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"FOR shame," said Ebony, "for shame!
Tom Ruby, troth, you're much to blame,
To drink at this confounded rate,
To guzzle thus, early and late."

Poor Tom, who just had took his whet,
And at the door his uncle met,
Surprised and thunder-struck, would fain
Make his escape, but, oh! in vain

Each blush that glow'd with an ill grace,
Lighted the flambeaux in his face;
No loop-hole left, no slight pretence,
To palliate the foul offence.

"I own (said he) I'm very bad

A sot-incorrigibly mad

But, sir-I thank you for your love,
And by your lectures would improve:
Yet, give me leave to say, the street
For conference is not so meet.
Here, in this room-nay, sir, come in--
Expose, chastise me for my sin;
Exert each trope, your utmost art,
To touch this senseless, flinty heart.
I'm conscious of my guilt, 'tis true,
But yet I know my frailty too;
A slight rebuke will never do,

Urge home my faults-come in, I pray—
Let not my soul be cast away."

Wise Ebony, who deem'd it good T'encourage by all means he could These first appearances of grace, Follow'd up stairs, and took his place. The bottle and the crust appear'd, And wily Tom demurely sneer'd.

[Somervile's estate was part in Warwickshire and part in Gloucestershire. He must have been born before 1692, if there is any truth in the assertions of song, for among his works is an epistle to Aikman the painter, "on his painting a full-length portrait of the author in the decline of life, carrying him back, by the assistance of another portrait, to his youthful days," wherein he says that he is then passed his zenith, and

All the poor comfort that I now can share,
Is the soft blessing of an elbow-chair-

which if his biographers tell the truth must have been said of himself when thirty-eight, for Aikman was dead early in 1731. Shenstone, moreover, imputes his foibles to age: the foibles of fifty are not the foibles of age. "The

"My duty, sir!"—"Thank you, kind Tom."— "Again, an't please you."-"Thank you: Come." "Sorrow is dry-I must once more—

66

Nay, Tom, I told you at the door

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I would not drink-what! before dinner?
Not one glass more, as I'm a sinner-
Come, to the point in hand; is't fit
A man of your good sense and wit
Those parts which Heaven bestow'd should
drown,

A butt to all the sots in town?
Why, tell me, Tom-what fort can stand
(Though regular, and bravely mann'd)
If night and day the fierce foe plies
With never-ceasing batteries;

Will there not be a breach at last ?".

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Uncle, 'tis true-forgive what's past." "But if nor interest, nor fame,

Nor health, can your dull soul reclaim,
Hast not a conscience, man? no thought
Of an hereafter? dear are bought
These sensual pleasures."-" I relent,
Kind sir-but give your zeal a vent-"
Then, pouting, hung his head; yet still
Took care his uncle's glass to fill,
Which as his hurried spirits sunk,
Unwittingly, good man! he drunk.
Each pint, alas! drew on the next,
Old Ebony stuck to his text,
Grown warm, like any angel spoke,
Till intervening hiccups broke
The well-strung argument. Poor Tom
Was now too forward to reel home;
That preaching still, this still repenting,
Both equally to drink consenting,

Chase," the monument to his name, was first published in the May of 1735. His portrait is at Lord Somerville's, and engraved before the Memoirs of the Somerville's-a very extraordinary performance; a portion of the debt due by the public to Sir Walter Scott. He was, we are told by Lady Luxborough, "of a very fair complexion," and he describes himself in one of his rhyming effusions to Ramsay, as

A squire well-born and six foot high. "Whatever," says Shenstone, "the world might esteem in poor Somerville, I really find upon critical inquiry, that I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-naucnihilipili-fication of money." A happiness of expression used more than once by its author.]

Till both, brimful, could swill no more, And fell dead drunk upon the floor.

Bacchus, the jolly god, who sate Wide-straddling o'er his tun in state, Close by the window side, from whence He heard this weighty conference; Joy kindling in his ruddy cheeks, Thus the indulgent godhead speaks: "Frail mortals, know, reason in vain Rebels, and would disturb my reign. See there the sophister o'erthrown, With stronger arguments knock'd down Than e'er in wrangling schools were known! The wine that sparkles in this glass Smoothes every brow, gilds every face:

As vapours when the sun appears,

Far hence anxieties and fears:

Grave ermine smiles, lawn sleeves grow gay,
Each haughty monarch owns my sway,
And cardinals and popes obey:
Even Cato drank his glass, 'twas I
Taught the brave patriot how to die
For injured Rome and liberty;
"Twas I who with immortal lays
Inspired the bard that sung his praise.
Let dull unsociable fools

Loll in their cells, and live by rules;
My votaries, in gay delight

And mirth, shall revel all the night;
Act well their parts on life's dull stage,
And make each moment worth an age."

RICHARD WEST.

[Born, 1716. Died, 1742.

RICHARD WEST, the lamented friend of Gray, who died in his twenty-sixth year.

