicographers declined to do ;)
So you indeed, with care,-(but be content
1 take this licence rarely)-may invent.
In vitium ducit culpæ fuga, si caret arte.
Emilium circa ludum faber imus et ungues
Exprimet, et molles imitabitur ære capillos;
Infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum
Nesciet. Hunc ego me, si quid componere curem,
Non magis esse velim, quam pravo vivere naso,
Spectandum nigris oculis nigroque capillo.
Sumite materiem vestris, qui scribitis, æquam Viribus; et versate diu quid ferre recusent, Quid valeant humeri. Cui lecta potenter erit res, Nec facundia d.ret hunc, nec lucidus ordo.
Ordinis hæc vutus erit et venus, aut ego fallor, Ut jam nunc dicat, jam nunc debentia dici Pleraque differat, et præsens in tempus omittat; Hoc amet, hoc speriat promissi carminis auctor. In verbis etiam tenuis caustusques serendis; Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum Reddiderit junctura novum. Si forte necesse est Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum, Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis Continget; dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter, Et nova actaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si
• More common mortals were commonly content with one tailor and with we bil, but the more particular gentlemen found it impossible to confide their Lower garments to the makers of their body clothes. I speak of the reginning of 1809; what reform may have since taken place I neither know
New words find credit in these latter days,
If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase.
What Chaucer, Spencer did, we scarce refuse
To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer muse.
If you can add a little, say why not,
As well as William Pitt and Walter Scott?
Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs
Enrich'd our island's ill-united tongues;
'Tis then-and shall be-lawful to present
Reform in writing, as in parliament.
As forests shed their foliage by degrees,
So fade expressions which in season please.
And we and ours, alas! are due to fate,
And works and words but dwindle to a date.
Though as a monarch nods, and commerce calls,
Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals;
Though swamps subdued, and marshes drain'd
The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain,
And rising ports along the busy shore
Protect the vessel from old ocean's roar,
All, all must perish; but, surviving last,
The love of letters half preserves the past.
True, some decay, yet not a few revive; *
Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive,
As custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway
Our life and language must alike obey
The immortal wars which gods and angels wage,
Are they not shown in Milton's sacred page?
His strain will teach what numbers best belong
To themes celestial told in epic song.
The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint
The lover's anguish or the friend's complaint.
But which deserves the laurel, rhyme or blank ?
Which holds on Helicon the higher rank!
Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute
This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.
Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen.
You doubt-see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick's dean.1
Græco fonte cadant, parce detorta. Quid autem
Cæcilio Plautoque dabit Romanus, ademptum
Virgilio Varioque? ego cur, acquirere pauca
Si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catanis et Ennf
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum
Nomina protulerit? Licuit, semperque licebit,
Signatum præsente nota producere nomen.
Ut silvæ foliis pronos mutantur in annos;
Prima cadunt: ita verborum vetus interit ætas,
Et juvenum ritu florent modo nata, vigentque
Debemur morti nos nostraque: sive receptus
Terra Neptunus classes aquilonibus arcet,
Regis opus; sterilisve diu palus, aptaque remis,
Vicinas urbes alit, et grave sentit aratrum:
Seu cursum mutavit iniquum frugibus annis,
Doctus iter melius; mortalia facta peribunt;
Nedum sermonum stet honos, et gratia vivax.
Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere; cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi
Res gestæ regumque ducumque et tristia bella,
• Old ballads, old plays, and old women's stories, are at present in as muct request as old wine or new speeches. In fact this is the millenium of black letter: thanks to our Hebers, Webers, and Scorts!
† Mac Flecknoe, the Dunciad, and all Swift's lampooning balada. Whatever their others works may be, these originated in personal feelings. and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satired Mr. Pitt was liberal in his additions to our parliamentary tongue, as may elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal character of an seen in many publications, particularly the Edinburgh Review. the writers.
Blark verse is now, with one consent, allied
To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side.
Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden's days
No sing-song hero rants in modern plays;
While modest Comedy her verse foregoes
For jest and pun' in very middling prose.
Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse,
Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse,
But so Thalia pleases to appear,
Poor virgin! damn'd some twenty times a year!
Whate'er the scene, let this advice have weight:
Adapt your language to your hero's state.
At times Melpomene forgets to groan,
And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone;
Nor unregarded will the act pass by
Where angry Townly lifts his voice on high
Again our Shakspeare limits verse to kings,
When common prose will serve for common things;
And lively Hal resigns heroic ire,
To "hollowing Hotspur "† and the sceptred sire.
'Tis not enough, ye bards, with all your art,
To polish poems; they must touch the heart:
Where'er the scene be laid, whate'er the song,
Still let it bear the hearer's soul along;
Command your audience or to smile or weep,
Whiche'er may please you-any thing but sleep.
The poet claims our tears; but, by his leave,
Before I shed them, let me see him grieve.
