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ERE yet to Heav'n my infant thought could reach,
Ere praise its Maker by the powers of speech,
Taught by thy care, by thy example mov'd,
I rais'd my waking eyes, ador'd and lov'd.

For this, and this my more than life, receive
That poor return which I with blushes give,
For ah! the trifling tribute of a lay
Is all my humble gratitude can pay !

Hear then my fervent wish, though cloth'd in
song,

FRAGMENT OF A POEM

WRITTEN ABOUT THE TIME HE INTENDED TO TAKE ORDERS.

EVER mine! whate'er my fate portends
Of absence, passions, business, fortune, friends;
Whether in wide-spread scarf, and rustling gown,
My borrow'd rhet'ric soothes the saints in town,
Gay damsels smile, and tir'd churchwardens sleep.
Or makes in country pews soft matrons weep,

Whether to ease consign'd, my future day,
One downy circle, sportive rolls away;
Or deep in Cambria, or the wilds of Kent,
I drag out life, and learn from ills content:
Still be thy friendship like a genius there,
Zest of the joy, and solace of the care.

FRAGMENT OF VERSES

ON CHURCHILL.

So from his common-place, where Churchill stringe
Into some motley form his damn'd good things;
The purple patches every where prevail,
But the poor work has neither head nor tail.

Churchill had strength of thought, had power to

paint,

(Ye pow'rs confirm it, ere it quit my tongue!)
From this blest day, may fate propitious shine,
Each earthly bliss, that Heav'n calls good, be thine,
May adverse clouds, like empty mists decay,
And time declining shed a purer ray,
To gild the ev❜ning of thy well-spent day.
And when (yet ne'er let that sad hour appear,
While my poor breast draws in this vital air)
Thy fainting frame sinks on the bed of death,
May no sharp pangs attend thy fleeting breath;
No care on care, like restless billows roll,
To break the calm of thy departing soul.
Full in thy sight let choirs of angels spread
Their radiant plumes, and hover round thy head:
Then one soft sigh thy issuing soul convey
(While thy great loss and mine points out the way ') Where in his system sits the central Sun,
To scenes of bliss, and realms of endless day.

Nor felt from principles the least restraint;
From Hell itself his characters he drew,
And christen'd them by every name he knew:
For 't was from hearsay he pick'd up his tales,
Where false and true by accident prevails:
Hence I, though older far, have liv'd to see
Churchill forgot, an empty shade like me.

2 Had I thought it fair to make more alterations from the MS. than such very trifling ones, as I believed the young author would himself have done, if, immediately after he had composed it, he had | revised it for the press, I should, in order to make the concluding part of the speech refer to the preceding visionary personages, have printed the last line thus:

Ev'n Power, and Wealth, and Fame, are all com

pris'd in thee.

M.

This line, as I think, alludes to the recent loss of his father, that loss being only parenthetically touched upon, from a delicate apprehension, as it should seem, of too much affecting his surviving parent. If this supposition be admitted, the author's age, when he wrote it, could not have exceeded fifteen or sixteen years. I need not hint to the poetical reader, that he seems to have had Mr. Pope's verses to Mrs. Martha Blount, on her birth-day, in his eye, when he wrote this little poem: his imitation, however, is by no means servile.

M.

That I'm his foe, ev'n Churchill can 't pretend,
But-thank my stars-he proves I am no friend:
Yet, Churchill, could an honest wish succeed,
I'd prove myself to thee a friend indeed;
For had I power like that which bends the spheres
To music never heard by mortal ears,

And drags reluctant planets into tune,
So would I bridle thy eccentric soul,
In reason's sober orbit bid it roll:
Spite of thyself, would make thy rancour cease,
Preserve thy present fame and future peace,
And teach thy Muse no vulgar place to find
In the full moral chorus of mankind.

A PATHETIC APOLOGY

FOR ALL LAUREATS, PAST, PRESENT, AND TO
COME.

WRITTEN SOME YEARS BEFORE HIS DEATH.

Veniant ad Cæsaris aures!
Ye silly dogs, whose half-year lays
Attend like satellites on Bays;
And still, with added lumber, load
Each birth-day and each new-year ode,
Why will ye strive to be severe?
In pity to yourselves forbear;

Nor let the sneering public see,
What numbers write far worse than he.
His Muse, obliged by sack and pension,
Without a subject, or invention-
Must certain words in order set,
As innocent as a Gazette;

Must some half-meaning half disguise,
And utter neither truth nor lies.
But why will you, ye volunteers
In nonsense, tease us with your jeers,
Who might with dullness and her crew
Securely slumber? Why will you
Sport your dim orbs amidst her fogs?
You 're not oblig'd-ye silly dogs!

