That to be good is to be rich!
For all the misses marry kings,
And diamonds are but common things;
While dames in history hardly get 'em,
Our heroines ope their mouths and spit 'em.
Oh, this is profitable learning,
Past cold historians' dull discerning,
Who, while their annals they impart,
Expose, but seldom mend the heart.
I grant, they teach to know mankind,
To learn we're wretched, weak, and blind:
But till the heart from vice is clear,
Who wants to know what passes there?
Till Hercules to cleanse was able,
No doubt they shut th' Augean stable.
Here too in high emphatic tone
The power of female worth is shown;
Ev'n enterprising Joan of Arc
Falls short of true heroic mark:
THALESTRIS was a mere home-keeper,
And swift CAMILLA but a creeper.
Here deeds of valour are as common
As song or dance to real woman;
And meekest damsels find it facile
To storm a giant's moated castle;
Where drawbridges do open fly
If virgin foot approaches nigh;
And brazen-gates with twenty locks,
At which an army vainly knocks,
Fly ope, nor on their hinges linger,
At touch of virgin's little finger.

Then slow attacks, and tiresome sieges,
Which history makes the work of ages,
Are here, by means of fairy power,
Achiev'd with ease in half an hour.
Tactics! they prove, there's nothing in it,
Who conquer kingdoms in a minute:
They never hear of ten years jars,
(For TROY's the average length of wars.)
And diplomatic form and rule
Might learn from Mother Bunch's school,
How rapidly are state intrigues

Convey'd with boots of seven long leagues.

Here farther too, our great commanders, Who conquer'd France, and rescued Flanders, From Mother Bunch's Tales might he Some secrets worth a general's ear; How armies need not stop to bait, And heroes never drink or eat; Wrapt in sublimer occupation They scorn such vulgar renovation. Your British generals cannot keep Themselves and fellows half so cheap; For men and horses, out of books, Call, one for corn, and one for cooks; And dull historic nags must stay For provender of oats and hay; While these bold heroes wing their flight Through twenty kingdoms in a night; Of silvery dews they snatch a cup, Or on a slice of moonshine sup;

And while they fly to meet their queer,
With half the convex world between,
Their milk-white palfreys, scorning grass,
Just crop a rose-leaf as they pass.

Then Mother Bunch's morals strike,
By praising friend and foe alike.
What virtue to the world is lost,
Because on thy ill-fated coast,
O Carthage! sung alone by foes,
The sun of history never rose!
Fertile in heroes, didst thou own
The muse that makes those heroes known;
Then had the bright reverse appear'd
And Carthaginian truth been clear'd:
On Punic faith, so long revil'd,
The wily African had smil'd;
And, possibly, not much had err'd,
If we of Roman fraud had heard.

Then leave your Robertson's and Bryants,
For John, the murderer of giants;
Since all mythology profane

Is quite as doubtful, quite as vain.
Though Bryant, learned friend of youth,
His fable consecrates to truth:
And Robertson with just applause
His finish'd portraits fairly draws.
Yet history, great Raleigh knew,
And knowing, griev'd, may not be true?
For how the facts are we to know
Which pass'd a thousand years ago
When he no just account could get
Of quarrel in the adjacent street;
Though from his chair the noise he heard,
The tale of each relater err'd.

But if the fact's recorded right,
The motive seldom comes in sight;
Hence, while the fairest deed we blame,
We often crown the worst with fame.
Then read, if genuine truth you'd glean,
Those who were actors in the scene;
Hear, with delight, the modest Greek,
Of his renown'd ten thousand speak:
His commentaries* read again
Who led the troops and held the pen;
The way to conquest best he show'd,
Who trod ere he prescrib'd the road.
Read him, for lofty periods fam'd,
Who Charles's age adorn'd and sham'd;
Read Clarendon; unaw'd, unbrib'd,
Who rul'd th' events his pen describ'd;
Who law and courts, and senates knew,
And saw the sources whence he drew.