If banish'd Romeo feign'd nor sigh nor tear,
Lull'd by his languor, I should sleep or sneer.
Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face,
And men lok angry in the proper place.
At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly,
And sentiment prescribes a pensive eye;
For nature form'd at first the inward man,
And actors copy nature-when they can.
Quo scribi possent numero monstravit Homerus.
Versibus impariter junctis querimonia primum;
Post etiam inclusa est voti sententia compos.
Quis tamen exiguos elegos emiserit auctor,
Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est.
Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo;
Hunc socci cepere pedem, grandesque cothurni,
Alternis aptum sermonibus, et populares
Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis.
Musa dedit fidibus divos, puerosque deorum,
Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum,
Et juvenum curas, et libera vina referre.
Descriptas servare vices operumque colores, Cur ego, si noqueo ignoroque, poeta salutor? Cur nescire, pudens prave, quam discere malo?
Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult, Indignatur item privatis, ac prope socco Dignis carminibus narrari cœna Thyesta. Singula quæque locum teneant sortita decenter Interdum tamen et vocem comedia tollit, Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore: Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri. Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exsul, uterque | Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,
Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela. [sunto, Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia Et, quocunque volent, animum auditoris agunto. Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adflent
• With all the vulgar applause and critical abhorrence of puns, they have Aristotle on their side, who permits them to orators, and gives them conse. Peuce by a grave disquisition.
"An! in his ear I'll bollow Mortimer !"- Henry IV.
She bids the beating heart with rapture bound,
Raised to the stars, or levell'd with the ground;
And for expression's aid, 'tis said, or sung,
She gave our mind's interpreter-the tongue,
Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense
(At least in theatres) with common sense;
O'erwhelm with sound the boxes, gallery, pit,
And raise a laugh with any thing but wit.
To skilful writers it will much import,
Whence spring their scenes, from common life o court;
Whether they seek applause by smile or tear,
To draw a "Lying Valet," or a "Lear,"
A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school
A wandering " Peregrine," or plain "John Bull;
All persons please, when nature's voice prevails,
Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales.
Or follow common fame, or forge a plot: Who cares if mimic heroes lived or not? One precept serves to regulate the scene: Make it appear as if it might have been.
If some Drawcansir you aspire to draw,
Present him raving, and above all law:
If female furies in your scheme are plann'd,
Macbeth's fierce dame is ready to your hand;
For tears and treachery, for good or evil,
Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the Devil
But if a new design you dare essay,
And freely wander from the beaten way,
True to your characters, till all be past,
Preserve consistency from first to last.
'Tis hard to venture where our betters fail,
Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale;
And yet, perchance, 'tis wiser to prefer
A hackney'd plot, than choose a new, and err;
Humani vultus: si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi; tunc tua me infortunia lædent
Telephe, vel Peleu, male si mandata loqueris,
Aut dormitabo, aut ridebo: tristia mostum
Vultum verba decent; iratum, plena minarum,
Ludentem, lasciva; severum, seria dictu.
Format enim natura prius nos intus ad omnem
Fortunarum habitum; juvat, aut impellit ad iram
Aut ad humum mærore gravi deducit, et angit;
Post effert animi motus interprete lingua.
Si dicentis erunt fortunis absona dicta,
Romani tollent equites peditesque cachinnum.
Intererit multum, Davusne loquatur an heros;
Maturusne senex, ad anhuc florente juventa
Fervidus: an matrona potens, and sedula nutrix;
Mercatorne vagus, cultorne virentis agelli;
Colchus an Assyrius; Thebis nutritus, an Argis
Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge
Scriptor honoratum si forte reponis Achillem;
Impiger, iracundus, inexorabillis, acer,
Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis.
Sit Medea ferox invictaque, flelilis Ino:
Perfidus Ixion; Io vaga; tristis Orestes:
Si quid inexpertum scenæ committis, et audes
Personam formare novam; servetur ad imum
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.
Difficile est proprie communia dicere; tuque
Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus.
Publica materies privati juris erit, si
Nec circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem:
Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus
Interpres, nec desilies imitator in arctum
fet copy not too closely, but record,
More justly, thought for thought than word for word:
Nor trace your prototype through narrow ways,
But only follow where he merits praise.
Observe his simple childhood's dawning days,
His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays
Till time at length the mannish tyro weans,
And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens!
For you, young bard! whom luckless fate may lead Behold him freshman! forced no more to groan To tremble on the nod of all who read,
Ere your first score of cantos time unrolls,
O'er Virgil's devilish verses and his own,
Prayers are too tedious, lectures too abstruse,
Beware for God's sake, don't begin like Bowles * He flies from Tavell's frown to "Fordham's Mews: "Awake a louder and a loftier strain,'
(Unlucky Tavell! doom'd to daily cares
By pugilistic pupils and by bears.†)
Fines, tutors, tasks, conventions threat in vain,
Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket plain.
