Chapter XXV: Canto III (5)

This author, who was very much respected by his contemporaries, and who translated a portion of the Odyssey in conjunction with Pope, was born May 20, 1683, at Newcastle, in Staffordshire; studied at Cambridge, which, owing to his nonjuring principles, he had to leave without a degree; and passed part of his life as a schoolmaster, and part of it as secretary to Charles, Earl of Orrery. By his tragedy of 'Mariamne' he secured a moderate competence; and during his latter years, spent his life comfortably as tutor in the house of Lady Trumbull. He died in 1730. His accomplishments were superior, and his character excellent. Pope, who was indebted to him for the first, fourth, nineteenth, and twentieth of the books of the Odyssey, mourns his loss in one of his most sincere-seeming letters. Fenton edited Waller and Milton, wrote a brief life of the latter poet,--with which most of our readers are acquainted,--and indited some respectable verse.

AN ODE TO THE RIGHT HON. JOHN LORD GOWER.

WRITTEN IN THE SPRING OF 1716.

1 O'er Winter's long inclement sway,
At length the lusty Spring prevails;
And swift to meet the smiling May,
Is wafted by the western gales.
Around him dance the rosy Hours,
And damasking the ground with flowers,
With ambient sweets perfume the morn;
With shadowy verdure flourished high,
A sudden youth the groves enjoy;
Where Philomel laments forlorn.

2 By her awaked, the woodland choir
To hail the coming god prepares;
And tempts me to resume the lyre,
Soft warbling to the vernal airs.
Yet once more, O ye Muses! deign
For me, the meanest of your train,
Unblamed to approach your blest retreat:
Where Horace wantons at your spring,
And Pindar sweeps a bolder string;
Whose notes the Aonian hills repeat.

3 Or if invoked, where Thames's fruitful tides,
Slow through the vale in silver volumes play;
Now your own Phoebus o'er the month presides,
Gives love the night, and doubly gilds the day;
Thither, indulgent to my prayer,
Ye bright harmonious nymphs, repair,
To swell the notes I feebly raise:
So with aspiring ardours warmed
May Gower's propitious ear be charmed
To listen to my lays.

4 Beneath the Pole on hills of snow,
Like Thracian Mars, the undaunted Swede[1]
To dint of sword defies the foe;
In fight unknowing to recede:
From Volga's banks, the imperious Czar
Leads forth his furry troops to war;
Fond of the softer southern sky:
The Soldan galls the Illyrian coast;
But soon, the miscreant Moony host
Before the Victor-Cross shall fly.

5 But here, no clarion's shrilling note
The Muse's green retreat can pierce;
The grove, from noisy camps remote,
Is only vocal with my verse:
Here, winged with innocence and joy,
Let the soft hours that o'er me fly
Drop freedom, health, and gay desires:
While the bright Seine, to exalt the soul,
With sparkling plenty crowns the bowl,
And wit and social mirth inspires.

6 Enamoured of the Seine, celestial fair,
(The blooming pride of Thetis' azure train,)
Bacchus, to win the nymph who caused his care,
Lashed his swift tigers to the Celtic plain:
There secret in her sapphire cell,
He with the Nais wont to dwell;
Leaving the nectared feasts of Jove:
And where her mazy waters flow
He gave the mantling vine to grow,
A trophy to his love.

7 Shall man from Nature's sanction stray,
With blind opinion for his guide;
And, rebel to her rightful sway,
Leave all her beauties unenjoyed?
Fool! Time no change of motion knows;
With equal speed the torrent flows,
To sweep Fame, Power, and Wealth away:
The past is all by death possessed;
And frugal fate that guards the rest,
By giving, bids him live To-Day.

8 O Gower! through all the destined space,
What breath the Powers allot to me
Shall sing the virtues of thy race,
United and complete in thee.
O flower of ancient English faith!
Pursue the unbeaten Patriot-path,
In which confirmed thy father shone:
The light his fair example gives,
Already from thy dawn receives
A lustre equal to its own.

9 Honour's bright dome, on lasting columns reared,
Nor envy rusts, nor rolling years consume;
Loud Paeans echoing round the roof are heard
And clouds of incense all the void perfume.
There Phocion, Laelius, Capel, Hyde,
With Falkland seated near his side,
Fixed by the Muse, the temple grace;
Prophetic of thy happier fame,
She, to receive thy radiant name,
Selects a whiter space.

[1] Charles XII.

ROBERT CRAWFORD.

Robert Crawford, a Scotchman, is our next poet. Of him we know only that he was the brother of Colonel Crawford of Achinames; that he assisted Allan Ramsay in the 'Tea-Table Miscellany;' and was drowned when coming from France in 1733. Besides the popular song, 'The Bush aboon Traquair,' which we quote, Crawford wrote also a lyric, called 'Tweedside,' and some verses, mentioned by Burns, to the old tune of 'Cowdenknowes.'

THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR.

1 Hear me, ye nymphs, and every swain,
I'll tell how Peggy grieves me;
Though thus I languish and complain,
Alas! she ne'er believes me.
My vows and sighs, like silent air,
Unheeded, never move her;
At the bonnie Bush aboon Traquair,
'Twas there I first did love her.

2 That day she smiled and made me glad,
No maid seemed ever kinder;
I thought myself the luckiest lad,
So sweetly there to find her;
I tried to soothe my amorous flame,
In words that I thought tender;
If more there passed, I'm not to blame--
I meant not to offend her.