Yet, lovely SALLY, be not frighten'd,
Nor dread to have thy mind enlighten'd;
Admire with me the fair alliance

Which mirth, at Maudlin,† makes with science: How humour may with learning dwell,

Go ask papa-for he can tell.

ACCEPT, BOSCAWEN! these unpolished lays,
Nor blame too much the verse you cannot praise.

For you, far other bards have wak'd the string, Far other bards for you were wont to sing;

Yet on the gale their parting music steals,
Yet your charm'd ear the lov'd impression feels:
You heard the lyres of Littleton and Young,
And this a grace, and that a seraph strung.
These are no more! but not with these decline
The attic chasteness or the vig'rous line.
Still sad Elfrida's poet* shall complain,
Still, either Warton breathe his classic strain :
While for the wonders of the Gothic page,
Otranto's fame shall vindicate the age,
Nor tremble lest the tuneful art expire,
While Beattie strikes anew old Spencer's lyre;
He best to paint the genuine minstrel knew,
Who from himself, the living portrait drew.
Though Latian bards had gloried in his name,
When in full brightness burnt the Latian flame;
Yet fir'd with loftier hopes than transient bays,
See Lowth† despise the meed of mortal praise;
Spurn the cheap wreath by human science won,
Borne on the wing sublime of Amos' son!
He seiz'd the mantle as the prophet flew,
And with his mantle caught his spirit too.
To snatch bright beauty from devouring fate,
And lengthen nature's transitory date;
At once the critic's and the painter's art,
With Fresnoy's skill and Guido's grace impart :
To form with code correct the graphic school,
And lawless fancy curb by sober rule;
To show how genius fires, how taste restrains,
While, what both are, his pencil best explains;
Have we not REYNOLDS ?‡ lives not JENYNS yet,
To prove his lowest title was a wit?§

Though purer flames thy hallow'd zeal in-
spire

Than e'er were kindled at the Muse's fire, Thee, mitred Chester!|| all the Nine shall boast; And is not Johnson ours? himself a host!

Yes, still for you your gentle stars dispense: The charm of friendship and the feast of sense: Yours is the bliss, and Heav'n no dearer sends, To call the wisest, brightest, best, your friends. And while to these I raise the votive line, O! let me grateful own these friends are mine; With Carter trace the wit to Athens known, Or view in Montague that wit our own: Or mark, well pleas'd, Chapone's instructive page,

Intent to raise the morals of the age:

Or boast, in Walsingham, the various power,
To cheer the lonely, grace the letter'd hour;
Delany too is ours, serenely bright,

Wisdom's strong ray, and virtue's milder light: And she who bless'd the friend, and grac'd the lays

Of poignant Swift, still gilds our social days; Long, long protract thy light, O star benign! Whose setting beams with milder lustre shine. Nor, Barbauld, shall my glowing heart refuse

* Milton calls Euripides sad Electra's poet. †Then bishop of London.

See Sir Joshua Reynold's very able notes to Du Fres. noy's poem on the art of painting, translated by Mr. Mason.-Also, his series of Discourses to the academy. which, though written professedly on the subject of painting, contain the principles of general art, and are delivered with so much perspicuous good sense, as to be admirably calculated to assist in forming the taste of the general reader.

Mr. Soame Jenyns had just published his work On the internal Evidence of the Christian Religion. Now bishop of London-See his admirable poem on death. VOL. I.

Its tribute to thy virtues, or thy muse;
This humble merit shall at least be mine,
The poet's chaplet for thy brow to twine;
My verse thy talents to the world shall teach,
And praise the genius it despairs to reach.

