Page images
PDF
EPUB

Strong Labour got up.-With his pipe in his

He stoutly strode over the dale, [mouth, He lent new perfumes to the breath of the south,

On his back hung his wallet and flail. Behind him came Health from her cottage of thatch,

Where never physician had lifted the latch.

First of the village Collin was awake,
And thus he sung reclining on his rake.
Now the rural graces three
Dance beneath yon maple tree;
First the vestal Virtue, known
By her adamantine zone;
Next to her in rosy pride,
Sweet Society the bride;

Last Honesty, full seemly drest
In her cleanly home-spun vest.
The abbey bells in wak'ning rounds
The warning peal have giv'n;
And pious Gratitude resounds

Her morning hymn to Heav'n.

All nature wakes-the birds unlock their throats,
And mock the shepherd's rustic notes.
All alive o'er the lawn,

[blocks in formation]

In the middle of the ring,
Mad with May, and wild of wing,
Fire-ey'd Wantonness shall sing.

By the rivulet on the rushes,
Beneath a canopy of bushes,
Where the ever-faithful Tray,
Guards the dumplins and the whey,
Collin Clout and Yorkshire Will
From the leathern bottle swill.

Their scythes upon the adverse bank
Glitter 'mongst th' entangled trees,
Where the hazles form a rank,

And court'sy to the courting breeze.

Ah! Harriot sovereign mistress of my heart,
Could I thee to these meads decoy,
New grace to each fair object thou'dst impart,
And heighten ev'ry scene to perfect joy.

On a bank of fragrant thyme,
Beneath yon stately, shadowy pine,
We'll with the well-disguised hook
Cheat the tenants of the brook;

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Night with all her negro train,
Took possession of the plain;
In an hearse she rode reclin'd,
Drawn by screech-owls slow and blind :
Close to her, with printless feet,
Crept Stillness in a winding sheet.
Next to her deaf Silence was seen,
Treading on tip-toes over the green;
Softly, lightly, gently she trips,

Still holding her fingers seal'd to her lips.

You could not see a sight,

You could not hear a sound,
But what confess'd the night,

And horrour deepen'd round.

Beneath a myrtle's melancholy shade,
Sophron the wise was laid:

And to the answ'ring wood these sounds convey'd:
While others toil within the town,
And to fortune smile or frown,
Fond of trifles, fond of toys,
And married to that woman, Noise;
Sacred Wisdom be my care,
And fairest Virtue, Wisdom's heir.

His speculations thus the sage begun,
When, lo! the neighbouring bell
In solemn sound struck one:-

He starts and recollects- he was engag'd to
Nell.

Then up he sprang nimble and light,
And rapp'd at fair Ele'nor's door;

He laid aside virtue that night,

And next morn por'd in Plato for more.

ON MISS

ODE XV.

LONG, with undistinguish'd flame,
I lov'd each fair, each witty dame.
My heart the belle-assembly gain'd,
And all an equal sway maintain'd.

But when you came, you stood confess'd

Sole sultana of my breast;

For you eclips'd, supremely fair,
All the whole seraglio there.

In this her mien, in that her grace,
In a third I lov'd a face;
But you in ev'ry feature shine
Universally divine.

What can those tumid paps excel,
Do they sink, or do they swell?
While those lovely wanton eyes
Sparkling meet them, as they rise.
Thus is silver Cynthia seen,
Glistening o'er the glassy green,
While attracted swell the waves,
Emerging from their inmost caves.

When to sweet sounds your steps you suit,
And weave the minuet to the lute,

Heav'ns! how you glide!—her neck-her chestDoes she move, or does she rest?

As those roguish eyes advance,
Let me catch their side-long glance,
Soon-or they'll clude my sight,
Quick as lightning, and as bright.

Thus the bashful Pleiad cheats
The gazer's eye, and still retreats,
Then peeps again-then skulks unseen,
Veil'd behind the azure skreen.

Like the ever-toying dove,
Smile immensity of love;
Be Venus in each outward part,
And wear the vestal in your heart.

Grant it with a begging nc,

When I ask a kiss, or so→→

And let each rose that decks your face Blush assent to my embrace.

