"Alas! no more that joyous morn appears "The vocal birds that raise their matin strain, The sportive lambs, increase my pensive moan; All seem to chase me from the cheerful plain, And talk of truth and innocence alone. "If through the garden's flowery tribes I stray, Where bloom the jasmines that could once allure, Hope not to find delight in us, they say, For we are spotless, Jessy; we are pure. "Ye flowers! that well reproach a nymph so frail; Now the grave old alarm the gentler young; And all my fame's abhorr'd contagion flee: Trembles each lip, and faulters every tongue, That bids the morn propitious smile on me. Thus for your sake I shun each human eye; I bid the sweets of blooming youth adieu; To die I languish, but I dread to die, Lest my sad fate should nourish pangs for you. Raise me from earth; the pains of want remove, And let me silent seek some friendly shore : There only, banish'd from the form I love, My weeping virtue shall relapse no more. Be but my friend; I ask no dearer name; Be such the meed of some more artful fair; Nor could it heal my peace, or chase my shame, That pity gave, what love refus'd to share. Force not my tongue to ask its scanty bread; Nor hurl thy Jessy to the vulgar crew; Not such the parent's board at which I fed! Not such the precept from his lips I drew ! Haply, when Age has silver'd o'er my hair, Malice may learn to scorn so mean a spoil; Envy may slight a face no longer fair; And pity, welcome, to my native soil.' "She spoke nor was I born of savage race; Nor could these hands a niggard boon assign; Grateful she clasp'd me in a last embrace, And vow'd to waste her life in prayers for mine. "I saw her foot the lofty bark ascend; I saw her breast with every passion heave; I left her -torn from every earthly friend; Oh! my hard bosom, which could bear to leave! Brief let me be; the fatal storm arose; The billows rag'd, the pilot's art was vain; O'er the tall mast the circling surges close; My Jessy-floats upon the watery plain! "And see my youth's impetuous fires decay; Seek not to stop Reflection's bitter tear; But warn the frolic, and instruct the gay, From Jessy floating on her watery bier!" THE REV. CHARLES CHURCHILL. name. THE REV. CHARLES CHURCHILL, a poet, once of Churchill was now at once raised from great repute, was the son of a curate of St. John's obscurity to eminence; and the Rosciad, which w Westminster, in which parish he was born in 1731. have selected as his best work, is, in fact, the only He received his early education at the celebrated one of his numerous publications on which t public school in the vicinity, whence he was sent to bestowed due labour. The delineations are draw Oxford; but to this university he was refused ad- with equal energy and vivacity; the language and mission on account of deficient classical knowledge. versification, though not without inequalities, Returning to school, he soon closed his further superior to the ordinary strain of current poetry, education by an early and imprudent marriage. and many of the observations are stamped wit Receiving holy orders from the indulgence of sound judgment and correct taste. Dr. Sherlock, he went down to a curacy in Wales, The remainder of his life, though concurring where he attempted to remedy the scantiness of his with the period of his principal fame, is little wor income, by the sale of cyder; but this expedient of notice. He became a party writer, joining wit only plunged him deeper in debt. Returning to Wilkes and other oppositionists, and employed he London, he was chosen, on his father's death, to pen assiduously in their cause. With this wa succeed him as curate and lecturer of St. John's. joined a lamentable defect of moral feeling, His finances still falling short, he took various hibited by loose and irregular manners. methods to improve them; at the same time he dis-off his black suit, he decorated his large and clung played an immoderate fondness for theatrical ex-person with gold lace; and dismissing his wife, be hibitions. This latter passion caused him to think debauched from her parents the daughter of of exercising those talents which he was conscious tradesman in Westminster. His writings at leg of possessing; and in March, 1761, he published, became mere rhapsodies; and taking a journey though anonymously, a view of the excellencies and France for the purpose of visiting Mr. Wils defects of the actors in both houses, which he en- then an exile in that country, he was seized with titled "The Rosciad." It was much admired, fever, which put a period to his life on Noveruber 4. and a second edition appeared with the author's 1764, at the age of 34, Throw THE ROSCIAD. Roscius deceas'd, each high aspiring play'r Push'd all his int'rest for the vacant chair. But though bare merit might in Rome appear What can an actor give? In ev'ry age They can't, like candidate for other seat, Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair, The town divided, each runs sev'ral ways, From galleries loud peals of laughter roll, Whilst to six feet the vig'rous stripling grown, When place of judgment is by whim supply'd, At length agreed, all squabbles to decide, By some one judge the cause was to be try'd; But this their squabbles did afresh renew, Who should be judge in such a trial: Who? For Johnson some, but Johnson, it was fear'd, Would be too grave; and Sterne too gay appear'd: Others for Francklin voted; but 't was known, He sicken'd at all triumphs but his own: For Colman many, but the peevish tongue Of prudent Age found out that he was young: For Murphy some few pilf'ring wits declar'd, Whilst Folly clapp'd her hands, and Wisdom star'd. To mischief train'd, e'en from his mother's womb, Grown old in fraud, though yet in manhood's bloom, Adopting arts, by which gay villains rise, band - And reach the heights which honest men despise ; With sleek appearance, and with ambling pace, And, type of vacant head, with vacant face, The Proteus Hill put in his modest plea, "Let Favour speak for others, Worth for me.". For who, like him, his various powers could call Into so many shapes, and shine in all? Who could so nobly grace the motley list, Actor, inspector, doctor, botanist? Knows any one so well -sure no one knows, At once to play, prescribe, compound, compose? * John Coan, a dwarf, who died in 1764. C. Who can- But Woodward came, Hill slipp'd away, Melting like ghosts, before the rising day. With that low cunning, which in fools supplies, And amply too, the place of being wise, Which Nature, kind, indulgent parent, gave To qualify the blockhead for a knave; [charms, With that smooth falsehood, whose appearance And reason of each wholesome doubt disarms, Which to the lowest depths of guile descends, By vilest means pursues the vilest ends, Wears Friendship's mask for purposes of spite, Fawns in the day, and butchers in the night; With that malignant envy, which turns pale, And sickens, even if a friend prevail, Which merit and success pursues with hate, And damns the worth it cannot imitate; With the cold caution of a coward's spleen, Which fears not guilt, but always seeks a skreen, Which keeps this maxim ever in her view What 's basely done, should be done safely too; With that dull, rooted, callous impudence, Which, dead to shame, and ev'ry nicer sense, Ne'er blush'd, unless, in spreading Vice's snares, She blunder'd on some virtue unawares; With all these blessings, which we seldom find Lavish'd by Nature on one happy mind, A motley figure, of the Fribble tribe, Much did it talk, in its own pretty phrase, Nor shall the Muse (for even there the pride Of this vain nothing shall be mortified) Nor shall the Muse (should Fate ordain her rhymes Fond, pleasing thought! to live in after-times) With such a trifler's name her pages blot; Known be the character, the thing forgot; This severe character was intended for Mr. Fitzpatrick, a person who had rendered himself remarkable by his activity in the playhouse riots of 1763, relative to the taking half prices. He was the hero of Garrick's Fribbleriad. E. 1 |