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IMITATION VL-DEAN SWIFT.

Ex fumo dare lucem.-HOR.

Boy! bring an ounce of Freeman's best,
And bid the vicar be my guest :
Let all be placed in manner due,

A pot wherein to spit or spew,

And London Journal, and Free-Briton, Of use to light a pipe or

This village, unmolested yet

By troopers, shall be my retreat : Who cannot flatter, bribe, betray; Who cannot write or vote for * Far from the vermin of the town, Here let me rather live, my own,

Doze o'er a pipe, whose vapour bland
In sweet oblivion lulls the land;
Of all which at Vienna passes,
Brass is :

As ignorant as

And scorning rascals to caress,
Extol the days of good Queen Bess,
When first Tobacco blest our isle,
Then think of other queens-and smile.

Come, jovial pipe, and bring along
Midnight revelry and song;
The merry catch, the madrigal,
That echoes sweet in City Hall;
The parson's pun, the smutty tale
Of country justice o'er his ale.

I ask not what the French are doing,
Or Spain, to compass Britain's ruin :
Britons, if undone, can go
Where Tobacco loves to grow.

JOHN BYROM.

[Born, 1691. Died, 1763.]

JOHN BYROM was the son of a linen-draper at Manchester. He was born at Kersal, and was educated at Merchant Tailors' school, and at Cambridge. Dr. Bentley, the father of the Phoebe of his pastoral poem, procured him a fellowship at the University, which he was obliged, however,

to vacate, as he declined to go into the church. He afterwards supported himself by teaching short-hand writing in London, till, by the death of an elder brother, he inherited the family estate, and spent the close of his life in easy circumstances*.

A PASTORAL.

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Sure never fond shepherd like Colin was blest!
But now she is gone, and has left me behind,
What a marvellous change on a sudden I find!
When things were as fine as could possibly be,
I thought 'twas the Spring; but alas ! it was she.

With such a companion to tend a few sheep,
To rise up and play, or to lie down and sleep :
I was so good-humour'd, so cheerful and gay,
My heart was as light as a feather all day,
But now I so cross and so peevish am grown,
So strangely uneasy, as never was known.
My fair one is gone, and my joys are all drown'd,
And my heart-I am sure it weighs more than
a pound.

The fountain, that wont to run sweetly along, And dance to soft murmurs the pebbles among; Thou know'st, little Cupid, if Phoebe was there, "Twas pleasure to look at, 'twas music to hear: But now she is absent, I walk by its side, And still, as it murmurs, do nothing but chide;

Must you be so cheerful, while I go in pain? Peace there with your bubbling, and hear me complain.

My lambkins around me would oftentimes play,
And Phoebe and I were as joyful as they ;
How pleasant their sporting, how happy their time,
When Spring, Love, and Beauty, were all in their
prime;

But now, in their frolics when by me they pass,
I fling at their fleeces an handful of grass;
Be still then, I cry, for it makes me quite mad,
To see you so merry while I am so sad.

My dog I was ever well pleased to see Come wagging his tail to my fair one and me; And Phoebe was pleased too, and to my dog said, "Come hither, poor fellow ;" and patted his head. But now, when he's fawning, I with a sour look Cry "Sirrah ;" and give him a blow with my crook: And I'll give him another; for why should not Tray Be as dull as his master, when Phoebe's away?

[* The poems of this ingenious and singular good man are properly included in Chalmers's General Collection; properly, because they have the great and rare merit of originality.-SOUTHEY. Cowper, vol. vii. p. 304.]

When walking with Phoebe, what sights have I

seen,

How fair was the flower, how fresh was the green!
What a lovely appearance the trees and the shade,
The corn fields and hedges, and ev'ry thing made!
But now she has left me, though all are still there,
They none of them now so delightful appear:
'Twas nought but the magic, I find, of her eyes,
Made so many beautiful prospects arise.

Sweet music went with us both all the wood through,

The lark, linnet, throstle, and nightingale too: Winds over us whisper'd, flocks by us did bleat, And chirp went the grasshopper under our feet. But now she is absent, though still they sing on, The woods are but lonely, the melody's gone : Her voice in the concert, as now I have found, Gave ev'ry thing else its agreeable sound.

