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Such be your venal task; whilst, blest with ease, 'Tis mine, to scribble when, and what I please. "Hold! what you please?" (sir Dudley cries) "my friend,

Say, must my labours never, never end?
Still doom'd 'gainst wicked wit my pen to draw,
Correct each bard by critic rules of law;
'Twixt guilt and shame the legal buckler place,
And guard each courtly culprit from disgrace?
Hard task! should future jurymen inherit
The city-twelve's self-judging British spirit.7"
While you, my Thompson! spite of med'cine

save,

Mark how the college peoples every grave!
See Mead transfer estates from sire to son,
And bar succession to a throne 8!

See Shaw scarce leave the passing-bell a fee,
And N**'s set the captive husband free!
Though widow'd Julia giggles in her weed,
Yet who arraigns the doctor for the deed?
O'er life and death all absolute his will,
Right the prescription, whether cure or kill.
Not so, whose practice is the mind's dis-
ease;

His potion must not only cure, but please :
Apply the caustic to the callous heart,
Undone's the doctor, if the patient smart ;
Superior pow'rs his mental bill control,
And law corrects the physic of the soul.

buffoonery) consists in a truly poetical negligence of his person.

7 Alluding to the constitutional verdict given on the trial of William Owen, for publishing "The Case of the honourable Alexander Murray, esq."-a pamphlet written by P. Whitehead.

8 This line furnishes a melancholy memento of the most fatal catastrophe that perhaps ever befel this nation. Among the various tributary verses which flowed on that occasion, our author wrote the following; and which he here takes the liberty to insert, being willing to seize every opportunity, to perpetuate his sense of our public loss, in the death of that truly patriot prince, Frederick.

Shall Galen's sons with privilege destroy,
And I not one sound alt'rative employ,
To drive the rank distemper from within?
Or is man's life less precious than his sin?

With palsied hand should justice hold the scale,

And o'er a judge court-complaisance prevail,
Satire's strong dose the malady requires :
I write when, lo! the bench indignant fires;
Each hoary head erects its load of hair;
Their furs all bristle, and their eye-balls glare;
In rage they roar, "With rev'rend ermine sport!
Seize! seize him, tipstaff!-Tis contempt of

court."

Led by the meteor of a mitre's ray,

If Sion's sons through paths unhallow'd stray,
For courtly rites neglect each rubric rule,
Quit all the saint, and truckle all the tool;
Their maker only in the monarch see,

Nor e'er omit, at Brunswick's name, the knee;
To cure this loyal lethargy of grace,
And rouse to Heav'n again its recreant race,
Say! should the Muse, with one irrev'rend line,
Probe but the mortal part of the divine;
'Tis blasphemy, by ev'ry priest decreed!
No benefit of clergy may I plead;
With every canon pointed at my head,
Alive I'm censur'd, ard I'm damn'd when dead.
Lawyer and priest, like doctors, still agree;
'Tis theirs to give advice; 'tis ours, the fee:
To them alone all earthly rule is giv'n,
Diploma'd from St. James's, and from Heav'n.

Yet ills there are, nor bench, nor pulpit reach;
In vain may Ryder charge, or Sherlock preach ;
For law too mighty, and too proud for grace,
Lurk in the star, or lord it in a place;
Brood in the sacred circle of a crown,
While fashion wafts their poison through the
town:

Hence o'er each village the contagion wings,
And peasants catch the maladies of kings.

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When purpled vice shall humble justice awe, And fashion make it current, spite of law; What sovereign med'cine can its course reclaim? What, but the poet's panacea--shame! Thus wit's great Esculapius once prevail'd, And satire triumph'd, where the fasces fail'd: No consul's wreath could lurking folly hide, No vestal looks secure the guilty bride: [guise, Earth trembled, and Ocean acknowledg'd the And made Rome's matrons modest, statesmen The poignant verse pierc'd through each fair disGod.*

When Jove, late revolving the state of mankind' 'Mong Britons no traces of virtue could find, O'er the island, indignant, he stretch'd forth his rod;

Still provok'd by our crimes, Heav'n's ven

[blow: geance to show, Ammon, grasping his belts, aim'd at Britain the But pausing-more dreadful, his wrath to evince, Threw the thunder aside, and sent fate for the prince.

wise.

Search all your statutes, sergeant! where's the balm

Can cure the itching of a courtier's palm?
Where the chaste canon, say, thou hallow'd sage,
The virgin's glowing wishes can assuage?
Let but the star his longing lordship see,
What pow'r can set the captive conscience free?
Hang but the sparkling pendant at her ears,
What trembling maid the gen'rous lover fears?

