Selected Poems
Page 7
Let Jeffries’ shade indulge the pious hope,
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And greeting thus, present him with a rope:
‘Heir to my virtues! man of equal mind!
Skill’d to condemn as to traduce mankind,
This cord receive, for thee reserved with care,
To wield in judgment, and at length to wear.’
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Health to great Jeffrey! Heaven preserve his life,
To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife,
And guard it sacred in its future wars,
Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars!
Can none remember that eventful day,2
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That ever-glorious, almost fatal fray,
When Little’s leadless pistol met his eye,
And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by?3
Oh, day disastrous! On her firm-set rock,
Dunedin’s castle felt a secret shock;
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Dark roll’d the sympathetic waves of Forth,
Low groan’d the startled whirlwinds of the north;
Tweed ruffled half his waves to form a tear,
The other half pursued its calm career;1
Arthur’s steep summit nodded to its base,
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The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place.
The Tolbooth felt – for marble sometimes can,
On such occasions, feel as much as man –
The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms,
If Jeffrey died, except within her arms:2
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Nay last, not least, on that portentous morn,
The sixteenth story, where himself was born,
His patrimonial garret, fell to ground,
And pale Edina shudder’d at the sound:
Strew’d were the streets around with milk-white reams,
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Flow’d all the Canongate with inky streams;
This of his candour seem’d the sable dew,
That of his valour show’d the bloodless hue;
And all with justice deem’d the two combined
The mingled emblems of his mighty mind.
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But Caledonia’s goddess hover’d o’er
The field, and saved him from the wrath of Moore;
From either pistol snatch’d the vengeful lead,
And straight restored it to her favourite’s head;
That head, with greater than magnetic pow’r,
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Caught it, as Danaë caught the golden show’r,
And, though the thickening dross will scarce refine,
Augments its ore, and is itself a mine.
‘My son,’ she cried, ‘ne’er thirst for gore again,
Resign the pistol and resume the pen;
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O’er politics and poesy preside,
Boast of thy country, and Britannia’s guide!
For long as Albion’s heedless sons submit,
Or Scottish taste decides on English wit,
So long shall last thine unmolested reign,
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Nor any dare to take thy name in vain.
Behold, a chosen band shall aid thy plan,
And own thee chieftain of the critic clan.
First in the oat-fed phalanx shall be seen
The travell’d thane, Athenian Aberdeen.1
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Herbert shall wield Thor’s hammer,2 and sometimes,
In gratitude, thou’lt praise his rugged rhymes,
Smug Sydney3 too thy bitter page shall seek,
And classic Hallam,4 much renown’d for Greek;
Scott may perchance his name and influence lend,
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And paltry Pillans5 shall traduce his friend;
While gay Thalia’s luckless votary, Lambe,1
Damn’d like the devil, devil-like will damn.
Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway!
Thy Holland’s banquets shall each toil repay;
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While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes
To Holland’s hirelings and to learning’s foes.
Yet mark one caution ere thy next Review
Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue,
Beware lest blundering Brougham2 destroy the sale,
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Turn beef to bannocks, cauliflowers to kail.’
Thus having said, the kilted goddess kist
Her son, and vanish’d in a Scottish mist.3
Then prosper, Jeffrey! pertest of the train
Whom Scotland pampers with her fiery grain!
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Whatever blessing waits a genuine Scot,
In double portion swells thy glorious lot;
For thee Edina culls her evening sweets,
And showers their odours on thy candid sheets,
Whose hue and frarance to th work adhere –
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This scents its pages, and that gilds its rear.4
Lo! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enamour’d grown,
Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee alone;
And, too unjust to other Pictish men,
Enjoys thy person, and inspires thy pen!
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Illustrious Holland! hard would be his lot,
His hirelings mention’d, and himself forgot!1
Holland, with Henry Petty at his back,
The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack.
Blest be the banquets spread at Holland House,
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Where Scotchmen feed, and critics may carouse!
Long, long beneath that hospitable roof
Shall Grub-street dine, while duns are kept aloof.
See honest Hallam lay aside his fork,
Resume his pen review his Lordship’s work
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And grateful for the dainties on his plate
Declare his landlord can at least translate!2
Dunedin! view thy children with delight,
They write for food – and feed because they write:
And lest, when heated with the unusual grape,
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Some glowing thoughts should to the press escape,
And tinge with red the female reader’s cheek,
My lady skims the cream of each critique;
Breathes o’er the page her purity of soul,
Reforms each error, and refines the whole.3
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Now to the Drama turn – Oh! motley sight!
What precious scenes the wondering eyes invite!
Puns, and a prince within a barrel pent,4
And Dibdin’s nonsense yield complete content.
Though now, thank Heaven! the Rosciomania’s o’er,
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And full-grown actors are endured once more;
Yet what avail their vain attempts to please,
While British critics suffer scenes like these;
While Reynolds vents his ‘dammes!’ ‘poohs!’ and ‘zounds!’1
And common-place and common sense confounds?