Yet what is wit, and what the poet's art?
Can genius shield the vulnerable heart?
Ah no! where bright imagination reigns,
The fine wrought spirit feels acuter pains;
Where glow exalted sense and taste refin'd,
There keener anguish rankles in the mind;
There, feeling is diffus'd through ev'ry part,
Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart;
And those whose gen'rous souls each tear would
keep

From other's eyes, are born themselves to weep.
Can all the boasted pow'rs of wit and song,
Of life one pang remove, one hour prolong ?
Fallacious hope! which daily truths deride;
For you, alas! have wept, and Garrick dy'd!
O shades of Hampton! witness, as I mourn,
Could wit or song elude your fav'rite's urn?
Though living virtue still your haunt endears,
Yet buried worth shall justify my tears.
Who now with spirit keen, yet judgment cool,
The errors of my orphan muse shall rule?
With keen acumen how his piercing eye,
The fault conceal'd from vulgar view would spy!
While with a generous warmth he strove to
hide,

Nay vindicate the fault his taste had spy'd.
So pleas'd could he detect a happy line
That he would fancy merit ev'n in mine.

His wit so pointed it ne'er miss'd its end,
And so well temper'd it ne'er lost a friend;
How his keen eye, quick mind, and ardent heart,
Impov'rish'd nature, and exhausted art,
A muse of fire has sung,* if muse could trace,
Or verse retrieve the evanescent grace!
How rival bards with rival statesmen strove,
Who most should gain his praise or win his
love!

Opposing parties to one point he drew,
Thus Tully's Atticus was Cæsar's too.

Tho' time his mellowing hand across has
stole,

Soft'ning the tints of sorrow on the soul;
The deep impression long my heart shall fill,
And ev'ry fainter trace be perfect still.

Forgive, my friend, if wounded memory melt, You best can pardon who have deepest felt, You, who for Britain's herot and your own, The deadliest pang which rend the soul have known;

You, who have found how much the feeling heart

Shapes its own wound, and points itself the dart;
You, who are call'd the varied loss to mourn;
You who have clasp'd a son's untimely urn;
You, who from frequent fond experience feel
The wounds such minds receive can never heal;
That grief a thousand entrances can find,
Where parts superior dignify the mind;
Yet would you change that sense acute to gain
A dear bought absence from the poignant pain;
Cominuting ev'ry grief whose feelings give
In loveless, joyless apathy to live?

*See Mr. Sheridan's beautiful monody.
† Admiral Boscawen.

E

For though in souls where energies abound, Pain through its numerous avenues can wound; Yet the same avenues are open still, To casual blessings as to casual ill. Nor is the trembling temper more awake To every wound calamity can make, Than is the finely fashion'd nerve alive To ev'ry transport pleasure has to give.

Let not the vulgar read this pensive strain, Their jests the tender anguish would profane. Yet these some deem the happiest of their kind, Whose low enjoyments never reach the mind; Who ne'er a pain but for themselves have known,

Who ne'er have felt a sorrow but their own:
Who deem romantic ev'ry finer thought
Conceiv'd by pity, or by friendship wrought;
Whose insulated souls ne'er feel the pow'r
Of gen'rous sympathy's extatic hour;
Whose disconnected hearts ne'er taste the bliss
Extracted from another's happiness;
Who ne'er the high heroic duty know,
For public good the private to forego.

Then wherefore happy? where's the kindred mind?

Where the large soul which takes in human kind?
Yes-'tis the untold sorrow to explain,
To mitigate the unsuspected pain;
The rule of holy sympathy to keep,
Joy for the Joyful, tears for them that weep:
To these the virtuous half their pleasures owe,
Pleasures, the selfish are not born to know;
They never know in all their coarser bliss,
The sacred rapture of a pain like this.
Then take ye happy vulgar take your part
Of sordid joy which never touch'd the heart.
Benevolence, which seldom stays to choose,
Lest pausing Prudence tempt her to refuse ;
Friendship, which once determin'd, never

swerves,

Weighs ere it trusts, but weighs not ere it

serves.

