We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much; Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind:

Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat

To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote;

Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining;

Tho' equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit;
For a patriot too cool; for a drudge disobedient;
And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemploy'd or in place,
Sir,

4I

Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can? An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man; As an actor, confest without rival to shine; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line; Yet with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings, a dupe to his art; 98 Like an ill-judging beauty his colours he spread, And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only that when he was off he was acting; With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day: Tho' secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick If they were not his own by finessing and trick; He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,

283

For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what

And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind:
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,
What a commerce was yours, while you got and
you gave!

How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised,

When he was be-Roscius'd, and you were bepraised!

But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,

To act as an angel, and mix with the skies! I 20
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill,
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;
Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with
love,

And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.

THOMAS WARTON (1728-1790)

FROM THE CRUSADE
Bound for holy Palestine,
Nimbly we brush'd the level brine,
All in azure steel array'd;
O'er the wave our weapons play'd,
And made the dancing billows glow;
High upon the trophied prow,
Many a warrior-minstrel swung
His sounding harp, and boldly sung:
"Syrian virgins, wail and weep,
English Richard ploughs the deep!
Tremble, watchmen, as ye spy,
From distant towers, with anxious eye,
The radiant range of shield and lance
Down Damascus' hills advance:

ΙΟ

Cyprus, from her rocky mound,

And Crete, with piny verdure crown'd,
Far along the smiling main
Echoed the prophetic strain.

Soon we kiss'd the sacred earth

That gave a murder'd Saviour birth; Then, with ardour fresh endu'd, Thus the solemn song renew'd:

"Lo, the toilsome voyage past, Heaven's favour'd hills appear at last! Object of our holy vow,

We tread the Tyrian valleys now.
From Carmel's almond-shaded steep
We feel the cheering fragrance creep:
O'er Engaddi's shrubs of balm
Waves the date-empurpled palm;
See Lebanon's aspiring head
Wide his immortal umbrage spread!
Hail Calvary, thou mountain hoar,
Wet with our Redeemer's gore!
Ye trampled tombs, ye fanes forlorn,
Ye stones, by tears of pilgrims worn;
Your ravish'd honours to restore,
Fearless we climb this hostile shore!
And thou, the sepulchre of God!

By mocking pagans rudely trod,

Bereft of every awful rite,

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50

And, rolling in terrific state,

On giant-wheels harsh thunders grate.
When eve has hush'd the buzzing camp,
Amid the moonlight vapours damp,
Thy necromantic forms, in vain,
Haunt us on the tented plain:
We bid those spectre-shapes avaunt,
Ashtaroth, and Termagaunt!
With many a demon, pale of hue,
Doom'd to drink the bitter dew
That drops from Macon's sooty tree,
'Mid the dread grove of ebony.

Nor magic charms, nor fiends of hell,
The Christian's holy courage quell.
Salem, in ancient majesty

Soon on thy battlements divine

Arise, and lift thee to the sky!

Shall wave the badge of Constantine.

Ye Barons, to the sun unfold

Our Cross with crimson wove and gold!"

SONNET IV

WRITTEN AT STONEHENGE

80

90

Thou noblest monument of Albion's isle!
Whether by Merlin's aid from Scythia's shore,
To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore,
Huge frame of giant-hands, the mighty pile,
T'entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile:
Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore,
Taught 'mid thy massy maze their mystic lore:
Or Danish chiefs, enrich'd with savage spoil,
To Victory's idol vast, an unhewn shrine,
Rear'd the rude heap: or, in thy hallow'd round,
Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line;
Or here those kings in solemn state were crown'd:
Studious to trace thy wondrous origine,
We muse on many an ancient tale renown'd.

SONNET VII

II

While summer suns o'er the gay prospect play'd, Through Surry's verdant scenes, where Epsom

spreads

'Mid intermingling elms her flowery meads,
And Hascombe's hill, in towering groves array'd,
Rear'd its romantic steep, with mind serene,
I journey'd blithe. Full pensive I return'd;
For now my breast with hopeless passion burn'd,
Wet with hoar mists appear'd the gaudy scene,
Which late in careless indolence I pass'd;
And Autumn all around those hues had cast
Where past delight my recent grief might trace.
Sad change, that Nature a congenial gloom

ΤΟ

Should wear, when most, my cheerless mood to chase,

I wish'd her green attire, and wonted bloom!

SONNET IX

TO THE RIVER LODON

Ah! what a weary race my feet have run,
Since first I trod thy banks with alders crown'd,
And thought my way was all through fairy ground,
Beneath thy azure sky, and golden sun:
Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun!
While pensive Memory traces back the round,
Which fills the varied interval between;
Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure
No more return, to cheer my evening road!
Yet still one joy remains: that not obscure,
Nor useless, all my vacant days have flow'd,
From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime
mature;

Nor with the Muse's laurel unbestow'd.