AD AMICOS.*

YES, happy youths, on Camus's sedgy side,
You feel each joy that friendship can divide;
Each realm of science and of art explore,
And with the ancient blend the modern lore.
Studious alone to learn whate'er may tend
To raise the genius, or the heart to mend ;
Now pleased along the cloister'd walk you rove,
And trace the verdant mazes of the grove,
Where social oft, and oft alone, ye chuse
To catch the zephyr, and to court the muse.
Meantime at me (while all devoid of art
These lines gave back the image of my heart)
At me the power that comes or soon or late,
Or aims, or seems to aim, the dart of fate;
From you remote, methinks, alone I stand,
Like some sad exile in a desert land;
Around no friends their lenient care to join
In mutual warmth, and mix their hearts with mine.
Or real pains, or those which fancy raise,
For ever blot the sunshine of my days;
To sickness still, and still to grief a prey,
Health turns from me her rosy face away.
Just heaven! what sin ere life begins to bloom,
Devotes my head untimely to the tomb?
Did e'er this hand against a brother's life
Drug the dire bowl, or point the murderous knife?
Did e'er this tongue the slanderer's tale proclaim,
Or madly violate my Maker's name?

*An imitation of Elegy V. 3d book of Tibullus.-This poem was written by this interesting youth at the age of twenty. [West's poems are very few in number, and those few are chiefly exercises in Latin. There is a fine vein of tender feeling throughout this poem, and though the

Did e'er this heart betray a friend or foe,
Or know a thought but all the world might know?
As yet just started from the lists of time,
My growing years have scarcely told their prime;
Useless, as yet, through life I've idly run,
No pleasures tasted, and few duties done.
Ah, who, ere autumn's mellowing suns appear,
Would pluck the promise of the vernal year;
Or, ere the grapes their purple hue betray,
Tear the crude cluster from the morning spray
Stern Power of Fate, whose ebon sceptre rules
The Stygian deserts and Cimmerian pools,
Forbear, nor rashly smite my youthful heart,
A victim yet unworthy of thy dart:
Ah, stay till age shall blast my withering face,
Shake in my head, and falter in my pace;
Then aim the shaft, then meditate the blow,
And to the dead my willing shade shall go.

?

How weak is man to Reason's judging eye! Born in this moment, in the next we die; Part mortal clay, and part ethereal fire, Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire. In vain our plans of happiness we raise, Pain is our lot, and patience is our praise; Wealth, lineage, honours, conquest, or a throne, Are what the wise would fear to call their own. Health is at best a vain precarious thing, And fair-faced youth is ever on the wing; "Tis like the stream beside whose watery bed, Some blooming plant exalts his flowery head;

thoughts are from Tibullus and Pope, yet they are bor rowed in no common way; with that kind of liberality which gives a return for what it steals. We may add here what is not at all generally known, that Tom Hearne's Reply to Time is one of young West's felicitous effusions.]

Nursed by the wave the spreading branches rise,
Shade all the ground and flourish to the skies;
The waves the while beneath in secret flow,
And undermine the hollow bank below;
Wide and more wide the waters urge their way,
Bare all the roots, and on their fibres prey.
Too late the plant bewails his foolish pride,
And sinks, untimely, in the whelming tide.

But why repine? Does life deserve my sigh;
Few will lament my loss whene'er I die.
For those the wretches I despise or hate,
I neither envy nor regard their fate.

For me, whene'er all-conquering Death shall spread

His wings around my unrepining head,

I care not: though this face be seen no more,
The world will pass as cheerful as before;
Bright as before the day-star will appear,
The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear;
Nor storms nor comets will my doom declare,
Nor signs on earth nor portents in the air;
Unknown and silent will depart my breath,
Nor Nature e'er take notice of my death.
Yet some there are (ere spent my vital days)
Within whose breasts my tomb I wish to raise.
Loved in my life, lamented in my end,

Their praise would crown me as their precepts mend:

To them may these fond lines my name endear, Not from the Poet but the Friend sincere.

JAMES EYRE WEEKES.

FROM POEMS PRINTED AT CORK, 1743.

THE FIVE TRAITORS.

A SONG.

THERE's not a sense but still betrays, Like bosom-snakes, their master; Where'er my various fancy strays,

It still brings some disaster; For all my different senses move To the same centre-fatal love!

My rebel eyes betray my heart,
And ruin me by gazing,

Like burning glasses flames impart,

And set me all a blazing:

These treachrous twins, which should protect, Like fatal stars my peace have wreck'd.

My simple ears my soul betray,

By listening to the syren;

They who should guard th' important way,
With sounds my heart environ;
Bribed, they admit such potent foes
As rob me of my sweet repose.

My smell, too, plays a traitor's part,
Her fragrant breath admitting;

Her perfumed sighs sharp stings impart,
My simple soul outwitting :

Poor I am led thus by the nose,
And find the nettle in the rose.

My taste the dangerous nectar sips,Such nectar gods ne'er tasted; And sucks ambrosia from her lips;

With ruin thus I'm feasted; My palate, which should be my cook, Destroys me with the poison'd hook.

