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Nor baited hook 16 deceive the fish's eye;
Could pageantry and dance and feast and song
Be quell'd in all our summer-month retreats;
How many self-deluded nymphs and swains
Who dream they have a taste for fields and groves,
Would find them hideous nurseries of the spleen,
And crowd the roads, impatient for the town!
They love the country, and none else, who seek 320
For their own sake its silence and its shade;

Delights which who would leave, that has a heart
Susceptible of pity, or a mind

Cultured and capable of sober thought,

For all the savage din of the swift pack
And clamours of the field? detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain,
That feeds upon the sobs and dying shrieks
Of harmless nature, dumb, but yet endued
With eloquence that agonies inspire

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Of silent tears and heart-distending sighs!
Vain tears alas! and sighs that never find
A corresponding tone in jovial souls.

Well,-one at least is safe. One shelter'd hare
Has never heard the sanguinary yell

335

Of cruel man, exulting in her woes.
Innocent partner of my peaceful home,

Whom ten long years experience of my care
Has made at last familiar, she has lost

Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,
Not needful here, beneath a roof like mine.

Yes, thou may'st eat thy bread, and lick the hand

340

16 They triumph over the unsuspecting fish, whom they have decoyed by an insidious pretence of feeding.

Soame Jenyns. Second Disquisition.

That feeds thee; thou may'st frolic on the floor
At evening, and at night retire secure
To thy straw-couch, and slumber unalarm'd.
For I have gain'd thy confidence, have pledged
All that is human in me, to protect
Thine unsuspecting gratitude and love.
If I survive thee I will dig thy grave,
And when I place thee in it, sighing say,

I knew at least one hare that had a friend 17.

How various his employments, whom the world

Calls idle, and who justly in return

Esteems that busy world an idler too!

Friends 18, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen,
Delightful industry enjoyed at home,
And nature in her cultivated trim

Dressed to his taste, inviting him abroad :-
Can he want occupation who has these?
Will he be idle who has much to enjoy ?
Me therefore, studious of laborious ease,
Not slothful; happy to deceive the time
Not waste it; and aware that human life
Is but a loan to be repaid with use,

When He shall call his debtors to account,

From whom are all our blessings, business finds
Even here. While sedulous I seek to improve,

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17 The allusion is to one of Gay's fables, which in the last generation most children knew by heart. In how different a spirit is Byron's epitaph on his dog!

To mark a friend's remains these stones arise,

I never knew but one, and here he lies.

18 A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure, And mark them down for wisdom.

Thomson. Autumn, 1337.

At least neglect not, or leave unemploy'd

The mind he gave me; driving it, though slack

Too oft, and much impeded in its work

370

By causes not to be divulged in vain,
To its just point the service of mankind.
He that attends to his interior self,

That has a heart and keeps it, has a mind

That hungers and supplies it, and who seeks
A social, not a dissipated life,

375

Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve
No unimportant, though a silent task.

A life all turbulence and noise may seem
To him that leads it, wise and to be praised;
But wisdom is a pearl with most success
Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies.
He that is ever occupied in storms,
Or dives not for it, or brings up instead,
Vainly industrious, a disgraceful prize.

The morning finds the self-sequester'd man
Fresh for his task, intend what task he may.
Whether inclement seasons recommend

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385

His warm but simple home, where he enjoys
With her who shares his pleasures and his heart, 390
Sweet converse, sipping calm the fragrant lymph
Which neatly she prepares; then to his book
Well chosen, and not sullenly perused

In selfish silence, but imparted oft

As aught occurs that she may smile to hear,

335

Or turn to nourishment digested well.

Or if the garden with its many cares,

All well repay'd, demand him, he attends

The welcome call, conscious how much the hand
Of lubbard labour needs his watchful eye,

400

Oft loitering lazily if not o'erseen,
Or misapplying his unskilful strength.
Nor does he govern only or direct,

But much performs himself; no works indeed
That ask robust tough sinews bred to toil,
Servile employ, but such as may amuse,
Not tire, demanding rather skill than force.
Proud of his well-spread walls, he views his trees
That meet, (no barren interval between,)

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415

With pleasure more than even their fruits afford, 410
Which, save himself who trains them, none can feel.
These therefore are his own peculiar charge;
No meaner hand may discipline the shoots,
None but his steel approach them. What is weak,
Distemper'd, or has lost prolific powers
Impair'd by age, his unrelenting hand
Dooms to the knife. Nor does he spare
And succulent that feeds its giant growth
But barren, at the expense of neighbouring twigs
Less ostentatious, and yet studded thick

the soft

420

With hopeful gems. The rest, no portion left

That may disgrace his art, or disappoint

Large expectation, he disposes neat

At measured distances, that air and sun
Admitted freely may afford their aid,
And ventilate and warm the swelling buds.
Hence summer has her riches, autumn hence,
And hence even winter fills his wither'd hand
With blushing fruits, and plenty not his own "9.
Fair recompense of labour well bestow'd

And wise precaution, which a clime so rude

19 Miraturque novos fructus et non sua poma. Virg. C.

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Makes needful still, whose Spring is but the child
Of churlish Winter, in her froward moods
Discovering much the temper of her sire.
For oft, as if in her the stream of mild
Maternal nature had reversed its course,
She brings her infants forth with many smiles,
But once deliver'd, kills them with a frown.
He therefore, timely warn'd, himself supplies
Her want of care, screening and keeping warm
The plenteous bloom, that no rough blast may sweep
His garlands from the boughs. Again, as oft
As the sun peeps and vernal airs breathe mild,
The fence withdrawn, he gives them every beam,
And spreads his hopes before the blaze of day.
To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd
So grateful to the palate, and when rare
So coveted, else base and disesteem'd,
Food for the vulgar merely,-is an art
That toiling ages have but just matured,
And at this moment unessay'd in song.

Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice long since
Their eulogy; those sang the Mantuan bard,

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And these the Grecian in ennobling strains;

And in thy numbers, Phillips, shines for aye
The solitary Shilling. Pardon then,
Ye sage dispensers of poetic fame!

455

The ambition of one meaner far, whose powers
Presuming an attempt not less sublime,

460

Pant for the praise of dressing to the taste
Of critic appetite, no sordid fare,
A cucumber, while costly yet and scarce.
The stable yields a stercorarious heap

S. C.-9.

L