3 Yet now she scornful flies the plain,
The fields we then frequented;
If e'er we meet she shows disdain,
She looks as ne'er acquainted.
The bonnie bush bloomed fair in May,
Its sweets I'll aye remember;
But now her frowns make it decay--
It fades as in December.

4 Ye rural powers, who hear my strains,
Why thus should Peggy grieve me?
Oh, make her partner in my pains,
Then let her smiles relieve me!
If not, my love will turn despair,
My passion no more tender;
I'll leave the Bush aboon Traquair--
To lonely wilds I'll wander.

THOMAS TICKELL.

Tickell is now chiefly remembered from his connexion with Addison. He was born in 1686, at Bridekirk, near Carlisle. In April 1701, he became a member of Queen's College in Oxford. In 1708, he was made M.A., and two years after was chosen Fellow. He held his Fellowship till 1726, when, marrying in Dublin, he necessarily vacated it. He attracted Addison's attention first by some elegant lines in praise of Rosamond, and then by the 'Prospect of Peace,' a poem in which Tickell, although called by Swift Whiggissimus, for once took the Tory side. This poem Addison, in spite of its politics, praised highly in the _Spectator_, which led to a lifelong friendship between them. Tickell commenced contributing to the _Spectator_, among other things publishing there a poem entitled the 'Royal Progress.' Some time after, he produced a translation of the first book of the Iliad, which Addison declared to be superior to Pope's. This led the latter to imagine that it was Addison's own, although it is now, we believe, certain, from the MS., which still exists, that it was a veritable production of Tickell's. When Addison went to Ireland, as secretary to Lord Sunderland, Tickell accompanied him, and was employed in public business. When Addison became Secretary of State, he made Tickell Under-Secretary; and when he died, he left him the charge of publishing his works, with an earnest recommendation to the care of Craggs. Tickell faithfully performed the task, prefixing to them an elegy on his departed friend, which is now his own chief title to fame. In 1725, he was made secretary to the Lords-Justices of Ireland, a place of great trust and honour, and which he retained till his death. This event happened at Bath, in the year 1740.

His genius was not strong, but elegant and refined, and appears, as we have just stated, to best advantage in his lines on Addison's death, which are warm with genuine love, tremulous with sincere sorrow, and shine with a sober splendour, such as Addison's own exquisite taste would have approved.

TO THE EARL OF WARWICK, ON THE DEATH OF MR ADDISON.

If, dumb too long, the drooping muse hath stayed, And left her debt to Addison unpaid, Blame not her silence, Warwick, but bemoan, And judge, oh judge, my bosom by your own. What mourner ever felt poetic fires! Slow comes the verse that real woe inspires: Grief unaffected suits but ill with art, Or flowing numbers with a bleeding heart.

Can I forget the dismal night that gave My soul's best part for ever to the grave? How silent did his old companions tread, By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead, Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings! What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire; The pealing organ, and the pausing choir; The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid: And the last words that dust to dust conveyed! While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend, Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend. Oh, gone for ever! take this long adieu; And sleep in peace, next thy loved Montague. To strew fresh laurels, let the task be mine, A frequent pilgrim at thy sacred shrine; Mine with true sighs thy absence to bemoan, And grave with faithful epitaphs thy stone. If e'er from me thy loved memorial part, May shame afflict this alienated heart; Of thee forgetful if I form a song, My lyre be broken, and untuned my tongue, My grief be doubled from thy image free, And mirth a torment, unchastised by thee!

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone, Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown, Along the walls where speaking marbles show What worthies form the hallowed mould belew; Proud names, who once the reins of empire held; In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled; Chiefs, graced with scars, and prodigal of blood; Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood; Just men, by whom impartial laws were given; And saints, who taught and led the way to heaven; Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest, Since their foundation came a nobler guest; Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.

In what new region, to the just assigned, What new employments please the embodied mind? A winged Virtue, through the ethereal sky, From world to world unwearied does he fly? Or curious trace the long laborious maze Of Heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze? Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell How Michael battled, and the dragon fell; Or, mixed with milder cherubim, to glow In hymns of love, not ill essayed below? Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, A task well suited to thy gentle mind? Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend, To me thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend! When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart; Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.

That awful form, which, so the heavens decree, Must still be loved and still deplored by me, In nightly visions seldom fails to rise, Or, roused by fancy, meets my waking eyes. If business calls, or crowded courts invite, The unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight; If in the stage I seek to soothe my care, I meet his soul which breathes in Cato there; If pensive to the rural shades I rove, His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove; 'Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong, Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song: There patient showed us the wise course to steer, A candid censor, and a friend severe; There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high The price for knowledge,) taught us how to die.

Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace, Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race, Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears, O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears? How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair, Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air! How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees, Thy noontide shadow, and thy evening breeze! His image thy forsaken bowers restore; Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more; No more the summer in thy glooms allayed, Thy evening breezes, and thy noon-day shade.

From other ills, however fortune frowned, Some refuge in the Muse's art I found; Reluctant now I touch the trembling string, Bereft of him who taught me how to sing; And these sad accents, murmured o'er his urn, Betray that absence they attempt to mourn. Oh! must I then (now fresh my bosom bleeds, And Craggs in death to Addison succeeds,) The verse, begun to one lost friend, prolong, And weep a second in the unfinished song!

These works divine, which, on his death-bed laid, To thee, O Craggs! the expiring sage conveyed, Great, but ill-omened, monument of fame, Nor he survived to give, nor thou to claim. Swift after him thy social spirit flies, And close to his, how soon! thy coffin lies. Blest pair! whose union future bards shall tell In future tongues: each other's boast! farewell! Farewell! whom, joined in fame, in friendship tried, No chance could sever, nor the grave divide.

