"FOR shame," said Ebony, "for shame! Poor Tom, who just had took his whet, Each blush that glow'd with an ill grace, "I own (said he) I'm very bad A sot-incorrigibly mad But, sir-I thank you for your love, Urge home my faults-come in, I pray— 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, 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 I would not drink-what! before dinner? A butt to all the sots in town? Will there not be a breach at last ?". Uncle, 'tis true-forgive what's past." "But if nor interest, nor fame, Nor health, can your dull soul reclaim, 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, Loll in their cells, and live by rules; And mirth, shall revel all the night; 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, *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, ? 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, But why repine? Does life deserve my sigh; 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, 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, 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, My smell, too, plays a traitor's part, Her perfumed sighs sharp stings impart, Poor I am led thus by the nose, 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! My lips deluding me with bliss, Whate'er I see, or hear, or smell, And other things their ruin shun, 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! "Born to himself, by no possession led, Loosed to the world's wide range-enjoin'd no aim, Prescribed no duty, and assign'd no name, 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, 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; He might have lived till folly died in shame, proved; Both happy, generous, candid, and beloved, And I, perchance, in him, have murder'd all. 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. Am I return'd from death to live in pain? Mother, miscall'd, farewell-of soul severe, Lost to the life you gave, your son no more, 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." |