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Relax his ponderous strength and lean to hear; | Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half-willing to be pressed,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

While, scourged by famine, from the smiling
land

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Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train,
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born
sway:

Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.

But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, 261
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
"Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted
ore,
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And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards even beyond the miser's wish abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around.
Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful products still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a place that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their
growth;
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His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:

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The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms-a garden and a grave.

Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside,
To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
If to some common's fenceless limits strayed
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
| Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And e'en the bare-worn common is denied.

310

If to the city sped-what waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
To see each joy the sons of pleasure know,
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe;
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There, the pale artist9 plies the sickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps
display,

There, the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight
reign,
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Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy;
Sure these denote one universal joy!
Are these thy serious thoughts?-Ah! turn thine
eyes

Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed,
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 329
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head-
And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the
`shower,

With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,

While thus the land, adorned for pleasure, all When idly first, ambitious of the town,
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

As some fair female, unadorned and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrowed charm that dress sup-
plies,

Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;
But when those charms are past, for charms are
frail,
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When time advances, and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress;
Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed:
In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed,
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,

She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
Do thine, sweet Auburn! thine the loveliest
train,

Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, 339
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread.
Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they

go,

Where wild Altama10 murmurs to their woe

9 artisan

10 The Altamaha, a river of Georgia.

Fy different there from all that charmed be- At every draught more large and large they fore,

The various terrors of that horrid shore;

grow,

A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;

Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, Till, sapped their strength, and every part un

And fiercely shed intolerable day;

350

Those matted woods where birds forget to sing;
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance
crowned,

Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers11 wait their hapless
prey,

sound,

Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
Even now the devastation is begun
And half the business of destruction done;
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the
sail

That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,

400

And savage men more murderous still than Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. they;

While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, 360
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.
Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that
parting day,

That called them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their
last-

A ad took a long farewell, and wished in vain For seats like these beyond the western mainAnd, shuddering still to face the distant deep, Beturned and wept, and still returned to weep. The good old sire the first prepared to go

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Contented toil, and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness are there,
And piety with wishes placed above,
And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame:
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
Thou found 'st me poor at first, and keep 'st me
so;

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Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell; and oh! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno 's12 cliffs, or Pambamarca 's13 side,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that states of native strength pos-
sessed,

Though very poor, may still be very blest; That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,

As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.

THE HAUNCH OF VENISON

430

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LORD CLARE Thanks, my Lord, for your venison, for finer

or fatter

Never ranged in a forest, or smoked in a platter;

12 The Tornea, a river 13 A mountain peak in in Sweden, Ecuador.

The haunch was a picture for painters to | An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,

study,

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And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.

"What have we got here?-Why this is good eating!

Your own, 1 suppose—or is it in waiting?'' 46 "Why, whose should it be?" cried I with a flounce;

"I get these things often'-but that was a bounce:

"Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,

Are pleased to be kind-but I hate ostentation.''

"If that be the case, then," cried he, very gay,

But hold-let me pause-don't I hear you pro-"I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.

nounce

This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce?1
Well, suppose it a bounce; sure a poet may try,
By a bounce now and then, to get courage to
fly.

But, my Lord, it's no bounce: I protest in my
turn

To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me;
No words-I insist on 't-precisely at three;
We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits
will be there;

My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord
Clare.

51

What say you-a pasty? It shall, and it must,

And now that I think on 't, as I am a sinner! It's a truth-and your Lordship may ask Mr. We wanted this venison to make out the dinner. Byrne.2 To go on with my tale: as I gazed on the And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust. haunch, Here, porter! this venison with me to Mileend;5

I thought of a friend that was rusty and staunch;

21 So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds3 undrest, To paint it or eat it, just as he liked best. Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose;

'Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Monroe's: 4

But in parting with these I was puzzled again, With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when.

No stirring-I beg-my dear friend-my dear friend!''

Thus, snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,

And the porter and eatables followed behind. Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf,

And nobody with me at sea but myself," 60 Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty,

There's Howard, and Coley, and H-rth, and Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison Hiff,

pasty,

I think they love venison, I know they love Were things that I never disliked in my life, beef. Though clogged with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife.

There's my countryman Higgins-oh! let him alone,

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"For I knew it," he cried: "both eternally There's a pasty."-"A pasty!" repeated the
fail,
Jew;

The one with his speeches, and t'other with "I don't care if I keep a corner for't too."?
Thrale.6
"What the de 'il, mon, a pasty!" re-echoed the
Scot;

But no matter, I'll warrant we'll make up the
party

With two full as clever and ten times as hearty.
The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew;
They're both of them merry, and authors like
you;

"Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for that."