JAMES HAMMOND.

This elegiast was the second son of Anthony Hammond, a brother-in-law of Sir Robert Walpole, and a man of some note in his day. He was born in 1710; educated at Westminster school; became equerry to the Prince of Wales; fell in love with a lady named Dashwood, who rejected him, and drove him to temporary derangement, and then to elegy-writing; entered parliament for Truro, in Cornwall, in 1741; and died the next year. His elegies were published after his death, and, although abounding in pedantic allusions and frigid conceits, became very popular.

ELEGY XIII.

He imagines himself married to Delia, and that, content with each other, they are retired into the country.

1 Let others boast their heaps of shining gold,
And view their fields, with waving plenty crowned,
Whom neighbouring foes in constant terror hold,
And trumpets break their slumbers, never sound:

2 While calmly poor I trifle life away,
Enjoy sweet leisure by my cheerful fire,
No wanton hope my quiet shall betray,
But, cheaply blessed, I'll scorn each vain desire.

3 With timely care I'll sow my little field,
And plant my orchard with its master's hand,
Nor blush to spread the hay, the hook to wield,
Or range my sheaves along the sunny land.

4 If late at dusk, while carelessly I roam,
I meet a strolling kid, or bleating lamb,
Under my arm I'll bring the wanderer home,
And not a little chide its thoughtless dam.

5 What joy to hear the tempest howl in vain,
And clasp a fearful mistress to my breast!
Or, lulled to slumber by the beating rain,
Secure and happy, sink at last to rest!

6 Or, if the sun in flaming Leo ride,
By shady rivers indolently stray,
And with my Delia, walking side by side,
Hear how they murmur as they glide away!

7 What joy to wind along the cool retreat,
To stop and gaze on Delia as I go!
To mingle sweet discourse with kisses sweet,
And teach my lovely scholar all I know!

8 Thus pleased at heart, and not with fancy's dream,
In silent happiness I rest unknown;
Content with what I am, not what I seem,
I live for Delia and myself alone.

* * * * *

9 Hers be the care of all my little train,
While I with tender indolence am blest,
The favourite subject of her gentle reign,
By love alone distinguished from the rest.

10 For her I'll yoke my oxen to the plough,
In gloomy forests tend my lonely flock;
For her, a goat-herd, climb the mountain's brow,
And sleep extended on the naked rock:

11 Ah, what avails to press the stately bed,
And far from her 'midst tasteless grandeur weep,
By marble fountains lay the pensive head,
And, while they murmur, strive in vain to sleep!

12 Delia alone can please, and never tire,
Exceed the paint of thought in true delight;
With her, enjoyment wakens new desire,
And equal rapture glows through every night:

13 Beauty and worth in her alike contend,
To charm the fancy, and to fix the mind;
In her, my wife, my mistress, and my friend,
I taste the joys of sense and reason joined.

14 On her I'll gaze, when others' loves are o'er,
And dying press her with my clay-cold hand--
Thou weep'st already, as I were no more,
Nor can that gentle breast the thought withstand.

15 Oh, when I die, my latest moments spare,
Nor let thy grief with sharper torments kill,
Wound not thy cheeks, nor hurt that flowing hair,
Though I am dead, my soul shall love thee still:

16 Oh, quit the room, oh, quit the deathful bed,
Or thou wilt die, so tender is thy heart;
Oh, leave me, Delia, ere thou see me dead,
These weeping friends will do thy mournful part:

17 Let them, extended on the decent bier,
Convey the corse in melancholy state,
Through all the village spread the tender tear,
While pitying maids our wondrous loves relate.

We may here mention Dr George Sewell, author of a Life of Sir Walter Haleigh, a few papers in the _Spectator_, and some rather affecting verses written on consumption, where he says, in reference to his garden--

'Thy narrow pride, thy fancied green,
(For vanity's in little seen,)
All must be left when death appears,
In spite of wishes, groans, and tears;
Not one of all thy plants that grow,
But rosemary, will with thee go;'--

Sir John Vanbrugh, best known as an architect, but who also wrote poetry;--Edward Ward (more commonly called Ned Ward), a poetical publican, who wrote ten thick volumes, chiefly in Hudibrastic verse, displaying a good deal of coarse cleverness;--Barton Booth, the famous actor, author of a song which closes thus--

'Love, and his sister fair, the Soul,
Twin-born, from heaven together came;
Love will the universe control,
When dying seasons lose their name.
Divine abodes shall own his power,
When time and death shall be no more;'--

Oldmixon, one of the heroes of the 'Dunciad,' famous in his day as a party historian;--Richard West, a youth of high promise, the friend of Gray, and who died in his twenty-sixth year;--James Eyre Weekes, an Irishman, author of a clever copy of love verses, called 'The Five Traitors;'--Bramston, an Oxford man, who wrote a poem called 'The Man of Taste;'--and William Meston, an Aberdonian, author of a set of burlesque poems entitled 'Mother Grim's Tales.'

RICHARD SAVAGE.