ΙΟ

CHARLES CHURCHILL (1731-1764)

FROM THE APOLOGY

a subject fair and free 'tis public property,

190

The stage I choose 'Tis yours -'tis mine All common exhibitions open lie For praise or censure to the common eye. Hence are a thousand hackney writers fed; Hence Monthly Critics earn their daily bread. This is a general tax which all must pay, From those who scribble, down to those who play. Actors, a venal crew, receive support From public bounty for the public sport. To clap or hiss, all have an equal claim, The cobbler's and his lordship's right the same. All join for their subsistence; all expect

Free leave to praise their worth, their faults

correct.

When active Pickle Smithfield stage ascends, 200
The three days' wonder of his laughing friends,
Each, or as judgment or as fancy guides,
The lively witling praises or derides.

And where's the mighty difference, tell me where,
Betwixt a Merry Andrew and a play'r?

The strolling tribe, a despicable race! Like wandering Arabs, shift from place to place. Vagrants by law, to justice open laid, They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid,

And, fawning, cringe for wretched means of life To Madam Mayoress, or his Worship's wife. 211

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The mighty monarch, in theatric sack, Carries his whole regalia at his back; His royal consort heads the female band, And leads the heir apparent in her hand; The pannier'd ass creeps on with conscious pride, Bearing a future prince on either side. No choice musicians in this troop are found, To varnish nonsense with the charms of sound; No swords, no daggers, not one poison'd bowl; No lightning flashes here, no thunders roll; No guards to swell the monarch's train are shown; The monarch here must be a host alone: No solemn pomp, no slow processions here; No Ammon's entry, and no Juliet's bier.

221

By need compell'd to prostitute his art, The varied actor flies from part to part; And, strange disgrace to all theatric pride! His character is shifted with his side. Question and answer he by turns must be, Like that small wit in Modern Tragedy Who, to patch up his fame or fill his purse Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them

worse;

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And make colloquial happiness your care,
Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate,
A duel in the form of a debate.

The clash of arguments and jar of words,
Worse than the mortal brunt of rival swords,
Decide no question with their tedious length,
(For opposition gives opinion strength)
Divert the champions prodigal of breath,
And put the peaceably disposed to death.
Oh, thwart me not, Sir Soph, at every turn,
Nor carp at every flaw you may discern;
Though syllogisms hang not on my tongue,
I am not surely always in the wrong;
'Tis hard if all is false that I advance,

A fool must now and then be right by chance.

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190

Out of the very flames of rage and hate,
Or send another shivering to the bar
With all the guilt of such unnatural war,
Whatever use may urge, or honour plead,
On reason's verdict is a madman's deed.
Am I to set my life upon a throw,
Because a bear is rude and surly? No.
A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.
Were I empowered to regulate the lists,
They should encounter with well-loaded fists;
A Trojan combat would be something new,
Let Dares beat Entellus black and blue;
Then each might show to his admiring friends
In honourable bumps his rich amends,
And carry in contusions of his skull

A satisfactory receipt in full.

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560

I see a column of slow-rising smoke
O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat
Their miserable meal. A kettle, slung
Between two poles upon a stick transverse,
Receives the morsel; flesh obscene of dog,
Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined
From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race!
They pick their fuel out of every hedge, 565
Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves un-
quenched

The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide
Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin,
The vellum of the pedigree they claim.
Great skill have they in palmistry, and more 570
To conjure clean away the gold they touch,
Conveying worthless dross into its place;
Loud when they beg, dumb only when they steal.
Strange! that a creature rational, and cast

In human mould, should brutalize by choice 575
His nature, and, though capable of arts

By which the world might profit and himself,
Self banished from society, prefer

Such squalid sloth to honourable toil!

535

There often wanders one, whom better days Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimmed With lace, and hat with splendid riband bound. A serving-maid was she, and fell in love With one who left her, went to sea, and died. Her fancy followed him through foaming waves To distant shores, and she would sit and weep At what a sailor suffers; fancy too, Delusive most where warmest wishes are, Would oft anticipate his glad return,

541

That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

15

Not coloured like his own, and, having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And worse than all, and most to be deplored,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.

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35

Then what is man? And what man seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush And hang his head, to think himself a man? I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all price, I had much rather be myself the slave And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home. - Then why abroad? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free, They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through every vein

4I

287

412

Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!
In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;

Object of my implacable disgust.

415

What! will a man play tricks, will he indulge
A silly fond conceit of his fair form

And just proportion, fashionable mien,
And pretty face, in presence of his God?
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,
As with the diamond on his lily hand,

420

Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul, Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own, Paul should himself direct me. I would trace His master-strokes, and draw from his design. I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impressed Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men. Behold the picture! Is it like? - Like whom? The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again; pronounce a text, Cry hem! and reading what they never wrote,

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400

An eyebrow; next, compose a straggling lock;
Then with an air, most gracefully performed,
Fall back into our seat, extend an arm,
And lay it at its ease with gentle care,
With handkerchief in hand, depending low. 450
The better hand, more busy, gives the nose
Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye
With opera-glass to watch the moving scene,
And recognise the slow-retiring fair.
Now this is fulsome, and offends me more
Than in a churchman slovenly neglect
And rustic coarseness would. A heavenly mind
May be indifferent to her house of clay,
And slight the hovel as beneath her care;
But how a body so fantastic, trim,
And quaint in its deportment and attire,
Can lodge a heavenly mind - demands a doubt.
He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful

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