Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight, And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale. FROM THE SAME. Madness of men in pursuit of amusement. AH! how unjust to Nature and himself, Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man! Like children, babbling nonsense in their sports, We censure nature for a span too short; That span too short, we tax as tedious too; Torture invention, all expedients tire, To lash the lingering moments into speed, And whirl us (happy riddance!) from ourselves. Art, brainless art! our furious charioteer (For nature's voice unstifled would recall,) Drives headlong toward the precipice of death; Death, most our dread; death thus more dreadful O what a riddle of absurdity! [made: Leisure is pain; takes off our chariot wheels; How heavily we drag the load of life! Blest leisure is our curse; like that of Cain, It makes us wander; wander earth around, To fly that tyrant, thought. As Atlas groan'd The world beneath, we groan beneath an hour. We cry for mercy to the next amusement; The next amusement mortgages our fields; Slight inconvenience! prisons hardly frown, From hateful time if prisons set us free. Yet when death kindly tenders us relief, We call him cruel; years to moments shrink, Ages to years. The telescope is turn'd. To man's false optics (from his folly false) Time, in advance, behind him hides his wings, And seems to creep, decrepit with his age; Behold him, when pass'd by; what then is seen, But his broad pinions swifter than the winds? And all mankind, in contradiction strong, Rueful, aghast, cry out on his career. All feeling of futurity benumb'd; All god-like passion for eternals quench'd; Renounced all correspondence with the skies: Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world. Though we from earth; ethereal they that fell. FROM THE SAME. Society necessary to happiness. WISDOM, though richer than Peruvian mines, And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive, What is she but the means of happiness? That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool; A melancholy fool, without her bells. Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives, The precious end which makes our wisdom wise. Nature, in zeal for human amity, Denies, or damps, an undivided joy. Joy is an import, joy is an exchange; Joy flies monopolists: it calls for two; Rich fruit! heaven-planted! never pluck'd by one. Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give To social man true relish of himself. Full on ourselves, descending in a line, Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight: Delight intense is taken by rebound; Reverberated pleasures fire the breast. FROM THE SAME. Blessedness of the son of foresight. WHERE shall I find him? Angels! tell me where. You know him: He is near you: Point him out: FROM NIGHT III. What was thy fate? A double fate to me; Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet! Still melting there, and with voluptuous pain (0 to forget her) thrilling through my heart! Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy; this group Of bright ideas, flowers of paradise, As yet unforfeit! in one blaze we bind, Kneel, and present it to the skies as all We guess of heaven: and these were all her own. And she was mine; and I was-was!-most Gay title of the deepest misery! [blest As bodies grow more ponderous robb'd of life, Good lost weighs more in grief than gain'd in joy, Like blossom'd trees o'erturn'd by vernal storm, Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay; And if in death still lovely, lovelier there, Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love. And will not the severe excuse a sigh? Scorn the proud man that is ashamed to weep; Our tears indulged indeed deserve our shame. Ye that e'er lost an angel, pity me! Soon as the lustre languish'd in her eye, Dawning a dimmer day on human sight, And on her cheek, the residence of spring, Pale omen sat, and scatter'd fears around On all that saw (and who would cease to gaze That once had seen?) with haste, parental haste, I flew, I snatch'd her from the rigid north, Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew, And bore her nearer to the sun: the sun (As if the sun could envy) check'd his beam, Denied his wonted succour; nor with more Regret beheld her drooping than the bells Of lilies; fairest lilies not so fair! So man is made; nought ministers delight By plucking fruit denied to mortal taste, On its sharp point peace bleeds, and hope expires. Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her :- Resenting rallies, and wakes every woe. And on a foreign shore, where strangers wept! Their sighs incensed; sighs foreign to the will! Their will the tiger suck'd, outraged the storm. For, oh the curst ungodliness of zeal! While sinful flesh relented, spirit nurst, In blind infallibility's embrace, The sainted spirit, petrified the breast; Denied the charity of dust to spread O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy. What could I do? What succour! What reWith pious sacrilege, a grave I stole; [source? With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd; Short in my duty; coward in my grief! More like her murderer, than friend, I crept, With soft suspended step, and muffled deep In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh. I whisper'd what should echo through their realms; Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies. Presumptuous fear! How durst I dread her foes, FROM NIGHT IV. Comparison of the soul viewing the prospects of immor- FROM NIGHT V. The danger to virtue of infection from the world. VIRTUE, for ever frail, as fair, below, Her tender nature suffers in the crowd, Nor touches on the world without a stain: The world's infectious; few bring back at eve, Immaculate, the manners of the morn. Something, we thought, is blotted; we resolved, Is shaken; we renounced, returns again. Each salutation may slide in a sin Unthought before, or fix a former flaw. Nor is it strange; light, motion, concourse, noise, All scatter us abroad; thought, outward bound, Neglectful of our home affairs, flies off In fume and dissipation; quits her charge, And leaves the breast unguarded to the foe. FROM NIGHT VI. Insufficiency of genius without virtue. Assist our flight, Fame's flight is glory's fall. FROM NIGHT VIII. Description of the man whose thoughts are not of this world. SOME angel guide my pencil, while I draw What nothing less an angel can exceed! A man on earth devoted to the skies; Like ships in seas, while in, above the world. With aspect mild, and elevated eye, Behold him seated on a mount serene, Above the fogs of sense, and passion's storm; All the black cares and tumults of this life, Like harmless thunders breaking at his feet, Excite his pity, not impair his peace. Earth's genuine sons, the scepter'd and the slave, A mingled mob! a wandering herd! he sees Bewilder'd in the vale; in all unlike! His full reverse in all! what higher praise? What stronger demonstration of the right? The present all their care, the future his. When public welfare calls, or private want, They give to fame, his bounty he conceals. Their virtues varnish nature, his exalt. Mankind's esteem they court, and he his own. Theirs, the wild chase of false felicities, His, the composed possession of the true. Alike throughout is his consistent peace, All of one colour, and an even thread; While party-colour'd shreds of happiness, With hideous gaps between, patch up for them A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows The tatters by, and shows their nakedness. He sees with other eyes than theirs; where they Behold a sun, he spies a Deity; What makes them only smile, makes him adore. He lays aside to find his dignity; FROM HIS SATIRES. SATIRE I. The love of praise. WHAT Will not men attempt for sacred praise! The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art, Reigns, more or less, and glows, in every heart; The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure; The modest shun it, but to make it sure. O'er globes, and sceptres, now on thrones it swells; Now trims the midnight lamp in college cells: "Tis Tory, Whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads, Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades. Here, to Steele's humour makes a bold pretence; There, bolder, aims at Pulteney's eloquence. It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head, And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead: Nor ends with life; but nods in sable plumes, Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs. SATIRE V. Propensity of man to false and fantastic joys. MAN's rich with little, were his judgment true; Nature is frugal, and her wants are few; Those few wants answer'd, bring sincere delights; But fools create themselves new appetites: Fancy and pride seek things at vast expense, Which relish not to reason, nor to sense. When surfeit, or unthankfulness, destroys, In nature's narrow sphere, our solid joys, In fancy's airy land of noise and show, [grow; Where nought but dreams, no real pleasures Like cats in air-pumps, to subsist we strive On joys too thin to keep the soul alive. FROM THE SAME. SOME nymphs prefer astronomy to love; Elope from mortal man, and range above. The fair philosopher to Rowley flies, Where in a box the whole creation lies: She sees the planets in their turns advance, And scorns, Poitier, thy sublunary dance! Of Desaguliers she bespeaks fresh air; And Whiston has engagements with the fair. What vain experiments Sophronia tries! 'Tis not in air-pumps the gay colonel dies. But though to-day this rage of science reigns, (O fickle sex!) soon end her learned pains. Lo! Pug from Jupiter her heart has got, Turns out the stars, and Newton is a sot. THE LANGUID LADY. FROM THE SAME. THE languid lady next appears in state, Who was not born to carry her own weight; She lolls, reels, staggers, till some foreign aid To her own stature lifts the feeble maid, Then, if ordain'd to so severe a doom, She, by just stages, journeys round the room: But, knowing her own weakness, she despairs To scale the Alps-that is, ascend the stairs. My fan let others say, who laugh at toil: Fan! hood! glove! scarf! is her laconic style; And that is spoke with such a dying fall, That Betty rather sees than hears the call: The motion of her lips, and meaning eye, Piece out th' idea her faint words deny. THE SWEARER. FROM THE SAME. THALESTRIS triumphs in a manly mien ; Loud is her accent, and her phrase obscene. In fair and open dealing where's the shame? What nature dares to give, she