A like correction, with regard to the physic of the body, might prove no bad security for the life and property of the patient, as the faculty are at present accountable to no other the province of the physician, and the apothepower but that of Heaven, for the rectitude of cary plunes himself in the perriwig and plunder their conduct.-And perhaps no civilized nation of both professions. In a public spirited endeacan afford such an instance of physical anarchy vour to cure this anarchy, and restore a proper as ours, where the surgeon is permitted to usurp discipline in practice, consists a Thompson's em* Alluding to the preceding earthquakes, inpiricism.-Hinc ille lachrymæ,➡ 10 Horatius Flaccus.

1750.

When lawless passion seiz'd th' imperial | Fix'd in Hibernia's hemisphere to rule,

dame11,
Brothels were only found, to quench the flame;
No routs, or balls, the kind convenience gave,
To lose her virtue, yet her honour save.
In Cupid's rites, now, so improv'd our skill,
Mode find the means, when nature finds the will.
Each rev'rend relict keeps a private pack,
And sturdy stallion with Atlean back;
Where British dames to mystic rites repair,
Nor fail to meet a lurking Clodio there;
In amorous stealths defraud the public stews,
And rob the Drury vestal of her dues; [gown,
Who hapless mourns her last, long-mortgag'd
While Douglass 13 damns the drums of lady
Brown.

By names celestial, mortal females call;
Angels they are, but angels in their fall.
One royal phenix 14 yet redeems the race,
And proves, in Britain, beauty may have grace.
Vain shall the Muse the various symptoms find,
When every doctor 's of a diff'rent mind.
In **'s palm, be foul corruption found,
Each court-empiric holds, his grace is sound;
In Sackville's 15 breast let public spirit reign,
Blisters! (they cry) the cause is in his brain;
So, Talbot's want of place is want of sense,
And Dashwood's 16 stubborn virtue, downright
insolence.

When ills are thus just what the doctors please,
And the soul's health is held the mind's disease;
Not all thy art, O Horace! had prevail'd;
Here, all thy Roman recipes 17 had fail'd.

Had fate to Flaccus but our days decreed,
What Pollio would admire? what Cæsar read?
Great Maro's 18 self had dy'd an humble swain,
And Terence sought a Lælius now in vain.
Science no more employs the courtier's care,
No muse's voice can charm Northumberland's

ear.

The solid vote aërial verse outweighs,
And wins all courtly favour from the bays;
Hence flow alone the sacred gifts of kings,
Staves, truncheons, feathers, mitres, stars, and
strings.

Hence cradles, see! with lisping statesmen
spawn,

And infant limbs beswaddled in the lawn;
While honest Boyle 19, too impotent for place,
Sets, in meridian glory of disgrace:
Nor all the patriot music of Malone

Can charm a court, like Sackville, or like Stone;
Blest twins of state! whom love and pow'r con-
join,

Like Leda's offspring, made by Jove divine;

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And shed your influence o'er each knave and
fool 20.

Whilst the sad summons of a mortar's knell
The rival deeds of each diploma tell;
And death's increasing muster-rolls declare,
That health and Thompson are no longer here;
How shall the Muse this salutation send?
What place enjoys thee? or what happier
friend?

Say, if in Eastbury's 21 majestic towers,
Or wrapt in Ashley's 22 amarantine bowers,
By friendship favour'd, and unaw'd by state,
You barter science with the wise and great:
O'er Pelham's politics in judgment sit,
Reform the laws of nations, or of wit;
With attic zest enrich the social bowl,
Crack joke on joke, and mingle soul with soul;
On laughter's wanton wing now frolic sport,
Nor envy Fox 23 the closet of a court.

Lost in this darling luxury of ease,
Alike regardless both of fame and fees,
"Let Shaw" (you cry) "o'er physic sov❜reign
Or W** boast his hecatombs of slain : [reign,
Be mine, to stay some friend's departing breath,
And Child's 24 may take the drudgery of death."

Yet, Thompson! say (whose gift it is to save,
Make sickness smile, and rescue from the grave)
Say, to what end this healing pow'r was meant ?
Nor hide the talent, which by Heav'n is lent.
Though envy all her hissing serpents raise,
And join with harpy fraud to blast thy bays:
Shall wan disease in vain demand thy skill,
While health but waits the summons of your
quill?

Shall Egypt's plague 25 the virgin cheek invade,
And beauty's wreck not win thee to its aid?
O! stretch a saving hand, and let the fair
Owe all her future triumphs to thy care:
Resume the pen! and be thyself, once more,
What Ratcliff, Friend, and Syd'nham were
before

Yet, when reviving patients set you free,
Let Vaughan 26 yield one social hour to me.

