We’ve everything but humour, except wit.
O then, when tired with laughing at his strains,
Give one dear sigh to poor Alexis’ pains;
Whose heart this scene would certainly subdue,
But for the thoughts of happier days, and you;
With whom one happy hour makes large amends
For every care his other hours attends.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR ROBERT WALPOLE (NOW EARL OF OXFORD)
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1730
SIR,
WHILE at the helm of state you ride,
Our nation’s envy, and its pride;
While foreign courts with wonder gaze,
And curse those councils which they praise;
Would you not wonder, sir, to view
Your bard a greater man than you?
Which that he is, you cannot doubt,
When you have read the sequel out.
You know, great sir, that ancient fellows,
Philosophers, and such folks, tell us,
No great analogy between
Greatness and happiness is seen.
If then, as it might follow straight,
Wretched to be, is to be great.
Forbid it, gods, that you should try
What ‘tis to be so great as I.
The family that dines the latest,
Is in our street esteem’d the greatest;
But latest hours must surely fall
Before him who never dines at all.
Your taste in architect, you know,
Hath been admired by friend and foe:
But can your earthly domes compare
To all my castles — in the air?
We’re often taught it doth behove us
To think those greater who’re above us.
Another instance of my glory,
Who live above you twice two story,
And from my garret can look down
On the whole street of Arlington.
Greatness by poets still is painted,
With many followers acquainted;
This too doth in my favour speak,
Your levée is but twice a week;
From mine I can exclude but one day,
My door is quiet on a Sunday.
Nor in the manner of attendance
Doth your great bard claim less ascendance.
Familiar you to admiration,
May be approach’d by all the nation:
While I, like the Mogul in Indo,
Am never seen but at my window.
If with my greatness your offended,
The fault is easily amended,
For I’ll come down with wond’rous ease,
Into whatever place you please.
I’m not ambitious; little matters
Will serve us great, but humble creatures.
Suppose a secretary o’ this isle,
Just to be doing with a while;
Admiral, gen’ral, judge, or bishop;
Or I can foreign treaties dish up.
If the good genius of the nation
Should call me to negotiation;
Tuscan and French are in my head;
Latin I write, and Greek I read.
If you should ask, what pleases best?
To get the most and do the least;
What fittest for? — you know, I’m sure,
I’m fittest for a — sinecure.
TO THE SAME. ANNO 1731
GREAT Sir, as on each levée day
I still attend you — still you say
I’m busy now, to-morrow come;
To-morrow, sir, you’re not at home.
So says your porter, and dare I
Give such a man as him the lie?
In imitation, sir, of you,
I keep a mighty levée too;
Where my attendants, to their sorrow,
Are bid to come again to-morrow.
To-morrow they return, no doubt,
And then like you, sir. I’m gone out.
So says my maid — but they, less civil,
Give maid and master to the devil;
And then with menaces depart,
Which could you hear would pierce your heart.
Good sir, or make my levée fly me,
Or lend your porter to deny me.
WRITTEN EXTEMPORE ON A HALFPENNY
Which a young lady gave a beggar, and the author redeemed for
half-a-crow?i
DEAR little, pretty, fav’rite ore,
That once increased Gloriana’s store;
That lay within her bosom bless’d,
Gods might have envied thee thy nest.
I’ve read, imperial Jove of old
For love transform’d himself to gold:
And why, for a more lovely lass,
May he not now have lurk’d in brass;
O! rather than from her he’d part,
He’d shut that charitable heart,
That heart whose goodness nothing less
Than his vast power could dispossess.
From Gloriana’s gentle touch
Thy mighty value now is such,
That thou to me art worth alone
More than his medals are to Sloan.
Not for the silver and the gold
Which Corinth lost shouldst thou be sold:
Not for the envied mighty mass
Which misers wish, or M — h has:
Not for what India sends to Spain,
Nor all the riches of the Main.
While I possess thy little store,
Let no man call, or think me, poor;
Thee, while alive, my breast shall have,
My hand shall grasp thee in the grave:
Nor shalt thou be to Peter given,
Tho’ he should keep me out of Heaven.
THE BEGGAR
A SONG
I.
WHILE cruel to your wishing slave,
You still refuse the boon I crave,
Confess, what joy that precious pearl
Conveys to thee, my lovely girl?
II.
Dost thou not act the miser’s part,
Who with an aching, lab’ring heart,
Counts the dull, joyless, shining store,
Which he refuses to the poor?
