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,
Not a pipe or a tun, but an ocean of wine;
And a ship that's well mann'd with such rare merry
fellows,

That ne'er forsook tavern for porterly ale-house.
May her bottom be leaky to let in the tipple,
And no pump on board her to save ship or people;
So that each jolly lad may suck heartily round,
And be always obliged to drink or be drown'd!

Let a fleet from Virginia, well laden with weed,
And a cargo of pipes, that we nothing may need,
Attend at our stern to supply us with guns,
And to weigh us our funk, not by pounds, but by

tuns.

When thus fitted out we would sail cross the line,
And swim round the world in a sea of good wine;
Steer safe in the middle, and vow never more
To renounce such a life for the pleasures on shore.

Look cheerfully round us, and comfort our eyes
With a deluge of claret enclosed by the skies;

A sight that would mend a pale mortal's complexion,
And make him blush more than the sun by reflexion.
No zealous contentions should ever perplex us,
No politic jars should divide us or vex us;
No presbyter Jack should reform us or ride us,
The stars and our whimsical noddles should guide us.
No blustering storms should possess us with fears,
Or hurry us, like cowards, from drinking to pray'rs,
But still with full bowls we'd for Bacchus maintain
The most glorious dominion o'er the clarety main ;
And tipple all round till our eyes shone as bright
As the sun does by day, or the moon does by night.
Thus would I live free from all care or design,
And when death should arrive, I'd be pickled in

wine;

That is, toss'd over board, have the sea for my grave,
And lie nobly entomb'd in a blood-colour'd wave;
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 pray'rs 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 Phillips, 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 of song, or in Bowzybeus rehearsing the laws of nature. If the allusion to Phillips 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 present

ing 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 naiveté, 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 bon hommie 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,
No chirping lark the welkin sheen invokes,
No damsel yet the swelling udder strokes;
O'er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear:
Then why does Cuddy leave his cot so rear?

Cuddy. Ah, Lobbin Clout! I ween my plight is guest,

For he that loves a stranger is to rest;

If swains belie not, thou hast prov'd the smart,
And Blouzelinda's mistress of thy heart.
This rising rear betokeneth well thy mind,
Those arms are folded for thy Blouzelind.
And well, I trow, our piteous plights agree;
Thee Blouzelinda smites, Buxoma me.

L. Clout. Ah, Blouzelind! I love thee more by

half,

Than does their fawns, or cows, the new-fall'n 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 blithsome 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 showers would 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 lin❜d with hair,

Made of the skin of sleekest fallow-deer.