The extreme excellence, fulness, and popularity of Johnson's Life of Savage must excuse our doing more than mentioning the leading dates of his history. He was the son of the Earl of Rivers and the Countess of Macclesfield, and was born in London, 1698. His mother, who had begot him in adultery after having openly avowed her criminality, in order to obtain a divorce from her husband, placed the boy under the care of a poor woman, who brought him up as her son. His maternal grandmother, Lady Mason, however, took an interest him and placed him at a grammar school at St Alban's. He was afterwards apprenticed to a shoemaker. On the death of his nurse, he found some letters which led to the discovery of his real parent. He applied to her, accordingly, to be acknowledged as her son; but she repulsed his every advance, and persecuted him with unrelenting barbarity. He found, however, some influential friends, such as Steele, Fielding, Aaron Hill, Pope, and Lord Tyrconnell. He was, however, his own worst enemy, and contracted habits of the most irregular description. In a tavern brawl he killed one James Sinclair, and was condemned to die; but, notwithstanding his mother's interference to prevent the exercise of the royal clemency, he was pardoned by the queen, who afterwards gave him a pension of L50 a-year. He supported himself in a precarious way by writing poetical pieces. Lord Tyrconnell took him for a while into his house, and allowed him L200 a-year, but he soon quarrelled with him, and left. When the queen died he lost his pension, but his friends made it up by an annuity to the same amount. He went away to reside at Swansea, but on occasion of a visit he made to Bristol he was arrested for a small debt, and in the prison he sickened, and died on the 1st of August 1743. He was only forty-five years of age.

After all, Savage, in Johnson's Life, is just a dung-fly preserved in amber. His 'Bastard,' indeed, displays considerable powers, stung by a consciousness of wrong into convulsive action; but his other works are nearly worthless, and his life was that of a proud, passionate, selfish, and infatuated fool, unredeemed by scarcely one trait of genuine excellence in character. We love and admire, even while we deeply blame, such men as Burns; but for Savage our feeling is a curious compost of sympathy with his misfortunes, contempt for his folly, and abhorrence for the ingratitude, licentiousness, and other coarse and savage sins which characterised and prematurely destroyed him.

THE BASTARD.

INSCRIBED, WITH ALL DUE REVERENCE, TO MRS BRETT, ONCE COUNTESS OF MACCLESFIELD.

In gayer hours, when high my fancy ran, The Muse exulting, thus her lay began: 'Blest be the Bastard's birth! through wondrous ways, He shines eccentric like a comet's blaze! No sickly fruit of faint compliance he! He! stamped in nature's mint of ecstasy! He lives to build, not boast a generous race: No tenth transmitter of a foolish face: His daring hope no sire's example bounds; His first-born lights no prejudice confounds. He, kindling from within, requires no flame; He glories in a Bastard's glowing name.

'Born to himself, by no possession led, In freedom fostered, and by fortune fed; Nor guides, nor rules his sovereign choice control, His body independent as his soul; Loosed to the world's wide range, enjoined no aim, Prescribed no duty, and assigned no name: Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone, His heart unbiased, and his mind his own.

'O mother, yet no mother! 'tis to you My thanks for such distinguished claims are due; You, unenslaved to Nature's narrow laws, Warm championess for freedom's sacred cause, From all the dry devoirs of blood and line, From ties maternal, moral, and divine, Discharged my grasping soul; pushed me from shore, And launched me into life without an oar.

'What had I lost, if, conjugally kind, By nature hating, yet by vows confined, Untaught the matrimonial bonds to slight, And coldly conscious of a husband's right, You had faint-drawn me with a form alone, A lawful lump of life by force your own! Then, while your backward will retrenched desire, And unconcurring spirits lent no fire, I had been born your dull, domestic heir, Load of your life, and motive of your care; Perhaps been poorly rich, and meanly great, The slave of pomp, a cipher in the state; Lordly neglectful of a worth unknown, And slumbering in a seat by chance my own.

'Far nobler blessings wait the bastard's lot; Conceived in rapture, and with fire begot! Strong as necessity, he starts away, Climbs against wrongs, and brightens into day.' Thus unprophetic, lately misinspired, I sung: gay fluttering hope my fancy fired: Inly secure, through conscious scorn of ill, Nor taught by wisdom how to balance will, Rashly deceived, I saw no pits to shun, But thought to purpose and to act were one; Heedless what pointed cares pervert his way, Whom caution arms not, and whom woes betray; But now exposed, and shrinking from distress, I fly to shelter while the tempests press; My Muse to grief resigns the varying tone, The raptures languish, and the numbers groan.

O Memory! thou soul of joy and pain! Thou actor of our passions o'er again! Why didst thou aggravate the wretch's woe? Why add continuous smart to every blow? Few are my joys; alas! how soon forgot! On that kind quarter thou invad'st me not; While sharp and numberless my sorrows fall, Yet thou repeat'st and multipli'st them all.

Is chance a guilt? that my disastrous heart, For mischief never meant; must ever smart? Can self-defence be sin?--Ah, plead no more! What though no purposed malice stained thee o'er? Had Heaven befriended thy unhappy side, Thou hadst not been provoked--or thou hadst died.

Far be the guilt of homeshed blood from all On whom, unsought, embroiling dangers fall! Still the pale dead revives, and lives to me, To me! through Pity's eye condemned to see. Remembrance veils his rage, but swells his fate; Grieved I forgive, and am grown cool too late. Young, and unthoughtful then; who knows, one day, What ripening virtues might have made their way? He might have lived till folly died in shame, Till kindling wisdom felt a thirst for fame. He might perhaps his country's friend have proved; Both happy, generous, candid, and beloved, He might have saved some worth, now doomed to fall; And I, perchance, in him, have murdered all.

