How soon will faction's smoky minions breed, And addled sceptics doubt their father's creed? By demagogues and wild commotions torn, Too late to alter, and too bad to mourn,Deluding foes thy strength will undermine, And France's fate, my country, then be thine!
YE tinkling twisters of malignant rhyme,
Ye Hunts and Cobbetts who purvey for crime,
Ye Shiels and Connells-all ye remnant vile,
That lie for lucre and subsist on guile,---
Can aught of PATRIOTIC fervour grace
The heart corruptions of your reptile race?
Will the foul frothings of ignoble spite
Protect your country, or the freeman right?
Go!-dip your nasty quills in Grub-Street mire,
Traduce for malice, and lampoon for hire;
Cling to the cursed columns that ye scrawl,
Like bloated beetles on a slime-lick'd wall,-
There mask the foulness of your covert aim,
And strut in all the energy of shame!
MODERN DRAMATISTS.
Look where we please, there is a sad decline,
From human, to realities divine;
Religion, morals,-all but vice, decay,
And Fashion leads, while Folly blinds the day,
No more the Thespian art's improving power,
Lights up the mind, and lures a vacant hour;
Nor forceful talent sway with Passion's rod,
Where Kemble spoke, and Shakspeare's heroes trod!
Ere patchwork dramas, and their tawdry train,
Prologued the mumm'ries of an impure reign,—
Our stage was evening bliss, where Britons sought
The flash of Genius and the fire of thought,-
Where guilt was imag'd to the musing eye,
And dread example drew the gentle sigh,
Till worth triumphant breath'd its hallow'd prayer,
And Virtue smiled to see her semblance there!
While fumbling dramatists employ their pen,
Sublimely careless of the where and when,
Let Britain blush for her degraded stage,—
The scenic fripp'ries of a bloated age:
A flag far-streaming, with coruscant sheen,
The rose-wreath'd trees to dance along the scene,—
A pensive fountain lolling on a rock,
A squirt of lightning, and a copper shock;—
The clash of pewter, and the raw recruit,
Whose gilded scabbard dangles to his foot;
And then, the lean procession's limping throng,
Like white-wash'd puppets, wheeling slow along ;-
All these,—with clouds to fatten up the sky,
And mid-day moons to ope the sawney's eye,—
Drawl out the ling'ring life of plays purvey'd,
And hash'd-up melodrames to serve the trade!
Awake thee, Kemble, from thy sluggish trance,
And drive dramatic flumm'ry to France;
No more let poachers of exotic trash,
For Farce and trick, monopolize thy cash ;
Shall fustian flourish, where thy brother paced,
And Shakspeare's boards by mummers be disgraced?
Shall piping Roscius represent his king,
And tragic bull-dogs bay the crowded ring?
Though emptied buckets mimic Ocean's fall,
And sooty jugglers whirl the brazen ball,—
While ragged scenes, refresh'd with horn and drum,
Secure the shillings of the London scum,-
These mean buffoon'ries blot thy Thespian name,
And barter genius for a worthless fame.
O! MARK the red-nosed Jehu, awe the street,
With file-thinn'd teeth, and “benjamin" complete;
His balanc'd hat, and far equestrian gaze,
The val'rous spume that round his muzzle plays;
That cock-pit air, and fine Herculean fist,
Where Belcher science turns the flexile wrist;
The look from Tatterstall's,-the snorted "hail,"-
All shew him tallied for the horse's tail :
Had heaven, in pity, doom'd the vulgar fool
In fitter rank the whip and wheel to rule,
How would his stable mien adorn the place,
And add new dignity to coachee's grace!
Be proud, be greatly proud of Jehu's fame,
Great Albion, worthy now of Argos' name:
Each high-born ass-each "bit of blood" can breed, Or whip with critic lash, the glossy steed;
Far round the world thy TITLED GREATNESS blooms, Thy barons whips, thy peerage raised to grooms!
NEGLECT OF MATERNAL DUTIES IN
HIGH LIFE.
A MOTHER'S love,—resistless speaks that claim,
When first the cherub lisps her gentle name!
And looking up, it moves its little tongue,
In passive dalliance to her bosom clung ;—
'Tis sweet to view the sinless baby rest,
To drink its life-spring from her nursing breast;
And mark the smiling mother's mantling eyes,
While hush'd beneath, the helpless infant lies :-
How fondly pure that unobtruding pray'r,
Breath'd gently o'er the listless sleeper there!
'Tis nature this!—the forest beast can hug,
And cubs are nestled 'neath its milky dug;
But FASHION petrifies the HUMAN heart,
Scared at her nod, see ev'ry love depart!
In Rome's majestic days, long fleeted by, Did not HER mighty dames sing lullaby? No mean-bred hags then nurs'd the guiltless child, No kitchen slang its innocence despoil'd; 'Twas deem'd a glory that the babe should rest In slumb'ring beauty' on the MOTHER's breast;— But ENGLAND's mighty dame is too GENTEEL, To nurse, and guard, and like the mother feel!
THE doleful thunder of the deep-mouth'd bell
Hath roll'd to heav'n the dying day's farewell;
And, like a death-groan from a tomb in air,
The echo bounds with dismal mutter there ;-
"Tis midnight hour:-through England's city Queen
Her countless lamps throw out their glitt'ring sheen;
And oft, some pensive pilgrims trace awhile,
The far faint lustre of their twinkling file,-
Then turning, look, where more serenely bright,
Smile the sweet spirit stars of list'ning Night.
The city slumbers, like a dreary heart,
Whose chaining sorrows tremblingly depart;
And now, what victims are within her walls,
Whom changeful Fortune martyrs, guides, and
thralls!
The pale-cheek'd mourner in the dungeon's tomb,
The glad ones tripping o'er the wax-lit room,—
The proud and mean—the wealthy and the poor,
The free to spend the miser at his ore,
All now, from ev'ry shade of woe and joy,
In changeful moods their midnight hour employ :
How many pillows bear some fev'rish head,
Damp with the weepings on their downy spread;
How many eyes, in sealing slumber hid,
With tear-drops quivering on their wan-cold lid!
Now from the Op'ra's widened portals stream A shiv'ring concourse,-wide the torches gleam,
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