Unless to crib cakes for her landlady’s daughter;
However, the viands went off at such rate,
A lady’s toupee often knock’d down a plate,
And many confess’d a fat citizen’s belly
A terrible stop to the progress of jelly;
While salvers of biscuits around their ears flew,
O’erturn’d by the whisk of an officer’s queüe;
And thus in ten minutes one half of the treat
Made a pretty check carpet squash’d under their feet.
O ’twas pleasing to see a collection of beaux
Parading with large macarons at their toes;
Or a delicate nymph give a languishing reel
On a marmalade kissing her little French heel.
So you see, my dear Hal, they bore all things before ’em,
And trampled on sweetmeats as well as decorum.
Our good prudent Lords had indeed given word
Not to trust any vessels away from the board;
For my part, I thought them so much in the right,
I fretted to see but a spoon out of sight;
Tho’ ‘twere best to have had ’em sure, had we been able,
As ’tis at St. Giles’s, all chain’d to the table:
I must tho’ injustice declare, that as yet
I hear of nought missing — but what could be eat —
If dispatch is a virtue, I here must aver it,
The whole congregation had infinite merit;
For sure, my dear Hal, you’ll be charmed to hear
That within half an hour all the tables were clear.
The rest, Hal, you know, is for ever the same,
With chatt’ring, and dancing, and all the old game;
Cotillons in one room, country-dance in another,
In ev’ry room — folly, confusion, and pother!
With unmeaning questions, of “which room’s the hotter?”
And, “Madam, pray how do you like the Rudotter?
“To see Capt. Plume dance — sure none can dislike him —
“WADE’S picture, I think, is purdigiously like him —
“Do you dance, Sir, to-night?”— “No, Ma’am, I do not:”
“I don’t wonder at it, ’tis suffoking hot.”
But you, Hal, have heard out first quality praters,
Who English ne’er talk — but when d-mn-ng the waiters:
So I need only say, that at one all withdrew,
Which gives me the hint now to bid you adieu;
So believe me sincerely,
Yours,
TIMOTHY SCREW.
VERSES ADDRESSED TO LAURA
SCARCE hush’d the sigh, scarce dried the tear
Affliction pour’d upon a Brother’s bier,
Another loss bids Laura s sorrows flow:
As keen in anguish as a sister’s woe.
Unknown to me the object of her grief,
I dare not counsel, did she ask relief;
Yet may the wish no vain intrusion prove,
To share her grief, for all who share her love.
Yes, gallant victim in this hateful strife,
Which pride maintains ‘gainst man’s and freedom’s life
If quick and sensible to Laura’s worth,
Thy heart’s first comment was affections birth,
If thy soul’s day rose only in her sight,
And absence was thy clouded spirit’s night;
If ‘mid whatever busy tumults thrown,
Thy silent thought still turn’d to her alone.
If while ambition seem’d each act to move,
Thy secret hope was Laura, peace, and love;
If such thy feelings, and thy dying prayer
To wish that happiness thou couldst not share.
Let me with kindest claim thy name revere,
And give thy memory a brother’s tear.
But ah! not tears alone fill Laura’s eyes,
Resentment kindles with affliction’s sighs;
Insulted patience borrows passion’s breath,
To curse the plotters of these scenes of death;
Yet sooth’d to tranquil peace sweet Mourner be,
And every harsh emotion leave to me.
Remembrance sad, and soft regret be thine,
The wrath of hate and blow of vengeance mine;
And oh! by Heaven that hour shall surely come,
When fell Destroyers! ye shall meet your doom.
Yes, miscreant Statesmen! by the proud disdain
Which honour feels at base corruption’s reign.
By the loud clamour of a nation’s woes,
By the Still pang domestic sorrow knows,
By all that hope has lost, or terror fears,
By England’s injuries, and by Laura s tears,
The hour shall come when fraud’s short triumph past,
A people’s vengeance shall Strike home at last:
Then, then shall foul remorse, the dastard fiend,
That ne’er pollutes the noble Soldier’s end;
And dark despair around the scaffold wait,
And not one look deplore the Traitor’s fate;
But while remembrance shakes his coward frame,
And Starts of pride contend with inward shame.
