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And, after fruitless efforts, you return
Without amendment, and he answers, "Burn!"-
That instant throw your paper in the fire,
Ask not his thoughts, or follow his desire;
But if (true bard!) you scorn to condescend,
And will not alter what you can't defend,
If you will breed this bastard of your brains,*—
We'll have no words-I've only lost my pains.
Yet, if you only prize your favourite thought
As critics kindly do, and authors ought;
If your cool friend annoy you now and then,
And cross whole pages with his plaguy pen;
No matter, throw your ornaments aside-
Better let him than all the world deride,
Give light to passages too much in shade,
Nor let a doubt obscure one verse you've made;
Your friend's "a Johnson," not to leave one word,
However trifling, which may seem absurd;
Such erring trifles lead to serious ills,

And furnish food for critics,† or their quills.
As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching tone,
Or the sad influence of the angry moon,
All men avoid bad writers' ready tongues,
As yawning waiters flyt Fitzscribble's lungs;
Yet on he mouths-ten minutes-tedious each
As prelate's homily or placeman's speech;
Long as the last years of a lingering lease,
When riot pauses until rents increase.
While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, strays
Q'er hedge and ditch, through unfrequented ways,

Vir bonus et prudens versus reprehendet inertes:
Culpabit et duros; incomptis allinet atrum
Transverso calamo signum; ambitiosa recidet
Ornamenta; parum claris lucem dare coget;
Arguet ambigue dictum; mutanda notabit;
Fiet Aristarchus: nec dicet, Cur ego amicum
Offendam in nugis? hæ nugæ seria ducent
In mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistre.
Ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urguet,
Aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana,
Vesanum tetigisse timent fugiunque poetam,
Qui sapiunt; agitant pueri, incautique sequuntur.
Hic dum sublimes versus ructatur, et errat
Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps
In puteum, foveamve; licet, Succurrite, longum
Clamet, Io cives! non sit qui tollere curet.
Si quis curet opem ferre, et demittere funem,
Qui scis an prudens huc se dejecerit, atque
Servari nolit? Dicam: Siculique poetæ
Narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis haberi
Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Ætnam
Insiluit sit jus liceatque perire poetis:
Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti.
Nec semel hoc fecit; nec, si retractus erit, jam
Fiet homo, et ponet famosæ mortis amorem.
Nec satis apparet cùr versus factitet; utrum
Minxerit in patrios cineres, an triste bidental
Moverit incestus; certe furit, ac velut ursus,

* Bastard of your brains.-Minerva being the first by Jupiter's head-piece, and a variety of equally unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, &c. &c. &c.

"A crust for the critics."-Bayes, in the Rehearsal.

↑ And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, Sic" (that is, by noaking Fitz, with bad wine or worse poetry) "me Krvavit Apollo !""

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If by some chance he walks into a well,
And shouts for succour with stentorian yell,
"A rope! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace !"
Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a pace:
For there his carcase he might freely fling,
From frenzy, or the humour of the thing.
Though this has happen'd to more bards than one
I'll tell you Budgell's story, and have done.

Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for no good,
(Unless his case be much misunderstood)
When teased with creditors' continual claims,
"To die like Cato,"§ leapt into the Thames!
And therefore be it lawful through the town
For any bard to poison, hang, or drown.
Who saves the intended suicide receives

Small thanks from him who loathes the life he leaves
And, sooth to say, mad poets must not lose
The glory of that death they freely choose.
Nor is it certain that some sorts of verse
Prick not the poet's conscience as a curse;
Dosed with vile drams on Sunday he was found
Or got a child on consecrated ground!

And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage-
Fear'd like a bear just bursting from his cage.
If free, all fly his versifying fit,

Fatal at once to simpleton or wit.

But him, unhappy! whom he seizes,-him

He flays with recitation limb by limb;
Probes to the quick where'er he makes his breach,
And gorges like a lawyer or a leech.

Objectos caveæ valuit si frangere clathros,
Indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus.
Quem vero arripuit, tenet, occiditque legendo,
Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo

§ On his table were found these words: What Cato did and Addison ap proved cannot be wrong." But Addison did not "approve ;" and if he had. it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water party, but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of “Atticus,” and the enemy of Pope.

If "dosed with," &c. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate ♫ Minxerit in patries cineres," &c. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couple! in lieu of the present.

