Thou first, to soothe whose feeling heart The Muse bestowed her lenient art, Accept her counsel, quit this coast With only one short lustrum lost, Nor longer let the tuneful strain On foreign ears be poured in vain ;
The wreath which on thy brow should live, Britannia's hand alone can give.
Meanwhile for Bertie* Fate prepares A mingled wreath of joys and cares, When politics and party-rage
Shall strive such talents to engage, And call him to control the great, And fix the nicely balanced state; Till charming Anna's gentler mind, For storms of faction ne'er designed, Shall think with pleasure on the times When Arno listened to his rhymes, And reckon among Heaven's best mercies Our Piozzi's voice, and Parson's verses.
Thou, too, who oft has strung the lyre To liveliest notes of gay desire,
No longer seek these scorching flames, And trifle with Italian dames,
But haste to Britain's chaster isle, Receive some fair one's virgin smile, Accept her vows, reward her truth, And guard from ills her artless youth.
* Mr. Greatheed. She describes him as completely under the influence of his wife, the charming Anna.
SOCIETY! gregarious dame ! *
Who knows thy favored haunts to name? Whether at Paris you prepare
The supper and the chat to share, While fixed in artificial row, Laughter displays its teeth of snow; Grimace with raillery rejoices, And song of many mingled voices, Till young coquetry's artful wile Some foreign novice shall beguile, Who home returned, still prates of thee, Light, flippant, French Society.
Or whether, with your zone unbound, You ramble gaudy Venice round, Resolved the inviting sweets to prove, Of friendship warm, and willing love; Where softly roll th' obedient seas, Sacred to luxury and ease, In coffee-house or casino gay Till the too quick return of day, Th' enchanted votary who sighs For sentiments without disguise, Clear, unaffected, fond, and free, In Venice finds Society.
Or if to wiser Britain led,
Your vagrant feet desire to tread
* See ante, p. 137. Moore has substituted Posterity for Society. His reports of conversations are both meagre and inaccurate. Thus (Vol. III. p. 196) he says: "In talking of letters being charged by weight, he (Canning) said the post-office once refused to carry a letter of Sir J. Cox Hippesley's, it was so dull." Canning said "so heavy"; the letter being the worthy baronet's printed letter against Catholic Emancipation.
With measured step and anxious care, The precincts pure of Portman Square ; * While wit with elegance combined, And polished manners there you'll find; The taste correct and fertile mind: Remember vigilance lurks near, And silence with unnoticed sneer, Who watches but to tell again Your foibles with to-morrow's pen; Till tittering malice smiles to see Your wonder-grave Society.
Far from your busy crowded court, Tranquillity makes her resort;
Where 'mid cold Staffa's columns rude,
Resides majestic solitude;
Or where in some sad Brachman's cell, Meek innocence delights to dwell, Weeping with unexperienced eye, The death of a departed fly:
Or in Hetruria's heights sublime, Where science self might fear to climb, But that she seeks a smile from thee, And woos thy praise, Society.
Thence let me view the plains below, From rough St. Julian's rugged brow ; Hear the loud torrents swift descending, Or mark the beauteous rainbow bending, Till Heaven regains its favorite hue, Æther divine! celestial blue! Then bosomed high in myrtle bower, Viewed lettered Pisa's pendent tower; The sea's wide scene, the port's loud throng, Of rude and gentle, right and wrong;
A motley group which yet agree
To call themselves Society.
*The residence of her old rival, Mrs. Montague.
We were speaking the other day of the famous epigram in Ausonius:
"Infelix Dido, nulli bene nupta marito, Hoc moriente fugis, hoc fugiente peris."
Two lords, in vain, unlucky Dido tries, One dead, she flies the land; one fled, she dies.*
"Pauvre Didon! on t'a réduite
De tes maris le triste sort;
L'un en mourant cause ta fuite,
L'autre en fuyant cause ta mort,"
is reckoned a beautiful version of this epigram.
There is, however, a very old passage in Davison, alluding to the same story:
*To the same class of jeux d'esprit as this epitaph on Dido, belongs one made on Thynne, "Tom of Ten Thousand," after his assassination by Konigsmark, who wished to marry the widow, the heiress of the Percys. Thynne's marriage had not been consummated, and he was said to have promised marriage to a maid of honor whom he had seduced.
"Here lies Tom Thynne of Longleat Hall,
Who never would so have miscarried, Had he married the woman he lay withal, Or lay with the woman he married."
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