And soft-ey'd Pity, and Forgiveness bland,
And melting Charity with open hand;
And artless love, believing and believ'd,
And honest Confidence which ne'er deceiv'd;
And mercy, stretching out ere Want can speak,
To wipe the tear which stains Affliction's
cheek;

These ye have never known-then take your part

Of sordid joy which never touch'd the heart.
You who have melted in bright glory's flame,
Or felt the grateful breath of well-earn'd fame;
Or you, the chosen agents from above,
Whose bounty vindicates Almighty love;
You, who subdue the vain desire of show,
Not to accumulate but to bestow;
You who the dreary haunts of sorrow seek,
Raise the sunk heart, and flush the fading cheek;
You, who divide the joys and share the pains,
When merit triumphs, or oppress'd complains;
You, who with pensive Petrarch, love to mourn,
Or weave the garland for Tibullus' urn;

You, whose touch'd hearts with real sorrows swell,

Or feel, when genius paints those sorrows well,
Would you renounce such energies as these
For vulgar pleasures or for selfish ease?
Would you to 'scape the pain, the joy forego,

And miss the transport to avoid the wo?
Would you the sense of actual pity lose,
Or cease to share the mournings of the muse?
No, Greville,* no!-thy song, tho' steep'd in
tears,

Though all thy soul in all thy strain appears; Yet would'st thou all thy well sung anguish choose,

And all th' inglorious peace thou begg'st refuse:

And while discretion all our views should guide,

Beware, lest secret aims and ends she hide; Though 'midst the crowd of virtues, 'tis her part,

Like a firm sentinel-to guard the heart;
Beware, lest Prudence 'self become unjust,
Who never was deceiv'd, I would not trust;
Prudence must never be suspicion's slave,
The World's wise man is more than half a
knave.

And you, Boscawen, while you fondly melt,
In raptures none but mothers ever felt;
And as you view, prophetic, in your race,
All Levison's sweetness, and all Beaufort's
grace;

Yet dread what dangers each lov'd child may share,

The youth, if valiant, or the maid, if fair;
You who have felt, so frail is mortal joy!
That, while we clasp the phantom, we destroy;
That perils multiply as blessings flow,

That sorrows grafted on enjoyments grow;
That clouds impending dim our brightest views,
That who have most to love have most to lose;
Yet from these fair possessions would you part,
To shelter from contingent ills your heart?
Would you forego the objects of your prayer
To save the dangers of a distant care?
Renounce the brightness op'ning to your view
For all the safety dulness ever knew?
Would you consent, to shun the fears you prove
That they should merit less, or you less love.

Yet while we claim the sympathy divine,
Which makes, O man, the woes of others thine;
While her fair triumphs swell the modish page,
She drives the sterner virtues from the stage:
While Feeling boasts her ever tearful eye,
Fair Truth, firm Faith, and manly Justice fly:
Justice, prime good! from whose prolific law,
All worth, all virtue, their strong essence draw;
Justice, a grace quite obsolete we hold,
The feign'd Astrea of an age of gold :
The sterling attribute we scarcely own,
While spurious Candour fills the vacant throne.

Sweet Sensibility! Thou secret pow'r Who shed'st thy gifts upon the natal hour, Like fairy favours; Art can never seize, Nor Affectation catch thy power to please; Thy subtle essence still eludes the chains Of Definition, and defeats her pains. Sweet Sensibility! thou keen delight! Unprompted moral! sudden sense of right! Perception exquisite ! fair Virtue's seed! Thou quick precursor of the lib'ral deed! Thou hasty conscience! reason's blushing morn! Instinctive kindness e'er reflection 's born! Prompt sense of equity! to thee belongs The swift redress of unexamin'd wrongs!

*See her beautiful Ode to Indifference.

Eager to serve, the cause perhaps untried,
But always apt to chuse the suff'ring side!
To those who know thee not, no word can paint,
And those who know thee, know all words are
faint!

