In mood and figure these keep up the din;
Words multiply, and every word tells in.

Her hundred throats here bawling Slander strains ;
And unclothed Venus to her tongue gives reins
In terms which Demosthenic force outgo,
And baldest jests of foul-mouth'd Cicero.
Right in the midst great Ate keeps her stand,
And from her sovereign station taints the land.
Hence pulpits rail; grave senates learn to jar;
Quacks scold; and Billinsgate infects the bar.

PINDARIC ODE TO THE TREAD-MILL.

I.

INSPIRE my spirit, spirit of De Foe,
That sang the pillory,

In loftier strains to show

A more sublime machine

Than that where thou wert seen,

With neck outstretch'd and shoulders ill awry, Courting coarse plaudits from the vile crowds belowA most unseemly show!

In such a place

II.

Who could expose thy face,

Historiographer of deathless Crusoe!

That paint'st the strife

And all the naked ills of savage life,

Far above Rousseau ?

Rather myself had stood

In that ignoble wood,

Bare to the mob, on holyday or high day.

If naught else could atone

For waggish libel,

I swear on the Bible,

I would have spared him for thy sake alone,

Man Friday!

III.

Our ancestors' were sour days,

Great master of romance!

A milder doom had fallen to thy chance.

In our days:

Thy sole assignment

Some solitary confinement,

(Not worth thy care a carrot,)

Where in world-hidden cell

Thou thy own Crusoe might have acted well,
Only without the parrot;

By sure experience taught to know

Whether the qualms thou mak'st him feel were truly

But stay! methinks in statelier measure—
A more companionable pleasure-
I see thy steps the mighty tread-mill trace
(The subject of my song,

Delay'd, however, long,)

And some of thine own race,

To keep thee company, thou bring'st with thee along

There with thee go,

Link'd in like sentence,

With regulated pace and footing slow,

Each old acquaintance,

Rogue-harlot-thief-that live to future ages;
Through many a labour'd tome,

Rankly embalm'd in thy too natural pages.
Faith, friend De Foe, thou art quite at home!
Not one of thy great offspring thou dost lack,
From pirate Singleton to pilfering Jack.
Here Flandrian Moll her brazen incest brags ;
Vice-stripp'd Roxana, penitent in rags,

There points to Amy, treading equal chimes,
The faithful handmaid to her faithless crimes.

Incompetent my song to raise

To its just height thy praise,
Great mill!

That by thy motion proper

(No thanks to wind, or sail, or working rill) Grinding that stubborn corn, the human will,

Turn'st out men's consciences,

That were begrimed before, as clean and sweet
As flour from purest wheat,

Into thy hopper.

All reformation short of thee but nonsense is,
Or human, or divine.

Compared with thee,

VI.

What are the labours of that jumping sect,
Which feeble laws connive at rather than respect ?
Thou dost not bump,

Or jump,

But walk men into virtue; between crime
And slow repentance giving breathing time,
And leisure to be good;

Instructing with discretion demi-reps
How to direct their steps.

VII.

Thou best philosopher made out of wood!
Not that which framed the tub,
Where sat the cynic cub,

With nothing in his bosom sympathetic;

But from those groves derived, I deem,
Where Plato nursed his dream

Of immortality;

Seeing that clearly

Thy system all is merely

Peripatetic.

Thou to thy pupils dost such lessons give

Of how to live

With temperance, sobriety, morality,

(A new art,)

That from thy school, by force of virtuous deeds, Each Tyro now proceeds

A "Walking Stewart !"

GOING OR GONE.

I.

FINE merry franions,
Wanton companions,

My days are ev'n banyans

With thinking upon ye!

How Death, that last stinger,
Finis-writer, end-bringer,
Has laid his chill finger,
Or is laying on ye.

n.

There's rich Kitty Wheatley,
With footing it featly
That took me completely,

She sleeps in the Kirk Hous

And poor Polly Perkin,

Whose dad was still firking

The jolly ale firkin,

She's gone to the work-house

Fine gard'ner, Ben Carter,
(In ten counties no smarter,)
Has ta'en his departure

For Proserpine's orchards;

And Lily, postillion,

With cheeks of vermilion,

Is one of a million

That fill up the churchyards;

IV.

And, lusty as Dido,

Fat Clemitson's widow

Flits now a small shadow
By Stygian hid ford;
And good Master Clapton
Has thirty years nap't on,
The ground he last hap't on,
Intomb'd by fair Widford;

And gallant Tom Dockwra,
Of Nature's finest crockery,
Now but thin air and mockery
Lurks by Avernus,

Whose honest grasp of hand
Still, while his life did stand,
At friend's or foe's command,
Almost did burn us.

432

VI.

Roger de Coverley

Not more good man than he;
Yet has he equally

Push'd for Cocytus,

With drivelling Worral,
And wicked old Dorrell,

'Gainst whom I've a quarrel,

Whose end might affright us!

VII.

Kindly hearts have I known;
Kindly hearts, they are flown;
Here and there if but one
Linger yet uneffaced,

Imbecile tottering elves,

Soon to be wreck'd on shelves,
These scarce are half themselves,
With age and care crazed.

VIII.

But this day Fanny Hutton
Her last dress has put on ;
Her fine lessons forgotten,

She died as the dunce died;

And prim Betsy Chambers,
Decay'd in her members,
No longer remembers

Things, as she once did;

IX.

And prudent Miss Wither
Not in jest now doth wither,
And soon must go-whither

Nor I well, nor you know;
And flaunting Miss Waller,
That soon must befall her,
Whence none can recall her,

Though proud once as Juno!

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