My touch-oh, there contagion lies!
Whene'er I touch I tremble;
Through all my frame the enchantment flies,
An aspen I resemble;

My lips deluding me with bliss,
Betray their master with a kiss.

Whate'er I see, or hear, or smell,
Or taste, or touch, delighted,
By all together, like a spell,
Am I to love invited :

And other things their ruin shun,
But I am by myself undone.

2 L

RICHARD SAVAGE.

[Born, 1696-7. Died, 1743.]

Son of the unnatural Anne Countess of Macclesfield, by Earl Rivers, was born in 1696-7, and died in a jail at Bristol, 1743.

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 stamp'd in nature's mint of ecstacy!
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 foster'd, 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-enjoin'd no aim,

Prescribed no duty, and assign'd no name,
Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone,
His heart unbiass'd, and his mind his own.
"O mother, yet no mother! 'tis to you
My thanks for such distinguish'd 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; push'd me from
shore,

And launch'd me into life without an oar.

"What had I lost, if, conjugally kind, By nature hating, yet by vows confined, Untaught the matrimonial bounds 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 retrench'd 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 cypher in the state;

[* Almost all things written from the heart, as this certainly was, have some merit. The poet here describes sorrows and misfortunes which were by no means imaginary and thus there runs a truth of thinking through this poem. without which it would be of little value, as

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 painted 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 multiply'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 stain'd 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 condemn'd to see. Remembrance vails his rage, but swells his

fate;

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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 doom'd to
fall;

And I, perchance, in him, have murder'd all.
Oh 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 maintain'd,

Call'd forth my virtues, or from vice restrain'd.
Is it not time to snatch some powerful arm,
First to advance, then screen from future harm?

Am I return'd 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, miscall'd, farewell-of soul severe,
This sad reflection yet may force one tear:
All I was wretched by to you I ow'd,
Alone from strangers every comfort flow'd!

Lost to the life you gave, your son no more,
And now adopted, who was doom'd 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.

ALEXANDER POPE.

[Born, 1688. Died, 1744.]

THE faults of Pope's private character have been industriously exposed by his latest editor and biographer,* a gentleman whose talents and virtuous indignation were worthy of a better employment. In the moral portrait of Pope which he has drawn, all the agreeable traits of tender and faithful attachment in his nature have been thrown into the shade, while his deformities are brought out in the strongest, and sometimes exaggerated colours.

The story of his publishing a character of the Duchess of Marlborough, after having received a bribe to suppress it, rests on the sole authority of Horace Walpole: but Dr. J. Warton, in relating it, adds a circumstance which contradicts the statement itself. The duchess's imputed character appeared in 1746, two years after Pope's death; Pope, therefore, could not have himself published it; and it is exceedingly improbable that the bribe ever existed.† Pope was a steady and fond friend. We shall be told, perhaps, of his treachery to Bolingbroke, in publishing the Patriot King. An explanation of this business was given by the late Earl of Marchmont to a gentleman still living, (1820,) the Honourable George Rose, which is worth attending to. Earl of Marchmont's account of it, first published by Mr. A. Chalmers, in the Biographical Dictionary, is the following.

66

The

The essay on the Patriot King was undertaken at the pressing instance of Lord Cornbury, very warmly supported by the earnest entreaties of Lord Marchmont, with which Lord Boling

[* The Rev. W. L. Bowles: but Mr. William Roscoe is his latest editor and biographer.]

1 That the bribe was paid, and the character in print, the publication of the Marchinont Papers since this was written has proved beyond all question.]

broke at length complied. When it was written it was shown to the two lords and one other confidential friend, who were so much pleased with it that they did not cease their importunities to have it published, till his lordship, after much hesitation, consented to print it, with a positive determination, however, against a publication at that time; assigning as his reason, that the work was not finished in such a way as he wished it to be before it went into the world. Conformably to that determination some copies of the essay were printed, which were distributed to Lord Cornbury, Lord Marchmont, Sir W. Wyndham, Mr. Lyttleton, Mr. Pope, and Lord Chesterfield. Mr. Pope put his copy into the hands of Mr. Allen, of Prior Park, near Bath, stating to him the injunction of Lord Bolingbroke; but that gentleman was so captivated with it as to press Mr. Pope to allow him to print a small impression at his own expense, using such caution as should effectually prevent a single copy getting into the possession of any one till the consent of the author should be obtained. Under a solemn engagement to that effect, Mr. Pope very reluctantly consented: the edition was then printed, packed up, and deposited in a separate warehouse, of which Mr. Pope had the key. On the circumstance being made known to Lord Bolingbroke, who was then a guest in his own house at Battersea with Lord Marchmont, to whom he had lent it for two or three years, his lordship was in great indignation, to appease which, Lord Marchmont sent Mr. Grevenkop, (a German gentleman who had travelled with him, and was afterward in the household of Lord Chesterfield, when lord lieutenant of Ireland,) to bring out the whole edition, of which a bonfire was instantly made on the terrace of Battersea."

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