She does not feel thy pow'r who boasts thy
flame,

And rounds her every period with thy name;
Nor she who vents her disproportion'd sighs
With pining Lesbia when her sparrow dies:
Nor she who melts when hapless Shore expires,
While real mis'ry unreliev'd retires!
Who thinks feign'd sorrow all her tears deserve,
And weeps o'er Werter while her children
starve,

As words are but th' external marks to tell
The fair ideas in the mind that dwell;
And only are of things the outward sign,
And not the things themselves they but define;
So exclamations, tender tones, fond tears,
And all the graceful drapery Feeling wears;
These are her garb, not her, they but express
Her form, her semblance, her appropriate dress;
And these fair marks, reluctant I relate,
These lovely symbols may be counterfeit.
There are, who fill with brilliant plaints the
page,

If a poor linnet meet the gunner's rage;
There are, who for a dying fawn deplore,
As if friend, paren country, were no more;
Who boast quick rapture trembling in their eye,
If from the spider's snare they snatch a fly;
There are, whose well sung plaints each breast
inflame,

And break all hearts-but his from whom they came !

He, scorning life's low duties to attend,
Writes odes on friendship, while he cheats his
friend.

Of jails and punishments he grieves to hear,
And pensions 'prison'd virtue with a tear;
While unpaid bills his creditor presents,
And ruin'd innocence his crime laments.
Not so the tender moralist of Tweed,
His gen'rous man of feeling feels indeed.

O Love divine! sole source of charity!
More dear one genuine deed perform'd for thee,
Than all the periods Feeling e'er could turn,
Than all thy touching page, perverted Sterne!
Not that by deeds alone this love's express'd,
If so the affluent only were the bless'd;
One silent wish, one prayer, one soothing word,
The page of mercy shall, well-pleas'd record;
One soul-felt sigh by pow'rless pity given,
Accepted incense! shall ascend to heav'n!
Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from our foibles springs,
Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease,
And though but few can serve, yet all may
please;

O let th' ungentle-spirit learn from hence,
A small unkindness is a great offence.
To spread large bounties, though we wish in
vain,

Yet all may shun the guilt of giving pain:
To bless mankind with tides of flowing wealth,
With rank to grace them, or to crown with
health,

Our little lot denies; yet lib'ral still,
Heav'n gives its counterpoise to every ill,

Nor let us murmur at our stinted pow'rs,
When kindness, love, and concord, may be ours.
The gift of minist'ring to other's ease,
To all her sons impartial she decrees;
The gentle offices of patient love,
Beyond all flattery, and all price above;
The mild forbearance at a brother's fault,
The angry word suppress'd the taunting
thought;

Subduing and subdu'd, the petty strife,
Which clouds the colour of domestic life;
The sober comfort, all the peace which springs,
From the large aggregate of little things;
On these small cares of daughter, wife, or friend,
The almost sacred joys of home depend:
There Sensibility, thou best may'st reign,
Home is thy true legitimate domain.
A solitary bliss thou ne'er could'st find,
Thy joys with those thou lov'st are intertwin'd;
And he whose helpless tenderness removes
The rankling thorn which wounds the breast he
loves,

Smooths not another's rugged path alone,
But clears th' obstruction which impedes his

own.

The hint malevolent, the look oblique,

or

harsh reply

The sneer equivocal, the obvious And all the cruel language of the eye; The artful injury, whose venom'd dart, Scarce wounds the hearing, while it stabs the heart;

The guarded phrase, whose meaning kills, yet told

The list'ner wonders, how you thought it cold; Small slights, neglect, unmix'd perhaps with hate,

Make up in number what they want in weight.
These and a thousand griefs minute as these,
Corrode our comfort and destroy our ease.
As Feeling tends to good or leans to ill,
It gives fresh force to vice or principle;
'Tis not a gift peculiar to the good,
"Tis often but the virtue of the blood:
And what would seem compassion's moral flow,
Is but a circulation swift or slow:
But to divert it to its proper course,
There wisdom's pow'r appears, there reason's
force:

If ill-directed it pursue the wrong,

It adds new strength to what before was strong;
Breaks out in wild irregular desires,
Disorder'd passions, and illicit fires;
Without, deforms the man, depraves within,
And makes the work of God the slave of sin.
But if Religion's bias rule the soul,
Then Sensibility exalts the whole;
Sheds its sweet sunshine on the moral part,
Nor wastes on fancy what should warm the
heart.