Rose, what is become of thy delicate hue? And where is the violet's beautiful blue? Does ought of its sweetness the blossom beguile? That meadow, those daisies, why do they not smile?

Ah! rivals, I see what it was that you drest,
And made yourselves fine for a place in her breast:
You put on your colours to pleasure her eye,
To be pluck'd by her hand, on her bosom to die.

How slowly Time creeps till my Phoebe return! While amidst the soft zephyr's cool breezes I burn: Methinks, if I knew whereabouts he would tread, I could breathe on his wings, and 'twould melt down the lead.

Fly swifter, ye minutes, bring hither my dear, And rest so much longer for't when she is here. Ah Colin old Time is full of delay,

Nor will budge one foot faster for all thou canst say.

Will no pitying pow'r, that hears me complain, Or cure my disquiet, or soften my pain? To be cured, thou must, Colin, thy passion remove; But what swain is so silly to live without love! No, deity, bid the dear nymph to return, For ne'er was poor shepherd so sadly forlorn. Ah! what shall I do? I shall die with despair; Take heed,all ye swains,how ye part with your fair*. [* This Goldsmith justly preferred to any of Shenstone's pastorals.]

WILLIAM SHENSTONE.

[Born, 1714. Died, 1763.]

WILLIAM SHENSTONE was born at the Leasowes, in Hales Owen. He was bred at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he applied himself to poetry, and published a small miscellany in 1737, without his name. He had entertained thoughts, at one period, of studying medicine; but on coming of age he retired to a property at Harborough, left him by his mother, where, in an old romantic habitation, haunted by rooks, and shaded by oaks and elms, he gave himself up to indolence and the Muses. He came to London for the first time in 1740, and published his " Judgment of Hercules." A year after appeared his "Schoolmistress." For several years he led a wandering life of amusement, and was occasionally at Bath, London, and Cheltenham; at the last of which places he met with the Phyllis of his pastoral ballad. The first sketch of that ballad had been written under a former attachment to a lady of the name of Graves; but it was resumed and finished in compliment to his new flame. Dr. Johnson informs us that he might have obtained Phyllis, whoever the lady was, if he had chosen to ask her.

In the year 1745 the death of his indulgent uncle, Mr. Dolman, who had hitherto managed his affairs, threw the care of them upon himself; and he fixed his residence at the Leasowes, which he brought, by improvements, to its far-famed

beauty. In these improvements his affectionate apologist, Mr. Greaves, acknowledges that he spent the whole of his income, but denies the alleged poverty of his latter days, as well as the rumour that his landscapes were haunted by duns and bailiffs. He states, on the contrary, that he left considerable legacies to his servants.

The Frenchman who dedicated a stone in his garden to the memory of Shenstone, was not wholly wrong in ascribing to hima “taste natural,” for there is a freshness and distinctness in his rural images, like those of a man who had enjoyed the country with his own senses, and very unlike the descriptions of

"A pastoral poet from Leadenhall-street," who may have never heard a lamb bleat but on its way to the slaughter-house. At the same time there is a certain air of masquerade in his pastoral character as applied to the man himself;

* Mons. Girardin, at his estate of Ermenonville, formed a garden in some degree on the English model, with inscriptions after the manner of Shenstone, one of which, dedicated to Shenstone himself, ran thus:

This plain stone

To William Shenstone.
In his writings he display'd

A mind natural;

At Leasowes he laid

Arcadian greens rural.