ON THE FIFth of deceMBER,

BEING THE BIRTH-DAY OF A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY,
ODE XVI.

HAIL, eldest of the monthly train,
Sire of the winter drear,,
December, in whose iron reign

Expires the chequer'd year.
Hush all the blust'ring blasts that blow,
And proudly plum'd in silver snow,

Smile gladly on this blest of days.
The livery'd clouds shall on thee wait,
And Phoebus shine in all his state
With more than summer rays.
Tho' jocund June may justly boast
Long days and happy hours,
Tho' August be Pomona's host,

And May be crown'd with flow'rs;
Tell June, his fire and crimson dies,
By Harriot's blush and Harriot's eyes,

Eclips'd and vanquish'd, fade away:
Tell August, thou canst let him see
A richer, riper fruit than he,

A sweeter flow'r than May.

[blocks in formation]

24

hess and purity of Horace. Dryden's is certainly the more elevated performance of the two, but by no means so much so as people in general will have it. There are few that will allow any sort of comparison to be made between them. This is in some measure owing to that prevailing but absurd custom which has obtained from Horace's3 time even to this day, viz. of preferring authors to the bays by seniority. Had Mr. Pope written first, the mob, that judge by this rule, would have given him the preference; and the rather, because in this piece he does not deserve it.

It would not be right to conclude, without taking notice of a fine subject for an ode on St. Cecilia's Day, which was suggested to the author by his friend the learned and ingenious Mr. Comber, late of Jesus College in this university; that is David's playing to king Saul when he was troubled with the evil spirit. He was much pleased with the hint at first, but at length was

the subject, and he thinks not without reason. The chusing too high subjects has been the ruin of many a tolerable genius. There is a good rule which Fresnoy prescribes to the painters; which is likewise applicable to the poets.

fter Mr. Dryden and Mr. Pope, would be great presumption, which is the reason he detains the leader in this place to make an apology, much against his will, he having all due contempt for the impertinence of prefaces. In the first place then, it will be a little hard (he thinks) if he should be particularly mark'd out for censure, many others having written on the same subject without any such imputations; but they, (it may be) did not live long enough to be laughed at, or, by some lucky means or other, escaped those shrewd remarks, which, it seems, are reserved for him. In the second place, this subject was not his choice, but imposed upon him by a gentleman very eminent in the science of music, for whom he has a great friendship, and who is, by his good sense and humanity, as much elevated above the generality of mankind, as by his exquisite art he is above most of his profession. The request of a friend, undoubtedly, will be sneered at by some as a stale and antiquated apo-deterred from improving it by the greatness of logy it is a very good one notwithstanding, which, is manifest even from it's triteness; for it can never be imagined, that so many excellent authors, as well as bad ones, would have made use of it, had they not been convinced of As for the writer of this piece, he it's cogency. will rejoice in being derided, not only for obliging his friends, but any honest man whatsoever, so far as may be in the power of a person of his He does not pretend to equal mean abilities. the very worst parts of the two celebrated performances already extant on the subject; which acknowledgment alone will, with the good-natured and judicious, acquit him of presumption; because these pieces, however excellent upon the whole, are not without their blemishes. There is in them both an exact unity of design, which though in compositions of another nature a beauty, is an impropriety in the Pindaric, which should consist in the vehemence of sudden and unlook'd for transitions: hence chiefly it derives that enthusiastic fire and wildness, which, greatly distinguish it from other species of poesy. In the first stanza of Dryden' and in the fifth of Pope2, there is an air, which is so far from being adapted to the majesty of an ode, that it would make no considerable figure in a ballad. And lastly, they both conclude with a turn which has something too epigrammatical in it. Bating these trifles, they are incomparably beautiful and great; neither is there to be found two more finish'd pieces of lyric poetry in our language, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso of Milton excepted, which are the finest in any. Dryden's is the more sublime and magnificent; but Pope's is the more elegant and correct; Dryden has the fire and spirit of Pindar, and Pope has the terse

'Happy, happy, happy pair,

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserve the fair.