III.
Confess then, my too lovely maid,
Nor blush to see thy thoughts betray’d;
What, parted with, gives heaven to me;
Kept, is but pain and grief to thee.
IV.
Be charitable then, and dare
Bestow the treasure you can spare;
And trust the joys which you afford
Will to yourself be sure restored.
AN EPIGRAM
WHEN Jove with fair Alcmena lay,
He kept the sun a-bed all day;
That he might taste her wond’rous charms,
Two nights together in her arms.
Were I of Celia’s charms possess’d,
Melting on that delicious breast,
And could, like Jove, thy beams restrain,
Sun, thou shouldst never rise again;
Unsated with the luscious bliss,
I’d taste one dear eternal kiss.
THE QUESTION
IN Celia’s arms while bless’d I lay,
My soul in bliss dissolved away:
“Tell me,” the charmer cried, “how well
You love your Celia; Strephon, tell?”
Kissing her glowing, burning cheek,
“I’ll tell,” I cried — but could not speak.
At length my voice return’d, and she
Again began to question me.
I pulled her to my breast again,
And tried to answer, but in vain:
Short falt’ring accents from me broke,
And my voice fail’d before I spoke.
The charmer, pitying my distress,
Gave me the tendere
st caress,
And sighing cried, “You need not tell;
Oh! Strephon, oh! I feel how well.”
N-W-T-S AT A PLAY
WHILE hisses, groans, cat-calls thro’ the pit,
Deplore the hapless poet’s want of wit:
J — n W — ts, from silence bursting in a rage,
Cried, “Men are mad who write in such an age.”
“Not so,” replied his friend, a sneering blade,
“The poet’s only dull, the printer’s mad.”
TO CELIA
I HATE the town and all its ways;
Ridottos, operas, and plays;
The ball, the ring, the mall, the court;
“Wherever the beau-monde resort;
Where beauties lie in ambush for folks,
Earl Straffords, and the Duke of Norfolks
All coffee-houses, and their praters;
All courts of justice, and debaters;
All taverns, and the sots within ‘em;
All bubbles and the rogues that skin ‘em.
I hate all critics; may they burn all,
From Bentley to the Grub Street Journal.
All bards, as Dennis hates a pun:
Those who have wit, and who have none.
All nobles, of whatever station;
And all the parsons in the nation.
All quacks and doctors read in physic,
Who kill or cure a man that is sick.
All authors that were ever heard on,
From Bavius up to Tommy Gordon;
Tradesmen with cringes ever stealing,
And merchants, whatsoe’er they deal in.
I hate the blades professing slaughter,
More than the devil holy water.
I hate all scholars, beaus, and squires;
Pimps, puppies, parasites, and liars.
All courtiers, with their looks so smooth;
And players, from Boheme to Booth.
I hate the world, cramm’d all together,
From beggars, up the Lord knows whither.
Ask you then, Celia, if there be
The thing I love? My charmer, thee.
Thee more than light, than life adore,
Thou dearest, sweetest creature more
Than wildest raptures can express;
Than I can tell, — or thou canst guess.
Then tho’ I bear a gentle mind,
Let not my hatred of mankind
Wonder within my Celia move,
Since she possesses all my love.
ON A LADY COQUETTING WITH A VERY SILLY FELLOW
CORINNA’S judgment do not less admire,
That she for Oulus shows a gen’rous fire;
Lucretia toying thus had been a fool,
But wiser Helen might have used the tool.
Since Oulus for one use alone is fit,
With charity judge of Corinna’s wit.
ON THE SAME
WHILE men shun Oulus as a fool,
Dames prize him as a beau;
What judgment form we by this rule?
Why this it seems to show —
Those apprehend the beau’s a fool,
These think the fool’s a beau.
EPITAPH ON BUTLER’S MONUMENT
WHAT tho’ alive neglected and undone,
O let thy spirit triumph in this stone!
No greater honour could men pay thy parts,
For when they give a stone, they give their hearts.
ANOTHER ON A WICKED FELLOW, WHO WAS A GREAT BLUNDERER
INTERRED by blunder in this sacred place,
Lies William’s wicked heart, and smiling face.
Full forty years on earth he blunder’d on,
And now the L — d knows whither he is gone.
But if to heaven he stole, let no man wonder,
For if to hell he’d gone, he’d made no blunder.
EPIGRAM ON ONE WHO INVITED MANY GENTLEMEN TO A SMALL DINNER
PETER (says Pope) won’t poison with his meat;
‘Tis true, for Peter gives you nought to eat.
