OF

EPISTLES TO HIS FRIENDS IN TOWN,

FROM ARISTIPPUS IN RETIREMENT.

The species of poetry, in which the following epistles are written, has been used, with great success, among the French, by Chapelle, Chaulieu, La Fare, Gresset, Madame Deshouliéres, and others; but I do not remember to have seen it before in the English language. The unconfined return of the rhymes, and easiness of the diction, seem peculiarly adapted to epistolary compositions. The author professedly imitates the general manner of the above-mentioned writers, but he is more particularly obliged to Gresset, for two or three hints in his performance, which he has acknowledged in the marginal notes. The reader will not forget, that these four epistles were written originally under a fictitious character.

Where dwell th' high vulgar of the town,
Which England's common courtesy,
To make bad fellowship go down,
Politely calls good company.
Remote from politics and strife,
From the dull sons of bus'ness free,
Unfetter'd by domestic life,
To letter'd ease a votary,
I spend alternately my hours
Twixt Epicurus' myrtle bow'rs
And Academus' palmy grove,
Happy, from Seine's meandring shores,
Where polish'd pleasures ever rove,
The first to bring the Thespian maids,
To play to Science and to Love
On Cyprian pipes in British shades.

No levées here attend his grace,
My-lording ev'ry morn an ass,
Nor office-clerks with busy face,
To make fools wonder as they pass,
Whisper dull nothings in his ear,
'Bout some rogue borough-monger there.
The well-bred insipidity

Of town assemblies ne'er is heard,
And candidates for prelacy,
That sable, supple, bowing herd,
This silent territory fly;

For bishoprics are seldom found
In realms of scientific ground.
No doctor's medicinal wig,
No titled beggar's suppliant knee,
No alderman with knighthood big
And newly purchas'd pedigree,
No vultures of the human race
From Temple or from Lincoln's-Inn,
No pseudo-patriot out of place,

Nor venal senator that's in,
Disturb this amiable retreat:
Only a Muse, a Love, or Grace,
In this calm senate have a seat.
Such representatives are free.
No Muse has lately been at court,
Nor are the Graces better for't;
Nor have the Loves septennially,
A borough-int'rest to support,
Mortgag'd their healths or property.

Led by unerring Nature's voice,
I haunt retirement's silent shade,
Contentment's humble lot and choice,
Where on the mossy sopha laid,
I see, thro' contemplation's eye,
The white-wing'd cherub innocence,
Each blessing of her native sky
To sympathetic hearts dispense.
Here, undebauch'd by spurious art,
Great Nature reigns in ev'ry part,
Both when refulgent Titan's beam
In high meridian splendour glows,
And when pale Cynthia's maiden gleam
O'er night a silver mantle throws.
The natives of the neighb'ring grove
Their nuptials chaunt on vernal sprays;
Uutaught by Ovid how to love,
True passion modulates their lays.
From no Propertius' polish'd strain,
The linnet forms her temp'rate note;
From no Tibullus learns to plain
The widow'd turtle's faithful throat.
Each feather'd libertine of air,
Gay as Catullus, loves and sings;
Free as the Teian sage from care,
The goldfinch claps his gilded wings,
And wooes his female to repair
To shady groves and crystal springs.
Here bless'd with freedom and content,
Untaught by devious thought to stray
Thro' fancy's visionary way,
These silvan bards of sentiment
Warble the dictates of the heart
Uninterrupted as they flow,
Unmeasur'd by the rules of art,
Now strongly high, now sweetly low.

Such scenes the good have ever lov'd,
The great have sought, the wise approv'd:
Here legislators plann'd of old
The pandects of immortal laws;
And mighty chiefs and heroes bold,
Withdrawn from popular applause,
First having left their countries free
From savage and from human pests,
Gain'd a more glorious victory
O'er the fierce tyrants of their breasts.
Methinks, I hear some courtier say,
"Such charms ideal ill agree
With moderniz'd gentility;
For now the witty, great, and gay,
Think what so charms your rural sense,
Only a clown's fit residence.
In former days a country life,

For so time-honour'd poets sing,

Free from anxiety and strife,

Was blandish'd by perpetual spring.

