Something of man must be expos'd to view, The ladies would mistake him for a wit, And when he sings, talks loud, and cocks,* would cry, "I vow, methinks, he's pretty company;" So brisk, so gay, so travell'd, so refin'd, As he took pains to graff upon his kind. True fops help Nature's work, and go to school, And, rolling o'er you, like a snow-ball grows. One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow. And this, the yard-long snake he twirls behind t Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profan'd. Another's diving bow he did adore, Which, with a shog, casts all the hair before; And rises with a water-spaniel shake. As for his songs, the ladies' dear delight, These sure he took from most of you who write. For no one fool is hunted from the herd. THE CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CLERGY. From the "HIND AND THE PANTHER." A plain good man whose name is understood * Videlicet, his hat. † I know not what he means by this. James II.-Dryden was at this time a Catholic. His house with all convenience was purvey'd The rest he found, but rais'd the fabric where he pray'd.* Employ'd her happiest hours of holy life. Nor did their alms extend to those alone, Whom common faith more strictly made their own Another farm he had behind his house, The world was fall'n into an easier way: This age knew better than to fast and pray. The Catholic chapel set up by James in Whitehall. †The clergy of the Church of England. It is amusing to see them represented as living on the "alms" of the barely tolerated king. The Catholic clergy maintained by the king. Good sense in sacred worship would appear, Was hooted hence because she would not pray a-bed. Was to lay by the disciplining rod, Unnatural fasts, and foreign forms of prayer: Religion frights us with a mien severe. A lively faith will bear aloft the mind, And leave the luggage of good works behind. 1 "A cruise of water and an ear of corn."-The ideal monastic regimen! very different from that of monks in general. 2 "The bird that warn'd St. Peter of his fall."-This verse is from Spenser : "The bird that warnèd Peter of his fall.” Spenser, whom chance had put on the side of the Puritans (for no man would naturally have been more for a gorgeous creed than he), not unwillingly omitted the title of Saint to Peter. The Catholic Dryden as willingly availed himself of the abbreviated past tense to restore it. The reader may remember Sir Roger de Coverley's perplexity at the successive rebukes he received, when a little boy, from a Catholic for asking his way to " Marybone,” and from a Puritan for restoring the saint her title. 3 “Beast of a bird."-What a happy anomaly, and vigor of alliteration! How well it comes, too, after the fond pathos of the luxury of the line before it! * The Nuns. PHILIPS. BORN, 1676-DIED, 1708. JOHN PHILIPS was a young and lively writer, who, having succeeded in a burlesque, was unfortunately induced to attempt serious poetry, and devoted himself to it with a scholarly dulness which he would probably have seen the folly of in any one else. His serious imitations of Milton are not worth a penny; but his burlesque of the style of Paradise Lost, though it no longer possesses the novelty which made it popular, is still welcome to the lover of wit. The low every-day circumstances, and the lofty classic manner with its nomenclatures, are happily interwoven; the more trivial words are brought in with unlooked-for effect; the motto is particularly felicitous; and the comparison of the rent in the small-clothes with the ship that has sprung a leak at sea, and founders, concludes the poem with a tremendous and calamitous grandeur, only to be equalled by the exclamation of the Spaniard; who said he had torn his "breeches, as if heaven and earth had come together." THE SPLENDID SHILLING. "Sing, heavenly muse, Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme;" Happy the man, who, void of cares and strife, A Splendid Shilling: he nor hears with pain New oysters cry'd, nor sighs for cheerful ale; In garret vile, and with a warming puff Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie Thus, while my joyless minutes tedious flow, With looks demure, and silent pace, a Dun, Horrible monster! hated by gods and men, To my aërial citadel ascends.* With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate, With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound, What should I do? or whither turn? Amaz'd, Confounded, to the dark recess I fly Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect Through sudden fear; a chilly sweat bedews My shuddering limbs, and (wonderful to tell!) My tongue forgets her faculty of speech; *To-wit, his garret. |