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I'm sure it may be justly said,
His feet are useful as his head.

Lastly, vouchsafe t' observe his hand,
Fill'd with a snake-encircled wand.
By classic authors term'd caduceus.
And highly famed for several uses ·
To wit, most wond'rously endued,
No poppy water half so good;
For let folks only get a touch,
Its soporific virtue's such,

Though ne'er so much awake before,
That quickly they begin to snore :
Add, too, what certain writers tell,
With this he drives men's souls to hell.

Now to apply, begin we then :—
His wand's a modern author's pen;
The serpents round about it twined
Denote him of the reptile kind,
Denote the rage with which he writes,
His frothy slaver, venom❜d bites;
An equal semblance still to keep,
Alike, too, both conduce to sleep,
This difference only, as the God
Drove souls to Tart'rus with his rod,
With his goose-quill the scribbling elf,
Instead of others, damns himself.

And here my simile almost tript,
Yet grant a word by way of postscript.
Moreover Merc'ry had a failing;

Well! what of that? out with it-stealing;
In which all modern bards agree, *
Being each as great a thief as he.
But even this deity's existence
Shall lend my simile assistance:
Our modern bards! why, what a pox
Are they but senseless stones and blocks?

* Var.-In which our scribbling bards agree.

DESCRIPTION

OF AN

AUTHOR'S BED-CHAMBER.

[Goldsmith intended this for the commencement of a heroi-comic poem. After this description, the hero of the piece, Scroggen, indulges in a soliloquy, which is interrupted by the entrance of the landlord, to dun him for his reckoning :

Not with that face, so servile and so gay,

That welcomes every stranger that can pay ;
With sulky eye he smoked the patient man,

Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began, &c.

Our author does not appear to have proceeded farther with his plan, which is to be regretted, as he would in all probability have made it a very humorous account of the shifts and adventures of a needy author. See a Letter to his brother Henry; also the Citizen of the World, Letter 29. — B.]

WHERE the Red Lion, staring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne,
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane :
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug;
A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That dimly shew'd the state in which he lay;
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread;
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread;
The royal game of goose was there in view,
And the twelve rules the Royal Martyr drew;
The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place,
And brave Prince William shew'd his lamp-black face.*
The morn was cold; he views with keen desire

The rusty grate unconscious of a fire:

With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scored, †
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney-board;
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay,

A cap by night-a stocking all the day!

• Var.

+ Var.

And Prussia's monarch shew'd, &c.

An unpaid reckoning on the frieze, &c.

The author has given a similar, or rather, with a very slight alteration, the same description of the alehouse, in the Deserted Village.. - B.

WRITTEN AND SPOKEN BY THE POET LABERIUS, A ROMAN KNIGHT, WHOM CÆSAR FORCED UPON THE STAGE.

PRESERVED BY MACROBIUS.

[First printed in the " Inquiry into the State of Learning," &c. 1759.]
WHAT! no way left to shun th' inglorious stage,
And save from infamy my sinking age!
Scarce half alive, oppress'd with many a year,
What in the name of dotage drives me here?
A time there was, when glory was my guide,
Nor force nor fraud could turn my steps aside;
Unawed by power, and unappall'd by fear,
With honest thrift I held my honour dear:
But this vile hour disperses all my store,
And all my hoard of honour is no more;
For, ah! too partial to my life's decline,
Cæsar persuades, submission must be mine
Him I obey, whom Heaven itself obeys,
Hopeless of pleasing, yet inclined to please.
Here then at once I welcome every shame,
And cancel, at threescore, a life of fame:
No more my titles shall my children tell,
The old buffoon will fit my name as well:
This day beyond its term my fate extends,
For life is ended when our honour ends.

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AN ELEGY ON THE GLORY OF HER SEX,
MRS MARY BLAIZE.

GOOD people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word—
From those who spoke her praise.

The needy seldom pass'd her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor-
Who left a pledge behind.

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But now, her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;
The doctors found, when she was dead-
Her last disorder mortal.

Let us lament in sorrow sore,

For Kent Street well may say,

That had she lived a twelvemonth more-
She had not died to-day.

ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH,

STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING.

SURE 'twas by Providence design'd,
Rather in pity than in hate,
That he should be, like Cupid, blind,
To save him from Narcissus' fate.

THE CLOWN'S REPLY.

[Written at Edinburgh, 1753.]

JOHN TROTT was desired by two witty peers
To tell them the reason why asses had ears;

"An 't please you," quoth John, "I'm not given to letters,
Nor dare I pretend to know more than my betters:
Howe'er, from this time, I shall ne'er see your graces
As I hope to be saved!—without thinking on asses.”

THIS tomb, inscribed to gentle PARNELL's name,
May speak our gratitude, but not his fame.
What heart but feels his sweetly moral lay,
That leads to truth through pleasure's flowery way?
Celestial themes confess'd his tuneful aid;
And Heaven, that lent him genius, was repaid.
Needless to him the tribute we bestow,
The transitory breath of fame below:

More lasting rapture from his works shall rise,
While converts thank their poet in the skies.

EPITAPH ON EDWARD PURDON.*

HERE lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,
Who long was a bookseller's hack:

He led such a damnable life in this world,
I don't think he'll wish to come back.

STANZAS ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC.

AMIDST the clamour of exulting joys,

Which triumph forces from the patriot heart,
Grief dares to mingle her soul-piercing voice,
And quells the raptures which from pleasure start.

O Wolfe!† to thee a streaming flood of wo,
Sighing we pay, and think e'en conquest dear;
Quebec in vain shall teach our breast to glow,
Whilst thy sad fate extorts the heart-wrung tear.

Alive, the foe thy dreadful vigour fled,

And saw thee fall with joy-pronouncing eyes: Yet they shall know thou conquerest, though dead! Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise.

This gentleman was educated at Trinity College, Dublin; but having wasted his patrimony, he inlisted as a foot soldier. Growing tired of that employment, he obtained his discharge, and became a scribbler in the newspapers. He translated Voltaire's Henriade.

+ Goldsmith claimed relationship with this gallant soldier, whose character he greatly admired, and whose death he thus laments in his History of England: "Perhaps the loss of the English that day was greater, than the conquest of Canada was advantageous. But it is the lot of mankind only to know true merit on that dreadful occasion, when they are going to lose it."-B.

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