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The one writes the 'Snarler,' the other the With looks that quite petrified, entered the 'Scourge;'

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maid:

to A visage so sad, and so pale with affright, Waked Priam in drawing his curtains by night.8

While thus he described them by trade and by name,

They entered, and dinner was served as they

came.

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At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen; At the bottom was tripe, in a swingeing? tureen;

110

But we quickly found out-for who could mistake her?

That she came with some terrible news from
the baker:

And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven
Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven.

At the sides there was spinach and pudding Sad Philomel thus-but let similes drop;

made hot;

In the middle a place where the pasty-was

not.

Now my lord, as for tripe, it's my utter aversion,

And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Per-
sian;

So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound,
While the bacon and liver went merrily round:
But what vexed me most was that d-d Scot-

tish rogue,

And now that I think on't, the story may stop. To be plain, my good Lord, it's but labour misplaced

To send such good verses to one of your taste;
You've got an odd something-a kind of dis-
cerning,

A relish, a taste-sickened over by learning;'
At least, it's your temper, as very well known,
That you think very slightly of all that's your

own.

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So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss, With his long-winded speeches, his smiles, and You may make a mistake, and think slightly

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A prettier dinner I never set eyes on;

Pray a slice of y..r liver, though may I be curst,

But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst."

"The tripe!" quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek;

"I could dine on this tripe seven days in a week:

I like these here dinners so pretty and small; But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at all."

"Oho!" quoth my. friend, he'll come on in a trice;

He's keeping a corner for something that's nice:

6 Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson's friend. 7 immense

100

*These were signatures to contemporary letters addressed to the Public Advertiser in support of the government.

of this.

FROM RETALIATION*

Of old, when Searron1 his companions invited,

Each guest brought his dish, and the feast was united;

8 See 2 Henry IV., I, 9 See Hamlet, III., i.
i. 72.
85.

1 A French burlesque poet.

* Goldsmith, because of his vanity and frequently empty talk, was the occasion of much diversion among his friends, and sometimes a butt of ridicule. At a gathering at St. James's coffee-house, he desired to try with David Garrick, the actor, his skill at epigram, and each was to write the other's epitaph. Garrick immediately composed the well-known couplet:

"Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness
called Noll.

Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor
Poll."

Goldsmith took his time to reply, and the

If our landlord supplies us with beef and with To persuade Tommy Townshend3 to lend him fish, a vote;

Let each guest bring himself—and he brings Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on the best dish. refining,

Our Dean shall be venison, just fresh from And thought of convincing while they thought the plains; of dining: Our Burke shall be tongue, with the garnish of Though equal to all things, for all things unfit,

brains;

Our Will shall be wild-fowl of excellent flavour,
And Dick with his pepper shall heighten the

savour;

Our Cumberland's sweet-bread its place shall obtain,

11

And Douglas is pudding, substantial and plain;
Our Garrick's a salad; for in him we see
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree:
To make out the dinner, full certain I am
That Ridge is anchovy, and Reynolds is lamb;
That Hickey's a capon, and, by the same rule,
Magnanimous Goldsmith a gooseberry fool.2
At a dinner so various, at such a repast,
Who'd not be a glutton, and stick to the last?
Here, waiter, more wine! let me sit while I'm
able,

Till all my companions sink under the table; 20
Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my
head,

Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the dead.

Here lies the good Dean, reunited to earth, Who mixed reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth:

If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt-
At least, in six weeks I could not find 'em out;
Yet some have declared, and it can't be denied
'em,

That sly-boots was cursedly cunning to hide
'em.

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,

We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much;

30

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Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind. An abridgment of all that was pleasant in And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.

man;

Though fraught with all learning, yet strain-As an actor, confessed without rival to shine; ing his throat

result was Retaliation, a poem which he left unfinished, and which was published after his death. The characters whom he imagines gathered about the table are Thomas Barnard,

Dean of Derry: Edmund Burke, with William

Burke, a kinsman, and Richard, a younger brother; Richard Cumberland, the dramatist;

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.
Like
an ill-judging beauty, his colours he
spread.

And beplastered with rouge his own natural

red.

100

John Douglas, a Scotch canon: David Gar- On the stage he was natural, simple, &ffe&.ing; rick; John Ridge and Tom Hickey two Irish lawyers: Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter: and himself. A kindlier satire-if satire it may be called-has scarcely been written.

2 A dish of crushed gooseberries.

3 An M. P., afterwards
Lord Sydney.

4 A Roman comic v rer. 5 gay party

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