Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings lean'd to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd, The reverend champion stood. At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last falt'ring accents whisper'd praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran:
Even children follow'd with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's
smile.

His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

[spread,

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze uprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd;
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew:
"Twas certain he could write, and cypher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could guage:
In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
For even though vanquish'd, he could argue still;
While words of learned length, and thund'ring
sound,

Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around,
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
-But past is all his fame. The very spot,
Where many a time he triumph'd, is forgot.

Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts

inspired,

Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound,

And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace

The parlour splendours of that festive place;
The white-wash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The Twelve Good Rules, the Royal Game of
Goose;

The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers and fennel gay,
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Ranged o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row.

Vain transitory splendour! could not all Reprieve the tott'ring mansion from its fall! Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour's importance to the poor man's heart; Thither no more the peasant shall repair, To sweet oblivion of his daily care;

No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, Relax his pond'rous strength, and lean to hear; The host himself no longer shall be found Careful to see the mantling bliss go round; Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest, Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, These simple blessings of the lowly train, To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art; Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway: Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd, In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain; And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey
The rich man's joy increase, the poor's decay,
"Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.

Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards e'en beyond the miser's wish abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around.
Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful product still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robb'd the neighbouring fields of half their
growth;

His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,

While thus the land, adorn'd for pleasure all,
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies,
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes:
But when those charms are past, for charms are
When time advances, and when lovers fail, [frail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress.
Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd,
In nature's simplest charms at first array'd,
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While, scourged by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms-a garden, and a grave.

Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside, To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride? If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd, He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, And even the bare-worn common is denied.

If to the city sped-What waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share; To see ten thousand baneful arts combined To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; To see each joy the sons of pleasure know Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display,

There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign, Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train; Tumultuous grandeur crowns the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy! Sure these denote one universal joy!

Are these thy serious thoughts?—Ah, turn thine eyes

Where the poor houseless shiv'ring female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty bless'd,
Has wept at tales of innocence distress'd;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn:
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the
shower,

With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour
When idly, first ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!

[train,

Ah, no. To distant climes a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, Where wild Altama* murmurs to their woe.

[* A River in Georgia, North America.]

Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those poisonous fields, with rank luxuriance
crown'd,

Where the dark scorpion gathers death around:
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murderous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love.

Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day,

That call'd them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their
last,

And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shudd'ring still to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep.
The good old sire the first prepared to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave.
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for a father's arms.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose:
And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a

tear,

And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear; Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief In all the silent manliness of grief.

O Luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree,
How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own.
At every draught more large and large they
grow,

A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
Even now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done;
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail
That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
Contented Toil, and hospitable Care,

And kind connubial Tenderness are there;

And Piety with wishes placed above,
And steady Loyalty, and faithful Love.
And thou sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
Unfit in these degenerate times of shame
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well;
Farewell, and oh! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that states of native strength possest.
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.*

THE HAUNCH OF VENISON.

A POETICAL EPISTLE TO ROBERT NUGENT LORD CLARE.† THANKS, my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter

Never ranged in a forest, or smoked in a platter; The haunch was a picture for painters to study, The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy: Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting

To spoil such a delicate picture by eating;

I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view,

To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu: As in some Irish houses, where things are so-so, One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show: But, for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in. But hold-let me pause-don't I hear you pro

nounce,

This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce;
Well! suppose it a bounce-sure a poet may try,
By a bounce now and then, to get courage to fly.
But, my lord, it's no bounce: I protest in my
turn,

Its a truth-and your lordship may ask Mr. Burn.

[* The four last lines were supplied by Dr. Johnson.] It The leading idea of this poem is from Boileau's third Satire, and several of the passages are from the same quarter. The truth is that Goldsmith, with his many merits and great originality, was an unsparing plagiarist. We shall instance here one of his thefts, the more so that it is unnoticed by Mr. Prior, and is as yet we believe unknown. "Painting and Music," he says in his dedication of The Traveller, at first rival poetry, and at length supplant her; they engross all that favour once shown to her, and though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birth right." This is wholesale from Dryden:

Our arts are sisters though not twins in birth;
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:

To go on with my tale-as I gazed on the haunch. I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch,

So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undrest,
To paint it, or eat it, just as he liked best.
Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose;
'Twas a neck and a breast that might rival
Monroe's:

But in parting with these I was puzzled again, With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when.

There's H-d, and C-y, and H-rth, and H-ff, I think they love venison-I know they love beef. There's my countryman Higgins-Oh! let him

alone

For making a blunder, or picking a bone.
But hang it to poets who seldom can eat,
Your very good mutton's a very good treat;
Such dainties to them their health it might hurt,
It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a
shirt.

While thus I debated, in reverie center'd,
An acquaintance, a friend, as he call'd himself,
enter'd;

An under-bred, fine spoken fellow was he, And he smiled as he look'd at the venison and me. "What have we got here?-why, this is good

eating!

Your own I suppose-or is it in waiting!" "Why, whose should it be?" cried I with a flounce, "I get these things often;" but that was a bounce; "Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,

Are pleased to be kind; but I hate ostentation." "If that be the case then," cried he very gay, "I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me; No words-I insist on't-precisely at three: We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will

be there;

My acquaintance is slight or I'd ask my Lord Clare. And, now that I think on't, as I am a sinner, We wanted this venison to make out a dinner! What say you-a pasty, it shall and it must, And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust. Here, porter-this venison with me to Mile-end; No stirring, I beg, my dear friend, my dear friend!"

