Must I praise her melody? He, at least, should hear my prayer. DRY BE THAT TEAR. Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear, Ask'st thou how long my love will stay, And does that thought affect thee too, Must yield that faithful breath? Nor let us lose our Heaven here. Dry be that tear. There is in the second stanza here a close resemblance to TO THE RECORDING ANGEL.-CLIO'S REQUEST. 525 one of the madrigals of Montreuil, a French poet, to whom Sir John Moore was indebted for the point of his well-known verses, "If in that breast, so good so pure.' Mr. Sheridan, however, knew nothing of French, and neglected every opportunity of learning it, till, by a very natural process, his ignorance of the language grew into hatred of it. Besides, we have the immediate source from which he derived the thought of this stanza, in one of the Essays of Hume, who, being a reader of foreign literature, most probably found it in Montreuil.+ TO THE RECORDING ANGEL. CHERUB of heaven, that from thy secret stand Blot the sad legend with a mortal tear. Nor, when she errs, through passion's wild extreme, Nor when her sad attachment is her theme, Note down the transports of her erring tongue. EXTRACTS FROM "CLIO'S REQUEST." PUBLISHED IN 1771, DESCRIBING SEVERAL OF THE BEAUTIES BUT, hark!-did not our bard repeat • "The grief, that on my quiet preys, That rends my heart and checks my tongue, I fear will last me all my days, And feel it will not last me long." It is thus in Montreuil : "C'est un mal que j'aurai tout le tems de ma vie ; Mais je ne l'aurai pas long-tems." + Or in an Italian song of Menage, from which Montreuil, who was accustomed to such thefts, most probably stole it. The point in the Italian is, as far as I can remember it, expressed thus : "In van, o Filli, tu chiedi Se lungamente durera l'ardore Chi lo potrebbe dire ? Incerta, o Filli, e l'ora del morire." 1 Lady Margaret Fordyce. Attention seizes every ear; We pant for the description here: "Pindar," we say, "'twill leave thee now." ....Mark'd you her cheek of rosy hue ? We see the Dame, in rustic pride, While salves and caudle-cups between, O! should your genius ever rise, Their sovereign's power to rehearse, SHERIDAN'S VERS DE SOCIETE. In what are called Vers de Société, or drawing-room verses, he took great delight; and there remain among his papers several sketches of these trifles. Mr. Moore once heard him repeat, in a ball-room, some verses which he had written on Waltzing, and of which he has given us the following : "With tranquil step, and timid downcast glance, For so the Law's laid down by Baron Trip."* He had a sort of hereditary fancy for difficult trifling in poetry;-particularly for that sort which consists in rhyming to the same word through a long string of couplets, till every rhyme that the language supplies for it is exhausted. The following are specimens from a poem of this kind, which he wrote on the loss of a lady's trunk : This gentleman, whose name suits so aptly as a legal authority on the subject of Waltzing, was, at the time these verses were written, well known in the dancing circles. MY TRUNK ! (To Anne.) Have you heard, my dear Anne, how my spirits are sunk? But my fortitude's gone with the loss of my Trunk ! Yet she weeps night and day for the loss of my Trunk ! For with whom can I flirt without aid from my Trunk? Accurs'd be the thief, the old rascally hunks, Who rifles the fair, and lays hands on their Trunks ! * * There's a phrase amongst lawyers, when nund's put for tunc; But my rhymes are all out!-for I dare not use st―k ;* From another of these trifles, (which, no doubt, produced much gaiety at the breakfast-table,) the following extracts will be sufficient : Lord Petre's house was built by Payne- If hearts had windows, through the pane * * At breakfast I could scarce refrain The roll that might have fall'n to Jane, &c. * He had a particular horror of this word. |