O fate of late repentance! always vain: Thy remedies but lull undying pain. Where shall my hope find rest?--No mother's care Shielded my infant innocence with prayer: No father's guardian hand my youth maintained, Called forth my virtues, or from vice restrained. Is it not thine to snatch some powerful arm, First to advance, then screen from future harm? Am I returned from death to live in pain? Or would imperial Pity save in vain? Distrust it not--What blame can mercy find, Which gives at once a life, and rears a mind?

Mother, miscalled, farewell--of soul severe, This sad reflection yet may force one tear: All I was wretched by to you I owed, Alone from strangers every comfort flowed!

Lost to the life you gave, your son no more, And now adopted, who was doomed before; New-born, I may a nobler mother claim, But dare not whisper her immortal name; Supremely lovely, and serenely great! Majestic mother of a kneeling state! Queen of a people's heart, who ne'er before Agreed--yet now with one consent adore! One contest yet remains in this desire, Who most shall give applause, where all admire.

THOMAS WARTON THE ELDER.

The Wartons were a poetical race. The father of Thomas and Joseph, names so intimately associated with English poetry, was himself a poet. He was of Magdalene College in Oxford, vicar of Basingstoke and Cobham, and twice chosen poetry professor. He was born in 1687, and died in 1745. Besides the little American ode quoted below, we are tempted to give the following

VERSES WRITTEN AFTER SEEING WINDSOR CASTLE.

From beauteous Windsor's high and storied halls, Where Edward's chiefs start from the glowing walls, To my low cot, from ivory beds of state, Pleased I return, unenvious of the great. So the bee ranges o'er the varied scenes Of corn, of heaths, of fallows, and of greens; Pervades the thicket, soars above the hill, Or murmurs to the meadow's murmuring rill; Now haunts old hollowed oaks, deserted cells, Now seeks the low vale-lily's silver bells; Sips the warm fragrance of the greenhouse bowers, And tastes the myrtle and the citron flowers;-- At length returning to the wonted comb, Prefers to all his little straw-built home.

This seems sweet and simple poetry.

AN AMERICAN LOVE ODE.

FROM THE SECOND VOLUME OF MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYS.

Stay, stay, thou lovely, fearful snake, Nor hide thee in yon darksome brake: But let me oft thy charms review, Thy glittering scales, and golden hue; From these a chaplet shall be wove, To grace the youth I dearest love.

Then ages hence, when thou no more Shalt creep along the sunny shore, Thy copied beauties shall be seen; Thy red and azure mixed with green, In mimic folds thou shalt display;-- Stay, lovely, fearful adder, stay.

JONATHAN SWIFT.

In contemplating the lives and works of the preceding poets in this third volume of 'Specimens,' we have been impressed with a sense, if not of their absolute, yet of their comparative mediocrity. Beside such neglected giants as Henry More, Joseph Beaumont, and Andrew Marvell, the Pomfrets, Sedleys, Blackmores, and Savages sink into insignificance. But when we come to the name of Swift, we feel ourselves again approaching an Alpine region. The air of a stern mountain-summit breathes chill around our temples, and we feel that if we have no amiability to melt, we have altitude at least to measure, and strange profound secrets of nature, like the ravines of lofty hills, to explore. The men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be compared to Lebanon, or Snowdown, or Benlomond towering grandly over fertile valleys, on which they smile--Swift to the tremendous Romsdale Horn in Norway, shedding abroad, from a brow of four thousand feet high, what seems a scowl of settled indignation, as if resolved not to rejoice even over the wide- stretching deserts which, and nothing but which, it everlastingly beholds. Mountains all of them, but what a difference between such a mountain as Shakspeare, and such a mountain as Swift!

Instead of going minutely over a path so long since trodden to mire as the life of Swift, let us expend a page or two in seeking to form some estimate of his character and genius. It is refreshing to come upon a new thing in the world, even though it be a strange or even a bad thing; and certainly, in any age and country, such a being as Swift must have appeared an anomaly, not for his transcendent goodness, not for his utter badness, but because the elements of good and evil were mixed in him into a medley so astounding, and in proportions respectively so large, yet unequal, that the analysis of the two seemed to many competent only to the Great Chymist, Death, and that a sense of the disproportion seems to have moved the man himself to inextinguishable laughter,--a laughter which, radiating out of his own singular heart as a centre, swept over the circumference of all beings within his reach, and returned crying, 'Give, give,' as if he were demanding a universal sphere for the exercise of the savage scorn which dwelt within him, and as if he laughed not more 'consumedly' at others than he did at himself.

Ere speaking of Swift as a man, let us say something about his genius. That, like his character, was intensely peculiar. It was a compound of infinite ingenuity, with very little poetical imagination--of gigantic strength, with a propensity to incessant trifling--of passionate purpose, with the clearest and coldest expression, as though a furnace were fuelled with snow. A Brobdignagian by size, he was for ever toying with Lilliputian slings and small craft. One of the most violent of party men, and often fierce as a demoniac in temper, his favourite motto was _Vive la bagatelle_. The creator of entire new worlds, we doubt if his works contain more than two or three lines of genuine poetry. He may be compared to one of the locusts of the Apocalypse, in that he had a tail like unto a scorpion, and a sting in his tail; but his 'face is not as the face of man, his hair is not as the hair of women, and on his head there is no crown like gold.' All Swift's creations are more or less disgusting. Not one of them is beautiful. His Lilliputians are amazingly life-like, but compare them to Shakspeare's fairies, such as Peaseblossom, Cobweb, and Mustardseed; his Brobdignagians are excrescences like enormous warts; and his Yahoos might have been spawned in the nightmare of a drunken butcher. The same coarseness characterises his poems and his 'Tale of a Tub.' He might well, however, in his old age, exclaim, in reference to the latter, 'Good God! what a genius I had when I wrote that book!' It is the wildest, wittiest, wickedest, wealthiest book of its size in the English language. Thoughts and figures swarm in every corner of its pages, till you think of a disturbed nest of angry ants, for all the figures and thoughts are black and bitter. One would imagine the book to have issued from a mind that had been gathering gall as well as sense in an antenatal state of being.

