Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

FROM "RURAL ELEGANCE."

AN ODE TO THE DUCHESS OF SOMERSET.*

WHILE orient skies restore the day,

And dew-drops catch the lucid ray;
Amid the sprightly scenes of morn,
Will aught the muse inspire!
Oh! peace to yonder clamorous horn
That drowns the sacred lyre!

Ye rural thanes, that o'er the mossy down
Some panting, timorous hare pursue;
Does nature mean your joys alone to crown?

Say, does she smooth her lawns for you?
For you does Echo bid the rocks reply,
And, urged by rude constraint, resound the jovial
cry!

See from the neighbouring hill, forlorn,

The wretched swain your sport survey:
He finds his faithful fences torn,

He finds his labour'd crops a prey;
He sees his flock-no more in circles feed;
Haply beneath your ravage bleed,

And with no random curses loads the deed.

Nor yet, ye swains, conclude

That nature smiles for you alone;

Your bounded souls, and your conceptions crude,
The proud, the selfish boast disown;
Yours be the produce of the soil:
O may it still reward your toil!
Nor ever the defenceless train

Of clinging infants ask support in vain!

But though the various harvest gild your plains,
Does the mere landscape feast your eye?

Or the warm hope of distant gains
Far other cause of glee supply?

Is not the red-streak's future juice

The source of your delight profound, Where Ariconium pours her gems profuse, Purpling a whole horizon round? Athirst ye praise the limpid stream, 'tis true: But though, the pebbled shores among, It mimic no unpleasing song, The limpid fountain murmurs not for you. Unpleased ye see the thickets bloom, Unpleased the spring her flowery robe resume: Unmoved the mountain's airy pile, The dappled mead without a smile. O let a rural conscious Muse,

For well she knows, your froward sense accuse; Forth to the solemn oak you bring the square, And span the massy trunk, before you cry, 'tis fair.

Nor yet, ye learn'd, nor yet, ye courtly train, If haply from your haunts ye stray To waste with us a summer's day, Exclude the taste of every swain, Nor our untutor'd sense disdain : 'Tis Nature only gives exclusive right To relish her supreme delight; She, where she pleases kind or coy, Who furnishes the scene and forms us to enjoy.

[*The Lady Hertford of Thomson's Spring.]

[blocks in formation]

ODE TO MEMORY.

O MEMORY! celestial maid!

Who glean'st the flowerets cropt by Time; And suffering not a leaf to fade,

Preservest the blossoms of our prime; Bring, bring those moments to my mind When life was new, and Lesbia kind. And bring that garland to my sight,

With which my favour'd crook she bound; And bring that wreath of roses bright

Which then my festive temples crown'd; And to my raptured ear convey The gentle things she deign'd to say. And sketch with care the Muse's bower, Where Isis rolls her silver tide;

Nor yet omit one reed or flower

That shines on Cherwell's verdant side; If so thou may'st those hours prolong, When polish'd Lycon join'd my song.

The song it 'vails not to recite

But sure, to soothe our youthful dreams, Those banks and streams appear'd more bright Than other banks, than other streams:

Or, by thy softening pencil shown,
Assume thy beauties not their own!

And paint that sweetly vacant scene,

When, all beneath the poplar bough, My spirits light, my soul serene,

I breathed in verse one cordial vow: That nothing should my soul inspire, But friendship warm, and love entire. Dull to the sense of new delight,

On thee the drooping Muse attends; As some fond lover, robb'd of sight,

On thy expressive power depends; Nor would exchange thy glowing lines, To live the lord of all that shines. But let me chase those vows away Which at ambition's shrine I made;

Nor ever let thy skill display

Those anxious moments, ill repaid: Oh! from my breast that season raze, And bring my childhood in its place. Bring me the bells, the rattle bring,

And bring the hobby I bestrode; When, pleased, in many a sportive ring, Around the room I jovial rode : Ev'n let me bid my lyre adieu, And bring the whistle that I blew. Then will I muse, and pensive say,

Why did not these enjoyments last; How sweetly wasted I the day,

While innocence allow'd to waste!
Ambition's toils alike are vain,
But, ah! for pleasure yield us pain.