20 As our author lamented the occasion of these lines, so no one more sincerely rejoices to find, that the beam of public spirit is likely to dispel the clouds which had interposed between loyalty and patriotism-A new political star in our days, and which some more eastern magi would do well to follow.

21 A seat belonging to the right hon. George Dodington.

22 Another, belonging to lord Middlesex.
23 Lord Holland.

24

A coffee-house noted for the resort of our modern Esculapics, where they ply for those patients the apothecary is pleased to consign over to them; and where another appendage to physic (called the undertakers) never fails to attend the physical levee, in order to receive the lucrative news of their joint endeavours.

25 The small pox, said to have first appeared at Alexandria. See the doctor's treatise on this distemper.

26 Owen Evan Vaughan, esq; of Bodidris castle; a gentleman, in whose friendship the doctor and our author more particularly pride

Come then, my friend! if friendship's name | No wreaths 1 court, no subsidies I claim,

can woo,

Come! bring me all I want, that all in you.
If rural scenes have still the pow'r to please,
Flocks, vallies, hills, streams, villas, cots, and
trees;

Here all in one harmonious prospect blend,
And landscapes rise, scarce Lambert's
can mend.

art

Thames, made immortal by her Denham's
strains,
[plains;
Meand'ring glides through Twick 'nham's flow'ry
While royal Richmond's cloud-aspiring wood
Pours all its pendent pomp upon the flood.
By Rome's proud dames let storied Tiber flow,
And all Palladio grace the banks of Po;
Here nature's charms in purer lustre rise,
Nor seek from wanton art her vain supplies.

Lo! Windsor, rev'rend in a length of years,
Like Cybele, her tow'r-crown'd summit rears;
And Hampton's turrets, with majestic pride,
Reflect their glories in the passing tide:
There British Henries gave to Gallia law;
Here bloom'd the laurels of a great Nassau 28.
O! could these scenes one monarch more but
please:

No frozen climates, no tempestuous seas,
For Brunswick's weal alarming fears shall bring,
Nor Britain envy meaner courts her king. [see,
Here Campbell's 2 varied shades with wonder
Like Heaven's own Eden, stor'd with every tree;
Each plant with plant in verdant glory vies;
High-tow'ring pines, like Titans, scale the skies;
And Lebanon's rich groves on Hounslow's deserts
rise.

But chief-with awful step, O! let us stray,
Where Britain's Orpheus tun'd his sacred lay,
Whose grove enchanted from his numbers grew,
And proves, what once was fabled, now is true.
Here oft the bard with Arbuthnot retir'd;
Here flow'd the verse his healing art inspir'd30;
Alike thy merit like thy fame should rise,
Could friendship give, what feeble art denies :
Though Pope's immortal verse the gods refuse,
Accept this off'ring from an humbler Muse.
Weak though her flight, yet honest still her
strain,

And what no minister could ever gain;
Pleas'd if the grateful tribute of her song,
Thy merit, Thompson! shall one day prolong.
In marshal'd slaves let hungry princes trade,
And Britain's bullion bribe their venal aid31;
Let brave Boscawen trophied honours gain,
And Anson wield the trident of the main.
Safe, in the harbour of iny Twick'nam 32 bower,
From all the wrecks of state, or storms of power;
themselves, as he has never polluted his ancient
British pedigree with any modern Anti-British
principles.

27 A landscape-painter, much celebrated.
28 William the Third.

29 Duke of Argyle, celebrated as a warrior and

a statesman.

30 Pope's Epistle to Arbuthnot.

31 Alluding to a modern kind of military traffic, which consists in the exchange of British gold for German valour; and by which means, it is presumed, our politicians intend the native want of either party shall be reciprocally supplied.

32 He had a neat villa, in the style of a chateau,

Too rich for want, too indolent for fame.
Whilst here with vice a bloodless war I wage,
Or lash the follies of a trifling age,

Each gay-plum'd hour, upon its downy wings,
The Hybla freight of rich contentment brings;
Health, rosy handmaid, at my table waits,
And halcyon peace broods watchful o'er my
gates.

