Who, were she English, with united rage
Themselves would justly hiss from off the stage:
With better voice, and fifty times her skill,
Poor Robinson is always treated ill:
But, such is the good nature of the town,
'Tis now the mode, to cry the English down.
Nay, there are those as warmly will debate
For the Academy, as for the State;
Nor care they whether credit rise, cr fall,
The Opera with them is all in all.
They'll talk of tickets rising to a guinea,
Of pensions, dutchesses, and Bononcini ;
Of a new eunuch in Bernardi's place,
And of Cuzzoni's conquest, or disgrace.
Not but I love enchanting musick's sounds
With moderation, and in Reason's bounds;`
But would not, for her Syren charms, reject
All other business, with supine neglect.
When leisure makes it lawful to be gay,
Then tune your instruments, then sing and play;
Musicians! I shall give what you deserve,
Yet will let not all other artists starve:
But ever deal with a more liberal hand
To him, who sings what I can understand.
I hate this singing in an unknown tongue,
It does our reason and our senses wrong;
When words instruct, and musick cheers the
Then is the art of service to mankind :
But when a castrate wretch, of monstrous size,
Squeaks out a treble, shrill as infant cries,
I curse the unintelligible ass,
Who may, for ought I know, be singing mass.
Or when an Englishman, a trimming rogue,
Compounds his English with a foreign brogue,
Or spoils Italian with an English tone,
(Which is of late a mighty fashion grown,)
It throws me out of patience, makes me sick,
I wish the squalling rascal at old Nick
Far otherwise it is with honest Dick:
Like Clytus he, with noble Græcian pride,
Throws all unmanly Persian arts aside;
Sings when he's ask'd, his singing at an end,
He's then a boon, facetious, witty friend.
How much unlike those fools who sing or play,
Yet for themselves have scarce a word to say :
Who shall one moment with their music please,
The next with stupid conversation teaze!
But above all those men are most my jest,
Who, like uncleanly birds, bewray their nest.
When Englishmen implicitly despise
Their own produce, can English merit rise?
Nipp'd in the bud, nor suffered once to blow,
How can it ever to perfection grow ?
Yet erst for arts and arms we've been renown'd, Our heroes and our bards with garlands crown'd;
Are we at last so despicable grown,
That foreigners must reign in arts alone,
And Britain boast no genius of its own?
Can then our British Syrens charm no more,
That we import these foreign minstrels o'er,
At such expence from the Italian shore?
Are all our English women ravens grown?
And have they lost their melody of tone?
Must Music's science be alone deny'd
To us, who shine in every art beside ?
Is then our language grown a very joke,
Not fit by human creatures to be spoke?
Are we so barbarous, so unpolite ?
We but usurp superior merit's right.
Let us to them our wealth, our dwellings yield,
And when we've learn'd to squeak Italian, then,
If they so please we may come home again.
Is musick then of such importance grown
All other knowledge must be overthrown?
Let then the learned Judge resign the bench
To some fine singer, some Italian wench:
Let the Divine forget the laboured text,
With tones and semi-tones to be perplext:
The Merchant too regard his trade no more,
But learn to sing at sight and write in score ;
Let us forget our ancient barbarous speech,
And utter nought but what Italians teach :
Let's send our useless dross beyond the sea
To fetch polite Imperial and Bohea :
Let our Toupets to such a length extend,
That vanquished France shall copy, but not mend: And Italy itself be forced to say
We fiddle and we sing as well as they.
The Distressed Father; or the Author's Tears over his dear Daughter Rachel.
OH! lead me where my darling lies,
Cold as the marble stone;
I will recal her with my cries,
And wake her with my moan.
Come from thy bed of clay, my dear!
See where thy father stands;
His soul he sheds out tear by tear,
And wrings his wretched hands.
But ah, alas, thou canst not rise,
Alas, thou canst not hear,
Or at thy tender father's cries,
Thou surely would'st appear.
Since then my love, my soul's delight,
Thou canst not come to me,
Rather than want thy pleasing sight,
I'll dig my way to thee.
To the Memory of Mr. George Haydon, Author of many excellent Compositions in Musick.
HAYDON! these little legacies of thine
Glow with the tincture of a warmth divine:
The master shines in all that thou hast done;
And Envy's self must now thy merit own.
I loved thee living, and thy shade revere,
What more but silence, and a friendly tear.
|