Alm. Where hast thou been? and how art thou alive? How is all this? All-powerful Heaven, what are we? Oh, my strain'd heart-let me again behold thee, For I weep to see thee-Art thou not paler? Much, much; how thou art changed! Osm. Not in my love. Alm. No, no! thy griefs, I know, have done this to thee. Thou hast wept much, Alphonso; and, I fear, Osm. Wrong not my love, to say too tenderly. Osm. Grant me but life, good Heaven, but length of days, To pay some part, some little of this debt, Of yet unmeasured time; when I have made Alm. 'Tis more than recompense to see thy face. Alm. True; but how camest thou there? Wert thou alone? Osm. I was, and lying on my father's lead, When broken echoes of a distant voice Disturb'd the sacred silence of the vault, In murmurs round my head. I rose and listen'd, And thought I heard thy spirit call Alphonso; I thought I saw thee too; but, Oh, I thought not That I indeed should be so blest to see thee Alm. But still, how camest thou thither? How thus ?- -Ha! What's he, who, like thyself, is started here Osm. Where? Ha! What do I see, Antonio! Osm. I saw her too, and therefore saw not thee. Alm. Nor I; nor could I, for my eyes were yours. Osm. What means the bounty of all-gracious That persevering still, with open hand, [Heaven, It scatters good, as in a waste of mercy! Where will this end? But Heaven is infinite In all, and can continue to bestow, When scanty number shall be spent in telling. Leon. Or I am deceived, or I beheld the glimpse Of two in shining habits cross the aisle ; Who, by their pointing, seem to mark this place. Alm. Sure I have dreamt, if we must part so soon. Osm. I wish at least our parting were a dream, Or we could sleep till we again were met. Heli. Zara and Selim, sir; I saw and know them: You must be quick, for love will lend her wings. Alm. What love? Who is she? Why are you alarm'd? Osm. She's the reverse of thee; she's my unhappiness. Harbour no thought that may disturb thy peace ; Should come, and see the straining of my eyes Retire, my love, I'll think how we may meet Alm. Sure we shall meet again—— Osm. We shall; we part not but to meet again. Yet I behold her-yet-and now no more. thoughts, So shall you still behold her-'twill not be. ELIJAH FENTON was obliged to leave the university on account of his non-juring principles. He was for some time secretary to Charles, Earl of Orrery he afterwards taught the grammarschool of Sevenoaks, in Kent; but was induced, by Bolingbroke, to forsake that drudgery for the more unprofitable state of dependence upon a political patron, who, after all, left him disappointed and in debt. Pope recommended him to Craggs as a literary instructor, but the death of that statesman again subverted his hopes of preferment; and he became an auxiliary to Pope in translating the Odyssey, of which his share was the first, fourth, nineteenth, and twentieth books. The successful appearance of his tragedy of Mariamne on the stage, in 1723, relieved him from his difficulties, and the rest of his life was comfortably spent in the employment of Lady Trumbull, first as tutor to her son, and afterwards as auditor of her accounts. His character was that of an amiable but indolent man, who drank, in his great chair, two bottles of port wine a day. He published an edition of the poetical works of Milton and of Waller +. AN ODE TO THE RIGHT HON. JOHN LORD GOWER. WRITTEN IN THE SPRING OF 1716. OE'R winter's long inclement sway, Is wafted by the western gales. To hail the coming god prepares ; Unblamed t' approach your blest retreat : Whose notes th' Aonian hills repeat. [* Borrowed from Milton's minor poems, whence, in 1716, one might steal with safety.] Or if invoked, where Thames's fruitful tides, So with aspiring ardours warm'd Beneath the Pole on hills of snow, Like Thracian Mars, th' undaunted Swede‡ To dint of sword defies the foe; In fight unknowing to recede : [ Fenton wrote nothing equal to his Ode to the Lord Gower, which is, says Joseph Warton, written in the true spirit of lyric poetry. It has received too the praises of Pope and of Akenside, but is better in parts than as a whole.] [ Charles XII.] Fond of the softer southern sky: The Soldan galls th' Illyrian coast; But soon the miscreant Moony host Before the Victor-Cross shall fly. But here, no clarion's shrilling note The Muse's green retreat can pierce; The grove, from noisy camps remote, Is only vocal with my verse: Here, wing'd with innocence and joy, Let the soft hours that o'er me fly Drop freedom, health, and gay desires : While the bright Seine, t'exalt the soul, With sparkling plenty crowns the bowl, And wit and social mirth inspires. Enamour'd