When well-form'd taste and sparkling wit unite,
With manly lore, or female beauty bright,
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace
Can only charm us in the second place,)
Witness, my heart, how oft with panting fear,
As on this night, I've met these judges here!
But still the hope Experience taught to live,
Equal to judge—you're candid to forgive.
No hundred-headed Riot here we meet,
With decency and law beneath his feet;
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom's name;
Like Caledonians, you applaud or blame.
O Thou, dread Power! whose empire-giving hand Has oft been stretch'd to shield the honor'd land! Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire; May ev'ry son be worthy of his sire;
Firm may she rise, with generous disdain,
At Tyranny's or direr Pleasure's chain;
Still self-dependent in her native shore,
Bold may she brave grim Danger's loudest roar,
Till Fate the curtain drop on worlds to be no more.
AN OCCASIONAL ADDRESS, SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE,
WHILE Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires, and the fall of kings;
While quacks of state must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss, just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
First, in the sexes' intermix'd connection,
One sacred right of Woman is protection.
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless must fall before the blast of fate,
Sunk on the earth, defac'd, its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm.
Our second Right - but needless here is caution, To keep that right inviolate's the fashion; Each man of sense has it so full before him, He'd die before he'd wrong it-'tis decorum. There was, indeed, in far less polish'd days, A time when rough, rude man had naughty ways, Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot, Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet!
Now, thank our stars! those Gothic times are fled; Now, well-bred men and you are all well-bred Most justly think (and we are much the gainers` Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners.
For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,
That right to flutt'ring female hearts the nearest,
Which ev'n the Rights of Kings, in low prostration,
Most humbly own-'tis dear, dear admiration!
In that blest sphere alone we live and move,
There taste that life of life, - immortal love!
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs,
'Gainst such a host what flinty savage dares ?
When awful beauty joins with all her charms,
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?
But truce with kings, and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions;
Let majesty your first attention summon,
Ah ca Ira! the Majesty of Woman!
SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE, ON HER BENEFIT NIGHT
DECEMBER 4, 1795, AT THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES.
STILL anxious to secure your partial favor,
And not less anxious sure this night than ever,
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
So, sought a Poet, roosted near the skies,
Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;
Said, nothing like his works was ever printed;
And last my Prologue business slily hinted.
"Ma'am, let me tell you,” quoth my man of rhymes,
"I know your bent - these are no laughing times
Can you but, Miss, I own I have my fears,
Dissolve in pause - and sentimental tears.
With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence, Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance? Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand, Waving on high the desolating brand,
Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land?”
I could no more - askance the creature eyeing, "D'ye think," said I, "this face was made for crying? I'll laugh, that's poz; nay more, the world shall know it, And so, your servant! gloomy master Poet!"
Firm as my creed, sir, 'tis my fix'd belief, That Misery's another word for Grief;
That so much laughter's so much life enjoy'd.
Thou man of crazy care, and ceaseless sigh,
Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye;
Doom'd to that sorest task of inan alive -
To make three guineas do the work of five;
Laugh in Misfortune's face- the beldam witch:
Say, you'll be merry, tho' you can't be rich.
Thou other man of care, the wretch in love, Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast strove: Who, as the boughs all temptingly project, Measur'st, in desp'rate thought, a rope-thy neck; Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep, Peerest to meditate the healing leap; Would'st thou be cur'd, thou silly, moping elf? Laugh at her follies - laugh e'en at thyself:
Learn to despise those frowns, now so terrific,
And love a kinder- that's your grand specific.
To sum up all, be merry, I advise ;
And as we're merry, may we still be wise.
INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX.
How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite,
How virtue and vice blend their black and their white,
How Genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I let the critics go whistle.
But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory At once may illustrate and honor my story.
Thou, first of our orators, first of our wits;
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right;
A sorry, poor, misbegot son of the Muses,
For using thy name offers fifty excuses
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