Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

THERSITES; OR, THE LORDLING;

THE GRANDSON OF A BRICKLAYER-GREAT GRANDSON OF A BUTCHER.

THERSITES, of amphibious breed,
Motley fruit of mongrel seed,
By the dam from lordlings sprung,
By the sire exhaled from dung:
Think on every vice in both;
Look on him, and see the growth.
View him on the mother's side,
Fill'd with falsehood, spleen, and pride,
Positive and overbearing,

Changing still, and still adhering,
Spiteful, peevish, rude, untoward,
Fierce in tongue, in heart a coward:
When his friends he most is hard on,
Cringing comes to beg their pardon;
Reputation ever tearing,

Ever dearest friendship swearing;
Judgment weak and passion strong,
Always various, always wrong;
Provocation never waits

Where he loves or where he hates;
Talks whate'er comes in his head,
Wishes it were all unsaid.

Let me now the vices trace
From his father's scoundrel race.

Who could give the looby such airs?
Were they masons? Were they butchers?

VOL, V.

D

Herald, lend the Muse an answer,
From his atavus and grandsire;
This was dexterous at his trowel,
That was bred to kill a cow well:
Hence the greasy clumsy mien,
In his dress and figure seen;
Hence that mean and sordid soul,
Like his body rank and foul;
Hence that wild suspicious peep,
Like a rogue that steals a sheep;
Hence he learn'd the butcher's guile,
How to cut a throat and smile;
Like a butcher doom'd for life
In his mouth to wear his knife?
Hence he draws his daily food
From his tenants' vital blood.

Lastly, let his gifts be tried,
Borrow'd from the mason side.
Some perhaps may think him able
In the state to build a Babel,
Could we place him in a station
To destroy the old foundation;
True indeed I should be gladder,
Could he learn to mount a ladder :
May he, at his latter end,
Mount alive and dead descend.
In him tell me which prevail,
Female vices most or male?

What produced them, can you tell?
Human race, or imp of hell?—

TICKELL.

VERSES,

TO BE PLACED UNDER THE PICTURE OF SIR RICHARD

BLACKMORE, ENGLAND'S ARCHPOET:

CONTAINING A COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF HIS WORKS.

SEE who ne'er was, nor will be half read;
Who first sang Arthur*, then sang Alfred +;
Praised great Eliza ‡ in God's anger,

Till all true Englishmen cried,' Hang her!'
Made William's virtues wipe the bare a-
And hang'd up Marlborough in arras §;
Then hiss'd from earth, grew heavenly quite;
Made every reader curse the light||;
Maul'd human wit in one thick satire¶,
Next, in three books, spoil'd human nature **,
Undid creation ++ at a jirk,

And of redemption ‡‡ made damn'd work.
Then took his Muse at once and dipp'd her
Full in the middle of the Scripture.

What wonders there the man grown old did!
Sternhold himself he out-Sternholded:

• Two heroic poems, in folio, twenty books.

+ Heroic poem, in twelve books.

Heroic poem, in folio, ten books.

Instructions to Vanderbank, a tapestry weaver.
Hymn to the light.

Satire against wit.

* Of the nature of man.

+ Creation, a poem, seven books.

#The Redeemer, another heroic poem, six books.

*

Made David seem so mad and freakish,

All thought him just what thought King Achish.
No mortal read his Solomont,

But judged Re'boam his own son.
Moses he served as Moses Pharaoh,
And Deborah, as she Siserah ‡ :
Made Jeremy § full sore to cry,

And Job || himself curse God and die.
What punishment all this must follow?
Shall Arthur use him like King Tollo?
Shall David as Uriah slay him?

Or dexterous Deborah Sisera-him?
Or shall Eliza lay a plot,

To treat him like her sister Scot?

Shall William dub his better end ¶,

Or Marlborough serve him like a friend?
No!-none of these?-Heaven spare his life!
But send him, honest Job! thy wife.

GAY.

AN ELEGY.

TO AN OLD BEAUTY,

In vain, poor nymph, to please our youthful sight, You sleep in cream and frontlets all the night, Your face with patches soil, with paint repair, Dress with gay gowns, and shade with foreign hair:

* Translation of all the Psalms.

+ Canticles and Ecclesiastes.

Paraphrase of the Canticles of Moses and Deborah, &c.
The Lamentations.

The whole book of Job, a poem, in folio.

Kick him on the breech, not knight him on the shoulder.

If truth, in spite of manners, must be told,
Why, really, fifty-five is something old.

[long

Once you were young; or one, whose life's so She might have borne my mother, tells me wrong: And once, since Envy's dead before you die, The women own you play'd a sparkling eye, Taught the light foot a modish little trip, And pouted with the prettiest purple lip.— To some new charmer are the roses fled, Which blew, to damask all thy cheek with red; Youth calls the Graces there to fix their reign, And airs by thousands fill their easy train. So parting summer bids her flowery prime Attend the sun to dress some foreign clime, While withering seasons in succession, here, Strip the gay gardens, and deform the year.

But thou, since Nature bids, the world resign, 'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine; With more address, or such as pleases more, She runs her female exercises o'er,

Unfurls or closes, raps or turns the fan,
And smiles, or blushes, at the creature-man.
With quicker life, as gilded coaches pass,
In sideling courtesy she drops the glass,
With better strength, on visit days she bears
To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs.
Her mien, her shape, her temper, eyes, and tongue
Are sure to conquer-for the rogue is young:
And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay,
We call it only pretty Fanny's way.

Let time that makes you homely make you sage,
The sphere of wisdom is the sphere of age.
'Tis true, when beauty dawns with early fire,
And hears the flattering tongues of soft desire,

« ПредишнаНапред »