Vain youth, to your confufion know, IV. him, turned the difcourfe to poetry. a twitch to the paper with a finger and de chambre, THE FIRST SONG. I. ON Belvidera's bofom lying, II. But fhe, alas! unkindly wife, To all my fighs and tears replies, 'Tis every prudent maid's concern "Her lover's fondness to improve; If to be happy you shall learn, You quickly would forget to love.' THE SECOND SONG. I. BOAST not, mistaken swain, thy art II. Thy face is to my humour made, For your own fake, if not for mine, When I no more admire. The wonder of your kind; TO MRS. ANNABELLA LIZARD. MADAM, To let you fee how abfolute your commands are over me, and to convince you of the opinion I have of your good fenfe, I fhall, without any preamble of compliments, give you my thoughts upon Song-writing, in the fame order as they have occurred to me. Only allow me, in my own defence, to say, that I do not remember ever to have met with any piece of criticifm upon this fubject; fo that if I err, or feem fingular in my opinions, you will be the more at liberty to differ from them, fince I do not pretend to support them by any authority. In all ages, and in every nation where poetry has been in fashion, the tribe of fonneteers hath been very numerous. Every pert young fellow that has a moving fancy, and the leaft gingle of verse in his head, fets up for a writer of fongs, and refolves to immortalize his bottle or his mistress. What a world of infipid productions in this kind have we been peftered with fince the Revolution, to go no higher! This, no doubt, proceeds in a great measure from not forming a right judgment of the nature of thefe little compofitions. It is true, they do not require an elevation of thought, nor any extraordinary capacity, nor an extenfive knowledge; but then they demand great regularity, and the utmost nicety; an exact purity of style, with the most eafy and flowing numbers; an elegant and unaffected turn of wit, with one uniform and fimple defign. Greater works cannot well be without fome inequalities and oversights, and they are in them pardonable; but a fong fang lofes all it's luftre if it be not polifhed with the greatest accuracy. The fmalleft blemish in it, like a flaw in a jewel, takes off the whole value of it. A fong is, as it were, a little image in enamel, that requires all the nice touches of the pencil, a glofs and a smoothness, with thofe delicate finishing ftrokes, which would be fuperfluous and thrown away upon larger figures, where the ftrength and boldnefs of a matterly hand gives all the grace. Since you may have recourfe to the French and English tranflations, you will not accufe me of pedantry, when I tell you that Sappho, Anacreon, and Horace in fome of his fhort lyrics, are the completeft models for little odes or fonnets. You will find them generally purfuing a fingle thought in their fongs, which is driven to a point, without thofe interruptions and deviations fo frequent in the modern writers of this order. To do justice to the French, there is no living language that abounds fo much in good fongs. The genius of the people, and the idiom of their tongue, feems adapted to compofitions of this fort. Our writers generally croud into one fong materials enough for feveral; and fo they starve every thought, by endeavouring to nurfe up more than one at a time. They give you a ftring of imperfect fonnets, instead of one finished pce, which is a fault Mr. Waller (whofe beauties cannot be too much admired) fometimes falls into. But, of all our countrymen, none are more defective in their fongs, through a redundancy of wit, than Dr. Donne, and Mr. Cowley. In them, one point of wit flashes fo faft upon another, that the reader's attention is dazzled by the continual fparkling of their imagination; you find a new defign ftarted al moft in every line, and you come to the end without the fatisfaction of seeing any one of them executed. A fong fhould be conducted like an epigram; and the only difference be tween them is, that one does not require the lyric numbers, and is ufually employed upon fatirical occafions; whereas the bufine's of the other, for the most part, is to exprefs, (as my Lord Roícominon tranflates it from Horace) Love's pleafing cares, and the free joys of wine. I fhall conclude what I have to fay upon this fubject, by observing, that the French do very often confound the fong and the epigram, and take the one reciprocally for the other. An inftance of which I fhall give you in a remarkable epigram which paffes current abroad for an excellent fong. Tu parles mal par tout de moi, L'on ni croit ni l'un, ni l'autre. For the fatisfaction of fuch of your friends as may not understand the ori ginal, I shall venture to tranflate it after my fashion, fo as to keep ftrictly to the turn of thought, at the expence of lofing fomething in the poetry and verfification. Thou fpeakeft always ill of me, Thus, Madam, I have endeavoured to comply with your commands; not out of vanity of erecting myself into a critic, but out of an earnest defire of being thought, upon all occafions, Your most obedient fervant. they moft efteemed are of a fudden become the moft difagreeable companions; nay, their good qualities are grown odious and painful. It is faid, people who have the plague have a delight in communicating the infection; in like manner, the fenfe of fhame, which is never wholly overcome, inclines the guilty this way to contribute to the deftruction of others. And women are pleased to introduce more women into the fame condition, though they can have no other fatisfaction from it, than that the infamy is shared among greater numbers, which they flatter themselves cafes the burden of each particular perfon I remember, about thirty years ago; an eminent divine, who was alfo most exactly well-bred, told his congregation at Whitehall, that if they did not vouchfafe to give their lives a new turn, they must certainly go to a place which he did not think fit to name in that courtly audience. It is with me as with that gentleman; I would, if poffible, reprefent the errors of life, efpecially thofe arifing from what we call gallantry, in fuch a manner as the people of pleasure may read me. In this cafe I must not be rough to gentlemen and ladies, but fpeak of fin as a gentleman. It might not perhaps be amifs, if, therefore, I fhould call my prefent Precaution A Criticifm upon Fornication; and by