HENRY CAREY.

[Died, Oct. 1743.]

HENRY CAREY was a musician by profession, and author both of the words and melody of the

pleasing song of "Sally in our Alley." He came to an untimely death by his own hands.

SALLY IN OUR ALLEY.*

Of all the girls that are so smart,
There's none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land,
Is half so sweet as Sally:
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

Her father he makes cabbage-nets,

And through the streets does cry 'em ; Her mother she sells laces long,

To such as please to buy 'em:
But sure such folks could ne'er beget
So sweet a girl as Sally!
She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

When she is by, I leave my work,
(I love her so sincerely,)
My master comes like any Turk,
And bangs me most severely:

[Carey in the third Edition of his Poems, published in 1729, before "the Ballad of Sally in our Alley," has placed this note:

THE ARGUMENT.

"A vulgar error having long prevailed among many persons, who imagine Sally Salisbury the subject of this balind, the Author begs leave to undeceive and assure them it has not the least allusion to her, he being a stranger to her very name at the time this Song was composed. For as innocence and virtue were ever the boundaries to his Muse, so in this little poem he had no other view than to set forth the beauty of a chaste and disinterested passion, even in the lowest class of human life. The real occasion was this: a Shoemaker's 'Prentice making holiday with his Sweetheart, treated her with a sight of Lediam, the puppet-shows, the flying-chairs, and all the

But, let him bang his belly full,
I'll bear it all for Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

Of all the days that's in the week,
I dearly love but one day;
And that's the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;

For then I'm dress'd all in my best,

To walk abroad with Sally; She is the darling of my heart,

And she lives in our alley.

My master carries me to church,
And often am I blamed,
Because I leave him in the lurch,
As soon as text is named:

I leave the church in sermon time
And slink away to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

elegancies of Moorfields: from whence proceeding to the Farthing-pie-house, he gave her a collation of buns, cheesecakes, gammon of bacon, stuff'd beef, and bottled ale; through all which scenes the Author dodged them, (charmed with the simplicity of their courtship,) from whence he drew this little sketch of nature; but being then young and obscure, he was very much ridiculed by some of his acquaintance for this performance; which nevertheless made its way into the polite world, and amply recompensed him by the applause of the divine Addison, who was pleased (more than once) to mention it with approbation," p. 127. There was some attempt to rob Carey of his right to his ballad, as there was to rob Denham, Garth, and Akenside, but it did not succeed then, though it occa sioned uneasiness to the author, nor will it now, when it can affect him no more.]

"

When Christmas comes about again,

Oh then I shall have money; I'll hoard it up, and box it all,

I'll give it to my honey:

I would it were ten thousand pounds,
I'd give it all to Sally;

She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

My master, and the neighbours all,
Make game of me and Sally;
And (but for her) I'd better be

A slave, and row a galley:

But when my seven long years are out, O then I'll marry Sally,

O then we'll wed, and then we'll bed, But not in our alley.

CHARLES CHURCHILL.

[Born, 1731. Died, 1764.]

He was the son of a respectable clergyman, who was curate and lecturer of St. John's, Westminster. He was educated at Westminster school, and entered of Trinity College, Cambridge, but not being disposed