When Jove, as ancient fables sing,
Made of a senseless log a king,
The frogs at first their doubts express'd;
But soon leap'd up, and smok'd the jest.
While every tadpole of the lake
Lay quiet, though they felt it quake,
They knew their nature's due degree,
Themselves scarce more alive than he;
They knew they could not croak like frogs,
-Why will you try?-ye silly dogs!

When the poor barber felt askance
The thunder of a Quixote's lance,
For merely bearing on his head
Th' expressive emblem of his trade,
The barber was a harmless log,
The hero was the silly dog-

What trivial things are cause of quarrel!
Mambrino's helmet, or the laurel,
Alike distract an idiot's brain,
"Unreal mockeries!" shadowy pain.

Each laureat (if kind Heav'n dispense
Some little gleam of common sense)
Blest with one hundred pounds per ann.
And that too tax'd, and but ill paid,
With caution frames his frugal plan,
Nor apes his brethren of the trade.
He never will to garrets rise
For inspiration from the skies;

And pluck, as Hotspur would have done,

"Bright honour from the pale-fac'd Moon;"
He never will to cellars venture,
To drag up glory from the centre;
But calmly steer his course between
Th' aerial and infernal scene;

-One hundred pounds! a golden mean!
Nor need he ask a printer's pains
To fix the type, and share the gains:
Each morning paper is so kind
To give his works to every wind.
Each evening post and magazine,
Gratis adopts the lay serene.

On their frail barks his praise or blame
Floats for an hour, and sinks with them;
Sure without envy you might see
Such floundering immortality.
Why will ye then, amidst the bogs,
Thrust in your oar?-ye silly dogs!
He ne'er desires his stated loan,
(I honestly can speak for one)
Should meet in print the public eye:
Content with Boyce's harmony,
Who throws, on many a worthless lay,
His music and his powers away.

Are you not charm'd, when at Vauxhall,
Or Marybone, the syrens squall

Your oft repeated madrigals,
Your Nancys of the hills or vales,
While tip-toe misses and their beaux
Catch the dear sounds in triple rows,
And whisper, as their happiness,
They know the author of the piece?
This vanity, my gentle brothers,
You feel; forgive it then in others,
At least in one you call a dunce,
The laureat's odes are sung but once,
And then not heard-while your renown
For half a season stuns the town-
Nay, on brown paper, fairly spread,
With wooden print to grace its head,
Each barber pastes you on his wall;
Each cobler chants you in his stall,
And Dolly, from her master's shop,
Encores you, as she twirls her mop.

Then "ponder well, ye parents dear"
Of works, which live a whole half year;
And with a tender eye survey
The frailer offspring of a day,
Whose glories wither ere they bloom,
Whose very cradle is their tomb:
Have ye no bowels, cruel men!

You who may grasp, or quit the pen,
May choose your subject, nay, your time,
When genius prompts to sport in rhyme;
Dependent on yourselves alone,

To be immortal, or unknown:
Does no compassion touch your breast
For brethren to the service prest?
To laureats is no pity due,

Encumber'd with a thousand clogs?
I'm very sure they pily you,
-Ye silliest of all silly dogs.

THE LYRIC MUSE TO MR. MASON,

ON THE RECOVERY OF THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF HOLDERNESSE FROM A DANGEROUS ILLNESS.

(FROM DODSLEY'S COLLECTION, EDITION 1782.)
MASON, Snatch the votive lyre,
D'Arcy lives, and I inspire,
'T is the Muse that deigns to ask:
Can thy hand forget its task?
Or can the lyre its strains refuse
To the patron of the Muse?

Hark, what notes of artless love
The feather'd poets of the grove,
Grateful for the bowers they fill,
Warble wild on Sion-hill1;
In tuneful tribute duly paid
To the master of the shade!

And shall the bard sit fancy-proof
Beneath the hospitable roof,
Where every menial face affords
Raptur'd thoughts that want but words?
And the patron's dearer part,
The gentle sharer of his heart,
Wears her wonted charnis again?
Time, that felt affliction's chain,
Learns on lighter wings to move;
And the tender pledge of love,

'A country seat belonging to lord Holdernesse

With double transport to her breast.