dares to name. This honest fellow is sincere and plain, And justly gives the jealous husband pain. (Vain is the task to petticoats assign'd, If wanton language shows a naked mind.) And now and then, to grace her eloquence, An oath supplies the vacancies of sense. Hark! the shrill notes transpierce the yielding air, And teach the neighbouring echoes how to swear, By Jove, is faint, and for the simple swain; She on the Christian system is profane. But though the volley rattles in your ear, Believe her dress, she's not a grenadier. If thunder's awful, how much more our dread, When Jove deputes a lady in his stead? A lady? pardon my mistaken pen, A shameless woman is the worst of men. JOHN BROWN. [Born, 1715, Died, 1765.] DR. BROWN, author of the tragedies of Athelstan and Barbarossa, and of several other works, was born at Rothbury, in Northumberland, where his father was curate. He studied at Cambridge, obtained a minor canonry and lectureship in the cathedral of Carlisle, and was afterward preferred to the living of Morland, in Westmoreland. The latter office he resigned in disgust at being rebuked for an accidental omission of the Athana sian creed. He remained for some years in obscurity at Carlisle, till the year of the Rebellion, when he distinguished himself by his intrepidity as a volunteer at the siege of the castle. His Essay on Satire introduced him to Warburton, who exhorted him to write his Remarks on Shaftesbury's Characteristics, as well as to attempt an epic poem on the plan which Pope had sketched. Through Warburton's influence he obtained the rectory of Horkesly, near Colchester; but his fate was to be embroiled with his patrons, and having quarrelled with those who had given him the living in Essex, he was obliged to retire upon the vicarage of St. Nicholas, at Newcastle. A latent taint of derangement had certainly made him vain and capricious; but Warburton seems not to have been a delicate doctor to his mind's disease. In one of his letters he says, "Brown is here, rather perter than ordinary, but no wiser. You cannot imagine how tender they are all of his tender places, and with how unfeeling a hand I probe them." The writer of this humane sentence was one whom Brown had praised in his Estimate as the Gulliver and Colossus of a degenerate age. When his Barbarossa came out, it appears that some friends, equally tender with the Bishop of Gloucester, reproved him for having any connection with players. The players were not much kinder to his sore feelings. Garrick offended him deeply by a line in the prologue which he composed for his Barbarossa, alluding to its author, "Let the poor devil eatallow him that." His poetry never obtained, or indeed deserved much attention; but his "Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the times" passed through seven editions, and threw the nation into a temporary ferment. Voltaire alleges that it roused the English from lethargy by the imputation of degeneracy, and made them put forth a vigour that proved victorious in the war with France. Dr. Brown was preparing to accept of an invitation from the Empress of Russia to superintend her public plans of education, when he was seized with a fit of lunacy, and put a period to his own existence. FROM THE TRAGEDY OF "BARBAROSSA." ACT II. Selim, the son of the deceased Prince of Algiers, admitted in disguise into the palace of the usurper Barbarossa, and meeting with Othman, his secret friend. Persons-BARBAROSSA, SELIM, OTHMAN. Bar. Most welcome, Othman. Behold this gallant stranger. He hath done The state good service. Let some high reward Await him, such as may o'erpay his zeal. Conduct him to the queen: for he hath news Worthy her ear, from her departed son; Such as may win her love-Come, Aladin ! The banquet waits our presence: festal joy Laughs in the mantling goblet; and the night, Illumined by the taper's dazzling beam, Rivals departed day. [Exeunt BAR. and ALA. Selim. What anxious thought Rolls in thine eye, and heaves thy labouring breast? Why join'st thou not the loud excess of joy, That riots through the palace? Oth. Darest thou tell me On what dark errand thou art here? Selim. I dare. Dost not perceive the savage lines of blood My dagger thirsts not but for regal blood- Oth. Amazement!-No-'Tis well-'Tis as it He was indeed a foe to Barbarossa. Selim. And therefore to Algiers:-Was it not so? Why dost thou pause? What passion shakes thy frame? Oth. Fate, do thy worst! I can no more dissemble! Can I, unmoved, behold the murdering ruffian, Smear'd with my prince's blood!-Go, tell the Selim. Nay, if thou doubt'st, I'll bring him Oth. Not for an empire! Thou might'st as well bring the devoted lamb Into the tiger's den. Selim. But I'll bring him Hid in such deep disguise as shall deride Oth. Yes, sure: too sure to hazard such an awful Trial! Selim. Yet seven revolving years, worn out In tedious exile, may have wrought such change Of voice and feature in the state of youth, As might elude thine eye. Oth. No time can blot The memory of his sweet majestic mien, Oth. Ay, on his forehead. My honour'd, honour'd king! [Kneels. Selim. Rise, faithful Othman. Thus let me thank thy truth! [Embraces him. Oth. O happy hour! [my hand? Selim. Why dost thou tremble thus? Why grasp And why that ardent gaze! Thou canst not doubt me! |