Virtue repuls'd, yet knows not to repine:
But fhall with unattainted honour shine;
Nor ftoops to take the staff*, nor lays it down,
Just as the rabble pleafe to finile or frown.
Virtue, to crown her fav'rites, loves to try
Some new unbeaten paffage to the fky;
Where Jove a feat among the gods will give
To those who die for meriting to live.
Next, faithful filence hath a fure reward;
Within our breaft be ev'ry fecret barr'd:
He who betrays his friend, fhall never be
Under one roof, or in one fhip, with me.
For who with traitors would his fafety truft,
Left with the wicked heaven involve the juft?
And though the villain 'fcape a while, he feels
Slow vengeance, like a blood-hound, at his heels.
Ad amicum eruditum THOMAM SHERIDAN.
Scripfit Oct. ann. Dom. 1717.
Elicia Sheridan mufarum, dulcis amice,
Sic tibi propitius Permeffi ad flumen Apollo
Occurrat, feu te mimum convivia rident,
Equivocofque fales fpargis, feu ludere verfu
Malles; dic, Sheridan, quifnam fuit ille deorum, 5
Quæ melor natura orto tibi tradidit artem
Rimandi genium puerorum, atque ima cerebri-
Scrutandi? Tibi nafcenti ad cunabula Pallas
Aftitit; et dixit, mentis præfaga futuræ,
Heu, puer infelix! noftro fub fidere natus ;
* A white staff is the enfign of the Lord Treasurer's office.
Nam tu pectus eris fine corpore, corporis umbra;
Sed levitate umbram fuperabis, voce cicadam:
Mufca femur, palmas tibi mus dedit, ardea crura.
Corpore fed tenui tibi quod natura negavit,
Hoc animi dotes fupplebunt; teque docente,
Nec longum tempus, furget tibi docta juventus,
Artibus egregiis animas inftructa novellas.
Grex hinc Poonius venit, ecce, falutifer orbi.
Aft illi caufas orant; his infula visa est
Divinam capiti nodo conftringere mitram.
Natalis te horæ non fallunt figna, fed ufque
Confcius, expedias puero feu lætus Apollo
Nafcenti arrifit; five illum frigidus horror
Saturni premit, aut feptem inflavere triones.
Quin tu alté penitufque latentia femina cernis, 25
Quæque diu obtundendo olim fub luminis auras
Erumpent, promis; quo ritu fæpe puella
Sub cinere hefterno fopitos fufcitat ignes.
Te dominum agnofcit quocunque fub aëre natus;
Quos indulgentis nimium cuftodia matris
Peffundat:
: nam fæpe vides in ftipite matrem.
Aureus at ramus, venerandæ dona Sibyllæ,
Æneæ fedes tantùm patefecit Avernus;
Sæpe puer, tua quem tetigit femel aurea virga,
Cœlumque terrafque videt, noctemque profundam.
Written in the year 1720.
Right Trufty, and fo forth,
We are very ill us'd by you mortals below.
For, first, I have often by chymists been told,
Tho' I know nothing on't, it is I that make gold,
Which when you have got, you so carefully hide
fo it,
That, fince I was born, I hardly have spy'd it.
Then it must be allow'd, that whenever I fhine,
I forward the grafs, and I ripen the vine;
To me the good fellows apply for relief,
Without whom they could get neither claret nor beef: Yet their wine and their victuals thefe curmudgeon* lubbards
Lock up from my fight in cellars and cupboards.
That I have an ill eye they wickedly think,
And taint all their meat, and four all their drink.
But, thirdly and laftly, it must be allow'd,
I alone can infpire the poetical croud:
This is gratefully own'd by each boy in the college,
Whom if I infpire, it is not to my knowledge.
This ev'ry pretender to rhyme will admit,
Without troubling his head about judgement or wit.
These gentlemen use me with kindness and freedom;
And as for their works, when I please I may read 'em:
They lie open on purpose on counters and stalls,
And the titles I view, when I fhine on the walls.
