TOWNSMAN.

Now, Sir, you touch Upon the point. This man of half a million Had all these public virtues which you praise: But the poor man rung never at his door, And the old beggar, at the public gate, Who, all the summer long, stands hat in hand, He knew how vain it was to lift an eye To that hard face. Yet he was always found Among your ten and twenty pound subscribers, Your benefactors in the newspapers.

His alms were money put to interest

In the other world,. . donations to keep open
A running charity account with heaven,..

With all their flourish and their leafiness,
We have been told their destiny and use,
When the axe is laid unto the root, and they
Cumber the earth no longer.

Undone; .. for sins, not one of which is written
In the Ten Commandments. He, I warrant him,
Believed no other Gods than those of the Creed ;
Bow'd to no idols, . . but his money-bags;
Swore no false oaths, except at the custom-house;
Kept the Sabbath idle; built a monument
To honour his dead father; did no murder ;
Never sustain'd an action for crim-con;
Never pick'd pockets; never bore false-witness;
And never, with that all-commanding wealth,
Coveted his neighbour's house, nor ox, nor ass!

STRANGER.

You knew him then it seems?

TOWNSMAN.

As all men know The virtues of your hundred-thousanders; They never hide their lights beneath a bushel.

STRANGER.

Nay, nay, uncharitable Sir! for often
Doth bounty like a streamlet flow unseen,
Freshening and giving life along its course.

TOWNSMAN.

We track the streamlet by the brighter green
And livelier growth it gives; . . but as for this . .
This was a pool that stagnated and stunk;
The rains of heaven engendered nothing in it
But slime and foul corruption.

STRANGER.

Yet even these

Are reservoirs whence public charity Still keeps her channels full.

When, for the trusted talents, strict account
Shall be required from all, and the old Arch-Lawyer
Plead his own cause as plaintiff.

STRANGER.

I must needs Believe you, Sir: . . these are your witnesses, These mourners here, who from their carriages Gape at the gaping crowd. A good March wind Were to be pray'd for now, to lend their eyes Some decent rheum; the very hireling mute Bears not a face more blank of all emotion Than the old servant of the family! How can this man have lived, that thus his death Costs not the soiling one white handkerchief!

TOWNSMAN,

Who should lament for him, Sir, in whose heart
Love had no place, nor natural charity?
The parlour spaniel, when she heard his step,
Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside
With creeping pace; she never raised her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Upraised upon his knee, with fondling whine.
How could it be but thus ? Arithmetic
Was the sole science he was ever taught;
The multiplication-table was his Creed,
His Pater-noster, and his Decalogue.

When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed
The open air and sunshine of the fields,
To give his blood its natural spring and play,
He in a close and dusky counting-house
Smoke-dried and sear'd and shrivell'd up his heart.
So from the way in which he was train'd up
His feet departed not; he toil'd and moil'd,
Poor muck-worm ! through his three-score years and
And when the earth shall now be shovell'd on him,
If that which served him for a soul were still
Within its husk, 'twould still be dirt to dirt.

STRANGER.

Yet your next newspapers will blazon him For industry and honourable wealth

A bright example.

TOWNSMAN.

Even half a million

[ten ;

Gets him no other praise. But come this way
Some twelve months hence, and you will find his virtues
Trimly set forth in lapidary lines,

Faith with her torch beside, and little Cupids
Dropping upon his urn their marble tears.

Bristol, 1803.

TOLL on, toll on, old Bell! I'll neither pass
The cold and weary hour in heartless rites,
Nor doze away the time. The fire burns bright,
And, bless the maker of this Windsor-Chair!
(Of polish'd cherry, elbow'd, saddle-seated,)
This is the throne of comfort. I will sit

And study here devoutly: . . not my Euclid,..
For Heaven forbid that I should discompose
That Spider's excellent geometry!