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While Kenney’s ‘World’ – ah! where is Kenney’s wit? –
Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless pit;
And Beaumont’s pilfer’d Caratach affords
A tragedy complete in all but words?2
Who but must mourn, while these are all the rage,
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The degradation of our vaunted stage!
Heavens! is all sense of shame and talent gone?
Have we no living bard of merit? – none!
Awake, George Colman! Cumberland, awake!
Ring the alarum bell! let folly quake!
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Oh, Sheridan! if aught can move thy pen,
Let Comedy assume her throne again;
Abjure the mummery of the German schools;
Leave new Pizarros to translating fools;
Give, as thy last memorial
to the age,
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One classic drama, and reform the stage.
Gods! o’er those boards shall Folly rear her head,
Where Garrick trod, and Siddons lives to tread?
On those shall Farce display Buffoon’ry’s mask,
And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask?
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Shall sapient managers new scenes produce
From Cherry, Skeffington, and Mother Goose?
While Shakspeare, Otway, Massinger, forgot,
On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot?
Lo! with what pomp the daily prints proclaim
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The rival candidates for Attic fame!
In grim array though Lewis’ spectres rise,
Still Skeffington and Goose divide the prize.
And sure great Skeffington must claim our praise,
For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays
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Renown’d alike; whose genius ne’er confines
Her flight to garnish Greenwood’s gay designs;1
Nor sleeps with ‘Sleeping Beauties,’ but anon
In five facetious acts comes thundering on,2
While poor John Bull, bewilder’d with the scene,
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Stares, wondering what the devil it can mean;
But as some hands applaud, a venal few!
Rather than sleep, why John applauds it too.
Such are we now. Ah! wherefore should we turn
To what our fathers were unless to mourn?
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Degenerate Britons! are ye dead to shame,
Or kind to dulness do you fear to blame?
Well may the nobles of our present race
Watch each distortion of a Naldi’s face;
Well may they smile on Italy’s buffoons,
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And worship Catalani’s pantaloons,3
Since their own drama yields no fairer trace
Of wit than puns, of humour than grimace.
Then let Ausonia, skill’d in every art
To soften manners, but corrupt the heart,
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Pour her exotic follies o’er the town,
To sanction Vice, and hunt Decorum down:
Let wedded strumpets languish o’er Deshayes,
And bless the promise which his form displays;
While Gayton bounds before th’ enraptured looks
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Of hoary marquises and stripling dukes:
Let highborn lechers eye the lively Prêsle
Twirl her light limbs, that spurn the needless veil;
Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow,
Wave the white arm, and point the pliant toe;
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Collini trill her love-inspiring song,
Strain her fair neck, and charm the listening throng!
Whet not your scythe, suppressors of our vice!
Reforming saints! too delicately nice!
By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save,
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No Sunday tankards foam no barbers shave;
And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display
Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day.
Or hail at once the patron and the pile
Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle!1
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Where yon proud palace, Fashion’s hallow’d fane,
Spreads wide her portals for the motley train,
Behold the new Petronius2 of the day,
Our arbiter of pleasure and of play!
There the hired eunuch, the Hesperian choir,
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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:
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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,
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Nor think of poverty, except ‘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 uon the floor
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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
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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
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Each maid may give a loose to genial thought,
Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught:
There the blithe 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,
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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, two Pagets for your wife;
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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;
Traduced by liars, and forgot by all,
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The mangled victim of a drunken brawl,
To live like Clodius, and like Falkland fall.1
Truth! rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand
To drive this pestilence from out the land.
E’en I – least thinking of a thoughtless throng,
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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 through passion’s countless host,2
Whom every path of pleasure’s flow’ry way
Has lured in turn, and all have led astray –
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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,3 than they?’
And every brother rake will smile to see
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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;
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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,4
Wh should we call them from their dark abode
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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,
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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,
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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
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No muse will cheer, with renovating smile,
The paralytic puling of Carlisle.
The puny schoolboy and his early lay
Men pardon, if his follies pass away;
But who forgives the senior’s ceaseless verse,
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Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse?
What heterogeneous honours deck the peer!
Lord, rhymester, petit-maître, pamphleteer!1
So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age,
His scenes alone had damn’d our sinking stage;
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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,
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And hang a calf-skin2 on those recreant lines.3
With you, ye Druids! rich in native lead,
Who daily scribble for your daily bread;
With you I war not: Gifford’s heavy hand
Has crush’d, without remorse, your numerous band.
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On ‘all the talents’ vent your venal spleen;
Want is your plea, let pity be your screen.
Let monodies on Fox regale your crew,
And Melville’s Mantle1 prove a blanket too!
One common Lethe waits each hapless bard
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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.
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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.2
Though Crusca’s bards no more our journals fill,
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Some stragglers skirmish round the columns still;
Last of the howling host which once was Bell’s,
Matilda snivels yet, and Hafiz yells;
And Merry’s metaphors appear anew,
Chain’d to the signature of O.P.Q.3
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When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,
Employs a pen less pointed than his awl,