reprefenting the unjuft tafte they have who affect that way of pleafure, bring a distaste upon it among all thofe who are judicious in their fatisfactions. I will be bold then to lay it down for a rule, that he who follows this kind of gratification, gives up much greater delight in purfuing it, than he can poffibly enjoy from it. As to the common women and the ftews, there is no one but will allow this affertion at first fight; but if it will appear, that they who deal with those of the fex who are less profligate, defcend to greater bafeneffes than if they frequented brothels, it should, methinks, bring this iniquity under fome difcountenance. The rake who, without fenfe of character or decency, wallows and ranges in common houses, is guilty no farther than of proftituting himself, and expofing his health to difeafes; but the mau of gallantry cannot purfue his pleasures without treachery to fome man he ought to love, and making defpicable the woman he admires. To live in a continual deceit, to reflect upon the difhonour you do fome hufband, father, or brother, who does not deferve this of you, and whom you would deftroy did you know they did the like towards you, are circumftances which pall the appetite, and give a man of any fenfe of honour very painful mortification. What more need be faid against a gentleman's delight, than that he himself thinks himself a base man in pursuing it? when it is thoroughly confidered, he gives up his very being as a man of integrity who commences gallant. Let him or her who is guilty this way but weigh the matter a little, and the criminal will find that thofe whom It is a most melancholy confideration, that for momentary fenfations of joy, obtained by ftealth, men are forced into a constraint of all their words and actions in the general and ordinary occurrences of life. It is an impoffibility in this cafe to be faithful to one perfon, without being falfe to all the reft of the world: the gay figures in which poetical men of loofe morals have placed this kind of ftealth are but feeble confolations, when a man is inclined to foliloquy or meditation upon his past life; fathes of wit. can promote joy, but they cannot allay grief. Difeafe, fickness, and misfortune, are what all men living are liable to; it is therefore ridiculous and mad to purfue, inttead of fhunning, what muft add to our anguish under difeafe, fickness, or misfortune. It is poffible there may be those whofe blood is too warm to admit of thefe compunctions: if there are fuch, I am fure they are laying up ftore for them; but I have better hopes of those who have not yet erafed the impreffions and advantages of a good education and fortune; they may be affured, that whoever wholly give themfelves up to luft, will find it the least fault they are guilty of. Irreconcileable hatred to thofe they have injured, mean fhifts to cover their offences, envy and malice to the inno cent, and a general facrifice of all that is good-natured or praife-worthy when it interrupts them, will poffefs all their faculties, and make them utter ftrangers to the noble pleafures which flow from honour and virtue. Happy are they who, from the vifitation of fickness, or any other accident, are awakened from a courfe which leads to an infenfibility of the greatest enjoyments in human life. A French F A French author, giving an account of a very agreeable man, in whofe character he mingles good qualities and infirmities, rather than vices or virtues, tells the following ftory. Our knight," fays he, was pretty much addicted to the most fashionable of all faults. He had a loose rogue for a lackey, not a little in his favour, though he had no other name for hirt when he spoke of him, but The Rascal, or to him, but Sirrah. One morning when he was drefling" Sirrah, fays he, "be fure you bring home this evening a pretty wench." The fellow was a perfon of diligence and capacity, and had for fome time addreffed him' self to a decayed old gentlewoman, who had a young maiden to her daughter, beauteous as an angel, not yet fixteen years of age. The mo'ther's extreme poverty, and the infinuations of this artful lackey concerning the foft difpofition and generofity of his master, made her confent to ་ ་ 1 'interruptions of fighs and tears, faid to him-" I know, alas! too well why "I am brought hither. My mother, to get bread for her and myfelf, has "fent me to do what you pleased; but "would it would pleafe Heaven I could "die, before I am added to the number "of thofe miferable wretches who live "without honour!" With this reflec tion fhe wept anew, and beat her bofom. The knight, ftepping back from ' her faid-" I am not fo abandoned as to hurt your innocence against your "will." • The novelty of the accident furprized him into virtue; and covering the young maid with a cloke, he led her to a relation's house, to whofe care •he recommended her for that night. • The next morning he fent for her mother, and asked her if her daughter was a maid. The mother affured him, that when she delivered her to his fervant, fhe was a ftranger to man. "Are "not you then," replied the knight, “ a "wicked woman to contrive the de"bauchery of your own child?" She held down her face with fear and fhame, and in her confufion uttered fome broken words concerning her poverty. "Far be it," faid the gentleman," that you should relieve your"felf from want by a much greater evil: "your daughter is a fine young crea ture; do you know of none that ever "fpoke of her for a wife?" The mother answered-" There is an honest man in our neighbourhood that loves "her, who has often faid he would mar"ry her with two hundred pounds.", • The knight ordered his man to reckon out that fum, with an addition of fifty to buy the bride cloaths, and fifty more as a help to her mother.' • deliver τρ her daughter. But many I appeal to all the gallants in the town, whether poffefling all the beau ties in Great Britain could give half the pleasure as this young gentleman had in the reflection of having relieved a miferable parent from guilt and pover ty, an innocent virgin from public fhame, and bestowing a virtuous wife upon an honeft man? Though all men who are guilty this way have not fortunes or opportunities for making fuch atonements for their vices, yet all men may do what is certainly in their power at this good season. For my part, I do not care how ridiculous the mention of it may be, pro |