and he is most natural in those pieces where he is least Arcadian. It may seem invidious, perhaps, to object to Shenstone making his appearance in poetry with his pipe and his crook, while custom has so much inured us to the idea of Spenser feigning himself to be Colin Clout, and to his styling Sir Walter Raleigh the "Shepherd of the Ocean"-an expression, by the way, which is not remarkably intelligible, and which, perhaps, might not unfairly be placed under Miss Edgeworth's description of English bulls. Gabriel Harvey used also to designate himself Hobbinol in his poetry; and Browne, Lodge, Drayton, Milton, and many others, describe themselves as surrounded by their flocks, though none of them probably ever possessed a live sheep in the course of their lives. But with respect to the poets of Elizabeth's reign, their distance from us appears to soften the romantic licence of the fiction, and we regard them as beings in some degree characterised by their vicinity to the ages of romance. Milton, though coming later, invests his pastoral disguise (in Lycidas) with such enchanting picturesqueness as wholly to divert our attention from the unreal shepherd to the real poet. But from the end of the seventeenth century pastoral poetry became gradually more and more unprofitable in South Britain, and the figure of the genuine shepherd swain began to be chiefly confined to pictures on china, and to opera ballets. Shenstone was one of the last of our respectable poets who affected this Arcadianism, but he was too modern to sustain it in perfect keeping. His entire poetry, therefore, presents us with a double image of his character; one impression which it leaves is that of an agreeable, indolent gentleman, of cultivated taste and refined sentiments; the other that of Corydon, a purely amatory and ideal swain. It would have been so far well, if

those characters had been kept distinct, like two impressions on the opposite sides of a medal. But he has another pastoral name, that of Damon, in which the swain and the gentleman are rather incongruously blended together. Damon has also his festive garlands and dances at wakes and may-poles, but he is moreover a disciple of vertù:

"his bosom burns

With statues, paintings, coins, and urns."

"He sighs to call one Titian stroke his own;" expends his fortune on building domes and obelisks, is occasionally delighted to share his vintage with an old college acquaintance, and dreams of inviting Delia to a mansion with Venetian windows.

Apart from those ambiguities, Shenstone is a pleasing writer, both in his lighter and graver vein. His genius is not forcible, but it settles in mediocrity without meanness. His pieces of levity correspond not disagreeably with their title. His "Ode to Memory" is worthy of protection from the power which it invokes. Some of the stanzas of his "Ode to Rural Elegance" seem to recal to us the country-loving spirit of Cowley subdued in wit, but harmonised in expression. From the commencement of the stanza in that ode, "O sweet disposer of the rural hour," he sustains an agreeable and peculiarly refined strain of poetical feeling. The ballad of “ Jemmy Dawson," and the elegy on "Jessy," are written with genuine feeling. With all the beauties of the Leasowes in our minds, it may be still regretted, that instead of devoting his whole soul to clumping beeches, and projecting mottos for summer-houses, he had not gone more into living nature for subjects, and described her interesting realities with the same fond and naïve touches which give so much delightfulness to his portrait of the "School-mistress."

THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS*.

IN IMITATION OF SPENSER.

AH me! full sorely is my heart forlorn, To think how modest worth neglected lies: While partial fame doth with her blasts adorn Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise; Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprize: Lend me thy clarion, goddess! let me try To sound the praise of merit ere it dies; Such as I oft have chaunced to espy, Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity. In every village mark'd with little spire, Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to fame, There dwells, in lowly shed, and mean attire, A matron old, whom we school-mistress name; Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame; They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, Awed by the pow'r of this relentless dame : And oft-times, on vagaries idly bent, [shent. For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely

And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree,
Which learning near her little dome did stowe ;
Whilom a twig of small regard to see,
Though now so wide its waving branches flow;
And work the simple vassals mickle woe;
For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew,
But their limbs shudder'd, and their pulse beat
low;

And as they look'd they found their horror

grew,

And shaped it into rods, and tingled at the view.

[* This poem is one of those happinesses in which a poet excels himself, as there is nothing in all Shenstone which any way approaches it in merit; and though I dislike the imitations of our English poets in general, yet, on this minute subject, the antiquity of the style produces a very ludicrous absurdity.-GOLDSMITH,

The Schoolmistress is excellent of its kind and masterly. -GRAY to Walpole.]

So have I seen (who has not, may conceive),
A lifeless phantom near a garden placed;
So doth it wanton birds of peace bereave,
Of sport, of song, of pleasure, of repast;
They start, they stare, they wheel, they look
aghast ;

Sad servitude! such comfortless annoy
May no bold Briton's riper age e'er taste!
Ne superstition clog his dance of joy,
Ne vision empty, vain, his native bliss destroy.

