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"Alas! no more that joyous morn appears
That led the tranquil hours of spotless fame;
For I have steep'd a father's couch in tears,
And ting'd a mother's glowing cheek with shame.

"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;
Say, could ye with my virgin fame compare?
The brightest bud that scents the vernal gale
Was not so fragrant, and was not so fair.

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!"

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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.
The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage
No longer whine in love, and rant in rage;
The monarch quits his throne, and condescends
Humbly to court the favour of his friends;
For pity's sake tells undeserv'd mishaps,
And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps.
Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome,
To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume,
In pompous strain fight o'er th' extinguish'd war,
And show where honour bied in ev'ry scar.

But though bare merit might in Rome appear
The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here;
We form our judgment in another way;
And they will best succeed, who best can pay :
Those, who would gain the votes of British tribes,
Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.

What can an actor give? In ev'ry age
Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage;
Monarchs themselves, to grief of ev'ry play'r,
Appear as often as their image there:

They can't, like candidate for other seat,
Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat.
Wine! they could bribe you with the world as so
And of roast beef, they only know the tune:
But what they have they give; could Clive do more.
Though for each million he had brought home four?

Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair,
And hopes the friends of humour will be there;
In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat
For those who laughter love, instead of meat;
Foote, at Old House, for even Foote will be,
In self-conceit, an actor, bribes with tea;
Which Wilkinson at second-hand receives,
And at the New, pours water on the leaves.

The town divided, each runs sev'ral ways,
As passion, humour, int'rest, party sways.
Things of no moment, colour of the hair,
Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair,
A dress well chosen, or a patch misplac'd,
Conciliate favour, or create distaste.

From galleries loud peals of laughter roll,
And thunder Shuter's praises - he's so droll.
Embor'd, the ladies must have something smart,
Palmer! Oh! Palmer tops the janty part.
Seated in pit, the dwarf, with aching eyes,
Looks up, and vows that Barry's out of size;

Whilst to six feet the vig'rous stripling grown,
Declares that Garrick is another Coan. *

When place of judgment is by whim supply'd,
And our opinions have their rise in pride;
When, in discoursing on each mimic elf,
We praise and censure with an eye to self;
All must meet friends, and Ackman bids as fair
In such a court, as Garrick, for the chair.

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,

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And reach the heights which honest men despise ;
Mute at the bar, and in the senate loud,
Dull 'mongst the dullest, proudest of the proud;
A pert, prim, prater of the northern race,
Guilt in his heart, and famine in his face,
Stood forth: and thrice he wav'd his lily hand
And thrice he twirl'd his tye - thrice strok'd his
[aim
"At Friendship's call," (thus oft with trait'rous
Men, void of faith, usurp Faith's sacred name)
"At Friendship's call I come, by Murphy sent,
Who thus by me developes his intent.
But lest, transfus'd, the spirit should be lost,
That spirit which in storms of rhet'ric tost,
Bounces about, and flies like bottled beer,
In his own words his own intentions hear. [born,
"Thanks to my friends. But to vile fortunes
No robes of fur these shoulders must adorn.
Vain your applause, no aid from thence I draw;
Vain all my wit, for what is wit in law?
Twice (curs'd remembrance!) twice I strove to gain
Admittance 'mongst the law-instructed train,
Who, in the Temple and Gray's Inn, prepare
For clients' wretched feet the legal snare;
Dead to those arts, which polish and refine,
Deaf to all worth, because that worth was mine,
Twice did those blockheads startle at my name,
And, foul rejection, gave me up to shame.
To laws and lawyers then I bad adieu,
And plans of far more lib'ral note pursue.
Who will may be a judge — my kindling breast
Burns for that chair which Roscius once possess'd.
Here give your votes, your int'rest here exert,
And let success for once attend desert."

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,
Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen describe,
Came simp'ring on; to ascertain whose sex
Twelve sage, impanell'd matrons would perplex.
Nor male, nor female; neither, and yet both;
Of neuter gender, though of Irish growth;
A six-foot suckling, mincing in its gait;
Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate;
Fearful it seem'd, though of athletic make,
Lest brutal breezes should too roughly shake
Its tender form, and savage motion spread,
O'er its pale cheeks, the horrid manly red.

Much did it talk, in its own pretty phrase,
Of genius and of taste, of play'rs and plays;
Much too of writings, which itself had wrote,
Of special merit, though of little note;
For Fate, in a strange humour, had decreed
That what it wrote, none but itself should read;
Much too it chatter'd of dramatic laws,
Misjudging critics, and misplac'd applause ;
Then, with a self-complacent jutting air,
It smil'd, it smirk'd, it wriggled to the chair;
And, with an awkward briskness not its own,
Looking around, and perking on the throne,
Triumphant seem'd, when that strange savage dame,
Known but to few, or only known by name,
Plain Common-Sense appear'd, by Nature there
Appointed, with plain Truth, to guard the chair.
The pageant saw, and blasted with her frown,
To its first state of nothing melted down.

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.

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