"O'er crabbed authors life's gay prime to waste,
Or cramp wild genius in the chains of taste,"

he left the university abruptly, and coming to London made a clandestine marriage in the Fleet. His father, though much displeased at the proceeding, became reconciled to what could not be remedied, and received the imprudent couple for about a year under his roof. After this young Churchill went for some time to study theology at Sunderland, in the north of England, and having taken orders, officiated at Cadbury, in Somersetshire, and at Rainham, a living of his father's in Essex, till upon the death of his father, he succeeded in 1758 to the curacy and lectureship of St. John's, Westminster. Here he conducted himself for some time with a decorum suitable to his profession, and increased his narrow income by undertaking private tuition. He got into debt, it is true; and Dr. Lloyd, of Westminster, the father of his friend the poet, was obliged to mediate with his creditors for their acceptance of a composition; but when fortune put it into his power, Churchill honourably discharged all his obligations. His Rosciad appeared at first anonymously, in 1761, and was ascribed to one or other of half the wits in town; but his acknowledgment of it, and his poetical “Apology,” in which he retaliated upon the critical reviewers of his poem, (not fearing to affront even Fielding and Smollett,) made him at once famous and formidable. The players, at least, felt him to be

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

logy, courted him like a suppliant; and his satire had the effect of driving poor Tom Davies, the biographer of Garrick, though he was a tolerable performer, from the stage.† A letter from another actor, of the name of Davis, who seems rather to have dreaded than experienced his severity, is preserved in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, in which the poor comedian deprecates the poet's censure in an expected publication, as likely to deprive him of bread. What was mean in Garrick might have been an object of compassion in this humble man; but Churchill answered him with surly contempt, and holding to the plea of justice, treated his fears with the apparent satisfaction of a hangman. His moral character, in the mean time, did not keep pace with his literary reputation. As he got above neglect he seems to have thought himself above censure. His superior, the Dean of Westminster, having had occasion to rebuke him for some irregularities, he threw aside at once the clerical habit and profession, and arrayed his ungainly form in the splendour of fashion. Amidst the remarks of his enemies, and what he pronounces the still more insulting advice of his prudent friends upon his irregular life, he published his epistle to Lloyd, entitled Night, a sort of manifesto of the impulses, for they could not be called principles, by which he professed his conduct to be influenced. The leading maxims of this epistle are, that prudence and hypocrisy in these times are the same thing! that good hours are but fine words; and that it is better to avow faults than to conceal them. Speaking of his convivial enjoyments he says

"Night's laughing hours unheeded slip away, Nor one dull thought foretells approach of day." In the same description he somewhat awkwardly introduces

on the authority of Dr. Johnson. This Davies was the editor of Dramatic Miscellanies, and of the Life and Works of Lillo. The name of the other poor player who implored Churchill's mercy was T. Davis, his name being differently spelt from that of Garrick's biographier. Churchill's answer to him is also preserved by Nichols.

"Wine's gay God, with TEMPERANCE by his side, Whilst HEALTH attends."

How would Churchill have belaboured any fool or hypocrite who had pretended to boast of health and temperance in the midst of orgies that turned night into day.

By his connexion with Wilkes he added political to personal causes of animosity, and did not diminish the number of unfavourable eyes that were turned upon his private character. He had certainly, with all his faults, some strong and good qualities of the heart; but the particular proofs of these were not likely to be sedulously collected as materials of his biography, for he had now placed himself in that light of reputation when a man's likeness is taken by its shadow and darkness. Accordingly, the most prominent circumstances that we afterward learn respecting him are, that he separated from his wife, and seduced the daughter of a tradesman in Westminster. At the end of a fortnight, either from his satiety or repentance, he advised this unfortunate woman to return to her friends; but took her back again upon her finding her home made intolerable by the reproaches of a sister.* His reputation for inebriety also received some public acknowledgments. Hogarth gave as much celebrity as he could to his love of porter, by representing him in the act of drinking a mug of that liquor in the shape of a bear; but the painter had no great reason to congratulate himself ultimately on the effects of his caricature. Our poet was included in the general warrant that was issued for apprehending Wilkes. He hid himself, however, and avoided imprisonment. In the autumn of 1764 he paid a visit to Mr. Wilkes at Boulogne, where he caught a miliary fever, and expired in his thirty-third year.‡

Churchill may be ranked as a satirist immediately after Pope and Dryden, with perhaps a greater share of humour than either. He has the bitterness of Pope, with less wit to atone for it; but no mean share of the free manner and energetic plainness of Dryden.§ After the Rosciad and Apology he began his poem of the Ghost,