I'll study thee, Puss! Not to make a picture,
I hate your canvass cats and dogs and fools,
Themes that disgrace the pencil. Thou shalt give
A moral subject, Puss. Come, look at me ; ..
Lift up thine emerald eyes! Ay, purr away!
For I am praising thee, I tell thee, Puss,
And Cats as well as Kings like flattery.
For three whole days I heard an old Fur-gown
Bepraised, that made a Duke a Chancellor;
Bepraised in prose it was, bepraised in verse;
Lauded in pious Latin to the skies;
Kudos'd egregiously in heathen Greek;
In sapphics sweetly incensed; glorified
In proud alcaics; in hexameters

Applauded to the very Galleries

That did applaud again, whose thunder-claps,
Higher and longer with redoubling peals
Rung, when they heard the illustrious furbelow'd
Heroically in Popean rhyme

Tee-ti-tum'd, in Miltonic blank bemouth'd;

Prose, verse, Greek, Latin, English, rhyme and blank,
Apotheosi-chancellor'd in all,

Till Eulogy, with all her wealth of words,
Grew bankrupt, all-too-prodigal of praise,
And panting Panegyric toil'd in vain
O'er-task'd in keeping pace with such desert.

Though I can poetize right willingly,

Puss, on thy well-streak'd coat, to that Fur-gown
I was not guilty of a single line:
'Twas an old furbelow, that would hang loose,
And wrap round any one, as it were made
To fit him only, so it were but tied
With a blue riband.

What a power there is

In beauty! Within these forbidden walls
Thou hast thy range at will, and when perchance
The Fellows see thee, Puss, they overlook
Inhibitory laws, or haply think

The statute was not made for Cats like thee;
For thou art beautiful as ever Cat

That wanton'd in the joy of kittenhood.
Ay, stretch thy claws, thou democratic beast,..
I like thine independence. Treat thee well,
Thou art as playful as young Innocence;
But if we act the governor, and break

The social compact, Nature gave those claws
And taught thee how to use them. Man, methinks,
Master and slave alike, might learn from thee

A salutary lesson: but the one

Abuses wickedly his power unjust,

The other crouches spaniel-like, and licks
The hand that strikes him. Wiser animal,

I look at thee, familiarised, yet free;
And, thinking that a child with gentle hand
Leads by a string the large-limb'd Elephant,
With mingled indignation and contempt
Behold his drivers goad the biped beast.

II.

SNUFF.

A DELICATE pinch! oh how it tingles up
The titillated nose, and fills the eyes
And breast, till in one comfortable sneeze
The full-collected pleasure bursts at last!
Most rare Columbus! thou shalt be for this
The only Christopher in my Kalendar.
Why but for thee the uses of the Nose
Were half unknown, and its capacity

Of joy. The summer gale that from the heath,
At midnoon glowing with the golden gorse,
Bears its balsamic odour, but provokes
Not satisfies the sense; and all the flowers,
That with their unsubstantial fragrance tempt
And disappoint, bloom for so short a space,
That half the year the Nostrils would keep Lent,
But that the kind tobacconist admits
No winter in his work; when Nature sleeps
His wheels roll on, and still administer
A plenitude of joy, a tangible smell.

His master's box produced, for when he sees The thumb and finger of Authority

Stufft up the nostrils: when hat, head, and wig

Shake all; when on the waistcoat black, brown dust,

From the oft-reiterated pinch profuse

Profusely scatter'd, lodges in its folds,

And part on the magistral table lights,

Part on the open book, soon blown away,

Full surely soon shall then the brow severe
Relax; and from vituperative lips

Words that of birch remind not, sounds of praise,
And jokes that must be laugh'd at, shall proceed.
Westbury, 1799.

Upon this turnpike road, and I'll convert him

With no inquisitorial argument

But thy own fires. Now woe be to me, wretch,

That I was in a heretic country born!

Else might some mass for the poor souls that bleach,

And burn away the calx of their offences

In that great Purgatory crucible,

Help me. O Jupiter! my poor complexion !

I am made a copper-Indian of already!

And if no kindly cloud will parasol me,

My very cellular membrane will be changed,..
I shall be negrofied.

O SPARE me.. spare me, Phoebus! if indeed
Thou hast not let another Phaeton
Drive earthward thy fierce steeds and fiery car;
Mercy! I melt! I melt! No tree, no bush,
No shelter, not a breath of stirring air
East, West, or North, or South! Dear God of day,
Put on thy nightcap; crop thy locks of light,
And be in the fashion; turn thy back upon us,
And let thy beams flow upward; make it night
Instead of noon; . . one little miracle,
In pity, gentle Phœbus!