of the Seine, celestial fair, (The blooming pride of Thetis' azure train,) Shall man from Nature's sanction stray, Fool! Time no change of motion knows; To sweep Fame, Power, and Wealth away: O Gower! through all the destined space, United and complete in thee. In which confirm'd thy father shone : Honour's bright dome, on lasting columns rear'd, Fix'd by the Muse, the temple grace; EDWARD (familiarly called Ned) WARD was a low-born uneducated man, who followed the trade of a publican. He is said, however, to have attracted many eminent persons to his house by his colloquial powers as a landlord, to have had a general acquaintance among authors, and to have been a great retailer of literary anecdotes. In those times the tavern was a less discreditable haunt than at present, and his literary acquaintance might probably be extensive. Jacob offended him very much by saying, in his account of the poets, that he kept a publichouse in the city. He publicly contradicted the assertion as a falsehood, stating that his house was not in the city, but in Moorfields. Ten thick volumes attest the industry, or cacoethes, of this facetious publican, who wrote his very will in verse. His favourite measure is the Hudibrastic. His works give a complete picture of the mind of a vulgar but acute cockney. His sentiment is the pleasure of eating and drinking, and his wit and humour are equally gross; but his descriptions are still curious and full of life, and are worth preserving, as delineations of the manners of the times. SONG. O GIVE me, kind Bacchus, thou god of the vine, That ne'er forsook tavern for porterly ale-house. Let a fleet from Virginia, well laden with weed, tuns. When thus fitted out we would sail cross the line, F Look cheerfully round us and comfort our eyes That, living or dead, both my body and spirit Should float round the globe in an ocean of claret, The truest of friends and the best of all juices, Worth both the rich metals that India produces: For all men we find from the young to the old, Will exchange for the bottle their silver and gold, Except rich fanatics-a pox on their pictures ! That make themselves slaves to their prayers and their lectures; And think that on earth there is nothing divine, But a canting old fool and a bag full of coin. What though the dull saint make his standard and sterling His refuge, his glory, his god, and his darling; The mortal that drinks is the only brave fellow, Though never so poor he's a king when he's mellow; Grows richer than Croesus with whimsical thinking, And never knows care whilst he follows his drinking. JOHN GAY. [Born, 1688. Died, 1732.] GAY'S Pastorals are said to have taken with the public not as satires on those of Ambrose Philips, which they were meant to be, but as natural and just imitations of real life and of rural manners. It speaks little, however, for the sagacity of the poet's town readers, if they enjoyed those caricatures in earnest, or imagined any truth of English manners in Cuddy and Cloddipole contending with Amabæan verses for the prize or song, or in Bowzybeus rehearsing the laws of nature. If the allusion to Philips was overlooked, they could only be relished as travesties of Virgil, for Bowzybeus himself would not be laughable unless we recollected Silenus*. Gay's Trivia seems to have been built upon the hint of Swift's Description of a City Shower+. It exhibits a picture of the familiar customs of the metropolis that will continue to become more amusing as the customs grow obsolete. As a fabulist he has been sometimes hypercritically blamed for presenting us with allegorical impersonations. The mere naked apologue of Æsop is too simple to interest the human mind, when its fancy and understanding are past the state of childhood or barbarism. La Fontaine dresses the stories which he took from Æsop and others with such profusion of wit and naïveté, that his manner conceals the insipidity of the matter. "La sauce vaut mieux que le poisson." Gay, though not equal to La Fontaine, is at least free from his occasional prolixity; and in one instance, (the Court of Death) ventures into allegory with considerable power. Without being an absolute simpleton, like La Fontaine, he possessed a bonhomie of character which forms an agreeable trait of resemblance between the fabulists. MONDAY; OR THE SQUABBLE. LOBBIN CLOUT, CUDDY, CLODdipole. L. Clout. THY younglings, Cuddy, are but just awake, No thrustles shrill the bramble bush forsake, [* That in these pastorals Gay has hit, undesignedly perhaps, the true spirit of pastoral poetry, was the opinion of Goldsmith: "In fact," he adds, "he more resembles Theocritus than any