Thus snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,

And the porter and eatables follow'd behind.

Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf, And nobody with me at sea but myself:"

But oh, the painter Muse, though last in place, Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race. To Sir Godfrey Kneller.] [This was an old saying with Goldsmith. "The king." he writes to his brother, "has lately been pleased to make me Professor of Ancient History in a Royal Academy of Painting, which he has just established, but there is no salary annexed; and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation, are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt." This is not noticed by Mr. Prior, who has traced many of Goldsmith's thoughts from verse to prose and from prose to verse.]

Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty,

Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty, Were things that I never disliked in my life, Though clogg'd with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife. So next day in due splendour to make my approach,

I drove to his door in my own hackney-coach. When come to the place where we all were to dine,

(A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine,) My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb,

With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not

come;

"For I knew it," he cried, "both eternally fail, The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale:

But no matter, I'll warrant we'll make up the party,

With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew, They're both of them merry, and authors like you; The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge; Some thinks he writes Cinna-he owns to Panurge."

While thus he described them by trade and by

name,

They enter'd, and dinner was served as they came.

At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen, At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen; At the sides there were spinnach and pudding made hot;

In the middle a place where the pasty-was not. Now, my lord, as for tripe its my utter aversion, And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian; So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound, While the bacon and liver went merrily round: But what vex'd me most, was that d'd Scotish rogue,

With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue; [poison, And, "Madam," quoth he, " may this bit be my

"I could dine on this tripe seven days in a week: I like these here dinners so pretty and small; But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at all."

“O—ho!” quoth my friend, "he'll come on in a trice,

He's keeping a corner for something that's nice: There's a pasty"- "A pasty," repeated the Jew; "I don't care if I keep a corner for't too." "What the de'il, mon, a pasty!" re-echoed the Scot;

"Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for that." "We'll all keep a corner," the lady cried out; "We'll all keep a corner," was echoed about. While thus we resolved, and the pasty delay'd, With looks that quite petrified enter'd the maid: A visage so sad and so pale with affright, Waked Priam in drawing his curtains by night. But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her?

That she came with some terrible news from the baker:

And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven
Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven.
Sad Philomel thus-but let similes drop-
And now that I think on't, the story may stop.
To be plain, my good lord, its but labour mis-
placed,

To send such good verses to one of your taste;
You've got an odd something-a kind of discern

ing

A relish a taste-sicken'd over by learning;
At least, it's your temper, as very well known,
That you think very slightly of all that's your

own:

So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss, You may make a mistake, and think slightly of this.

PAUL WHITEHEAD was the son of a tailor in London; and, after a slender education, was placed as an apprentice to a woollen-draper. He afterward went to the Temple, in order to study law. Several years of his life (it is not quite clear at what period) were spent in the Fleet-prison, owing to a debt which he foolishly contracted, by putting his name to a joint security for 30001. at the request of his friend Fleetwood, the theatrical manager, who persuaded him that his signature was a mere matter of form. How he obtained his liberation we are not informed.

In the year 1735 he married a Miss Anne

Dyer, with whom he obtained ten thousand pounds. She was homely in her person, and very weak in intellect; but Whitehead, it ap pears, always treated her with respect and tenderness.

He became, in the same year, a satirical rhymer against the ministry of Walpole; and having published his "State Dunces," a weak echo of the manner of the "Dunciad," he was patronized by the opposition, and particularly by Bubb Doddington. In 1739 he published the "Manners," a satire, in which Mr. Chalmers says, that he attacks every thing venerable in the constitution. The poem is not worth dis

puting about; but it is certainly a mere personal lampoon, and no attack on the constitution. For this invective he was summoned to appear at the bar of the House of Lords, but concealed himself for a time, and the affair was dropped. The threat of prosecuting him, it was suspected, was meant as a hint to Pope, that those who satirised the great might bring themselves into danger; and Pope (it is pretended) became more cautious. There would seem, however, to be nothing very terrific in the example of a prosecution, that must have been dropped either from clemency or conscious weakness. The ministerial journals took another sort of revenge, by accusing him of irreligion; and the evidence which they candidly and consistently brought to substantiate the charge, was the letter of a student from Cambridge, who had been himself expelled from the university for atheism.

In 1744 he published another satire, entitled

THE father of this writer was a fellow of Pembroke college, Oxford, prebendary of Wells, and vicar of St. Mary's at Taunton, in Somersetshire. When Judge Jefferies came to the assizes at Taunton, to execute vengeance on the sharers of Monmouth's rebellion, Mr. Harte waited upon him in private, and remonstrated against his severities. The judge listened to him attentively, though he had never seen him before. It was not in Jefferies' nature to practise humanity; but, in this solitary instance, he showed a respect for its advocate; and in a few months advanced the vicar to a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Bristol. At the Revolution the aged clergyman resigned his preferments,

rather than take the oath of allegiance to King William; an action which raises our esteem of his intercession with Jefferies, while it adds to the unsalutary examples of men supporting tyrants, who have had the virtue to hate their tyranny.

The accounts that are preserved of his son, the poet, are not very minute or interesting. The date of his birth has not even been settled. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine fixes it about 1707; but by the date of his degrees at the university, this supposition is utterly inadmissible; and all circumstances considered, it is impossible to suppose that he was born later than 1700. He was educated at Marlborough college, and took his degree of master of arts at Oxford,