The mute reproach, or execrations loud,
Of sober Justice, or the scoffing crowd,
Alike shall hail the blow that seals his doom,
And gives to infamy his mem’ry and his tomb!
Turn from the hateful scene, dear Laura, turn,
And thy lov’d friend with milder sorrows mourn;
Still dwell upon his fate, for Still thou’lt find
The contrast lovely, and ‘twill soothe thy mind.
Fall’n with the brave, e’er number’d with the slain,
His mind unwounded, calms his body’s pain;
Hopeless, but not dismay’d, with fearless eye,
He reads the doom that tells him he must die;
Lays his brave hand upon his bleeding breast,
And feels his glory, while he finds his rest.
Then yields his transient breath which nature gave,
And sure of prouder life, o’erlooks the grave!
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CLIO’S PROTEST, WITH OTHER POEMS
1. THE RIDOTTO OF BATH (Bath, 1771.)
THE RIDOTTO OF BATH, a Panegyrick, Written by a Gentleman, resident in that City. Being an Epistle from Timothy Screw, Under Server to Messrs. Kuhf and Fitzwater, to his brother Henry, Waiter at Almack’s. (Published originally in The Bath Chronicle, October 10th, 1771.) Folio broadside.
Copy in the Bath Municipal Library.
2. CLIO’S PROTEST (Bath, 1771.) CLIO’S PROTEST; or, The Picture Varnished. Addressed to the Lady M — rg — r — t F — d — ce. Price 6d. Advertised in The Bath Chronicle of December 5th, 1771. No copy of this can now be traced, although Mr. Walter Sichel possessed what seems to have been some pages of it.
3. THE RIVAL BEAUTIES (London, 1772.) THE RIVAL BEAUTIES, a Poetical Content. London. Printed for W. Griffin at Garrick’s Head in Catherine-Street, Strand; and sold by R. Cruttwell in St. James’s Street, Bath. Price is. 6d. Quarto. Pagination. P. [1] title; p. [ii] blank; p. [iii] Dedication; p. [iv] blank; pp. [1] and 2-4 text of The Bath Picture; pp. [5] and 6-17 text of Clio’s Protect; p. [18] blank; pp. [19] and 20-25 text of Pindar’s Answer; p. 26, blank.
4. THE RIVAL BEAUTIES (Bath, 1773.) THE RIVAL BEAUTIES, a Poetical Content. Containing The Bath Picture; or, A Sketch of its Beauties in 1771. Clio’s Protect; or, The Picture Varnished. And Pindar’s Reply. To which is Added the Ridotto of Bath, A Panegyric. Bath. Printed by R. Crutwell, Union Passage, And Sold by All the Booksellers of that City, and by W. Griffin, Bookseller in Catherine-Street, Strand, London. MDCCLXXIII. Price One Shilling and Six Pence
5. CLIO’S PROTEST, WITH OTHER POEMS (London, 1819.) CLIO’S PROTEST or, “The Picture” Varnished. With Other Poems. By the late Ri
ght Honourable R. B. Sheridan. London: Printed for Joseph Arnould, 2, Spring Gardens. 1819. Price Two Shillings and Sixpence.
LONGER POEMS
NOTE
THE LOVE EPISTLES OF ARISTÆNETUS were first printed in 1771, with a Preface signed “H. S.” the combined surname initials of Halhed and Sheridan. Of the twenty-six epistles the only ones here reprinted are the six which are attributed to Sheridan by Moore or Sichel.
“A FAMILIAR EPISTLE to the Author of The Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers and of The Heroic Postscript to the Public” was first printed in 1774; with a second edition in the same year. It was assigned to Sheridan by Thomas Linley (for which see the Introduction).
“A PORTRAIT... by R. B. Sheridan, Esq.,” is here reprinted from John Murray’s edition of The School for Scandal (1823) where it appears (with no real justification) as the Dedicatory Poem. It had apparently appeared surreptitiously in print, probably in some periodical, about 1810.