Swift, in all his writings--sermons, political tracts, poems, and fictions--is essentially a satirist. He consisted originally of three principal parts,--sense, an intense feeling of the ludicrous, and selfish passion; and these were sure, in certain circumstances, to ferment into a spirit of satire, 'strong as death, and cruel as the grave.' Born with not very much natural benevolence, with little purely poetic feeling, with furious passions and unbounded ambition, he was entirely dependent for his peace of mind upon success. Had he become, as by his talents he was entitled to be, the prime minister of his day, he would have figured as a greater tyrant in the cabinet than even Chatham. But as he was prevented from being the first statesman, he became the first satirist of his time. From vain efforts to grasp supremacy for himself and his party, he retired growling to his Dublin den; and there, as Haman thought scorn to lay his hand on Mordecai, but extended his murderous purpose to all the people of the Jews,--and as Nero wished that Rome had one neck, that he might destroy it at a blow,--so Swift was stung by his personal disappointment to hurl out scorn at man and suspicion at his Maker. It was not, it must be noticed, the evil which was in man which excited his hatred and contempt; it was man himself. He was not merely, as many are, disgusted with the selfish and malignant elements which are mingled in man's nature and character, and disposed to trace them to any cause save a Divine will, but he believed man to be, as a whole, the work and child of the devil; and he told the imaginary creator and creature to their face, what he thought the truth,--'The devil is an ass.' His was the very madness of Manichaeism. That heresy held that the devil was one of two aboriginal creative powers, but Swift seemed to believe at times that he was the only God. From a Yahoo man, it was difficult to avoid the inference of a demon deity. It is very laughable to find writers in _Blackwood_ and elsewhere striving to prove Swift a Christian, as if, whatever were his professions, and however sincere he might be often in these, the whole tendency of his writings, his perpetual and unlimited abuse of man's body and soul, his denial of every human virtue, the filth he pours upon every phase of human nature, and the doctrine he insinuates--that man has fallen indeed, but fallen, not from the angel, but from the animal, or, rather, is just a bungled brute,--were not enough to shew that either his notions were grossly erroneous and perverted, or that he himself deserved, like another Nebuchadnezzar, to be driven from men, and to have a beast's heart given unto him. Sometimes he reminds us of an impure angel, who has surprised man naked and asleep, looked at him with microscopic eyes, ignored all his peculiar marks of fallen dignity and incipient godhood, and in heartless rhymes reported accordingly.

Swift belonged to the same school as Pope, although the feminine element which was in the latter modified and mellowed his feelings. Pope was a more successful and a happier man than Swift. He was much smaller, too, in soul as well as in body, and his gall-organ was proportionably less. Pope's feeling to humanity was a tiny malice; Swift's became, at length, a black malignity. Pope always reminds us of an injured and pouting hero of Lilliput, 'doing well to be angry' under the gourd of a pocket-flap, or squealing out his griefs from the centre of an empty snuff-box; Swift is a man, nay, monster of misanthropy. In minute and microscopic vision of human infirmities, Pope excels even Swift; but then you always conceive Swift leaning down a giant, though gnarled, stature to behold them, while Pope is on their level, and has only to look straight before him. Pope's wrath is always measured; Swift's, as in the 'Legion-Club' is a whirlwind of 'black fire and horror,' in the breath of which no flesh can live, and against which genius and virtue themselves furnish no shield.

After all, Swift might, perhaps, have put in the plea of Byron--

'All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know.'

There was a black spot of madness in his brain, and another black spot in his heart; and the two at last met, and closed up his destiny in night. Let human nature forgive its most determined and systematic reviler, for the sake of the wretchedness in which he was involved all his life long. He was born (in 1667) a posthumous child; he was brought up an object of charity; he spent much of his youth in dependence; he had to leave his Irish college without a degree; he was flattered with hopes from King William and the Whigs, which were not fulfilled; he was condemned to spend a great part of his life in Ireland, a country he detested; he was involved--partly, no doubt, through his own blame--in a succession of fruitless and miserable intrigues, alike of love and politics; he was soured by want of success in England, and spoiled by enormous popularity in Ireland; he was tried by a kind of religious doubts, which would not go out to prayer or fasting; he was haunted by the fear of the dreadful calamity which at last befell him; his senses and his soul left him one by one; he became first giddy, then deaf, and then mad; his madness was of the most terrible sort--it was a 'silent rage;' for a year or two he lay dumb; and at last, on the 19th of October 1745,

'Swift expired, a driveller and a show,'

leaving his money to found a lunatic asylum, and his works as a many- volumed legacy of curse to mankind.

[Note: It has been asserted that there were circumstances in extenuation of Swift's conduct, particularly in reference to the ladies whose names were connected with his, which _cannot be publicly brought forward_.]

BAUCIS AND PHILEMON.

In ancient times, as story tells, The saints would often leave their cells, And stroll about, but hide their quality, To try good people's hospitality.

