STANZAS

ON THE LATE INDECENT LIBERTIES TAKEN WITH THE REMAINS OF MILTON. ANNO 1790.

"ME too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall show,
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnassian on my brow.

“ But I, or ere that season come,
Escaped from every care,
Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
And sleep securely there."+

So sang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordain'd to grace his native isle
With her sublimest song.

Who then but must conceive disdain,
Hearing the deed unblest

Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread sepulchral rest?

The bones of Milton, who lies buried in Cripplegate church, were disinterred; a pamphlet by Le Neve was published at the time, giving an account of what appeared on opening his coffin.

† Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus Nectens aut Paphia myrti aut Pernasside lauri Fronde comas-At ego secura pace quiescam.

Milton in Manso.

Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones

Where Milton's ashes lay,

That trembled not to grasp his bones
And steal his dust away!

O ill requited bard! neglect
Thy living worth repaid,
And blind idolatrous respect
As much affronts thee dead.
August, 1790.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

June 22, 1782.

Ir reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time

I feel a wish by cheerful rhyme

To soothe my friend, and, had I power,

To cheat him of an anxious hour;

Not meaning (for I must confess,

Cowper, no doubt, had in his memory the lines said to have been written by Shakespeare on his tomb :

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust inclosed here.

Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."

It were but folly to suppress)
His pleasure, or his good alone,
But squinting partly at my own.
But though the sun is flaming high
In the centre of yon arch, the sky,
And he had once (and who but he ?)
The name for setting genius free,
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeserved praise,
And he by no uncommon lot
Was famed for virtues he had not;
Or whether, which is like enough,
His Highness may have taken huff,
So seldom sought with invocation,
Since it has been the reigning fashion
To disregard his inspiration,

I seem no brighter in my wits,
For all the radiance he emits,

Than if I saw, through midnight vapour,
The glimmering of a farthing taper.
Oh for a succedaneum, then,
To accelerate a creeping pen!
Oh for a ready succedaneum,
Quod caput, cerebrum, et cranium
Pondere liberet exoso,

Et morbo jam caliginoso!

'Tis here; this oval box well fill'd With best tobacco, finely mill'd, Beats all Anticyra's pretences

To disengage the encumber'd senses.

Oh Nymphs of transatlantic fame, Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy name, Whether reposing on the side

Of Oroonoquo's spacious tide,

Or listening with delight not small
To Niagara's distant fall,

"Tis thine to cherish and to feed
The pungent nose-refreshing weed,
Which, whether pulverized it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or whether, touch'd with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine-
Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free,
To touch with a satiric wipe

That symbol of thy power, the pipe;
So may no blight infest thy plains,
And no unseasonable rains;

And so may smiling peace once more
Visit America's sad shore;

And thou, secure from all alarms,

Of thundering drums, and glittering arms,
Rove unconfined beneath the shade
Thy wide expanded leaves have made;

So may thy votaries increase,

And fumigation never cease.
May Newton with renew'd delights
Perform thine odoriferous rites,

While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing shrine;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.

MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTION TO WILLIAM NORTHCOT.

Hic sepultus est
Inter suorum lacrymas

GULIELMUS NORTHCOT,
GULIELMI et MARIÆ filius

Unicus, unicè dilectus,

Qui floris ritu succisus est semihiantis,
Aprilis die septimo,
1780, Æt. 10.

Care, vale! Sed non æternùm, care, valeto! Namque iterùm tecum, sim modò dignus, ero. Tum nihil amplexus poterit divellere nostros, Nec tu marcesces, nec lacrymabor ego.

t

TRANSLATION.

FAREWELL!" But not for ever," Hope replies, Trace but his steps and meet him in the skies! There nothing shall renew our parting pain, Thou shalt not wither, nor I weep again.