“VERSES TO THE MEMORY OF GARRICK, Spoken as a Monody” were first printed in 1779, with a Dedication signed “R. B. Sheridan.” R. C.R.
INTRODUCTION
ACCORDING to the “Account of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Esq.,” in The European Magazine for February, 1782, “at the age of eighteen years, he joined with a friend in translating the Epistles of Aristænetus from the Greek.” According to a well-informed biography of Sheridan in the annual Public Characters for 1799, “A poetical translation of Aristænetus has been attributed to him, but the share he had in that version was very limited.” Beyond the fact that his friend was Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, the various enquiries of later years have not added greatly to the information that is summarised in those two concise sentences. It is certain that in November, 1770, when Halhed sent his translations to Sheridan, his collaborator had to write to a friend named Ker to buy him a copy of Aristænetus — and a Greek Grammar. In the May of the next year, the revised translation was in the hands of John Wilkie, who published it in August. Fraser Rae thought that the correspondence between the collaborators showed Sheridan’s share to have been little more than the correction and polishing of phrases. Moore attributed to Sheridan two entire Epistles — the Third and the Twelfth: Mr. Sichel, making no comments upon the two selected by Moore, attributed to Sheridan three Epistles — the First, the Ninth and the Thirteenth. To these he adds one other, the Last.
But the evidence of “style” and “superiority of workmanship” on which Mr. Sichel mainly depends, is by no means decisive. He declares— “Nor is Moore at sea in attributing the Last Epistle to Sheridan alone. It is quite after his manner, and aptly named The Rival Friends. It seems coloured with personal feeling, and it is full of sorrow for friendship lost by rivalry, but it is not Halhed that Sheridan means, still less Matthews whom he regrets.” The rival friend was some mysterious person, Mr. Sichel explains, designated “K—” (possibly meaning Kearney), in some unfinished pastorals of this period. Nevertheless, Moore said very definitely that this Last Epistle was not Sheridan’s, but Halhed’s own: —
But by far the most interesting part of the volume is the last Epistle of the book, “From a Lover resigning his Mistress to his Friend,” — in which Halhed has contrived to extract from the unmeaningness of the original a direct allusion to his own fate and, forgetting Aristænetus and his dull personages, thinks only of himself, and Sheridan, and Miss Linley.
Thee, then, my friend, — if yet a wretch may claim
A last attention by that once dear name, —
Thee I address: — the cause you must approve;
I yield you — what I cannot cease to love.
Be thine the blissful lot, the nymph be thine:
I yield my love, — sure, friendship may be mine.
Yet must no thought of me torment thy breast;
Forget me, if my griefs disturb thy rest,
Whilst still I’ll pray that thou may’st never know
The pangs of baffled love, or feel my woe.
After reading the whole of the Twenty-eight Epistles, which are written with moderate fluency, and here and there a well turned line, there seems no reason to suggest that Sheridan did more than “correct” the versions of Halhed. The present selection is, therefore, confined to the six Epistles attributed to Sheridan by Moore and Mr. Sichel. Whereafter, one may gracefully retire before Moore.
The young authors were sanguine that their volume, which they published under the combined initials of “H. S.” would bring them wealth, and demand their identity to be revealed to an admiring world. Thus Moore: —
The first account they heard of the reception of the work was flattering enough to prolong awhile this dream of vanity “It begins (writes Mr. Ker, in about a fortnight after the publication) to make some noise, and is fathered on Mr. Johnson, author of the English Dictionary, &c. See to-day’s Gazetteer. The critics are admirable in discovering a concealed author by his style, manner, &c.”
Their disappointment at the ultimate failure of the book was proportioned, we may suppose, to the sanguineness of their first expectations. But the reluctance, with which an author yields to the sad certainty of being unread, is apparent in the eagerness with which Halhed avails himself of every encouragement for a rally of his hopes. The Critical Review, it seems, had given the work a tolerable character, and quoted the first Epistle. The Weekly Review in The Public Ledger had also spoken well of it, and cited a specimen. The Oxford Magazine had transcribed two whole Epistles, without mentioning from whence they were taken. Every body, he says, seemed to have read the book, and one of those hawking booksellers who attend the coffee-houses assured him it was written by Dr. Armstrong, author of The (Economy of Love. On the strength of all this he recommends that another volume of the Epistles should be published immediately — being of opinion that the readers of the first volume would be sure to purchase the second, and that the publication of the second would put it in the heads of others to buy the first. Under a sentence containing one of these sanguine anticipations, there is written, in Sheridan’s hand, the word “Quixote!”