Sweet Amelia now is press'd

Sweet Amelia, thoughtless why,
Imitates the general joy:
Innocent of care or guile
See the lovely mimic smile,
And as the heartfelt raptures rise,
Catch them from her mother's eyes.
Does the noisy town deny
Soothing airs and ecstasy?
Sion's shades afford retreat,
Thither bend thy pilgrim feet.
'There bid th' imaginary train,
Coinage of the poet's brain,
Nor only in effects appear,

But forms, and limbs, and features wear:
Let festive Mirth, with flow'rets crown'd,
Lightly tread the measur'd round:
And Peace, that seldom knows to share
The statesman's friendly bowl, be there;
While rosy Health, superior guest,
Loose to the zephyrs bares her breast:
And, to add a sweeter grace,
Give her soft Amelia's face.

Mason, why this dull delay?
Haste, to Sion haste away.
There the Muse again shall ask,
Nor thy hand forget its task;
Nor the lyre its strains refuse
To the patron of the Muse.

ON

THE CONCLUSION OF THE PEACE. WRITTEN IN 1748, and printed among the camBRIDGE

GRATULATORY VERSES.

FROM Whom should Peace sincerer vows receive
Than from those arts which by her presence live?
Far from the noise of arms, in cells and shades,
The sons of science wait th' inspiring maids:
Yet not inglorious; if the cloister'd sage
Enrich the moral or historic page,
The hero's acts from dark oblivion save,
Or frame the precepts which make heroes brave.
But now no more shall rude alarms molest
The learn'd, the virtuous, or the tuneful breast:
No more the matron's pious tears deplore
Her absent heir: the pensive bride no more
With fancied dangers real fears create;
Or Albion tremble for her William's fate:
William, whose godlike arm and filial care
Hush'd her loud griefs, and snatch'd her from despair.
He came, he saw, and drove Rebellion forth
To the bleak regions of her native north:
There, on the confines of some barren shore,
While tempests howl, and oceans round her roar,
The fiend, impatient of the galling chain,
Heaves her huge limbs, and bites her bonds in vain.

But Peace returns, and o'er the smiling land
The fair magician waves her olive wand:
Beneath whose touch the vales fresh verdure wear,
And future harvests seem already here.
Wide o'er the deep her halcyon power prevails;
The deep, now darken'd with unnumber'd sails.
Securely there the merchant ploughs his way
Through Ushant's straits, and Biscay's faithless
bay:

Securely slacks his course, and points the place,
Where late our heroes urg'd the naval chase:
""T was there," he cries, "where yon advancing tide
Swells from the right, that Gallia's towering pride
Bow'd to the British flag:" then spreads the sail,
And whilst his eager tongue pursues the tale
Of Albion's triumphs, round the Celtic steep
Winds to the bosom of Iberia's deep.
There, as they glide, he sees with ardent eyes
In crowds his country's former conquests rise;
He leaves the lessening Groyne, beheld from far,
And Vigo, dreading still the sound of war;
Cascaia's turrets half in Tagus lost,
And Gades, and Calpe's oft-disputed coast:
Fair cause of endless hate!-But why essays
Th' ambitious verse to grasp Britannia's praise ?
Witness, O Earth, how wide her conquests run;
Witness, thou rising and thou setting Sun;
Witness, ye winds that bear her on her way,
And waves, that hail her sovereign of the sea!

Yet ne'er should glory's generous heat too far
Provoke destructive, though successful war.
Th' Almighty hand, which first her shores secur'd
With rolling oceans, and with rocks immur'd,
Which spread her plains, and bade her flocks in-.
crease,

Design'd Britannia for the land of peace:
Where Commerce only should exert her sway,
And musing Science trim th' unfading bay.

Then O, though still from Albion's favour'd coasts
New Drakes, new Williams, lead her willing hosts;
Though many a realm, in many a fatal hour,
Has forc'd her to be brave, and felt her power:
Yet still be peace her choice. With plenty crown'd,
Still may she shed the softer blessings round!
Nor fear we thence her innate worth should fail :
Firm as her oaks, when winds or waves assail,
She'll stand the storm: though better pleas'd to
The milder honours of a peaceful shade. [spread
Ye lands of slaves, whom each mad master's will
Draws forth in myriads, and inures to kill!
What though, from use, your strengthen'd sinews
know

To hurl the lance, or bend the stubborn bow;
What though, from use, your harden'd bodies bear
The march laborious, and the midnight air;
Yet must ye still inglorious schemes pursue,
And feel a want which Britons never knew.
'T is in a juster cause our arms engage,
Than weak ambition, or insatiate rage:
"T is from a nobler source our spirits roll:
Toil forms the limbs, but liberty the soul.

THE

POEMS

OF

RICHARD JAGO.

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