It happened on a winter night, As authors of the legend write, Two brother-hermits, saints by trade, Taking their tour in masquerade, Disguised in tattered habits went To a small village down in Kent, Where, in the strollers' canting strain, They begged from door to door in vain, Tried every tone might pity win; But not a soul would let them in. Our wandering saints, in woful state, Treated at this ungodly rate, Having through all the village passed, To a small cottage came at last, Where dwelt a good old honest yeoman, Called in the neighbourhood Philemon; Who kindly did these saints invite In his poor hut to pass the night; And then the hospitable sire Bid Goody Baucis mend the fire; While he from out the chimney took A flitch of bacon off the hook, And freely from the fattest side Cut out large slices to be fried; Then stepped aside to fetch them drink, Filled a large jug up to the brink, And saw it fairly twice go round; Yet (what is wonderful!) they found 'Twas still replenished to the top, As if they ne'er had touched a drop. The good old couple were amazed, And often on each other gazed; For both were frightened to the heart, And just began to cry,--'What art!' Then softly turned aside to view Whether the lights were burning blue. The gentle pilgrims, soon aware on 't, Told them their calling, and their errand: 'Good folks, you need not be afraid, We are but saints,' the hermits said; 'No hurt shall come to you or yours: But for that pack of churlish boors, Not fit to live on Christian ground, They and their houses shall be drowned; Whilst you shall see your cottage rise, And grow a church before your eyes.'

They scarce had spoke, when fair and soft The roof began to mount aloft; Aloft rose every beam and rafter; The heavy wall climbed slowly after.

The chimney widened, and grew higher, Became a steeple with a spire.

The kettle to the top was hoist, And there stood fastened to a joist; But with the upside down, to show Its inclination for below; In vain; for a superior force, Applied at bottom, stops its course: Doomed ever in suspense to dwell, 'Tis now no kettle, but a bell.

A wooden jack, which had almost Lost by disuse the art to roast, A sudden alteration feels, Increased by new intestine wheels; And, what exalts the wonder more The number made the motion slower; The flier, though't had leaden feet, Turned round so quick, you scarce could see 't; But, slackened by some secret power, Now hardly moves an inch an hour. The jack and chimney, near allied, Had never left each other's side: The chimney to a steeple grown, The jack would not be left alone; But up against the steeple reared, Became a clock, and still adhered; And still its love to household cares, By a shrill voice at noon declares, Warning the cook-maid not to burn That roast meat which it cannot turn.

The groaning-chair began to crawl, Like a huge snail, along the wall; There stuck aloft in public view, And with small change a pulpit grew.

The porringers, that in a row Hung high, and made a glittering show, To a less noble substance changed, Were now but leathern buckets ranged.

The ballads, pasted on the wall, Of Joan of France, and English Moll, Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood, The little Children in the Wood, Now seemed to look abundance better, Improved in picture, size, and letter; And, high in order placed, describe The heraldry of every tribe.

A bedstead, of the antique mode, Compact of timber many a load, Such as our ancestors did use, Was metamorphosed into pews; Which still their ancient nature keep, By lodging folks disposed to sleep.

The cottage, by such feats as these, Grown to a church by just degrees; The hermits then desired their host To ask for what he fancied most. Philemon, having paused a while, Returned them thanks in homely style; Then said, 'My house is grown so fine, Methinks I still would call it mine; I'm old, and fain would live at ease; Make me the parson, if you please.'

He spoke, and presently he feels His grazier's coat fall down his heels: He sees, yet hardly can believe, About each arm a pudding-sleeve; His waistcoat to a cassock grew, And both assumed a sable hue; But, being old, continued just As threadbare, and as full of dust. His talk was now of tithes and dues; He smoked his pipe, and read the news; Knew how to preach old sermons next, Vamped in the preface and the text; At christenings well could act his part, And had the service all by heart; Wished women might have children fast, And thought whose sow had farrowed last; Against Dissenters would repine, And stood up firm for right divine; Found his head filled with many a system; But classic authors,--he ne'er missed 'em.

Thus, having furbished up a parson, Dame Baucis next they played their farce on; Instead of home-spun coifs, were seen Good pinners edged with colberteen; Her petticoat, transformed apace, Became black satin flounced with lace. Plain 'Goody' would no longer down; 'Twas 'Madam' in her grogram gown. Philemon was in great surprise, And hardly could believe his eyes, Amazed to see her look so prim; And she admired as much at him.

Thus happy in their change of life Were several years this man and wife: When on a day, which proved their last, Discoursing on old stories past, They went by chance, amidst their talk, To the churchyard to take a walk; When Baucis hastily cried out, 'My dear, I see your forehead sprout!' 'Sprout!' quoth the man; 'what's this you tell I hope you don't believe me jealous! But yet, methinks, I feel it true; And, really, yours is budding too; Nay, now I cannot stir my foot-- It feels as if 'twere taking root.'

Description would but tire my Muse; In short, they both were turned to yews.

Old Goodman Dobson of the green Remembers he the trees has seen; He'll talk of them from noon till night, And goes with folks to show the sight; On Sundays, after evening-prayer, He gathers all the parish there, Points out the place of either yew: 'Here Baucis, there Philemon grew; Till once a parson of our town, To mend his barn cut Baucis down. At which 'tis hard to be believed How much the other tree was grieved, Grew scrubby, died atop, was stunted; So the next parson stubbed and burnt it.'

ON POETRY.

All human race would fain be wits, And millions miss for one that hits. Young's Universal Passion, pride, Was never known to spread so wide. Say, Britain, could you ever boast Three poets in an age at most? Our chilling climate hardly bears A sprig of bays in fifty years; While every fool his claim alleges, As if it grew in common hedges. What reason can there be assigned For this perverseness in the mind? Brutes find out where their talents lie: A bear will not attempt to fly; A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five-barred gate; A dog by instinct turns aside, Who sees the ditch too deep and wide;-- But man we find the only creature, Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries, Forbear, With obstinacy fixes there; And, where his genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs.

