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There is a charm, a power, that sways the breast; Bids every passion revel or be still; Inspires with rage, or all your cares dissolves; Can soothe distraction, and almost despair. That power is music: far beyond the stretch Of those unmeaning warblers on our stage; Those clumsy heroes, those fat-headed gods, Who move no passion justly but contempt: Who, like our dancers (light indeed and strong!) Do wondrous feats, but never heard of grace. The fault is ours; we bear those monstrous arts; Good Heaven! we praise them: we, with loudest peals,

Applaud the fool that highest lifts his heels;

And, with insipid show of rapture, die
Of idiot notes impertinently long.

But he the Muse's laurel justly shares,

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A poet he, and touched with Heaven's own fire,
Who, with bold rage or solemn pomp of sounds,
Inflames, exalts, and ravishes the soul;
Now tender, plaintive, sweet almost to pain,
In love dissolves you; now in sprightly strains
Breathes a gay rapture through your thrilling breast;
Or melts the heart with airs divinely sad;

Or wakes to horror the tremendous strings.
Such was the bard, whose heavenly strains of old
Appeased the fiend of melancholy Saul.
Such was, if old and heathen fame say true,
The man who bade the Theban domes ascend,
And tamed the savage nations with his song;'
And such the Thracian,2 whose melodious lyre,
Tuned to soft woe, made all the mountains weep;
Soothed even th' inexorable powers of hell,

1 Amphion.-Thracian: Orpheus.

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And half redeemed his lost Eurydice.
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,

Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague;
And hence the wise of ancient days adored
One power of physic, melody, and song.

OF BENEVOLENCE:

AN EPISTLE TO EUMENES.

FIRST PRINTED IN FOLIO IN THE YEAR MDCCLI.

This little piece was addressed to a worthy gentleman,1 as an expression of gratitude for his kind endeavours to do the author a great piece of service.

KIND to my frailties still, Eumenes, hear;

Once more I try the patience of your ear.
Not oft I sing: the happier for the town,
So stunned already they 're quite stupid grown
With monthly, daily-charming things, I own.
Happy for them, I seldom court the Nine;
Another art, a serious art is mine.
Of nauseous verses offered once a week,
You cannot say I did it, if you 're sick.
'Twas ne'er my pride to shine by flashy fits
Amongst the daily, weekly, monthly wits.
Content if some few friends indulge my name,
So slightly am I stung with love of fame,
I would not scrawl one hundred idle lines-
Not for the praise of all the magazines.

Yet once a moon, perhaps, I steal a night;
And, if our sire Apollo pleases, write.

You smile; but all the train the Muse that follow, Christians and dunces, still we quote Apollo.

1'A worthy gentleman:' John Wilkes, we believe.

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Unhappy still our poets will rehearse

To Goths, that stare astonished at their verse;
To the rank tribes submit their virgin lays:
So gross, so bestial, is the lust of praise!

I to sound judges from the mob appeal,
And write to those who most my subject feel.
Eumenes, these dry moral lines I trust

With you, whom naught that's moral can disgust.
With you I venture, in plain home-spun sense,
What I imagine of Benevolence.

Of all the monsters of the human kind,
What strikes you most is the low selfish mind.
You wonder how, without one liberal joy,
The steady miser can his years employ;
Without one friend, howe'er his fortunes thrive,
Despised and hated, how he bears to live.
With honest warmth of heart, with some degree
Of pity that such wretched things should be,
You scorn the sordid knave-He grins at you,
And deems himself the wiser of the two.-
'Tis all but taste, howe'er we sift the case;
He has his joy, as every creature has.
'Tis true, he cannot boast an angel's share,
Yet has what happiness his organs bear.
Thou likewise mad'st the high seraphic soul,
Maker omnipotent! and thou the owl.

Heaven form'd him too, and doubtless for some use; But Crane Court knows not yet all nature's views.

'Tis chiefly taste, or blunt, or gross, or fine,

Makes life insipid, bestial, or divine.
Better be born with taste to little rent,

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Than the dull monarch of a continent.

Without this bounty which the gods bestow,
Can Fortune make one favourite happy?—No.
As well might Fortune in her frolic vein,
Proclaim an oyster sovereign of the main.
Without fine nerves, and bosom justly warmed,
An eye, an ear, a fancy to be charmed,
In vain majestic Wren expands the dome;
Blank as pale stucco Rubens lines the room;
Lost are the raptures of bold Handel's strain;
Great Tully storms, sweet Virgil sings, in vain.
The beauteous forms of nature are effaced;
Tempe's soft charms, the raging watery waste,
Each greatly-wild, each sweet romantic scene,
Unheeded rises, and almost unseen.

Yet these are joys, with some of better clay,
To soothe the toils of life's embarrassed way.
These the fine frame with charming horrors
chill,

And give the nerves delightfully to thrill.
But of all taste the noblest and the best,
The first enjoyment of the generous breast,
Is to behold in man's obnoxious state
Scenes of content and happy turns of fate.
Fair views of nature, shining works of art,
Amuse the fancy: but those touch the heart.
Chiefly for this proud epic song delights,
For this some riot on th' Arabian Nights.
Each case is ours: and for the human mind
"Tis monstrous not to feel for all mankind.
Were all mankind unhappy, who could taste
Elysium? or be solitarily blest?

Shock'd with surrounding shapes of human woe,
All that or sense or fancy could bestow,

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You would reject with sick and coy disdain,
And pant to see one cheerful face again.

But if life's better prospects to behold
So much delight the man of generous mould;
How happy they, the great, the godlike few,
Who daily cultivate this pleasing view!
This is a joy possessed by few indeed!
Dame Fortune has so many fools to feed,
She cannot oft afford, with all her store,
To yield her smiles where Nature smiled before.
To sinking worth a cordial hand to lend;
With better fortune to surprize a friend;
To cheer the modest stranger's lonely state;
Or snatch an orphan family from fate;
To do, possessed with virtue's noblest fire,
Such generous deeds as we with tears admire;
Deeds that, above ambition's vulgar aim,
Secure an amiable, a solid fame:

These are such joys as Heaven's first favourites seize;
These please you now, and will for ever please.

Too seldom we great moral deeds admire;
The will, the power, th' occasion must conspire.
Yet few there are so impotent and low,
But can some small good offices bestow.
Small as they are, however cheap they come,
They add still something to the general sum:
And him who gives the little in his power,
The world acquits; and heaven demands no more.

Unhappy he! who feels each neighbour's woe,
Yet no relief, no comfort can bestow.
Unhappy too, who feels each kind essay,
And for great favours has but words to pay;

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