Yet when at last thy toils, but ill apaid,

Shall dead thy fire, and damp its heavenly spark,
Thou wilt be glad to seek the rural shade,

There to indulge the Muse, and Nature mark;
We then a lodge for thee will rear in Hagley Park.”
Here whilom ligg'd th' Esopus of the age,*
But call'd by Fame, in soul ypricked deep,
A noble pride restor'd him to the stage,
And rous'd him like a giant from his sleep.
E'en from his slumbers we advantage reap :
With double force th' enliven'd scene he wakes,
Yet quits not Nature's bounds. He knows to keep
Each due decorum. Now the heart he shakes,

And now with well-urged sense th' enlightened judgment takes.

A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems,†
Who void of envy, guile, or lust of gain,

On Virtue still, and Nature's pleasing themes,
Pour'd forth his unpremeditated strain;
The world forsaking with a calm disdain,
Here laugh'd he careless in his easy seat;
Here quaff'd encircled by the joyous train,
Oft moralizing sage; his ditty sweet
He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat.

Full oft by holy feet our ground was trod;
Of clerks good plenty here you mote espy;
A little, round, fat, oily man of God,‡
Was one I chiefly mark'd among the fry:
He had a roguish twinkle in his eye,

* Quin, the actor.

Thomson himself. All but the first line of this stanza is under

stood to have been written by a friend.

The Rev. Mr. Murdoch, the poet's first biographer.

And shone all glittering with ungodly dew,

If a tight damsel chanc'd to trippen by;

Which when observ'd, he shrunk into his mew, And strait would recollect his piety anew.

Nor be forgot a tribe who minded naught
(Old inmates of the place) but state affairs;
They look'd, perdie, as if they deeply thought,
And on their brow sat every nation's cares.
The world by them is parcel'd out in shares.
When in the Hall of Smoke they congress hold,
And the sage berry sun-burnt Mocha bears
Has clear'd their inward eye, then smoke-enroll'd,
Their oracles break forth, mysterious as of old.

Here languid beauty kept her pale-fac'd court:
Bevies of dainty dames of high degree
From every quarter hither made resort,
Where, from gross mortal care and business free,
They lay pour'd out, in ease and luxury:
Or should they a vain show of work assume,
Alas! and well-a-day! what can it be?

To knot, to twist, to range the vernal bloom;
But far is cast the distaff, spinning-wheel, and loom.

Their only labor was to kill the time;
And labor dire it is, and weary woe:

They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme,
Then, rising sudden, to the glass they go,
Or saunter forth with tottering step and slow:
This soon too rude an exercise they find;
Strait on the couch their limbs again they throw;
Where hours and hours they sighing lie reclin'd,
And court the vapory god, soft breathing in the wind.

Now must I mark the villany we found;
But ah! too late, as shall eftsoons be shown.
A place here was, deep, dreary, underground,
Where still our inmates, when unpleasing grown,
Diseas'd and loathsome, privily were thrown.
Far from the light of heaven, they languish'd there
Unpitied, uttering many a bitter groan:

For of these wretches taken was no care;
Fierce fiends and hags of hell their only nurses were.

*Alas! the change! from scenes of joy and rest,
To this dark den, where sickness toss'd alway.
Here Lethargy, with deadly sleep opprest,
Stretch'd on his back, a mighty lubbard, lay,
Heaving his sides, and snorèd night and day.
To stir him from his traunce it was not eath
And his half-open'd eyne he shut straitway;
He led, I wot, the softest way to death,

And taught withouten pain and strife to yield the breath.

Of limbs enormous, but withal unsound,
Soft-swol❜n and pale, here lay the Hydropsy:
Unwieldy man! with belly monstrous round,
Forever fed with watery supply:

For still he drank, and yet he still was dry.
And moping here did Hypochondria sit,
Mother of Spleen, in robes of various dye,
Who vexed was full oft with ugly fit;

And some her frantic deem'd, and some her deem'd a wit.

A lady proud she was, of ancient blood,

Yet oft her fear her pride made crouchen. low;

* These four concluding stanzas of Canto I, were written by Armstrong.

She felt, or fancied, in her fluttering mood,
All the diseases which the spittles know,
And sought all physic which the shops bestow,
And still new leeches and new drugs would try,
Her humor ever wavering to and fro;

For sometimes she would laugh, and sometimes cry, Then sudden waxed wroth, and all she knew not why.

Fast by her side a listless maiden pin'd,

With aching head, and squeamish heart-burnings; Pale, bloated, cold, she seem'd to hate mankind, Yet lov'd in secret all forbidden things. And here the Tertian shakes his chilling wings: The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cocks; A wolf now gnaws him, now a serpent stings: Whilst Apoplexy cramm'd Intemperance knocks Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox.

CANTO II.

The Knight of Arts and Industry,

And his achievements fair,

That by his Castle's overthrow
Secur'd and crowned were.

ESCAP'D the

Castle of the Sire of Sin,
Ah! where shall I so sweet a dwelling find?
For all around without, and all within,
Nothing save what delightful was and kind,
Of goodness savoring and a tender mind,
E'er rose to view: but now another strain
Of doleful note, alas! remains behind;
I now must sing of pleasure turn'd to pain,
And of the false enchanter Indolence complain.

Is there no patron to protect the Muse,

And fence for her Parnassus' barren soil?

And they are sure of bread who swink and moil;
But a fell tribe th' Aonian hive despoil,

As ruthless wasps oft rob the painful bee:

Thus while the laws not guard that noblest toil,
Ne for the Muses other meed decree,

They praised are alone, and starve right merrily.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve: Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave: Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.

Come then, my Muse! and raise a bolder song; Come, lig no more upon the bed of sloth, Dragging the lazy languid line along, Fond to begin, but still to finish loath, Thy half-wit scrolls all eaten by the moth; Arise, and sing that generous imp of fame, Who with the sons of Softness nobly wroth, To sweep away this human lumber came, Or in a chosen few to rouse the slumbering flame. The tidings reach'd to where, in quiet hall, The good old knight enjoy'd well-earnt repose. "Come, come, Sir Knight, thy children on thee call: Come save us yet, ere ruin round us close,