Careless their merits or their faults to scan, He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all. Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd, The reverend champion stood. At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last falt'ring accents whisper'd praise. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, [spread, Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around, Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. The parlour splendours of that festive place; The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day, Vain transitory splendour! could not all Reprieve the tott'ring mansion from its fall! Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour's importance to the poor man's heart; Thither no more the peasant shall repair, To sweet oblivion of his daily care; No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, Relax his pond'rous strength, and lean to hear; The host himself no longer shall be found Careful to see the mantling bliss go round; Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest, Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, These simple blessings of the lowly train, To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art; Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway: Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd, In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain; And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy? Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, His seat, where solitary sports are seen, Where gray-beard mirth, and smiling toil retired, | For all the luxuries the world supplies. While thus the land, adorn'd for pleasure all, As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain, Where then, ah! where shall poverty reside, To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride? If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd, He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, And even the bare-worn common is denied. If to the city sped-What waits him there? To see profusion that he must not share; To see ten thousand baneful arts combined To pamper luxury, and thin mankind; To see each joy the sons of pleasure know Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, There the pale artist plies the sickly trade; Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign, Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train; Tumultuous grandeur crowns the blazing square, The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy! Sure these denote one universal joy! Are these thy serious thoughts?—Ah, turn thine eyes Where the poor houseless shiv'ring female lies. With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour [train, Ah, no. To distant climes a dreary scene, Where half the convex world intrudes between, Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, Where wild Altama* murmurs to their woe. [* A River in Georgia, North America.] Far different there from all that charm'd before, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around: Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day, That call'd them from their native walks away; And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain tear, And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear; Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief In all the silent manliness of grief. O Luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree, A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe; And kind connubial Tenderness are there; And Piety with wishes placed above, THE HAUNCH OF VENISON. A POETICAL EPISTLE TO ROBERT NUGENT LORD CLARE.† THANKS, my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter Never ranged in a forest, or smoked in a platter; The haunch was a picture for painters to study, The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy: Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting To spoil such a delicate picture by eating; I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view, To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu: As in some Irish houses, where things are so-so, One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show: But, for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in. But hold-let me pause-don't I hear you pro nounce, This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce; Its a truth-and your lordship may ask Mr. Burn. [* The four last lines were supplied by Dr. Johnson.] It The leading idea of this poem is from Boileau's third Satire, and several of the passages are from the same quarter. The truth is that Goldsmith, with his many merits and great originality, was an unsparing plagiarist. We shall instance here one of his thefts, the more so that it is unnoticed by Mr. Prior, and is as yet we believe unknown. "Painting and Music," he says in his dedication of The Traveller, at first rival poetry, and at length supplant her; they engross all that favour once shown to her, and though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birth right." This is wholesale from Dryden: Our arts are sisters though not twins in birth; To go on with my tale-as I gazed on the haunch. I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch, So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undrest, But in parting with these I was puzzled again, With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when. There's H-d, and C-y, and H-rth, and H-ff, I think they love venison-I know they love beef. There's my countryman Higgins-Oh! let him alone For making a blunder, or picking a bone. While thus I debated, in reverie center'd, An under-bred, fine spoken fellow was he, And he smiled as he look'd at the venison and me. "What have we got here?-why, this is good eating! Your own I suppose-or is it in waiting!" "Why, whose should it be?" cried I with a flounce, "I get these things often;" but that was a bounce; "Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation, Are pleased to be kind; but I hate ostentation." "If that be the case then," cried he very gay, "I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me; No words-I insist on't-precisely at three: We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there; My acquaintance is slight or I'd ask my Lord Clare. And, now that I think on't, as I am a sinner, We wanted this venison to make out a dinner! What say you-a pasty, it shall and it must, And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust. Here, porter-this venison with me to Mile-end; No stirring, I beg, my dear friend, my dear friend!" Thus snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind, And the porter and eatables follow'd behind. Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf, And nobody with me at sea but myself:" But oh, the painter Muse, though last in place, Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race. To Sir Godfrey Kneller.] [This was an old saying with Goldsmith. "The king." he writes to his brother, "has lately been pleased to make me Professor of Ancient History in a Royal Academy of Painting, which he has just established, but there is no salary annexed; and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation, are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt." This is not noticed by Mr. Prior, who has traced many of Goldsmith's thoughts from verse to prose and from prose to verse.] Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty, Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty, Were things that I never disliked in my life, Though clogg'd with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife. So next day in due splendour to make my approach, I drove to his door in my own hackney-coach. When come to the place where we all were to dine, (A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine,) My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb, With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come; "For I knew it," he cried, "both eternally fail, The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale: But no matter, I'll warrant we'll make up the party, With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew, They're both of them merry, and authors like you; The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge; Some thinks he writes Cinna-he owns to Panurge." While thus he described them by trade and by name, They enter'd, and dinner was served as they came. At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen, At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen; At the sides there were spinnach and pudding made hot; In the middle a place where the pasty-was not. Now, my lord, as for tripe its my utter aversion, And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian; So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound, While the bacon and liver went merrily round: But what vex'd me most, was that d'd Scotish rogue, With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue; [poison, And, "Madam," quoth he, " may this bit be my "I could dine on this tripe seven days in a week: I like these here dinners so pretty and small; But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at all." “O—ho!” quoth my friend, "he'll come on in a trice, He's keeping a corner for something that's nice: There's a pasty"- "A pasty," repeated the Jew; "I don't care if I keep a corner for't too." "What the de'il, mon, a pasty!" re-echoed the Scot; "Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for that." "We'll all keep a corner," the lady cried out; "We'll all keep a corner," was echoed about. While thus we resolved, and the pasty delay'd, With looks that quite petrified enter'd the maid: A visage so sad and so pale with affright, Waked Priam in drawing his curtains by night. But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her? That she came with some terrible news from the baker: And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven To send such good verses to one of your taste; ing A relish a taste-sicken'd over by learning; own: So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss, You may make a mistake, and think slightly of this. PAUL WHITEHEAD. [Born, 1710. Died, 1774.] PAUL WHITEHEAD was the son of a tailor in London; and, after a slender education, was placed as an apprentice to a woollen-draper. He afterward went to the Temple, in order to study law. Several years of his life (it is not quite clear at what period) were spent in the Fleet-prison, owing to a debt which he foolishly contracted, by putting his name to a joint security for 30001. at the request of his friend Fleetwood, the theatrical manager, who persuaded him that his signature was a mere matter of form. How he obtained his liberation we are not informed. In the year 1735 he married a Miss Anne Dyer, with whom he obtained ten thousand pounds. She was homely in her person, and very weak in intellect; but Whitehead, it ap pears, always treated her with respect and tenderness. He became, in the same year, a satirical rhymer against the ministry of Walpole; and having published his "State Dunces," a weak echo of the manner of the "Dunciad," he was patronized by the opposition, and particularly by Bubb Doddington. In 1739 he published the "Manners," a satire, in which Mr. Chalmers says, that he attacks every thing venerable in the constitution. The poem is not worth dis puting about; but it is certainly a mere personal lampoon, and no attack on the constitution. For this invective he was summoned to appear at the bar of the House of Lords, but concealed himself for a time, and the affair was dropped. The threat of prosecuting him, it was suspected, was meant as a hint to Pope, that those who satirised the great might bring themselves into danger; and Pope (it is pretended) became more cautious. There would seem, however, to be nothing very terrific in the example of a prosecution, that must have been dropped either from clemency or conscious weakness. The ministerial journals took another sort of revenge, by accusing him of irreligion; and the evidence which they candidly and consistently brought to substantiate the charge, was the letter of a student from Cambridge, who had been himself expelled from the university for atheism. In 1744 he published another satire, entitled THE father of this writer was a fellow of Pembroke college, Oxford, prebendary of Wells, and vicar of St. Mary's at Taunton, in Somersetshire. When Judge Jefferies came to the assizes at Taunton, to execute vengeance on the sharers of Monmouth's rebellion, Mr. Harte waited upon him in private, and remonstrated against his severities. The judge listened to him attentively, though he had never seen him before. It was not in Jefferies' nature to practise humanity; but, in this solitary instance, he showed a respect for its advocate; and in a few months advanced the vicar to a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Bristol. At the Revolution the aged clergyman resigned his preferments, rather than take the oath of allegiance to King William; an action which raises our esteem of his intercession with Jefferies, while it adds to the unsalutary examples of men supporting tyrants, who have had the virtue to hate their tyranny. The accounts that are preserved of his son, the poet, are not very minute or interesting. The date of his birth has not even been settled. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine fixes it about 1707; but by the date of his degrees at the university, this supposition is utterly inadmissible; and all circumstances considered, it is impossible to suppose that he was born later than 1700. He was educated at Marlborough college, and took his degree of master of arts at Oxford, |