2 Thus song cou'd prevail
O'er Death, and o'er Hell,

A conquest how hard and how glorious!
Tho' Fate had fast bound her
With Styx nine times round her.
Yet Music and Love were victorious.

Supremam in tabulis lucem captare dici
Insanus labor artificum; cum attingere tan-
(lucem;
Non pigmenta queant: auream sed Vespere
Seu modicum mane albentem; sive ætheris

tum

actam

Post byemen nimbis transfuso sole caducam; Seu nebulis sultam accipient, tonitruque rubentem.

THE ARGUMENT.

Stanza I, II. Invocation of men and angels to join in the praise of S. Cecilia. The divine origin of music. Stanza III. Art of music, or it's miraculous power over the brute and inanimate creation exemplified in Waller, and Stanza IV, V, in Arion. Stanza VI. the nature of music, or it's power over the passions. Instances of this in it's exciting pity. Stanza VII. In promoting courage and military virStanza VIII. Excellency of church music. Air to the memory of Mr. Purcell.Praise of the crgan and it's inventress Saint Cecilia.

tue.

I.

FROM your lyre-enchanted tow'rs,
Ye musically mystic pow'rs,
Ye, that inform the tuneful spheres,
Inaudible to mortal ears,
While each orb in ether swims
Accordant to th' inspiring hymns;

[blocks in formation]

Hither Paradise remove

Spirits of Harmony and Love!

Thou too, divine Urania, deign t' appear,
And with thy sweetly-solemn lute

To the grand argument the numbers suit ;
Such as sublime and clear,
Replete with heavenly love,
Charm th' enraptur'd souls above.
Disdainful of fantastic play,

Mix on your ambrosial tongue
Weight of sense with sound of song,
And be angelically gay.
CHORUS.

Disdainful, &c. &c.

II.

And you, ye sons of Harmony below,

How little less than angels, when ye sing! With emulation's kindling warmth shall glow, And from your mellow-modulating throats The tribute of your grateful notes In union of piety shall bring.

Shall Echo from her vocal cave Repay each note, the shepherd gave, And shall not we our mistress praise And give her back the borrow'd lays? But farther still our praises we pursue;

For ev'n Cecilia, mighty maid,
Confess'd she had superior aid-
She did and other rites to greater pow'rs are due.
Higher swell the sound and higher :

Let the winged numbers climb:
To the Heav'n of Heav'ns aspire,
Solemn, sacred, and sublime:
From Heav'n music took it's rise,
Return it to it's native skies.

CHORUS.

Higher swell the sound, &c. &c.
III.

Music's a celestial art;

Cease to wonder at it's pow'r,

Tho' lifeless rocks to motion start,

Tho' trees dance lightly from the bow'r,
Tho' rolling floods in sweet suspense
Are held, and listen into sense.

In Penhurst's plains when Waller, sick with love,
Has found some silent solitary grove,
Where the vague Moon-beams pour a silver flood
Of trem'lous light athwart th' unshaven wood,
Within an hoary moss-grown cell,

He lays his careless limbs without reserve,
And strikes, impetuous strikes each quer'lous

nerve

Of his resounding shell.

In all the woods, in all the plains
Around a lively stillness reigns;
The deer approach the secret scene,

And weave their way thro' labyrinths green;
While Philomela learns the lay,

And answers from the neighbouring bay.
But Medway, inelancholy mute,
Gently on his urn reclines,
And all attentive to the lute,

In uncomplaining anguish pines:
The crystal waters weep away,
And bear the tidings to the sea:

Neptune in the boisterous seas

Spreads the placid bed of peace,

While each blast,

Or breathes it's last,

Or just does sigh a symphony and cease. CHORUS.

Neptune, &c. &c.

IV.

Behold Arion-on the stern he stands Pall'd in theatrical attire,

To the mute strings he moves th' enliv'ning hands,
Great in distress, and wakes the golden lyret
While in a tender Orthian strain

He thus accosts the mistress of the main:
By the bright beams of Cynthia's eyes
Thro' which your waves attracted rise,
And actuate the hoary deep;
By the secret coral cell,

Where love, and joy, and Neptune dwell
And peaceful floods in silence sleep;
By the sea-flow'rs, that immerge
Their heads around the grotto's verge,
Dependent from the stooping stem;
By each roof-suspended drop,
That lightly lingers on the top,

And hesitates into a gem;

By thy kindred wat'ry gods,
The lakes, the riv'lets, founts and floods,
And all the pow'rs that live unseen
Underneath the liquid green;

Great Amphitrite (for thou can'st bind
The storm and regulate the wind)

Hence waft me, fair goddess, oh, waft me away,
Secure from the men and the monsters of prey!