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"Difficile est proprie communia dicere."—Mde. Dacier, Mde. de Sevigne, Boileau, and others, have left their dispute on the meaning of this passage in a tract considerably longer than the poem of Horace. It is printed at the close of the eleventh volume of Madame de Sevigne's Letters, edited by Grovelle, Paris, 1806. Presuming that all who can construe may venture an opinion on such subjects, particularly as so many who can not have taken the same liberty, I should have held my "farthing candle" as awk wardly as another, had not my respect for the wits of Louis the Fourteenth's Augustan siecle induced me to subjoin these illustrious authorities. 1st, Boileau: "Il est difficile de traiter des sujets qui sont a la portee de tout lá monde d'une maniere qui vous les rende propres, ce qui s'appelle s'approprier un sujet par le tour qu' on donne." 2dly, Batteux: "Mais il est bien difficile de donner des traits propres et individuels aux etres purement possibles." 3dly, Dacier: "Il est difficile de traiter convenablement ces caracteres que fout le monde peut inventer." Mde. de Sevigne's opinion and translation, consisting of some thirty pages, Iomit, particularly as M. Grouvelle observes "La chose est bien remarquable, aucune de ces diverses interpretations ne parait etre la veritable." But, by way of comfort, it seems, fifty years afterwards, "Le lumineux Dumarsais" made his appearance to set Horace on his legs again, "dissiper tous les nuages, et concilier tous les dissentimens ;" and, some fifty years hence, somebody, still more luminous, will doubtless start up and demolish Dumarsais and his system on this weighty affair, as if he were no better than Ptolemy and Tycho, or comments of no more consequence than astronomical calculations on the presen! I am happy to say, "la longueur de la dissertation" of M. D. pro vents M. G. from saying any more on the matter. A better poet than Boilea and at least as good a scholar as Sevigne, has said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing." And by this comparison of comments it may be perceived how a good de may be rendered 2 xerilous to the proprietors

comet.

722

Additions to the Hours of Idleness.

[There were several editions of the Hours of Idleness published in England; but no one of them, until that of 1832, contained all the pieces which properly belonged to that collection The following, when added to those in front of the book, make up the complete number.]

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Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you!
Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast;
Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you;
Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest.
8.

To Ida full of may remembrance restore me,
While fate shall the shades of the future unroll!
ince darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me,
More dear is the beam of the past to my soul.
9.

But it, through the course of the years which await me, Some new scene of pleasure should open to view,

1 will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me,

*Oh! such were the days which my fancy knew." 1806.

TO D. 1.

In thee I fondly hoped to clasp

A friend, whom death alone could sever; Till envy, with malignant grasp, Detach'd thee from my breast for ever.

2.

True, she has forced thee from my breast; Yet in my heart thou keep'st thy seat; There, there thine image still must rest, Until that heart shall cease to beat.

3.

And, when the grave restores her dead,
When life again to dust is given,

On thy dear breast I'll lay my head--
Without thee, where would be my heaven ?
February, 1803.

TO EDDLESTON.

1...

Let Folly smile, to view the names
Of thee and me in friendship twined;
Yet Virtue will have greater claims
To love, than rank with vice combined.
2.

And though unequal is thy, fate,
Since title deck'd my higher birth;
Yet envy not this gaudy state;

Thine is the pride of modest worth.
3.

Our souls at least congenial meet,
Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace;
Our intercourse is not less sweet,
Since worth of rank supplies the place.
November, 1802.

REPLY TO SOME VERSES OF J. M B. PIGOT, ESQ ON THE CRUELTY OF HIS MISTRESS.

1.

Why, Pigot, complain

Of this damsel's disdain,

Why thus in despair do you fret?

For months you may try,
Yet, believe me, a sigh

Will never obtain a coquette.

2.

Would you teach her to love?
For a time seem to rove;

At first she may frown in a pet;
But leave her a while,

She shortly will smile,

And then you may kiss your coquette

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LINES WRITTEN IN “LETTERS OF AN ITALIAN
NUN AND AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. BY J. J.
ROUSSEAU. FOUNDED ON FACTS."

"Away, away! your flattering arts
May now betray some simpler hearts;
And you will smile at their believing,
And they shall weep at your deceiving."

NSWER TO THE FOREGoing, addrESSED TO MISS
Dear, simple girl, those flattering arts,
From which thou'dst guard frail female hearts,
Exist but in imagination,-

Mere phantoms of thine own creation;
For he who views that witching grace,
That perfect form, that lovely face,
With eyes admiring, oh! believe me,
He never wishes to deceive thee:
Once in thy polish'd mirror glance,
Thou 'lt there descry that elegance
Which from our sex demands such praises,
But envy in the other raises:

Then he who tells thee of thy beauty,
Believe me, only does his duty:
Ah! fly not from the candid youth;
It is not flattery,-'tis truth.

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July, 1804.

Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, Have for my weakness oft reproved me; Yet still the simple gift I prize,

For I am sure the giver loved me.
3.

He offer'd it with downcast look,
As fearful that I might refuse it;
I told him when the gift I took,
My only fear should be to lose it.
4.

This pledge attentively I view'd,
And sparkling as I held it near,
Methought one drop the stone bedew'd,!
And ever since I've loved a tear.

