Page images
PDF
EPUB

And come and go, and go and come, "To bring your honey-harvest home. Ma'm, architecture you're not skill'd in, 'I don't approve your way of building; ' In this there's nothing like design,

[ocr errors]

Pray learn the use of Gunter's line, 'I'll serve your Highness at a pinch, 'I am a scholar ev'ry inch,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

And know each author I lay fist on, 'From Archimedes down to Whiston. Tho' honey-making be your trade, 'In chemistry you want some aid.'Pleas'd with your work, altho' you sing, 'You're not quite right-'tis not the thing. Myself would gladly be an actor,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

To help the honey manufacture.

I hear for war you are preparing,

'Which I should like to have a share in; 'Yet, tho' the enemy be landing,

''Tis wrong to keep an army standing.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

'If you'll insure me from the laws,

I'll write a pamphlet in your cause.—

I vow I am concern'd to see

'Your want of state-economy.
'Of nothing living I pronounce ill,
'But I don't like your privy-council,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

There is, I know, a certain Bee,

(Would he was from the Ministry)

'Which certain Bee, if rightly known,

'Would prove no better than a drone;

-There are (but I shall name no names, 'I never love to kindle flames)

3

'A pack of rogues with crimes grown callous, 'Who greatly would adorn the gallows as I • That with the wasps, for paltry gold, 'A secret correspondence hold;⠀⠀⠀

[ocr errors]

2

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Yet you'll be great-your subjects free, 'If the whole thing be left to me,' ost - auta Thus, like the waters of the ocean, His tongue had run in ceaseless motion, Had not the Queen ta'en up in wrathy This thing of folly and of frotha vatns boð 'Impertinent and witless meddler, 'Thou smattering, empty, noisy pedlar! 'By vanity, thou bladder blown, 'To be the football of the town. 'O happy England, land of freedom, 'Replete with statesmen, if she need 'em, 'Where war is wag'd by Joe or Nell, T 'And Jobson is a Machiavel! 'Tell Hardwick that his judgment fails, Shew Justice how to hold her scales. 'To fire the soul at once, and please, 'Teach Murray and Demosthenes;

[ocr errors]

Say Vane is not by goodness grac❜d, And wants humanity and taste. 'Tho' Pelham with Mecenas vies, 'Tell Fame she's false, and Truth she lies 'And then return, thou verbal Hector,

'And give the Bees another lecture.'

Thus said, the portal she unbarr'd, Calling the Bees upon their guard, And set at once about his ears Ten thousand of her grenadiers. Some on his lips and palate hung, And the offending member stung. 'Just,' says the Bard from out the grot, 'Just, tho' severe, is your sad lot, 'Who think, and talk, and live in vain, 'Of sweet society the bane.

Business misplac'd is a mere jest, 'And active idleness at best."

FABLE XVI.

THE HERALD AND THE HUSBANDMAN.

By Smart.

-Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.

I, WITH friend Juvenal agree,
Virtue's the true nobility;

Has of herself sufficient charms,
Altho' without a coat of arms.
Honestus does not know the rules

Concerning Or and Fez, and Gules.

JUVENAL.

[ocr errors]

Yet sets the wond'ring eye to gaze on,
Such deeds.no Herald e'er could blaze on.
Tawdry achievements out of place,
Do but augment a fool's disgrace;
A coward is a double jest,

Who has a Lion for his crest;
And things are come to such a pass,
Two Horses may support an Ass;
And on a Gamester or Buffoon,
A moral motto's a lampoon.

An honest Rustic, having done
His master's work 'twixt sun and sun,
Retir'd to dress a little spot,

Adjoining to his homely cot,

Where pleas'd, in miniature, he found

His landlord's culinary ground,

Some herbs that feed, and some that heat,

The winter's medicine or meat.

The sage, which, in his garden seen,
No man need ever die* I ween;
The marjoram comely to behold,
With thyme and ruddiest marygold,
And mint and penny-royal sweet,
To deck the cottage windows meet;
And balm, that yields a finer juice
Than all that China can produce;
With carrots red and turnips white,
And leeks, Cadwallader's delight;

* Cur moriatur Homo, cui salvia crescit in horto?

And all the savoury crop that vie
To please the palate and the eye.
Thus, as intent, he did survey
His plot, a Herald came that way,

A man of great escutcheon'd knowledge,
And member of the motley college:
Heedless the peasant pass'd he by,
Indulging this soliloquy:

· Behold! what an enormous space
• "Twixt man and man does nature place;
'While some by deeds of honour rise,
To such a height, as far out-vies
The visible diurnal sphere;

'While others, like this rustic here,
'Grope in the groveling ground, content
'Without or lineage or descent.
Hail, Heraldry! mysterious art,
'Bright patroness of all desert,
'Mankind would on a level lie,
' And undistinguish'd live and die,
'Depriv'd of thy illustrious aid,—
'Such! so momentous is our trade.'

[ocr errors]

Sir,' says the clown, 'why sure you joke,' And kept on digging as he spoke, 'And prate not to extort conviction, 'But merrily, by way of fiction. 'Say, do your manuscripts attest 'What was old Father Adam's crest? 'Did he a nobler coat receive

'In right of marrying lady Eve?

« PreviousContinue »