[The only laudable part of Churchill's conduct during his short career of popularity was, that he carefully laid by a provision for those who were dependent on him. This was his meritorious motive for that greediness of gain with which he was reproached: as if it were any reproach to a successful author, that he doled out his writings in the way most advantageous for himself, and fixed upon them as high a price as his admirers were willing to pay! He thus enabled himself to bequeath an annuity of sixty pounds to his widow, and of fifty to the more unhappy woman, who, after they had both repented of their guilty intercouse, had fled to him again for the protection, which she knew not where else to seek. And when these duties had been provided for, there remaided some surplus for his two sons. Well would it be if he might be as fairly vindicated on other points.-SOUTHEY, Cowper, vol. ii. p. 160.]

[† Mr. Campbell has missed the point of the picture. Churchill is represented as a bear in clerical bands that are torn, and ruffled paws.]

["Only a day before that event took place," says Southey, "he made his will, wherein it is mournful to observe there is not the slightest expression of religious faith or hope?"

(founded on the well-known story of Cocklane,) many parts of which tradition reports him to have composed when scarce recovered from his fits of drunkenness. It is certainly a rambling and scandalous production, with a few such original gleams as might have crossed the brain of genius amidst the bile and lassitude of dissipation. The novelty of political warfare seems to have given a new impulse to his powers in the Prophecy of Famine, a satire on Scotland, which even to Scotchmen must seem to sheath its sting in its laughable extravagance. His poetical Epistle to Hogarth is remarkable, amidst its savage ferocity, for one of the best panegyrics that was ever bestowed on that painter's works. He scalps indeed even barbarously the infirmities of the man, but, on the whole, spares the laurels of the artist. The following is his description of Hogarth's powers.

"In walks of humour, in that cast of style,
Which, probing to the quick, yet makes us smile;
In comedy, his nat ral road to fame,
Nor let me call it by a meaner name,
Where a beginning, middle, and an end
Are aptly join'd; where parts on parts depend,
Each made for each, as bodies for their soul,
So as to form one true and perfect whole,
Where a plain story to the eye is told,
Which we conceive the moment we behold,
Hogarth unrivall'd stands, and shall engage
Unrivall'd praise to the most distant age."

There are two peculiarly interesting passages in his Conference. One of them, expressive of remorse for his crime of seduction, has been often quoted. The other is a touching description of a man of iudependent spirit reduced by despair and poverty to accept of the means of sustaining life on humiliating terms.

"What proof might do, what hunger might effect,
What famish'd nature, looking with neglect
On all she once held dear, what fear, at strife
With fainting virtue for the means of life,
Might make this coward flesh, in love with breath,
Shudd'ring at pain, and shrinking back from death,
In treason to my soul, descend to bear,
Trusting to fate, I neither know nor care.
Once, at this hour those wounds afresh I feel,
Which nor prosperity nor time can heal.

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

His body was brought from Boulogne to Dover, and interred in the church of St. Martin, where his grave is dis tinguished by what Mr. Southey calls an epicurean line from one of his own poems:

Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies. See also Byron's poem entitled "Churchill's Grave:" I stood before the grave of him who blazed The comet of a season.

(Works, vol. x. p. 287) and Scott's note.]

[Is he not rather an excellent Oldham? His poetical character, however, has been given by Cowper, in a few sententious lines,-see his Table Talk. Churchill, with his many excellencies, never rises to the poetical heights of Pope and Dryden. He is coarse, vigorous, surly, and slovenly:

full of gall

Wormwood and sulphur, sharp and toothed withal. Ben Johnson.

And has a swing of versification peculiarly his own.]

ון

Once, awed by fortune's most oppressive frown,
By legal rapine to the earth bow'd down,
My credit at last gasp, my state undone,
Trembling to meet the shock I could not shun,
Virtue gave ground, and black despair prevail'd:
Sinking beneath the storm, my spirits fail'd,
Like Peter's faith."