There the sweet Graces kept their court,

The Nymphs, the Fauns, and Dryads play'd,
Thither the uses would resort,

Apollo lov'd the sylvan shade,

The gods and heroes own'd a passion
For wives and daughters of the swains,
And heroines, whilst 'twas the fashion,
Ridotto'd on the rural plains.

The 'squires were then of heav'nly race,
The parsons fashionable too,
Young Hermes had at court a place,
Venus and Mars were folks one knew.
But long long since those times are o'er,
No goddess trips it o'er the lea,
The gods and heroes are no more,
Who danc'd to rural minstrelsy.
Detested are these sad abodes
By modern dames of mortal make,
And peers, who rank not with such gods,
Their solitary seats forsake.
For now 'tis quite another case,
The country wears a diff'rent face.
When sometimes, (oh! the cruel Lent!)
Thither her ladyship is sent,

As Sol thro' Taurus mounts the sky,
Or George prorogues his parliament,
Her beauteous bosom heaves a sigh,
Five months in rustic banishment.
Thither, alas! no viscounts rove,
Nor heart-bewitching col'nels come,
Dull is the music of the grove,
Unheeded fades the meadow's bloom.
The verdant copse may take the birds,
The breath of morn and evening's dew
To bleating flocks and lowing herds
Be pleasant and be wholesome too;
But how can these ('tis out of nature)
Have charius for any human creature!"
Such are the sentiments, I own,
Of all that lazy loitering race,
From daily ushers to his grace,
Who never leave the guilty town;
But in the purlieus of the court,

By knaves are spaniel'd up and down,
To fetch and carry each report.

Far other images arise

To those who inward turn their eyes
To view th' inhabitants of mind;
Where solitude's calm vot'ries find
Of knowledge th' inexhausted prize;
And truth, immortal truth bestows,
Clad in etherial robes of light,
Pure as the flakes of falling snows,
Unenvied unreprov'd delight.

Ou me, my lord, on humble me
The intellectual train attends;
Science oft seeks my company,
And Fancy's children are my friends.
Here bless'd with independent ease,
1 look with pity on the great,
For who, that with enjoyment sees
The Laughs and Graces at his gate,
And little Loves attending nigh,
Or fondly hov'ring o'er his head,
To wing his orders thro' the sky,
Whilst warbling Muses round him shed
Sweet flow'rs, which on Parnassus blow,
Would wish those thorny paths to tread,
Which slaves and courtiers only know.
Thanks to my ancestors and Heav'n,
To me the happier lot is giv'n,
In calm retreat my time to spend
With far far better company,
Than those who on the court attend

In honourable drudgery.

Warriors and statesmen of old Rome
Duly observe my levée-day,

And wits from polish'd Athens come,
Occasional devoirs to pay.
With me great Plato often holds
Discourse upon immortal pow'rs,
And Attic Xenophon unfolds
Rich honey from Lyceum flow'rs;
Cæsar and Tully often dine,
Anacreon rambles in my grove,
Sweet Horace drinks Falernian wine,
Catullus makes on haycocks love.
With these, and some a-kin to these,
The living few who grace our days,
I live in literary ease,

My chief delight their taste to please
With soft and unaffected lays.
Thus, to each vot'ry's wish, kind fate
Divides the world with equa! line,
She bids ambition, care, and state,
Be the high portion of the great,
Peace, friendship, love, and bliss be mine.

THE TEMPER OF ARISTIPPUS.

EPISTLE II.

TO LADY

Quo me cunque rapit tempestas deferor hospes.

