Soften your hearts, ye noble, if ye can ;
Let England see her Country Gentleman!
That patriotic plant of British growth,
Worth all your lordly lumps of vice and sloth;
Instead of fops, raise sons that shall adorn,
While thousands bless the spot where they were
born;
Instead of painted drabs to swoon and whine,
And snivel o'er a sentimental line,
Or else to waltz it with unbosom'd charms,
In the snug circle of a dandy's arms;
Instead of such a shape of vulgar pride,
Rear modest daughters, who shall well preside
Where'er domestic life, or duteous art,
Demand the union of the head and art;
So, when the mother's love shall claim a share
Of fond solicitude and tender care,
Duty and love will both alike combine,
And teach them to uprear a useful line.
"AN HONEST MAN'S THE NOBLEST WORK OF GOD;"
So lectured Pope, who sway'd the critic's rod ;-
He's prais'd by matron, moralist and don,
Though SEEN more rarely than the coal-black swan!
TRUE HONESTY!—where is it in these days,
When rogues repeat, and villains beg their praise
Not in the full-blown unassuming face,
Where honesty is but a smiling grace;
Nor in the glossy candour of their tones,
Who pule and gabble what the heart disowns;-
Nor in prim proverbs daub'd with moral paint,
Where unfelt goodness whimpers from the saint,
Or mumbling drones that foster secret vice,
But blazon Virtue, and define her nice :
In truth, the HONEST MAN scarce lives at all,
The last I saw was on a church-yard wall!—
If ev'ry knave must have his reprimand,
Then take a rope and gibbet half the land.
BUT list! huge wheels roll o'er the jarring stones,
I hear the clatt'ring hoofs, and rabble's tones!
Before yon dome the creaking engines wait,
Where shield-mark'd firemen empt their liquid
freight,
While, grandly awful to the startled sight,
Rear the red columns of resistless light!
The windows deepen into dreadful glow,
Till the hot glass bursts shatt'ring down below;
While darting fires around their wood-work blaze,
And lick the water, hissing as it plays;
Above the crackling roof fierce flames arise,
And whirl their sparks, careering to the skies ;
Triumphantly the ravenous blazes mount,
As if they started from a fiery fount,
Now, cloud-like, piling up in billowy fire,
Now quiv'ring sunk, to re-collect their ire :-
But see! again whirl up the blood-red flames,
In vain the rushing flood their fury tames;
Like burning mountain-peaks, aloft they raise,
Their jagged columns of unequal blaze,
Till the loose beams, and flaking rafters fall,
And, like a thund'ring earthquake, bury all!
INTEREST THE GOVERNING PRINCIPLE.
QUENCH'D now the olden spirits' dauntless fire
No fear extinguished, and no gain could hire;
Refining meanness gilds the manlier part,
And Gallic treach'ries find an English heart!
Now, slipp'ry tongues can prostitute their praise,
And whine, and wheedle, though the rancour blaze;
Now Interest fetters Passion's free-born right,
Smothers the malice and conceals the spite,
Beams in the eye, and whimpers in the tone,
Lies at the court, and flatters at the throne;
Life, feeling, conscience-every trait divine,
Is basely offer'd at her selfish shrine !
The heart devotes that mast'ry Nature gave,
And barters Freedom, to be Fortune's slave:
This lost, though shadowy liberty remains,
The soul is sunk in adamantine chains;
What chains more hideous could a despot find,
Than those which shackle thought, and slave the
mind?
PLAIN ENGLISH, undefiled, correctly pure,
Where native force and nervous sounds allure,
Now rarely greets us in the gauzy page,
Spun out to suit this puffing, piping age.
In Latin patch-work, and in French brocade,
Twisted and tortured, see our language fade;
A mongrel compost, called a polished style,
Mere flippant, fine-wove drivel, crude and vile—
With this the greasy press eternal teems,—
For this Rag Fair is robb'd to raise the means!
IN PRAISE OF PUFFING.
Or puffs defrauding, and the puffing race,
The curse of learning, and the land's disgrace,
I sing. Accomplish'd Heliconian Miss,
Descend, and aid a task divine as this!
Diffuse sweet influence through all my brain,
Balance the periods, keep in tune the strain;
When low, upraise,-direct me when I fly!
And all but smut and modern slang supply;
Illume, refine, and regulate my song,
Perch on my page, and puff the verse along.
And, first, I'll thank my stars I live in times
Genteelly tinctured with the best of crimes,
When Vice herself puts on a dainty mien,
Mimics her air, and struts in every scene.
Our ancestors-monotonously good!
Liv'd on, poor souls! as virtuous as they could;
So plainly honest, and so bluntly pure,
They liv'd in calm simplicity secure ;
Content to make their paradise at home,
They seldom frisk'd in France, or whined at Rome;
No snug elopement, or polite crim. con.
For paper-grubs, or law, to live upon,—
No London trip, to run the crazy round
Of Vice above, and Folly under ground,-
By rich or poor was courted or required,
While duty triumph'd and plain sense inspired.
How mean and moping such Arcadian life!
No headlong spirits to produce a strife;
No stage-worn beldames to amuse the land
With wedding fuss, or love at second hand;
No dirty demirep, or paltry peer
To cram the papers with his foul career;
Good heavens! how dull the way of life they trod,—
Adorn'd their country, and adored their God!
JEW MONEY-LENDERS.
Or swindlers most abhorr'd-the crafty Jews,
Colleagued with brokers and their monied crews,
Crawl round the land to cozen and enmesh,
Like Shakspeare's, ready for the coins or flesh;—
The world's collected scum from ev'ry zone,
Would shame these men-hounds that defile our own:
Look on a Jew-dog!—how the living pest
Palls on the gaze, and heats the loathing breast;
Mark! how the minion rolls his greedy eye,
And through his widen'd jaw lets out the monstrous
lie!
Prowling for victims, through the allies dark
He roams, a lender to each high-born spark;
And grants some squeezing pittance for a bond,
Till ruin'd heirs from barter'd rights abscond.
|