Near to this dome is found a patch so green,
On which the tribe their gambols do display;
And at the door imprisoning board is seen,
Lest weakly wights of smaller size should stray;
Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day!

The noises intermix'd, which thence resound,
Do learning's little tenement betray;
Where sits the dame, disguised in look profound,
And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel
around.

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Emblem right meet of decency does yield: Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trowe, As is the hare-bell that adorns the field : And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield Tway birchen sprays; with anxious fear entwined, With dark distrust, and sad repentance fill'd; And steadfast hate, and sharp affliction join'd, And fury uncontroll'd, and chastisement unkind.

Few but have ken'd, in semblance meet pourtray'd,
The childish faces of old Eol's train ;
Libs, Notus, Auster: these in frowns array'd,
How then would fare or earth, or sky, or main,
Were the stern god to give his slaves the rein?
And were not she rebellious breasts to quell,
And were not she her statutes to maintain,
The cot no more, I ween, were deem'd the cell,
Where comely peace of mind, and decent order
dwell.

A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown:
A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air;
"Twas simple russet, but it was her own;
'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair!
'Twas her own labour did the fleece prepare ;
And, sooth to say, her pupils, ranged around,
Through pious awe, did term it passing rare;
For they in gaping wonderment abound,

And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground.

Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth, Ne pompous title did debauch her ear; Goody, good-woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth, Or dame, the sole additions she did hear; Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear: Ne would esteem him act as mought behove, Who should not honour'd eld with these revere: For never title yet so mean could prove, But there was eke a mind which did that title love.

One ancient hen she took delight to feed, The plodding pattern of the busy dame; Which, ever and anon, impell'd by need, Into her school, begirt with chickens, came; Such favour did her past deportment claim; And, if neglect had lavish'd on the ground Fragment of bread, she would collect the same; For well she knew, and quaintly could expound, What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found.

Herbs too she knew, and well of each could speak That in her garden sipp'd the silvery dew; Where no vain flower disclosed a gaudy streak; But herbs for use, and physic, not a few, Of grey renown, within those borders grew : The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme, Fresh baum, and marygold of cheerful hue: The lowly gill, that never dares to climb; And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme.

Yet euphrasy may not be left unsung, That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around; And pungent radish, biting infant's tongue; And plantain ribb'd, that heals the reaper's wound; And marj'ram sweet, in shepherd's posie found; And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom Shall be, erewhile, in arid bundles bound, To lurk amidst the labours of her loom, [fume. And crown her kerchiefs clean,with mickle rare per

And here trim rosemarine, that whilom crown'd The daintiest garden of the proudest peer; Ere, driven from its envied site, it found A sacred shelter for its branches here; Where, edged with gold, its glittering skirts appear. Oh wassel days! O customs meet and well! Ere this was banish'd from its lofty sphere Simplicity then sought this humble cell, Nor ever would she more with thane and lordling dwell.

Here oft the dame, on Sabbath's decent eve, Hymned such psalms as Sternhold forth did mete; If winter 'twere, she to her hearth did cleave, But in her garden found a summer-seat : Sweet melody! to hear her then repeat How Israel's sons, beneath a foreign king, While taunting foe-men did a song entreat, All, for the nonce, untuning every string, Uphung their useless lyres-small heart had they to sing.

For she was just, and friend to virtuous lore, And pass'd much time in truly virtuous deed; And, in those elfins' ears, would oft deplore The times, when truth by popish rage did bleed; And tortuous death was true devotion's meed ; And simple faith in iron chains did mourn, That nould on wooden image place her creed; And lawny saints in smouldering flames did burn: Ah! dearest Lord, forefend thilk days should e'er

return.

In elbow-chair, like that of Scottish stem, By the sharp tooth of cankering eld defaced, In which, when he receives his diadem, Our sovereign prince and liefest liege is placed, The matron sate; and some with rank she graced, (The source of children's and of courtiers' pride!) Redress'd affronts, for vile affronts there pass'd; And warn'd them not the fretful to deride, But love each other dear, whatever them betide.