I've oft, Melissa, heard you say,
"The world observes I never wear
An aspect gloomy or severe,
That, constitutionally gay,
Whether dark clouds obscure the sky,
Or Phœbus gilds the face of day,
In pleasure's true philosophy
I pass the winged years away."

In most, 'tis true, the human sense Is subjected to smiles, or tears,

To swelling pride, or trembling fears,
By ev'ry skyey influence."
Cameleon-like their souls agree

With all they hear and all they see,
Or, as one instrument resounds
Another's unison of sounds,
Their mutable complexions carry
The looks of anger, hope, and joy;
Just as the scenes around 'em vary,
Pleasures delight, or pains annoy.
But 1, by philosophic mood,
Let the wise call it happy folly,
Educe from ev'ry evil good,
And rapture e'en from melancholy.
When in the silent midnight grove,
Sweet Philomela swells her throat
With tremulous and plaintive note,
Expressive of disastrous love,
I with the pensive Pleasures dwell,
And in their calm sequester'd cell
Listen with rapturous delight
To the soft songster of the night.
Here Echo, in her mossy cave,
Symphonious to the love-lorn song,
Warbles the vocal rocks among,
Whilst gently-trickling waters lave

HORAT.

The oak-fring'd mountain's hoary brow,
Whose streams, united in the vale,
O'er pebbled beds loquacious flow,
Tun'd to the sad melodious tale
In murmurs querulously slow.
And, whilst immers'd in thought I lie,
From ages past and realms unseen,
There moves before the mental eye
The pleasing melancholy scene

Of nymphs and youths unfortunate,
Whose fame shall spread from shore to shore,
Preserv'd by bards from death and fate,
Till time itself shall be no more.

Thus, not by black misanthropy
Impell'd, to caves or rocks I fly;
But when, by chance or humour led,
My wand'ring feet those regions tread,
Taught by philosophy so sweet
To shun the fellowship of care,
Far from the world I go to meet
Such pleasures as inhabit there.

With rebel-will I ne'er oppose
The current of my destiny,
But, pliant as the torrent flows,
Receive my course implicitly.
As, from some shaded river's side
If chance a tender1osier's blown,
Subject to the coutrouling tide,
Th' obedient shrub is carried down.
Awhile it floats upon the streams,
By whirlpools now is forc'd below,
Then mounts again where Titan's beams
Upon the shining waters glow.
Sweet flow'ry vales it passes by,
Cities, and solitudes by turns,
Or where a dreary desert burns

In sorrowful obscurity.

For many a league the wand'rer's borne,
By forest, wood, mead, mountain, plain,
Till, carried never to return,

'Tis buried in the boundless main.
Thus Aristippus forms his plan;
To ev'ry change of times and fates
His temper he accommodates;

Not where he will, but where he can,
A daily bliss he celebrates.
An osier on the stream of time,
This philosophic wanderer
Floating thro' ev'ry place and clime,
Finds some peculiar blessing there.
Where e'er the winding current strays
By prosp'rous mount or adverse plain,
He 'li sport, till all his jocund days
Are lost in life's eternal main.

Let worldlings hunt for happiness
With pain, anxiety and strife,
Thro' ev'ry thorny path of life,
And ne'er th' ideal fair possess!
For who, alas! their passions send
The fleeting image to pursue,
Themselves their own designs undo,
And in the means destroy the end!
But I a surer clue have found,
To guide me o'er the mazy ground;
For knowing that this deity
Must ever rove at liberty

See the Chartreuse of Gresset, from whence this passage is imitated; but the subsequent particular application to Aristippus is this author's.

SHOULD Supercilious censors say "His youth is waining, 'tis not time For Aristippus now with rhime To while the useless hours away," I might reply, I do no more Than what my betters did before; That what at first my fancy led This idle business to pursue, Still makes me prosecute the trade, Because I've nothing else to do; But to the candid, Tom, and you, A better reason I could give, To whom a better reason's due, That in these measures I convey My gentle precepts, how to live, Clearer than any other way. For in the pow'rs of poetry, Wit, truth, and pleasure blended lie, As, in Italia's fertile vales,

GRESSET,

On the same tree, whilst blossoms blow,
The ripen'd fruits nectareous grow,
Fed by warm suns and fresh'ning gales.
Divinest art to mortals giv'n!