Rough with his elders, with his equals rash,
Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash;
Constant to nought-save hazard and a whore,
Yet cursing both-for both have made him sore;
Unread (unless, since books beguile disease,
The p-x becomes his passage to degrees);
Fool'd, pillaged, dunn'd, he wastes his term away
And, unexpell'd perhaps, retires M. A.;
Master of arts! as hells and clubs proclaim,
Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name!
Not smoke from brightness, but from darkness-Launch'd into life, extinct his early fire,
And truth and fiction with such art compounds,
We know not where to fix their several bounds.
If you would please the public, deign to hear
What soothes the many-headed monster's ear;
If your heart triumph when the hands of all
Applaud in thunder at the curtain's fall,
Deserve those plaudits-study nature's page,
And sketch the striking traits of every age;
While varying man and varying years unfold
Life's little tale so oft, so vainly told.
He apes the selfish prudence of his sire;
Marries for money, chooses friends for rank,
Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank;
Sits in the senate; gets a son and heir;
Sends him to Harrow, for himself was there.
Mute, though he votes, unless when call'd to cheer
His son's so sharp-he'll see the dog a peer
Unde pedem proferre pudor vetet, aut operis lex.
Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor Cyclicus olim:
"Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum."
Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu
Parturiunt montes: nascetur ridiculus mus.
Quanto rectius hic, qui nil molitur inepte!
Dic mihi, Musa, virum captæ post tempora
Troja
Qui mores hominum multorum vidit, et urbes."
Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat,
Manhood declines-age palsies every limb,
He quits the scene-or else the scene quits him,
Antiphaten, Scyllamque, et cum Cyclope Charyb
Nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri, [dim
Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo.
Semper ad eventum festinat; et in medias res
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit, et quæ
Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit:
Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet,
Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.
Tu, quid ego et populus mecum desideret, audi.
Si plausoris eges aulæa manentis, et usque
Sessuri, donec cantor, Vos plaudite, dicat
Etatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores,
Mobilibusque decor naturis dandus et annis.
Reddere qui voces jam scit puer, et pede certo
Signat humum; gestit paribus colludere, et iram
Colligit ac ponit temere, et mutatur in horas.
Imberbis juvenis, tandem custode remoto,
Gaudet equis canibusque, et aprici gramine campi;
Cercus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper,
Utilium tardus provisor, prodigus æris,
Sublimis, cupidusque, et amata relinquere pernix.
Conversis studiis, ætas animusque virilis
Quærit opes et amicitias, inservit honori;
Commisisse cavet quod mox mutare laboret.
About two years ago a young man, named Townsend, was announced by Mr. Cumberland (in a review since deceased) as being engaged in an epke poem to be entitled "Armageddon." The plan and specimen promise mu h; but I hope neither to odend Mr. Townsend nor his friends, by recommending to his attention the lines of Horace to which these rhymes allude. If Mr. Townsend succeeds in his undertaking, as there is reason to hope, how much will the world be indebted to Mr. Cumberland for bri: ging bim before the public! But till that eventful day arrives, it may be doubted whether the premature display of his plan (sublime as the idens confessedly are) has not, ty raising expectation too high, or diminishing curiosity, by developing his argument, rather incurred the hazard of injuring Mr. Townsend's future prospects. Mr. Cumberland (whose talents I shall not deprecinte by the humble tribute of my praise) and Mr. Townsend must not suppose me actuates by unworthy motives in this suggestion. I wish the wuthor all the saccess he can wish himself, and shall be truly happy to see sae poetry weighed up from the bathos where it lies sunken with Southey, Soule, Cowley (Mrs. or Abraham), Ogilvy, Wilkie, Pye, and all the "dull Harvey, the circulator of the circulation of the blood, used to fing past and present days." Even if he is not a Milton, he may be better away Virgil in his ecstacy of admiration, and way, "the book had a devil." than Blackmore; if not an Homer, an Antimashus. I should deem myself Now, such a character as I am copying would probably fling it away also, pres motuous, as a young man, in offering advice, were it not addressed to but rather wish that the devil had the book; not from any dislike to the poet, one still younger. Mr. Townsend has the greatest difficulties to encounter; but a well-founded horror of hexameters. Indeed the public school penance bart in conquering them he will find employment; in having conquered them," long and short" is enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue Mis reward, I know too well "the scribbler's scoff, the critic's contumely," of a man's life, and, perhaps, so far may be an advantage, and I am afrid time will teach Mr. Townsendt to know them better. Those "Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem." I dare say Mr. Tavell Who succeed and those who do not must bear this alike, and it is hard to say (to whom I mean no affront) will understand me; and it is no matter whether which have most of it I trust that Mr. Townsend's ahare will be from envy; any one else does or no.-To the above events, "quæque ipse miserrima vidi he will soon know mankind well enough not to attribute this expresion to et quorum pars magna fui," all times and terms bear testimony. alice, "Hell," a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, and are chentod The above nog was written before the author was apprized of Mr. Cum a good deal. "Club," a pleasant purgatory, where vou lose more, and am berland' death.
not supposed to be cheated at all.
Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves, Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay
And avarice seizes all ambition leaves;
Counts cent. per cent., and smiles, or vainly frets,
O'er hoards diminish'd by young Hopeful's debts;
Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy,
Complete in all life's lessons-but to die;
Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please,
Commending every time, save times like these;
Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot,
Expires unwept-is buried-let him rot!
On whores, spies, singers, wisely shipp'd away.
Our giant capital, whose squares are spread
Where rustics earn'd, and now may beg, their bead
In all, iniquity is grown so nice,
But from the drama let me not digress,
Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less.
Though women weep, and hardest hearts are stirr'd,
When what is done is rather seen than heard,
Yet many deeds preserved in history's page
Are better told than acted on the stage;
The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye,
And horror thus subsides to sympathy.
True Briton all besides, I here am French-
Bloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench;
The gladiatorial blood we teach to flow
In tragic scene disgusts, though but in show:
We hate the carnage while we see the trick,
And find small sympathy in being sick.
Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth
Appals an audience with a monarch's death;
Το gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear
Young Arthur's eyes, can ours, or nature bear?
A halter'd heroine Johnson sought to slay-
We saved Irene, but half damn'd the play.
And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times
Stint metamorphoses to pantomines,
And Lewis' self, with all his sprites, would quake
To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake!
Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief,
We loathe the action which exceeds belief:
And yet, God knows! what may not authors do,
Whose postscripts prate of dying "heroines blue?"+
Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can,
Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man;
Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape
Must open ten trap-doors for your escape.
Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid,
I loathe an opera worse than Dennis did;
Where good and evil persons, right or wrong,
Rage, love, and aught but moralize, in song.
Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends,
Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends!
Multa senem conveniunt incommoda; vel quod Quærit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti; Vel quod res omnes timide gelideque ministrat, Dilator, spe longus, iners, avidusque futuri; Difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti Se puero, castigator censorque minorum. Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles Mandentur juveni partes, pueroque viriles, Semper in adjunctis, ævoque morabimur apus. Aut agitur res in scenis, aut acta refertur. Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
"Irene had to speak two lines with the bowstring round her neck; but the audience cried out 'Murder!' and she was obliged to be carried off the Mage."-Boswell's Life of Johnson,
↑ In the postscript to the "Cuale Spectre" Mr. Lewis tells us, that though blacks were unknown in England at the period of his action, vet he has made the anachronism to set off the scene: and if he could have produced the flect "oy making his hero' e blue"-I quote him-"blue he would have made her !"
It scorns amusements which are not of price.
Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear
Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear,
Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore,
His anguish doubling by his own "encore;"
Squeezed in "Fops Alley," jostled by the beaux,
Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes;
Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease,
Till the dropp'd curtain gives a glad release:
Why this, and more, he suffers-can ye guess?—
Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!
So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools;
Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure of fools!
Ere scenes were play'd by many a reverend clerk,
(What harm, if David danced before the ark ?)
In Christmas revels, simple country folks
Were pleas'd with morrice-mumm'ry and coarse
jokes.
Improving years, with things no longer known,
Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan,
Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low,
'Tis strange Benvolio suffers such a show;†
Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place,
Oaths, boxing, begging, all, save rout and race.
Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime,
In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time;
Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best
And turn'd some very serious things to jest.
Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers,
Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers
"Alas, poor Yorick!" now for ever mute!
Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.
We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes
Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens,
When "Chrononhotonthologos must die,"
And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.
Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit
And smile at folly, if we can't at wit;
Yes, friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell,
And bear Swift's motto, "Vive la bagatelle!*
Which charm'd our days in each gean clime,
As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme.
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et qua
Ipse sibi tradit spectator. Non tamen intus
Digna geri promes in scenam; multaque tolles
Ex oculis, quæ mox narret facundia præsens.
Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet;
Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus;
Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem
Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi.
Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu
Fabula, quæ posci vult et spectata reponi.
Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit.
"The first theatrical representations, entitled Mysteries and Morallies were generally enacted at Christmas, by monks, (as the only persons wh could read,) and latterly by the clergy and students of the universe. The dramatis person were usually Adam, Pater Calosus, Faith, Vice," & &c.-Vide Warton's History of English Poetry.
↑ Benvolio does not bet; but every man who maintains race-beres ta promoter of all the concomitant evils of the turf. Aviating to bet is inali pharisaical. Is it an exculpation? I think nut. I never yet heard a cost praised for chastity because she herself did not cominit fornication.
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