What a joy,

Oh what a joy, to be a seal and flounder

On an ice island! or to have a den

With the white bear, cavern'd in polar snow!
It were a comfort to shake hands with Death,..
He has a rare cold hand! to wrap one's self
In the gift shirt Dejanira sent,

Dipt in the blood of Nessus, just to keep
The sun off; or toast cheese for Beelzebub,..
That were a cool employment to this journey
Along a road whose white intensity
Would now make platina uncongealable
Like quicksilver.

Were it midnight, I should walk
Self-lanthorn'd, saturate with sunbeams. Jove!
O gentle Jove! have mercy, and once more
Kick that obdurate Phoebus out of heaven;
Give Boreas the wind-cholic till he roar
For cardamum, and drink down peppermint,
Making what's left as precious as Tokay;
Send Mercury to salivate the sky

Till it dissolve in rain. O gentle Jove !
But some such little kindness to a wretch
Who feels his marrow spoiling his best coat,..
Who swells with calorique as if a Prester
Had leaven'd every limb with poison-yeast; ..
Lend me thine eagle just to flap his wings
And fan me, and I will build temples to thee,
And turn true Pagan.

Not a cloud nor breeze,.. O you most heathen Deities! if ever

IV.

THE PIG.

A COLLOQUIAL POEM.

JACOB! I do not like to see thy nose
Turn'd up in scornful curve at yonder Pig.
It would be well, my friend, if we, like him,
Were perfect in our kind!.. And why despise.
The sow-born grunter? . . He is obstinate,
Thou answerest; ugly, and the filthiest beast
That banquets upon offal. . . .
Now I pray you
Hear the Pig's Counsel.

Is he obstinate?
We must not, Jacob, be deceived by words;
We must not take them as unheeding hands
Receive base money at the current worth,
But with a just suspicion try their sound,
And in the even balance weigh them well.
See now to what this obstinacy comes:
A poor mistreated, democratic beast,
He knows that his unmerciful drivers seek
Their profit, and not his. He hath not learnt
That Pigs were made for Man,.. born to be brawn'd
And baconized: that he must please to give

Just what his gracious masters please to take;
Perhaps his tusks, the weapons Nature gave

For self-defence, the general privilege;
Perhaps,.. hark Jacob! dost thou hear that horn?
Woe to the young posterity of pork !
Their enemy is at hand.

Rings round her lover's soul the chains of love.
And what is beauty but the aptitude

Of parts harmonious? Give thy fancy scope,
And thou wilt find that no imagined change
Can beautify this beast. Place at his end
The starry glories of the Peacock's pride,
Give him the Swan's white breast; for his horn-hoofs
Shape such a foot and ankle as the waves
Crowded in eager rivalry to kiss

When Venus from the enamour'd sea arose; ..
Jacob, thou canst but make a monster of him!
All alteration man could think, would mar
His Pig-perfection.

The last charge, . . he lives
A dirty life. Here I could shelter him
With noble and right reverend precedents,
And show by sanction of authority
That 'tis a very honourable thing

To thrive by dirty ways. But let me rest
On better ground the unanswerable defence.
The Pig is a philosopher, who knows

No prejudice. Dirt?.. Jacob, what is dirt?
If matter,.. why the delicate dish that tempts
An o'ergorged Epicure to the last morsel
That stuffs him to the throat-gates, is no more.
If matter be not, but as Sages say,
Spirit is all, and all things visible
Are one, the infinitely modified,

Think, Jacob, what that Pig is, and the mire
Wherein he stands knee-deep!

And there the breeze
Pleads with me, and has won thee to a smile
That speaks conviction. O'er yon blossom'd field
Of beans it came, and thoughts of bacon rise.
Westbury, 1799

And I'll be sworn there's not a fellow here
Who would not swear 'twere hanging blasphemy
To doubt that truth. Therefore as thou wert born,
Bruin for Man, and Man makes nothing of thee
In any other way,... most logically

It follows, thou wert born to make him sport;
That that great snout of thine was form'd on purpose
To hold a ring; and that thy fat was given thee
For an approved pomatum !