By thee, the brave, the good, the wise,
The fair, the learn'd, and witty, rise
From earth's dull sod, and people heav'n.
Nor be't to thec imputed blame,
That ever-barking calumny,
And filthy-mouth'd obscenity,
Have oft usurp'd thy injur'd name!
Alas! the drops which Morning sheds
With dewy fingers on the meads,
The pink's and vi'lets tubes to fill,
Alike the noxious juices feed
Of deadly hemlock's pois'nous woed,
And give 'em fatal pow'r to kili!
Imagination loves to trace
Reason's immortal lineaments
In Fiction's necromantic face,
When Probability assents.

The fairest features Fiction wears,

When most like Truth th' inchantress looks,
As sweet Narcissa's shade appears,

In silent lakes and crystal brooks,
So like the life, we scarcely know
Where last to fix our wav'ring love,
Whether upon the form below,
Or on the real nymph above.
In each we see an angel's face,

Tho' for the substance breathe our sighs,
Whilst we the shadowy image trace
In the clear wave with longing eyes,

But should you ask me, why I choose,
Of all the laurel'd sisterhood
Th' inhabitants of Pindus' wood,
The least considerable Muse.

The vi'lets round the mountain's feet,
Whose humble gems unheeded blow,
Are to the shepherd's smeil inore sweet
Than lofty cedars on its brow.
Let the loud Epic sound th' alarms
Of dreadful war, and heroes sprung
From some immortal ancestry,
Clad in impenetrable arms

By Vulcan forg'd, my lyre is strung
With softer chords, my Muse more free
Wanders thro' Pindus' bumbler ways
In amiable simplicity:

Unstudy'd are her artless lays,
She asks no laurel for her brows;
Careless of censure or of praise,

She haunts where tender myrtle grows;
Fonder of happiness than fame,
To the proud bay prefers the rose,
Nor barters pleasure for a name.
On Nature's lap, reclin'd at ease,
I listen to her heav'nly tongue,
From her derive the pow'r to please,
From her receive th' harmonious time,
And what the goddess makes my song
In unpremeditated rhyme

Mellifluous flows, whilst young Desire,
Cull'd from th' elysian bloom of spring,
Strews flow'rs immortal round my lyre,
And Fancy's sportive children bring,
From blossom'd grove and lilied mead,
Fresh fragrant chaplets for my head.
The most, tho' softest of the Nine,
Euterpe, muse of gaiety

Queen of heart-soft'uing melody,
Allures my ear with notes divine.
In my retreat Euterpe plays,

Where Science, garlanded with flow'rs,
Enraptur'd listens to her lays
Beneath the shade of myrtle bow'rs.
This pleasing territory lies
Unvisited by common eyes,

Far from the prude's affected spleen,
Or bigot's surly godliness,
Where no coquettes, no jilts are seen,
Nor folly-fetter'd fops of dress;
Far from the vulgar high and low,
The pension'd great man's littleness;
Or those, who, prone to slav'ry, grow
Fit tools of others tyranny,
And, with a blind devotion, bow
To wooden blocks of quality;
Far from the land of Argument,
Where deep within their murky cells,
Figures and bloated Tropes are pent,'
And three-legg'd Syllogism dwells;
Far from the bubble-blowing race,
The school-men subtle and refin'd,

Who fill the thick skull's brainless space,
With puffs of theologic wind;

And all the grave pedantic train,
Which fairy Genius longs to biud

Hard with a comment's iron chain.

But, whilst such drones are driv'n away,

In my belov'd retreat remain

The fair, the witty, and the gay.

See Les Ombres of Gresset,