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ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY Cousin to the Author, and very dear to him. 1.

Hush'd are the winds, and still the evening glow Not e'en a zephyr, wanders through the grove, Whilst I return to view my Margaret's tomb, And scatter flowers on the dust I love.

2.

Within this narrow cell reclines her clay,

That clay where once such animation beam'd; The King of Terrors seized her as his prey, Not worth, nor beauty, have her life redeem'd 3.

Oh! could that King of Terrors pity feel,

Or Heaven reverse the dread decrees of fate! Not here the mourner would his grief reveal, Nor here the Muse her virtues would relate. 4.

But wherefore weep? her matchless spirit soars Beyond where splendid shines the orb of day; And weeping angels lead her to those bowers Where endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay.

5.

And shall presumptuous mortals heaven arraign,
And, madly, godlike providence accuse?
Ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain,
I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse.
6.

Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear,

Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face; Still they call forth my warm affection's tear, Still in my heart retain their wonted place.

ΤΟ ΕΜΜΑ. 1.

Since now the hour is come at last,

When you must quit your anxious lover; Since now our dream of bliss is past, One pang, my girl, and all is over. 2.

Alas! that pang will be severe,

Which bids us part to meet no more, Which tears me far from one so dear, Departing for a distant shore.

3.

Well: we have pass'd some happy hours,
And joy will mingle with our tears;
When thinking on these ancient towers,
The shelter of our infant years;
4.

Where from the gothic casement's height,
We view'd the lake, the park, the dale,
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,
We lingering look a last farewell.

5.

O'er fields through which we used to run,
And spend the hours in childish play;
O'er shades where, when our race was done
Reposing on my breast you lay;

6.

Whilst I, admiring, too remiss,
Forgot to scare the hov'ring flies,

Yet envied every fly the kiss

It dared to give your slumbering eyes:

7.

See still the little painted bark,

In which I row'd you o'er the lake; See there, high waving o'er the park, The elm I clamber'd for your sake.

8.

These times are past-our joys are gone, You leave me, leave this happy vale; These scenes I must retrace alone;

Without thee what will they avail?

9.

Who can conceive, who has not proved,
The anguish of a last embrace?
When, torn from all you fondly loved,
You bid a long adieu to peace.
10.

This is the deepest of our woes,

For this these tears our cheeks bedew;

This is of love the final close,

Oh, God, the fondest, last adieu!

TO M. S. G. 1.

WHENE'ER I view those lips of thine, Their hue invites my fervent kiss; Yet I forego that bliss divine,

Alas! it were unhallow'd bliss.

2.

Whene'er I dream of that pure breast,
How could I dwell upon its snows?

Yet is the daring wish represt,

For that, would banish its repose.
3.

A glance from thy soul-searching eye
Can raise with hope, depress with fear;

Yet I conceal my love, and why?

I would not force a painful tear.
4.

I ne'er have told my love, yet thou
Hast seen my ardent flame too well;
And shall I plead my passion now,
To make thy bosom's heaven a hell?
5.

No! for thou never canst be mine,
United by the priest's decree;

By any ties but those divine,

Mine, my beloved, thou ne'er shalt be. 6.

Then let the secret fire consume,
Let it consume, thou shalt not know;
With joy I court a certain doom,
Rather than spread its guilty glow.
77.

I will not ease my tortured heart,
By driving dove-eyed peace from thine;
Rather than such a sting impart,

Each thought presumptuous I resign.

8.

Yes! yield those lips, for which I'd brave
More than I here shall dare to tell;
Thy innocence and mine to save,-
I bid thee now a last farewell.

9.

Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair, And hope no more thy soft embrace, Which to obtain my soul would dare, All, all reproach, but thy disgrace.

10.

At least from guilt shalt thou be free, No matron shall thy shame reprove; Though cureless pangs may prey on me, No martyr shalt thou be to love.

TO CAROLINE. 1.

THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffused in tears, implore to stay;

And heard unmoved thy plenteous sighs, Which said far more than words can say ? 2.

Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
When love and hope lay both o'erthrown ;
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast
Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own.
3.

But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd,
When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine,
The tears that from my eyelids flow'd
Were lost in those that fell from thine.

4.

Thou could'st not feel my burning cheek, Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame And as thy tongue essay'd to speak,

In sighs alone it breathed my name.
5.

And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
In vain our fate in sighs deplore;
Remembrance only can remain.-

But that will make us weep the more.
6.

Again, thou best beloved, adieu!

Ah! if thou canst o'ercome regret, Nor let thy mind past joys review,Our only hope is to forget!

TO CAROLINE. 1.

WHEN I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not believe;
For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive
2.

Yet still, this fond bosom regrets while adoring,
That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sear,
That age will come on, when, remembrance, deploring
Contemplates the scenes of her youth with a tear.
3.

That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to the

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