But without enumerating similar passages, which may form an exception to the remark, the general tenor of his later works fell beneath his

first reputation. His Duellist is positively dull; and his Gotham, the imaginary realm of which he feigns himself the sovereign, is calculated to remind us of the proverbial wisdom of its sages.* It was justly complained that he became too much an echo of himself, and that before his short literary career was closed, his originality appeared to be exhausted.

INTRODUCTION TO "THE ROSCIAD."

Roscius deceased, each high aspiring player Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair. The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage No longer whine in love, and rant in rage! The monarch quits his throne, and condescends Humble to court the favour of his friends; For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps, And their applause to gain, recounts his claps. Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome, To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume, In pompous strain fight o'er th' extinguish'd war, And show where honour bled in every scar.

But though bare merit might in Rome appear The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here; We form our judgment in another way; And they will best succeed who best can pay: Those, who would gain the votes of British tribes, Must add to force of merit force of bribes.

What can an actor give? In every age Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage; Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player, Appear as often as their image there: They can't, like candidate for other seat, Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat. Wine! they could bribe you with the world as

soon,

And of roast beef they only know the tune: But what they have they give: could Clive do more,

Though for each million he had brought home four?

Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair, And hopes the friends of humour will be there; In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat For those who laughter love instead of meat; Foote, at Old House, for even Foote will be In self-conceit an actor, bribes with tea; Which Wilkinson at second hand receives, And at the New, pours water on the leaves. The town divided, each runs several ways, As passion, humour, interest, party sways. Things of no moment, colour of the hair, Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair, A dress well-chosen, or a patch misplaced, Conciliate favour, or create distaste.

From galleries loud peals of laughter roll, And thunder Shuter's praises-he's so droll.

[Cowper was of another opinion. "Gotham," he says, "is a noble and beautiful poem: making allowance (and Dryden perhaps, in his Absalom and Achitophel, stands in

Embox'd, the ladies must have something smart,
Palmer! Oh! Palmer tops the janty part.
Seated in pit, the dwarf, with aching eyes,
Looks up, and vows that Barry's out of size;
Whilst to six feet the vig'rous stripling grown,
Declares that Garrick is another Coan.

When place of judgment is by whim supplied,
And our opinions have their rise in pride;
When, in discoursing on each mimic elf,
We praise and censure with an eye to self;
All must meet friends, and Ackman bids as fair
In such a court as Garrick for the chair.

At length agreed, all squabbles to decide, By some one judge the cause was to be tried; But this their squabbles did afresh renew, Who should be judge in such a trial:-Who?

For Johnson some, but Johnson, it was fear'd, Would be too grave: and Sterne too gay appear'd: Others for Francklin voted; but 'twas known, He sicken'd at all triumphs but his own: For Colman many, but the peevish tongue Of prudent age found out that he was young: For Murphy some few pilfering wits declared, Whilst Folly clapp'd her hands, and Wisdom stared.

CHARACTER OF A CRITICAL FRIBBLE.

FROM THE SAME.

WITH that low cunning, which in fools supplies, And amply too, the place of being wise, Which Nature, kind, indulgent parent, gave To qualify the blockhead for a knave; With that smooth falsehood, whose appearance

charms,

And reason of each wholesome doubt disarms,
Which to the lowest depths of guile descends,
By vilest means pursues the vilest ends,
Wears friendship's mask for purposes of spite,
Fawns in the day, and butchers in the night;
With that malignant envy, which turns pale,
And sickens, even if a friend prevail,
Which merit and success pursues with hate,
And damns the worth it cannot imitate;
With the cold caution of a coward's spleen,
Which fears not guilt, but always seeks a screen,
Which keeps this maxim ever in her view-
What's basely done, should be done safely too;

need of the same indulgence) for an unwarrantable use of Scripture, it appears to me to be a masterly performance." -SOUTHEY'S Cowper, vol. i. p. 91.]

« ZurückWeiter »