There the hir'd eunuch, the Hesperian choir,
The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre,
The song from Italy, the step from France,
The midnight orgy, and the mazy dance,
The smile of beauty, and the flush of wine,
For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and lords combine;
Each to his humour,-Comus all allows;
Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's spouse,
Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade!
Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made:
In plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask,
Nor think of Poverty, except 66 en masque,"
When for the night some lately titled ass
Appears the beggar which his grandsire was.
The curtain dropp'd, the gay Burletta o'er,
The audience take their turn upon the floor;
Now round the room the circling dow’gers sweep,
Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap.
The first in lengthen❜d line majestic swim,
The last display the free, unfetter'd limb:
Those for Hibernia's lusty sons repair
With art the charms which Nature could not spare;
These after husbands wing their eager flight,
Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night.
Oh! blest retreats of infamy and ease!
Where all forgotten but the power to please,
Each maid may give a loose to genial thought,
Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught:
There the blythe youngster, just return'd from Spain,
Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main;
The jovial caster's set, and seven's the nick,
Or-done!-a thousand on the coming trick!
If, mad with loss, existence 'gins to tire,
And all your hope or wish is to expire,
Here's POWELL's pistol ready for your life,
And, kinder still, a PAGET for your wife:
Fit consummation of an earthly race,
Begun in folly, ended in disgrace,
While none but menials o'er the bed of death,
Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath;
Traduc'd by liars, and forgot by all,
The mangled victim of a drunken brawl,
To live like CLODIUS,* and like FALKLAND† fall.
Truth rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand
To drive this pestilence from out the land.
Even I-least thinking of a thoughtless throng,
Just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong,
Freed at that age when Reason's shield is lost,
To fight my course thro' Passion's countless host,
Whom every path of pleasure's flowery way
Has lur'd in turn, and all have led astray-
E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel
Such scenes, such men destroy the public weal:
Although some kind, censorious friend will say,
"What art thou better, meddling fool, than they ?"
*Mutato nomine de te
Fabula narratur.
† I knew the late Lord Falkland well. On Sunday night I beheld him presiding at his own table, in all the honest pride of hospitality; on Wednesday morning, at three o'clock, I saw stretched before me all that remained of courage, feeling, and a host of passions. He was a gallant and successful officer; his faults were the faults of a sailor; as such, Britons will forgive them. He died like a brave man in a better cause; for had he fallen in like manner on the deck of the frigate to which he was just appointed, his last moments would have been held up by his countrymen as an example to succeeding
And every brother rake will smile to see
That miracle, a moralist in me.
No matter when some bard in virtue strong,
GIFFORD, perchance, shall raise the chastening song,
Then sleep my pen, for ever! and my voice
Be only heard to hail him and rejoice;
Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise, though I
May feel the lash that Virtue must apply.
As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals
From silly HAFIZ* up to simple BowLES,
Why should we call them from their dark abode,
In broad St. Giles's, or in Tottenham Road?
Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare
To scrawl in verse) from Bond-Street or the Square?
If things of ton their harmless lays indite,
Most wisely doom'd to shun the public sight,
What harm? in spite of every critic elf,
Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself;
MILES ANDREWS still his strength in couplets try,
And live in prologues, though his dramas die.
Lords too are bards, such things at times befall,
And 'tis some praise in peers to write at all.
Yet, did or Taste or Reason sway the times,
Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes?
ROSCOMMON! SHEFFIELD! with your spirits fled,
No future laurels deck a noble head;
No muse will cheer, with renovating smile,
The paralytic puling of CARLISLE;
* What would be the sentiments of the Persian Anacreon, Hafiz, could he rise from his splendid sepulchre at Sheeraz, where he reposes with Ferdousi and Sadi, the Oriental Homer and Catullus, and behold his name assumed by one Stott of Dromore, the most impudent and execrable of literary poachers for the daily prints?
The puny schoolboy and his early lay
Men pardon, if his follies pass away;
But who forgives the senior's ceaseless verse,
Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse?
What heterogeneous honours deck the peer!
Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pamphleteer !*
So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age,
His scenes alone have damn'd our sinking stage;
But managers for once cried, "hold, enough!"
Nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff.
Yet at their judgment let his lordship laugh,
And case his volumes in congenial calf;
Yes! doff that covering where Morocco shines,
And hang a calf-skinf on those recreant lines.
With you, ye Druids! rich in native lead,
Who daily scribble for your daily bread;
With you
I war not; GrFFORD's heavy hand
Has crush'd, without remorse, your numerous band,
On "All the Talents" vent your venal spleen,
Want you defence, let Pity be your screen.
Let Monodies on Fox regale your crew,
And Melville's Mantle* prove a blanket too!
* The earl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the Stage, and offers his plan for building a new theatre: it is to be hoped his lordship will be permitted to bring forward any thing for the stage, except his own tragedies.
And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs."
Lord C.'s works, most resplendently bound, form a conspicuous ornament to his book-shelves:
“The rest is all but leather and prunella."
Melville's Mantle, a parody on “ Elijah's Mantle," a poem.
One common Lethe waits each hapless bard,
And peace be with you! 'tis your best reward.
Such damning fame as Dunciads only give
Could bid your lines beyond a morning live;
But now at once your fleeting labours close,
With names of greater note in blest repose.
Far be't from me unkindly to upbraid
The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade,
Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind,
Leave wondering comprehension far behind.*
Though BELL has lost his nightingales and owls,
MATILDA snivels still, and HAFIZ howls,
And CRUSCA's spirit, rising from the dead,
Revives in LAURA, QUIZ, and X. Y. Z.†
When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,
Employs a pen less pointed than his awl,
Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes,
St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the Muse,
Heavens! how the vulgar stare! how crowds applaud!
How ladies read! and literati laud!
If 'chance some wicked wag should pass his jest,
"Tis sheer ill-nature; don't the world know best?
Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme,
And CAPEL LOFFT‡ declares 'tis quite sublime.
Here then, ye happy sons of needless trade!
Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless spade!
* This lovely little Jessica, the daughter of the noted Jew K—, seems to be a follower of the Della Crusca school, and has published two volumes of very respectable absurdities in rhyme, as times go; besides sundry novels, in the style of the first edition of the Monk.
†These are signatures of various worthies who figure in the poetical departments of the newspapers.
Capel Lofft, Esq. the Mæcenas of shoemakers, and preface-writer-general to distressed versemen: a kind of gratis accoucheur to those who wish to be delivered of rhyme, but do not know how to bring it forth.
|