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

vi.

But o'er th' affections too she claims the sway,
Pierces the human heart, and steals the soul away,
And as attractive sounds move high or low,
Th' obedient ductile passions ebb and flow.
Has any nymph her faithful lover lost,
And in the visions of the night,
And all the day-dreams of the light,
In sorrow's tempest turbulently tost-

From her cheeks the roses die,

The radiations vanish from her Sun-bright eye,
And her breast, the throne of love,
Can hardly, hardly, hardly move,
To send th' ambrosial sigh.

But let the skilful bard appear,

And pour the sounds medicinal in her ear;
Sing some sad, some plaintive ditty,
Steept in tears, that endless flow,
Melancholy notes of pity,

Notes that mean a world of woe;"

She too shall sympathize, she too shall moan,
And pitying others' sorrows sigh away her own.

[blocks in formation]

But hark the temple's hollow'd roof resounds,
And Purcell lives along the solemm sounds-
Mellifluous, yet manly too,

He pours his strains along,
As from the lion Sampson flew,
Comes sweetness from the strong.
Not like the soft Italian swains,

He trills the weak enervate strains,
Where sense and music are at strife;
His vigorous notes with meaning teem,
With fire, with force explain the theme,
And sing the subject into life.
Attend he sings Cecilia-matchless dame!
'Tis she 'tis she-fond to extend her fame,
On the loud chords the notes conspire to stay,
And sweetly swell into a long delay,

And dwell delighted on her name.

Blow on, ye sacred organs, blow,
In tones magnificently slow;
Such is the music, such the lays,
Which suit your fair inventress' praise :
While round religious silence reigns,
And loitering winds expect the strains.
Hail majestic mournful measure,
Source of many a pensive pleasure!
Best pledge of love to mortals giv'n,
As pattern of the rest of Heav'n!
And thou chief honour of the veil,
Hail, harmonious Virgin, hail!
When Death shall blot out every name,
And Time shall break the trump of Fame,

Angels may listen to thy lute;

Thy pow'r shall last, thy bays shall bloom,
When tongues shall cease, and worlds consume,
And all the tuneful spheres be mute.

GRAND CHORUS.

When Death shall blot out every name, &c.

HYMN

TO THE SUPREME BEING,

ON RECOVERY FROM A DANGEROUS FIT OF ILLNESS.

TO DOCTOR JAMES.

DEAR SIR,

HAVING made an humble offering to him, without whose blessing your skill, admirable as it is, would have been to no purpose, I think myself bound by all the ties of gratitude, to render my next acknowledgments to you, who, under God, restored me to health from as violent and dan gerous a disorder, as perhaps ever man survived, just tribute, since this was the third time, that And my thanks become more particularly your your judgment and medicines rescued me from the grave, permit me to say, in a manner almost miraculous.

If it be meritorious to have investigated medicines for the cure of distempers, either overlooked or disregarded by all your predecessors, millions yet unborn will celebrate the man, who wrote the Medicinal Dictionary, and invented the Fever Powder.

Let such considerations as these, arm you with constancy against the impotent attacks of those whose interest interferes with that of mankind; and let it not displease you to have those for your particular enemies, who are foes to the public in general.

It is no wonder, indeed, that some of the retailers of medicines should zealously oppose whatever might endanger their trade; but 'tis amazing that there should be any physicians mercenary and mean enough to pay their court to, and ingratiate themselves with, such persons, by the strongest efforts to prejudice the inventor of the Fever Powder at the expense of honour, dignity, and conscience. Believe me however, and let this be a part of your consolation, that there are very few physicians in Britain, who were born gentlemen, and whose fortunes place them above such sordid dependen

« EelmineJätka »