Right well she knew each temper to descry; To thwart the proud, and the submiss to raise ; Some with vile copper-prize exalt on high, And some entice with pittance small of praise; And other some with baleful sprig she 'frays: Ev'n absent, she the reins of power doth hold, While with quaint arts the giddy crowd she sways; Forewarn'd, if little bird their pranks behold, "Twill whisper in her ear, and all the scene unfold.

Lo now with state she utters the command! Eftsoons the urchins to their tasks repair; Their books of stature small they take in hand, Which with pellucid horn secured are; To save from finger wet the letters fair: The work so gay, that on their back is seen, St. George's high achievements does declare; On which thilk wight that has y-gazing been, Kens the forthcoming rod, unpleasing sight, I ween!

Ah luckless he, and born beneath the beam Of evil star! it irks me whilst I write ! As erst the bard by Mulla's silver stream, Oft, as he told of deadly dolorous plight, Sigh'd as he sung, and did in tears indite. For brandishing the rod, she doth begin To loose the brogues, the stripling's late delight! And down they drop; appears his dainty skin, Fair as the furry-coat of whitest ermilin.

O ruthful scene! when from a nook obscure, His little sister doth his peril see: All playful as she sate, she grows demure; She finds full soon her wonted spirits flee; She meditates a prayer to set him free : Nor gentle pardon could this dame deny, (If gentle pardon could with dames agree) To her sad grief that swells in either eye, And wrings her so that all for pity she could die.

No longer can she now her shrieks command; And hardly she forbears, through awful fear, To rushen forth, and, with presumptuous hand, To stay harsh justice in its mid career. On thee she calls, on thee her parent dear! (Ah! too remote to ward the shameful blow!) She sees no kind domestic visage near, And soon a flood of tears begins to flow; And gives a loose at last to unavailing woe.

But ah! what pen his piteous plight may trace? Or what device his loud laments explain? The form uncouth of his disguised face? The pallid hue that dyes his looks amain? The plenteous shower that does his cheek distain ? When he, in abject wise, implores the dame, Ne hopeth aught of sweet reprieve to gain; Or when from high she levels well her aim, And, through the thatch, his cries each falling stroke proclaim.

The other tribe, aghast, with sore dismay, Attend, and conn their tasks with mickle care: By turns, astony'd, every twig survey, And, from their fellow's hateful wounds beware; Knowing, I wist, how each the same may share; Till fear has taught them a performance meet, And to the well-known chest the dame repair; Whence oft with sugar'd cates she doth them greet, And gingerbread y-rare; now, certes, doubly sweet. See to their seats they hye with merry glee, And in beseemly order sitten there; All but the wight of bum y-galled, he Abhorreth bench and stool, and fourm, and chair; (This hand in mouth y-fix'd, that rends his hair;) And eke with snubs profound, and heaving breast, Convulsions intermitting, does declare

His grievous wrong; his dame's unjust behest; And scorns her offer'd love, and shuns to be caress'd.

His eye besprent with liquid crystal shines,
His blooming face that seems a purple flower,
Which low to earth its drooping head declines,
All smear'd and sully'd by a vernal shower.
O the hard bosoms of despotic power!
All, all, but she, the author of his shame,
All, all, but she, regret this mournful hour:
Yet hence the youth, and hence the flower, shall
claim,

If so I deem aright, transcending worth and fame.

Behind some door, in melancholy thought, Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff! pines; Ne for his fellows' joyance careth aught, But to the wind all merriment resigns; And deems it shame if he to peace inclines; And many a sullen look askance is sent, Which for his dame's annoyance he designs; And still the more to pleasure him she's bent, The more doth he, perverse, her 'haviour past

resent.

Ah me! how much I fear lest pride it be ! But if that pride it be which thus inspires, Beware, ye dames, with nice discernment see, Ye quench not too the sparks of nobler fires: Ah! better far than all the Muses' lyres, All coward arts, is valour's generous heat; The firm fixt breast which fit and right requires, Like Vernon's patriot soul; more justly great Than craft that pimps for ill, or flowery false deceit :

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