Here oft, on contemplation's pinions bore,
To Heav'n I mount, and nature's works explore;
Or, led by reason's intellectual clue, [sue;
Through errour's maze, truth's secret steps pur-
View ages past in story's mirror shown, [own:
And make time's mould'ring treasures all my
Or here the Muse now steals me from the throng,
And wraps me in th' enchantment of her song.
Thus flow, and thus for ever flow! my days,
Unaw'd by censure, or unbrib'd by praise;
No friend to faction, and no dupe to zeal ;
Foe to all party, but the public weal.
Why then, from every venal bondage free,
Courts have no glitt'ring shackles left for me:
My reasons, Thompson! prithee ask no more;
Take them, as Oxford's Flaccus sung before 33
'My ease and freedom if for aught I vend,
Would not you cry, to Bedlam, Bedlam, friend!
But to speak out-shall what could ne'er engage
My frailer youth, now captivate in age?
What cares can vex, what terronrs frightful be,
To him whose shield is hoary sixty-three 34?
When life itself so little worth appears,
That ministers can give no hopes, or fears;
Although grown grey within my humbler gate,
I ne'er kiss'd hands, or trod the rooms of state;
Yet not unhonour'd have I liv'd, and blest
With rich convenience, careless of the rest;
What boon more grateful can the gods bestow
On those avow'd their favourite sons below 5 ?”

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on the north side of Twickenham Common, sacred to the muses. It was afterwards inhabited by the lady Bridget Tallmach, daughter of the late lord Northington.

33 See conclusion of Dr. King's apology.

34 Though the translator's virtue is not yet secured by this palladium of his grand climacteric, yet he flatters himself he shall at least be able to rival our truly Roman author, in the practice of his heroic indifference, however short he may fall of him in his elegant description of it.

36 Libera si pretio quantôvis otia vendam,
Cui non insanus videar? Sed apertius audi :
Quæ juvenem, infirmumque animi captare ne-
quibant,

Posse putes hominem, cui climactericus annus
Illa senem capiant? aut quæ terrere perîcla
Præsidio est omni majus? cui vita videtur
Haud equidem tanti esse, ut quid caveatve
petatre

A regni satrapis, ullaque sit anxius horâ.
Si mihi non dextram tetigisse, aut limina regum
Contigit, & lare sub tenui mea canuit ætas :
Non inhonoratus vixi: neque gratins usquam
Attamen æquo animo, non ullis rebus egenus,
Dii munus dederunt, cui si favisse fatentur.

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Brave boys! With the sports of the field there's no pleasure How Britons have, &c.

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can vie,

While jocund we follow the hounds in full cry.

Let the drudge of the town make riches his sport;
The slave of the state hunt the smiles of a court;
No care and ambition our pastime annoy,
But innocence still gives a zest to our joy.
With the sports, &c,

Mankind are all hunters in various degree;
The priest hunts a living-the lawyer a fee,
The doctor a patient-the courtier a place,
Though often, like us, he's flung out in the chase,
With the sports, &c.

The cit hunts a plumb-while the soldier hunts
The poet a dinner-the patriot a name; [fame,
And the practis'd coquette, though she seems to
refuse,

In spite of her airs, still her lover pursues.

With the sports, &c.

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Parbleu !

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Ye rakes, who the joys of Hymen disclaim, And seek, in the ruin of virtue, a fame; [duty, You may here boast a triumph consistent with And keep, without guilt, a seraglio of beauty. Derry down.

If from charity then such advantages flow, That you still gain the more-the more you bestow; [ease: Here's the place will afford you rich profit with When the bason comes round-be as rich as you please.

Derry down. Then a health to that patron, whose grandeur

and store

Yield aid and defence to the sick and the poor;

'Additional stanza for the annual feast of the ons of the Clergy

• Ditto for the Magdalen Hospital, The late duke of Devonshire.

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OCCASIONED BY LADY POMFRET'S PRESENT OF
SOME ANTIQUE STATUES TO OXFORD; THE
STREETS WHEREOF WERE FOOLISH LY SAID TO
BE PAVED WITH JACOBITES.

Ir Oxford's stones, as Blaco writes,
And Pitt affirms, are Jacobites,

That bid the court defiance;
When stones are come from Rome and Greece,
How must the danger now increase,
To form a grand alliance!

Yet, sprung from lands of liberty,
These stones can sure no Tories be,
Or friends to the Pretender;
And Pitt himself can ne'er devise,
That Whiggish stones should ever rise
Against our faith's defender.

TO DR. KING.

OFT have I heard, with clam'rous note,
A yelping cur exalt his throat

At Cynthia's silver rays;
So, with the blaze of learning's light,
When you, O King, offend his sight,
The spaniel Blaco bays.

THE

BUTTERFLY AND BEE.

TO FLAVIA.

SEE! Flavia, see! that flutt'ring thing,
Skim round yon flower with sportive wing,
Yet ne'er its sweet explore;
While, wiser, the industrious bee
Extracts the honey from the tree,

And hives the precious store.
So you, with coy, coquettish art,
Play wanton round your love.'s heart,

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