But a comrade of yours, that traitor Delany,
Whom I, for your fake, love better than any,
And of my mere motion, and special good grace,
Intended in time to fucceed in your place,
On Tuesday the tenth feditiously came
With a certain false traitrefs, one Stella by name, 30
To the deanery-house, and on the north glafs,
Where, for fear of the cold, I never can pass,
Then and there, vi et armis, with a certain utenfil,
Of value five fhillings, in English a pencil,
* Curmudgeon, a word here used as an adjective, now fignifies a fordid niggardly fellow, but was perhaps in its orig nal fenfe of more extenfive import, being probably a corruption of coeur mechant, a wicked heart.
Did malicioufly, falfely, and trait'rously write,
Whilft Stella aforefaid ftood by with a light *.
My fifter has lately depos'd upon oath,
That the ftopt in her courfe to look at them both:
That Stella was helping, abetting, and aiding;
And still as he writ, ftood fmiling and reading: 40
That her eyes were as bright as myfelf at noonday,
But her graceful black locks were mingled with grey;
And by the defcription I certainly know,
'Tis the nymph that I courted fome ten years ago;
Whom when I with the best of my talents endu'd 45
On her promife of yielding, the acted the prude:
That fome verfes were writ with felonious intent,
Direct to the north, where I never went:
That the letters appear'd reverse thro' the pane,
But in Stella's bright eyes they were place'd right
again;
Wherein the diftinctly could read ev'ry line,
And prefently guefs'd the fancy was mine t.
Now you fee why his verfes fo seldom are shown:
The reafon is plain, they're none of his own;
And obferve while you live, that no man is fhy
To difcover the goods he came honeftly by.
If I light on a thought he'll certainly steal it :
And when he has got it, finds way to conceal it:
Of all the fine things he keeps in the dark,
There's fcarce one in ten, but what has my mark; 60
And let them be feen by the world if he dare,
I'll make it appear, they are all ftolen ware.
But as for the poem he writ on your fafh,
I think I have now got him under my lash;
See verfes faid to be cut by two of the Dean's friends upon a pane of glafs in one of his parleurs, among the pofthumous pieces in this volume.
The mechanifm of this poem is formed upon a mistake, which a very flight confideration of the laws of vifion wou'd have preve..ted. The whole depends upon Cynthia's reading in Stella's eyes the writing, which appeared invested through the pane: but as the writing was not inverted on that fide of the glafs at which Sheila looked, it mut necefarily be inverted in her eyes,
My fifter tranfcrib'd it laft night to his forrow,
And the public thall fee't, if I live till to-morrow.
Thro' the zodiac around it fhall quickly be spread,
In all parts of the globe, where your language is read.
He knows very well, I ne'er gave a refufal,
When he afk'd for my aid in the forms that are ufual:
But the fecret is this; I did lately intend
To write a few verfes on you, as my friend:
I ftudied a fortnight before I could find,
As I rode in my chariot, a thought to my mind, And refolv'd the next winter, (for that is my time, 75 When the days are at fhorteft), to get it in rhyme; Till then it was lock'd in my box at Parnaffus : When that fubtle companion, in hopes to furpafs us, Conveys out my paper of hints by a trick,
(For I think in my confcience he deals with old nick), And from my own stock provided with topics, 81 He gets to a window beyond both the tropics;
There out of my fight, just against the north zone,
Writes down my conceits, and calls them his own;
And you, like a cully, the bubble can fwallow: 85
Now, who but Delany, that writes like Apollo?
High treafon by ftatute! but here you object,
He only ftole hints, but the verfe is correct;
Tho' the thought be Apollo's, 'tis finely exprefs'd.
So a thief steals my horfe, and has him well drefs'd.
Now, whereas the faid criminal feems paft repentance,
We Phoebus think fit to proceed to the sentence.
Since Delany has dar'd, like Prometheus his fire,
To climb to our region, and thence to steal fire;
We order a vulture, in shape of the spleen,
To prey on his liver, but not to be seen.
And we order our fubjects of ev'ry degree
To believe all his verfes were written by me;
And, under the pain of our highest displeasure,
To call nothing his but the rhyme and the measure.
And lastly, for Stella juft out of her prime,
I'm too much reveng'd already by time.
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