A milder doom had fallen to thy chance

In our days:

Thy sole assignment

Some solitary confinement,

(Not worth thy care a carrot,)

Where in world-hidden cell

Thou thy own Crusoe might have acted well,
Only without the parrot ;

By sure experience taught to know

Whether the qualms thou mak'st him feel were truly such or no.

IV.

But stay! methinks in statelier measure-
A more companionable pleasure—

I see thy steps the mighty tread-mill trace
(The subject of my song,

Delay'd, however, long,)

And some of thine own race,

To keep thee company, thou bring'st with thee along There with thee

go,

Link'd in like sentence,

With regulated pace and footing slow,

Each old acquaintance,

Rogue-harlot-thief—that live to future ages;
Through many a labour'd tome,

Rankly embalm'd in thy too natural pages.
Faith, friend De Foe, thou art quite at home!
Not one of thy great offspring thou dost lack,
From pirate Singleton to pilfering Jack.
Here Flandrian Moll her brazen incest brags,
Vice-stripp'd Roxana, penitent in rags,

There points to Amy, treading equal chimes,
The faithful handmaid to her faithless crimes.

V.

Incompetent my song to raise
To its just height thy praise,
Great mill!

That by thy motion proper

No thanks to wind, or sail, or working rill)
Grinding that stubborn corn, the human will,
Turn'st out men's consciences,

That were begrimed before, as clean and sweet
As flour from purest wheat,

Into thy hopper.

All reformation short of thee but nonsense is,
Or human, or divine.

Compared with thee,

VI.

What are the labours of that jumping sect,
Which feeble laws connive at rather than respect?
Thou dost not bump,

Or jump,

But walk men into virtue; between crime
And slow repentance giving breathing time,
And leisure to be good;

Instructing with discretion demi-reps

How to direct their steps.

VII.

Thou best philosopher made out of wood!
Not that which framed the tub,
Where sat the cynic cub,

With nothing in his bosom sympathetic;

But from those groves derived, I deem,
Where Plato nursed his dream

Of immortality;

Seeing that clearly

Thy system all is merely

Peripatetic.

Thou to thy pupils dost such lessons give

Of how to live

With temperance, sobriety, morality,

(A new art,)

That from thy school, by force of virtuous deeds, Each Tyro now proceeds

A "Walking Stewart !"

GOING OR GONE.

I.

FINE Merry franions,
Wanton companions,

My days are ev'n banyans

With thinking upon ye!

How Death, that last stinger,
Finis-writer, end-bringer,
Has laid his chill finger,
Or is laying on ye.

II.

There's rich Kitty Wheatley,
With footing it featly
That took me completely,

She sleeps in the Kirk House ;

And poor Polly Perkin,

Whose dad was still firking

The jolly ale firkin,

She's gone to the work-house;

III.

Fine gard'ner, Ben Carter,
(In ten counties no smarter,)
Has ta'en his departure

For Proserpine's orchards;

And Lily, postillion,

With cheeks of vermilion,

Is one of a million

That fill up the churchyards;

IV.

And, lusty as Dido,

Fat Clemitson's widow

Flits now a small shadow

By Stygian hid ford;
And good Master Clapton
Has thirty years nap't on,
The ground he last hap't on,
Intomb'd by fair Widford;

V.

And gallant Tom Dockwra,
Of Nature's finest crockery,
Now but thin air and mockery
Lurks by Avernus,

Whose honest grasp of hand
Still, while his life did stand,
At friend's or foe's command,
Almost did burn us.

VI.

Roger de Coverley

Not more good man than he;
Yet has he equally

Push'd for Cocytus,

With drivelling Worral,
And wicked old Dorrell,

'Gainst whom I've a quarrel,

Whose end might affright us!

VII.

Kindly hearts have I known;
Kindly hearts, they are flown;
Here and there if but one
Linger yet uneffaced,

Imbecile tottering elves,

Soon to be wreck'd on shelves, These scarce are half themselves With age and care crazed.

VIII.

But this day Fanny Hutton
Her last dress has put on;
Her fine lessons forgotten,

She died as the dunce died;

And prim Betsy Chambers,
Decay'd in her members,
No longer remembers

Things, as she once did;

IX.

And prudent Miss Wither
Not in jest now doth wither,
And soon must go-whither

Nor I well, nor you know;
And flaunting Miss Waller,
That soon must befall her,
Whence none can recall her,

Though proud once as Juno!

FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVERAL EMINENT COMPOSERS.

SOME Cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites; for my part,

I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, or for Handel.
Cannot a man live free and easy
Without admiring Pergolesi?

Or through the world with comfort go
That never heard of Doctor Blow?
So help me Heaven, I hardly have;
And yet I eat, and drink, and shave
Like other people, if you watch it,
And know no more of stave or crotchet
Than did the primitive Peruvians;
Or those old ante-queer-diluvians

That lived in the unwash'd world with Juoal,
Before that dirty blacksmith Tubal

By stroke on anvil, or by summʼat,

Found out, to his great surprise, the gamut.
I care no more for Cimarosa,

Than he did for Salvator Rosa,
Being no painter; and bad luck

Be mine, if I can bear that Gluck!

Old Tycho Brahe and modern Herschel

Had something in them; but who's Purcel!

The devil with his foot so cloven,

For aught I care, may take Beethoven;

And if the bargain does not suit,

I'll throw him Weber in to boot.

There's not the splitting of a splinter

To choose 'tween him last named and Winter.
Of Doctor Pepusch old Queen Dido

Knew just as much, God knows, as I do.

I would not go four miles to visit

Sebastian Bach; (or Batch, which is it?)
No more I would for Bononcini.
As for Novello, or Rossini,

I shall not say a word to grieve 'em,
Because they're living; so I leave 'em.