A SAILOR’S SONG
DESIGNED FOR THE STAGE
COME, let’s aboard, my jolly blades,
That love a merry life;
To lazy souls leave home-bred trades,
To husbands home-bred strife;
Through Europe we will gaily roam,
And leave our wives and cares at home.
With a Fa la, &c.
If any tradesman broke should be,
Or gentleman distress’d,
Let him away with us to sea,
His fate will be redress’d:
The glorious thunder of great guns,
Drowns all the horrid noise of duns.
With a Fa la, &c.
And while our ships we proudly steer
Through all the conquer’d seas,
We’ll show the world that Britons bear
Their empire where they please:
Where’er our sails are once unfurl’d,
Our king rules that part of the world.
With a Fa la, &c.
The Spaniard with a solemn grace
Still marches slowly on,
We’ll quickly make him mend his pace,
Desirous to be gone:
Or if we bend our course to France,
We’ll teach Monsieur more brisk to dance.
With a Fa la, &c.
At length, the world subdued, again
Our course we’ll homeward bend;
In women, and in brisk champagne,
Our gains we’ll freely spend:
How proud our mistresses will be
To hug the men that fought as we!
With a Fa la, &c.
ADVICE TO THE NYMPHS OF NEW S — M
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1730
CEASE, vainest nymphs, with Celia to contend,
And let your envy and your folly end.
With her almighty charms when yours compare,
When your blind lovers think you half so fair,
Each Sarum ditch, like Helicon shall flow,
And Harnam Hill, like high Parnassus, glow;
The humble daisy, trod beneath our feet,
Shall be like lilies fair, like violets sweet;
Winter’s black nights outshine the summer’s noon,
And farthing candles shall eclipse the moon:
T — b-ld shall blaze with wit, sweet Tope be dull,
And German princes vie with the Mogul.
Cease, then, advised, O cease th’ unequal war,
‘Tis too much praise to be o’ercome by her.
With the sweet nine so the Pierians strove;
So poor Arachne with Minerva wove:
Till of their pride just punishment they share;
Those fly and chatter, and this hangs in air.
Unhappy nymphs! O may the powers above,
Those powers that form’d this second Queen of Love,
Lay all their wrathful thunderbolts aside,
And rather pity than avenge your pride;
Forbid it, Heaven, you should bemoan too late
The sad Pierian’s or Arachne’s fate;
That hid in leaves, and perch’d upon a bough,
You should o’erlook those walks you walk in now;
The gen’rous maid’s compassion, others joke,
Should chatter scandal which you once have spoke;
Or else in cobwebs hanging from the wall,
Should be condemn’d to overlook the ball:
To see, as now, victorious Celia reign,
Admired, adored, by each politer swain.
0 — shun a fate like this, be timely wise,
And if your glass be false, if blind your eyes,
Believe and own what all mankind aver,
And pay with them the tribute due to her.
TO CELIA
Occasioned by her apprehending her house would be broke open, and having an old fellow to guard it, who sat
up all night, with a gun without any ammunition.
CUPID CALLED TO ACCOUNT
LAST night, as my unwilling mind
To rest, dear Celia, I resign’d;
For how should I repose enjoy,
While any fears your breast annoy?
Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be
From any of your troubles free.
O ! would kind Fate attend my prayer,
Greedy, I’d give you not a share.
Last night, then, in a wretched taking,
My spirits toss’d ‘twixt sleep and waking,
I dreamt (ah! what so frequent themes
As you and Tenus of my dreams!)
That she, bright glory of the sky,
Heard from below her darling’s cry:
Saw her cheeks pale, her bosom heave,
And heard a distant sound of “thieve!”
Not so you look when at the ball,
Envied you shine, outshining all.
Not so at church, when priest perplex’d,
Beholds you, and forgets the text.
The goddess frighten’d, to her throne
Summon’d the little god her son,
And him in passion thus bespoke:
“Where, with that cunning urchin’s look,
Where from thy colours hast thou stray’d?
Unguarded left my darling maid?
Left my loved citadel of beauty,
With none but Sancho upon duty!
Did I for this a num’rous band
Of loves send under thy command!
Bid thee still have her in thy sight,
And guard her beauties day and night!
Were not th’ Hesperian gardens taken?
The hundred eyes of Argus shaken?
What dangers will not men despise,
T’ obtain this much superior prize?
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 375