Not empire to the rising sun By valour, conduct, fortune won; Not highest wisdom in debates For framing laws to govern states; Not skill in sciences profound So large to grasp the circle round, Such heavenly influence require, As how to strike the Muse's lyre.

Not beggar's brat on bulk begot; Not bastard of a pedlar Scot; Not boy brought up to cleaning shoes, The spawn of Bridewell or the stews; Not infants dropped, the spurious pledges Of gipsies littering under hedges, Are so disqualified by fate To rise in church, or law, or state, As he whom Phoebus in his ire Hath blasted with poetic fire. What hope of custom in the fair, While not a soul demands your ware? Where you have nothing to produce For private life or public use? Court, city, country, want you not; You cannot bribe, betray, or plot. For poets, law makes no provision; The wealthy have you in derision; Of state affairs you cannot smatter, Are awkward when you try to flatter; Your portion, taking Britain round, Was just one annual hundred pound; Now not so much as in remainder, Since Gibber brought in an attainder, For ever fixed by right divine, (A monarch's right,) on Grub Street line.

Poor starveling bard, how small thy gains! How unproportioned to thy pains! And here a simile comes pat in: Though chickens take a month to fatten, The guests in less than half an hour Will more than half a score devour. So, after toiling twenty days To earn a stock of pence and praise, Thy labours, grown the critic's prey, Are swallowed o'er a dish of tea; Gone to be never heard of more, Gone where the chickens went before. How shall a new attempter learn Of different spirits to discern, And how distinguish which is which, The poet's vein, or scribbling itch? Then hear an old experienced sinner Instructing thus a young beginner: Consult yourself; and if you find A powerful impulse urge your mind, Impartial judge within your breast What subject you can manage best; Whether your genius most inclines To satire, praise, or humorous lines, To elegies in mournful tone, Or prologues sent from hand unknown; Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline; Be mindful, when invention fails, To scratch your head, and bite your nails.

Your poem finished, next your care Is needful to transcribe it fair. In modern wit, all printed trash is Set off with numerous breaks and dashes.

To statesmen would you give a wipe, You print it in italic type; When letters are in vulgar shapes, 'Tis ten to one the wit escapes; But when in capitals expressed, The dullest reader smokes the jest; Or else, perhaps, he may invent A better than the poet meant; As learned commentators view In Homer, more than Homer knew.

Your poem in its modish dress, Correctly fitted for the press, Convey by penny-post to Lintot; But let no friend alive look into 't. If Lintot thinks 'twill quit the cost, You need not fear your labour lost: And how agreeably surprised Are you to see it advertised! The hawker shows you one in print, As fresh as farthings from a mint: The product of your toil and sweating, A bastard of your own begetting.

Be sure at Will's the following day, Lie snug, and hear what critics say; And if you find the general vogue Pronounces you a stupid rogue, Damns all your thoughts as low and little, Sit still, and swallow down your spittle; Be silent as a politician, For talking may beget suspicion; Or praise the judgment of the town, And help yourself to run it down; Give up your fond paternal pride, Nor argue on the weaker side; For poems read without a name We justly praise, or justly blame; And critics have no partial views, Except they know whom they abuse; And since you ne'er provoked their spite, Depend upon 't, their judgment's right. But if you blab, you are undone: Consider what a risk you run: You lose your credit all at once; The town will mark you for a dunce; The vilest doggrel Grub Street sends Will pass for yours with foes and friends; And you must bear the whole disgrace, Till some fresh blockhead takes your place.

Your secret kept, your poem sunk, And sent in quires to line a trunk, If still you be disposed to rhyme, Go try your hand a second time. Again you fail: yet safe's the word; Take courage, and attempt a third. But just with care employ your thoughts, Where critics marked your former faults; The trivial turns, the borrowed wit, The similes that nothing fit; The cant which every fool repeats, Town jests and coffee-house conceits; Descriptions tedious, flat, and dry, And introduced the Lord knows why: Or where we find your fury set Against the harmless alphabet; On A's and B's your malice vent, While readers wonder what you meant: A public or a private robber, A statesman, or a South-Sea jobber; A prelate who no God believes; A parliament, or den of thieves; A pick-purse at the bar or bench; A duchess, or a suburb wench: Or oft, when epithets you link In gaping lines to fill a chink; Like stepping-stones to save a stride, In streets where kennels are too wide; Or like a heel-piece, to support A cripple with one foot too short; Or like a bridge, that joins a marish To moorland of a different parish; So have I seen ill-coupled hounds Drag different ways in miry grounds; So geographers in Afric maps With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants, for want of towns.

But though you miss your third essay, You need not throw your pen away. Lay now aside all thoughts of fame, To spring more profitable game. From party-merit seek support-- The vilest verse thrives best at court. And may you ever have the luck, To rhyme almost as ill as Duck; And though you never learnt to scan verse, Come out with some lampoon on D'Anvers. A pamphlet in Sir Bob's defence Will never fail to bring in pence: Nor be concerned about the sale-- He pays his workmen on the nail. Display the blessings of the nation, And praise the whole administration: Extol the bench of Bishops round; Who at them rail, bid----confound: To Bishop-haters answer thus, (The only logic used by us,) 'What though they don't believe in----, Deny them Protestants,--thou liest.'