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My friends with generous liquors I regale,
Good port, old hock, or if they like it, ale.
Plain is my furniture, as is my treat,

For 'tis my best ambition, to be neat.
Leave then, all sordid views, and hopes of gain,
To mortals, miserable, mad, or vain;
Put the last polish to th' historic page,
And cease awhile to moralize the age.

By your sweet converse cheer'd, the live-long day
Will pass unnotic'd, like the stream, away.
Why should kind Providence abundance give,
If we, like niggards, can't afford to live?
The wretched miser, poor 'midst heaps of pelf,
To cram his heir, most madly starves himself—
So will not I-give me good wine and ease,
And let all misers call me fool that please.
What cannot wine? it opens all the soul;
Faint hope grows brilliant o'er the sparkling bowl:
Wine's generous spirit makes the coward brave,
Gives ease to kings, and freedom to the slave;
Bemus'd in wine, the bard his duns forgets,
And drinks serene oblivion to his debts.

Wine drives all cares and anguish from the heart,
And dubs us connoiseurs of ev'ry art.
Whom does not wine with elegance inspire:
The bowzy beggar struts into a squire.
This you well know-to me belongs to mind
That neatness with frugality be join'd:
That no intruding blab, with itching ears,
Darken my doors, who tells whate'er he hears.
Two Duncombs, each a poet, with me dine,
Your friends, and decent Colman, a Divine:

There's room for more; so to compleat the band, Your wife shall bring fair Innocence * in hand. Should Cave + want copy, let the teazer wait, While you steal secret through the garden gate.

DECEMBER.

(From the Poetical Calendar.)

Last of the months, severest of them all,
Woe to the regions where thy terrors fall!
Hail to thy tempests, which the deep deform,
Thrice hail, thy ruthless hurricane and storm!
Now Eolus, let forth thy mightiest blast,
By land to rock the spire, by sea the mast;
Let earth and ocean feel thy potent sway,
And give thy blasts their full impetuous way.
For lo! the fiery horses of the sun

Through the twelve signs their rapid course have run;
Time, like a serpent, bites his forked tail,

And winter on a goat bestrides the gale:
Rough blows the north wind near Arcturus' star,
And sweeps, unrein'd, across the polar bar,
On the world's confines, where the sea-bears prowl,
And Greenland whales, like moving islands, roll:
There, through the skies, on brooms, are seen to ride,
The Lapland wizard, and his hellish bride;
There on a sledge, the rein-deer bears the swain
To meet his mistress on the frost-bound plain :
Have mercy, Winter!-for we own thy power,
Thy flooding deluge, and thy drenching shower;

A young lady then resident with Dr. H. + The Printer of the Gentleman's Magazine.

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Yes, we acknowledge what thy prowess can,
But oh! have pity on the toils of man!
And though the floods thy adamantine chain
Submissive wear, yet spare the treasur'd grain:
The peasants to thy mercy now resign
The infant seed, their hope and future mine:
Not always Phoebus bends his vengeful bow;
Oft in mid-winter placid breezes blow;
Oft tinctur'd with the bluest transmarine,
The fretted canopy of heaven is seen;
Girded with argent lamps, the full orb'd moon
In mild December emulates the noon;
Though short the respite, if the sapphire blue
Stains the bright lustre with an inky hue:
Then a black wreck of clouds is seen to fly,
In broken shatters, through the frighted sky:
But if fleet Eurus scour the vaulted plain,
Then all the stars propitious shine again.

[graphic]

JOHN DUNCOMBE.

BORN 1729, DIED 1786.

"An intimacy with our late ingenious and worthy friend, Mr. Duncombe, for forty years, entitles me to say, that in addition to a strong natural, and highly cultivated understanding, he possessed a consummate sweetness of temper, and thorough goodness of heart."

(Mr. Nichols, Gent. Mag. for March, 1786.)

-" The same desires, the same ingenious arts Delighted both;—we own'd and bless'd the Power That join'd at once, our studies and our hearts.” (Mason, Elegy 3d.)

As we approach the end of our journey we feel that we are treading upon tender ground. Time has not yet sprinkled his dust upon the tombs of those we are now to notice, and they survive fresh in the "mind's eye" of the remainder of a circle which they but lately delighted. Broken as the continuity of this circle is by the hand of death, it yet consists of some near relatives, and of many admiring and affectionate friends. Happily for our concluding pages, the fair report that has survived them for solid virtues, well-employed talents, amiable manners, and exemplary habits, is confirmed by their writings, and would render praise from us unnecessary, were it not delightful to pay that tribute wherever we think it due.

The Rev. John Duncombe was the only son of William Duncombe, Esq. a man of learning, literary habits,

and as his published works attest, of considerable talent for poetry,* by Elizabeth, the sister of John Hughes, Esq. author of the "Siege of Damascus," the friend and literary associate of Addison, Steele, and Pope; an elegant writer, and a worthy and amiable

man.

John Duncombe was born in London, and baptised by Dr. Herring, an intimate friend of his family, and at that time officiating clergyman of the parish in which his father resided. From school he was removed in 1745 at the recommendation of the same worthy divine, then Archbishop of York, to Benet College, Cambridge, where he took his degree, and under the patronage of Dr. Herring obtained a fellowship. He entered into holy orders in 1755, and appears to have officiated as curate of Sundrich in Kent, immediately afterwards. During his residence upon this cure, he addressed to his patron, now at the head of the church, the following imitation of the 31st ode of the 1st book of Horace.

To his Grace THOMAS, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury
What place, my Lord, in church or choir,
Does your much-honour'd friend desire?
While your indulgent converse cheers
His hopes, and dissipates his fears?
No sine-cure to feed his pride,
On which he never can reside;

No stall prebendal, every year

By fines and rents three hundred clear;

*He was the author of a tragedy on the subject of the elder Brutus, of which a late writer has availed himself to good purpose. A curious account of the reception of this play may be found in the third volume of "Letters by several eminent persons deceased," pablished by Mr. J.Duncombe, page 144.—

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