They were never, of course, called upon for the second part, and, whether we consider the merits of the original or of the translation, the world has but little to regret in the loss. Aristaenetus is one of those weak, florid sophists, who flourished in the decline and degradation of ancient literature, and strewed their gaudy flowers of rhetoric over the dead muse of Greece. He is evidently of a much later period than Alciphron, to whom he is also very inferior in purity of diction, variety of subject, and playfulness of irony. But neither of them ever deserved to be wakened from that sleep, in which the commentaries of Bergler, De Pauw, and a few more such industrious scholars have shrouded them.
The translators of Aridaenetus, in rendering his flowery prose into verse, might have found a precedent and model for their task in Ben Jonson, whose popular song, “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” is, as Mr. Cumberland first remarked, but a piece of fanciful mosaic, collected out of the love-letters of the sophid Philodratus. But many of the narrations in Aristaenetus are incapable of being elevated into poetry; and, unluckily, these familiar parts seem chiefly to have fallen to the department of Halhed, who was far less gifted than his coadjutor with that artist-like touch, which polishes away the mark of vulgarity, and gives an air of elegance even to poverty.
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1771
THE critics have not yet decided at what time Aristænetus appeared, or indeed whether or not he ever existed; for, as he is mentioned by no ancient author, it has been conjectured that there never was such a person, and that the name prefixed to the first Epistle was taken by the publisher for that of the writer. This work was never known nor heard of till Sambucus gave it to the world in the year 1566; since which time there have been several editions of it published at Paris, where the book seems to have been held in greater estimation than amongst us. As to the real date of its composition, we have nothing but conjecture to offer. By the twenty-sixth Epistle it should seem
that the author lived in the time of the later emperors, when Byzantium was called New Rome: and therein mention is made of the pantomime actor Caramallus, who was contemporary with Sidonius Apollinaris.
These Epistles are certainly terse, elegant, and very poetical, both in language, and sentiment; yet pleasing as they are, they have scarcely anything original in them, being a cento from the writings of Plato, Lucian, Philostratus, and almost all the ancient Greek authors, whose sentences are most agreeably woven together, and applied to every passion incident to love. This circumstance, though it may lessen our idea of the intention of the author, should not in the least depreciate the performance, as it opens to us a new source of entertainment, in contemplating the taste of the composer in the selection of his sentences, and his ingenuity in the application of them, whilst the authority and reputation of the works from whence these sweets are extracted, adds dignity to the subject on which they are bestowed.
Having said thus much of the original, custom seems to demand some apology for the translation. And, first, it may to some appear a whimsical undertaking to give a metrical translation of a prosaic author; but the English reader, it is to be presumed, will not find any deficiency of poetical thoughts on that account, however the diction may have suffered by passing through unworthy hands; and to such as are acquainted with that elegant luxuriance which characterizes the Greek prose, this point will not need a solution. Nor can it be deemed derogatory from the merit of our own language to affirm, that the superiority of the Greek in this respect is so forcible, that even the mod trifling of these Epistles mud have suffered considerably both in spirit and simplicity, if committed to the languid formality of an English prosaic translation.
The ingenious Tom Brown has translated, or rather imitated, some select pieces from this collection, but he either totally misconceived the spirit of his author, or was very unequal to the execution of it. He presents you, it is true, with a portrait of the author, and a portrait that has some resemblance to him; but it is painted in a bad attitude, and placed in a disadvantageous light. In the original, the language is neat, though energetic; it is elegant as well as witty. Brown has failed in both; and though a strict adherence to these points in a metrical translation may be esteemed difficult, yet it is hoped that the English dress in which Aristænetus is at present offered to the public, will appear to become him more than any he has ever worn in this country.
Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan Page 53