Cold and inert the mental powers would lie,
Without this quick'ning spark of Deity.
To melt the rich materials from the mine,
To bid the mass of intellect refine,
To bend the firm, to animate the cold,
And heav'ns own image stamp on Nature's gold;
To give immortal mind its finest tone,
Oh, Sensibility! is all thy own.

This is th' eternal flame which lights and warms,
In song enchants us, and in action charms.

"Tis this that makes the pensive strains of Gray* Win to the open heart their easy way; Makes the touch'd spirit glow with kindred fire, When sweet Serena's poet wakes the lyre: Makes Portland's face its brightest rapture wear, When her large bounty smooths the bed of care: 'Tis this that breathes through Sevigne's fair page,

That nameless grace which sooths a second age; 'Tis this, whose charm the soul resistless seize, And gives Boscawen half her power to please. Yet why those terrors? Why that anxious care? Since your last hopet the deathful war will dare?

| Why dread that energy of soul which leads
To dang'rous glory by heroic deeds?
Why mourn to view his ardent soul aspire ?
You fear the son because you knew the sire.
Hereditary valour you deplore,
And dread, yet wish to find one hero more.

This is meant of the Elegy in a Country Church yard, of which exquisite poem Sensibility is perhaps the characteristic beauty.

† Viscount Falmouth, admiral Boscawen's only remaining son was then in America, and at the battle of Lexington,

THERE was a young and valiant knight,

Sir ELDRED was his name,

And never did a worthier wight

The rank of knighthood claim.

Where gliding Tay, her stream sends forth,
To feed the neighbouring wood,
The ancient glory of the north,

Sir Eldred's castle stood.

The knight was rich as knight might be
In patrimonial wealth;
And rich in nature's gift was he,

In youth, and strength, and health.
He did not think, as some have thought,
Whom honour never crown'd.
The fame a father dearly bought,
Could make the son renown'd,
He better thought, a noble sire,
Who gallant deeds had done,
To deeds of hardihood should fire
A brave and gallant son.
The fairest ancestry on earth
Without desert is poor;

And ev'ry deed of former worth
Is but a claim for more.

Sir Eldred's heart was ever kind,
Alive to pity's call;

A crowd of virtues grac'd his mind,

He lov'd and felt for all.

When merit rais'd the sufferer's name,

He show'rd his bounty then;

And those who could not prove that claim,
He succour'd still as men.
But sacred truth the muse compels
His errors to impart;
And yet the muse reluctant tells

The faults of Eldred's heart.
Though mild and soft as infant love

His fond affections melt;
Though all that kindest spirits prove
Sir Eldred keenly felt:

Yet if the passions storm'd his soul,
By jealousy led on;

The fierce resentment scorn'd controul,
And bore his virtues down,
Not Thule's waves so widely break

To drown the northern shore;
Not Etna's entrails fiercer shake,

Or Scythia's tempest roar.
As when in summer's sweetest day
To fan the fragrant morn,
The sighing breezes softly stray
O'er fields of ripen'd corn;
Sudden the lightning's blast descends,
Deforms the ravag'd fields;

At once the various ruin blends,
And all resistless yields.

But when, to clear his stormy breast,
The sun of reason shone,
And ebbing passions sunk to rest,
And show'd what rage had done :
O then what anguish he betray'd!
His shame how deep, how true!
He view'd the waste his rage had made,
And shudder'd at the view.
The meek-ey'd dawn, in saffron robe,
Proclaim'd the op'ning day,

Up rose the sun to gild the globe,

And hail the new-born May ;
The birds their vernal notes repeat,

And glad the thick'ning grove;
And feather'd partners fondly greet
With many a song of love:
When pious Eldred early rose
The Lord of all to hail;