To demur
Were heresy. And politicians say,
(Wise men who in the scale of reason give
No foolish feelings weight,) that thou art here
Far happier than thy brother Bears who roam
O'er trackless snow for food; that being born
Inferior to thy leader, unto him

Rightly belongs dominion; that the compact
Was made between ye, when thy clumsy feet
First fell into the snare, and he gave up
His right to kill, conditioning thy life
Should thenceforth be his property;.. besides,
"Tis wholesome for thy morals to be brought
From savage climes into a civilized state,
Into the decencies of Christendom. . .
Bear! Bear! it passes in the Parliament
For excellent logic this! What if we say
How barbarously Man abuses power?
Talk of thy baiting, it will be replied,
Thy welfare is thy owner's interest,
But were thou baited it would injure thee,
Therefore thou art not baited. For seven years
Hear it, O Heaven, and give ear, O Earth!
For seven long years, this precious syllogism
Hath baffled justice and humanity!

Westbury, 1799.

Alas, poor Bruin! How he foots the pole

And waddles round it with unwieldy steps,

Swaying from side to side! . . The dancing-master

Hath had as profitless a pupil in him

As when he would have tortured my poor toes

To minuet grace, and made them move like clockwork
In musical obedience. Bruin Bruin !
Thou art but a clumsy biped!.. And the mob
With noisy merriment mock his heavy pace,
And laugh to see him led by the nose!.. themselves
Led by the nose, embruted, and in the eye
Of Reason from their Nature's purposes
As miserably perverted.

Bruin-Bear!

Now could I sonnetize thy piteous plight,
And prove how much my sympathetic heart
Even for the miseries of a beast can feel,
In fourteen lines of sensibility.

But we are told all things were made for Man;

And thou shalt do no murder, Nicholas !
It were an easy thing to crack that nut
Or with thy crackers or thy double teeth,
So easily may all things be destroy'd!
But 'tis not in the power of mortal man
To mend the fracture of a filbert shell.
There were two great men once amused themselves
Watching two maggots run their wriggling race,
And wagering on their speed; but Nick, to us
It were no sport to see the pamper'd worm
Roll out and then draw in his folds of fat,
Like to some Barber's leathern powder-bag
Wherewith he feathers, frosts, or cauliflowers
Spruce Beau, or Lady fair, or Doctor grave.
Enough of dangers and of enemies
Hath Nature's,wisdom for the worm ordain'd,
Increase not thou the number! Him the Mouse
Gnawing with nibbling tooth the shell's defence,
May from his native tenement eject;

Him may the Nut-hatch, piercing with strong bill, Unwittingly destroy; or to his hoard

The Squirrel bear, at leisure to be crack'd.

Man also hath his dangers and his foes

As this poor Maggot hath; and when I muse
Upon the aches, anxieties, and fears,
The Maggot knows not, Nicholas, methinks
It were a happy metamorphosis

To be enkernell'd thus: never to hear
Of wars, and of invasions, and of plots,
Kings, Jacobines, and Tax-commissioners;
To feel no motion but the wind that shook
The Filbert Tree, and rock'd us to our rest;
And in the middle of such exquisite food
To live luxurious! The perfection this
Of snugness! it were to unite at once
Hermit retirement, Aldermanic bliss,
And Stoic independence of mankind.
Westbury, 1799.

VIL.

THE CATARACT OF LODORE.

DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY.

"How does the Water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy ask'd me
Thus, once on a time;

And moreover he task'd me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word,
There first came one daughter
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar.

As many a time

They had seen it before. So I told them in rhyme, For of rhymes I had store:

And 'twas in my vocation

For their recreation
That so I should sing ;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.

From its sources which well

In the Tarn on the fell;

From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;

Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For awhile, till it sleeps
In its own little Lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds
And away it proceeds,

Through meadow and glade, In sun and in shade, And through the wood-shelter, Among crags in its flurry, Helter-skelter,

Hurry-scurry.

Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Now smoaking and frothing It's tumult and wrath in, Till in this rapid race On which it is bent, It reaches the place Of its steep descent.

The Cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging

As if a war waging

Its caverns and rocks among :
Rising and leaping,

Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,

Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound!
Smiting and fighting,

A sight to delight in ;
Confounding, astounding,

Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.

Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,

And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,

And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,

And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning,

And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;