other English pastoral writer whatsoever." Yet he will not defend, he says, the antiquated | expressions.] [ Gay acknowledges in the prefatory Advertisement that he owes several hints of it to Dr. Swift.] [ Gay is now best known as the author of The Beggars' Opera, which, in spite of its passed political tendency, still keeps, by its music chiefly, its hold upon the stage; and as the author of Black Eyed Susan, which when sung, as it often is, with feeling, brings to remembrance or acquaint No chirping lark the welkin sheen invokes, No damsel yet the swelling udder strokes ; ance a once familiar name. The multitude know nothing of Trivia; to a Londoner even, it is a dead-letter; and few of the many have read or even heard of The Shepherd's Week. The stage and the convivial club have essentially assisted in preserving his fame. The works of Gay are on our shelves, but not in our pockets-in our remembrance, but not in our memories. His Fables are as good as a series of such pieces will in all possibility ever be. No one has envied him their production; but many would like to have the fame of having written The Shepherd's Week, Black-Eyed Susan, and the ballad that begins : ""Twas when the seas were roaring." Had he given his time to satire he had excelled, for his lines on Blackmore are in the extreme of bitterness.] L. Clout. Ah Blouzelind! I love thee more by Than does their fawns, or cows, the new-fallen calf: Woe worth the tongue! may blisters sore it gall, That names Buxoma Blouzelind withal? Cuddy. Hold, witless Lobbin Clout, I thee advise, Lest blisters sore on thy own tongue arise. Lo, yonder, Cloddipole, the blithesome swain, The wisest lout of all the neighbouring plain! From Cloddipole we learn to read the skies, To know when hail will fall or winds arise. He taught us erst the heifer's tail to view, When stuck aloft, that showerswould straight ensue: He first that useful secret did explain, That pricking corns foretold the gathering rain. When swallows fleet soar high, and sport in air, He told us that the welkin would be clear. Let Cloddipole then hear us twain rehearse, And praise his sweetheart in alternate verse. I'll wager this same oaken staff with thee, That Cloddipole shall give the prize to me. L. Clout. See this tobacco-pouch, that's lined with Made of the skin of sleekest fallow-deer. [hair, This pouch that's tied with tape of reddest hue, I'llwager that the prize shall be my due. [slouch! Cuddy. Begin thy carols then, thou vaunting Be thine the oaken staff, or mine the pouch. L. Clout. My Blouzelinda is the blithest lass, Than primrose sweeter, or the clover-grass. Fair is the king-cup that in meadow blows, Fair is the daisy that beside her grows; Fair is the gilliflower, of gardens sweet, Fair is the marygold, for pottage meet: But Blouzelind's than gilliflower more fair, Than daisy, marygold, or king-cup rare. Cuddy. My brown Buxoma is the featest maid That e'er at wake delightsome gambol play'd. Clean as young lambkins or the goose's down, And like the goldfinch in her Sunday gown. The witless lamb may sport upon the plain, The frisking kid delight the gaping swain, The wanton calf may skip with many a bound, And my cur Tray play deftest feats around; But neither lamb, nor kid, nor calf, nor Tray, Dance like Buxoma on the first of May. And holidays, if haply she were gone, Like worky-days, I wish'd would soon be done. Eftsoons, O sweetheart kind! my love repay, And all the year shall then be holiday. L. Clout. As Blouzelinda, in a gamesome mood, Behind a haycock loudly laughing stood, I slyly ran, and snatch'd a hasty kiss; Cuddy. As my Buxoma, in a morning fair, Of Irish swains potatoe is the cheer; Cuddy. In good roast-beef my landlord sticks L. Clout. As once I play'd at blindman's buff, About my eyes the towel thick was wrapt. [it hapt I miss'd the swains, and seized on Blouzelind. True speaks that ancient proverb, "Love is blind.” Cuddy. As at hot cockles once I laid me down, And felt the weighty hand of many a clown; Buxoma gave a gentle tap, and I Quick rose, and read soft mischief in her eye. Now high, now low, my Blouzelinda swung ; Cuddy. Across the fallen oak the plank I laid, L. Clout. This riddle, Cuddy if thou canst exThis wily riddle puzzles every swain. [plain, "What flower is that which bears the virgin's name, The richest metal joined with the same?" Cuddy. Answer, thou carle, and judge this riddle I'll frankly own thee for a cunning wight. [right, "What flower is that which royal honour craves, Adjoin the virgin, and 'tis strown on graves!" Cloddipole. Forbear, contending louts, give o'er your strains! An oaken staff each merits for his pains. |