'Tis not the babbling of a busy world, Where praise or censure are at random hurl'd,

Which can the meanest of my thoughts control,

Or shake one settled purpose of my soul;
Free and at large might their wild curses

roam,

If all, if all, alas! were well at home.

No; 'tis the tale, which angry conscience tells,

When she with more than tragic horror swells

Each circumstance of guilt; when stern but true,

She bring 3 bad actions forth into review,
And, like the dread handwriting on the wall,
Bids late remorse awake at reason's call;
Arm'd at all points, bids scorpion vengeance
pass,

And to the mind holds up reflection's glassThe mind which starting heaves the heartfelt groan,

And hates that form she knows to be her

own.

Churchill.-Born 1731, Died 1764.

Where a beginning, middle, and an end
Are aptly join'd; where parts on parts depend,
Each made for each, as bodies for their soul,
So as to form one true and perfect whole,
Where a plain story to the eye is told,
Which we conceive the moment we behold,
Hogarth unrivall'd stands, and shall engage
Unrivall'd praise to the most distant age.
Churchill.-Born 1731, Died 1764.

955.-ON THE POVERTY OF POETS. What is't to us, if taxes rise or fall? Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all. Let muckworms, who in dirty acres deal, Lament those hardships which we cannot feel. His Grace, who smarts, may bellow if he please,

But must I bellow too, who sit at ease?
By custom safe, the poet's numbers flow
Free as the light and air some years ago.
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours and excise our brains.
Burthens like these, vile earthly buildings
bear;

No tribute 's laid on castles in the air!

Churchill.-Born 1731, Died 1764.

She blunder'd on some virtue unawares:

With all these blessings, which we seldom find

Lavish'd by nature on one happy mind,
A motley figure, of the fribble tribe,
Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen
describe,

Came simp'ring on: to ascertain whose sex Twelve sage impannel'd matrons would perplex.

Nor male, nor female, neither and yet both;
Of neuter gender, though of Irish growth;
A six-foot suckling, mincing in its gait;
Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate;
Fearful it seem'd, though of athletic make,
Lest brutal breezes should too roughly shake
Its tender form, and savage motion spread
O'er its pale cheeks the horrid manly red.

Much did it talk, in its own pretty phrase,
Of genius and of taste, of play'rs and plays;
Much too of writings, which itself had wrote,
Of special merit, though of little note;
For fate, in a strange humour, had decreed
That what it wrote, none but itself should
read;

Much too it chatter'd of dramatic laws,
Misjudging critics, and misplaced applause,
Then with a self-complacent jutting air,
It smiled, it smirk'd, it wriggled to the chair;
And, with an awkward briskness not its own,
Looking around, and perking on the throne,
Triumphant seem'd, when that strange savage
dame,

Known but to few, or only known by name, Plain Common Sense, appear'd, by nature there

Appointed, with plain truth, to guard the

For how should moderns, mushrooms of the day,

Who ne'er those masters knew, know how to play?

Grey-bearded vet'rans, who, with partial tongue,

Extol the times when they themselves were

young;

Who having lost all relish for the stage,
See not their own defects, but lash the age,
Received with joyful murmurs of applause
Their darling chief, and lined his favourite

cause.

Far be it from the candid Muse to tread
Insulting o'er the ashes of the dead,
But, just to living merit, she maintains,
And dares the test, whilst Garrick's genius
reigns;

Ancients in vain endeavour to excel,
Happily praised, if they could act as well.
But though prescription's force we disallow,
Nor to antiquity submissive bow;
Though we deny imaginary grace,
Founded on accidents of time and place;
Yet real worth of every growth shall bear
Due praise, nor must we, Quin, forget thee
there.

His words bore sterling weight, nervous
and strong

In manly tides of sense they roll'd along.
Happy in art, he chiefly had pretence
To keep up numbers, yet not forfeit sense.
No actor ever greater heights could reach
In all the labour'd artifice of speech.

Speech Is that all ?-And shall an actor
found

A universal fame on partial ground? Parrots themselves speak properly by rote, And, in six months, my dog shall howl by note.

I laugh at those, who when the stage they tread,

Neglect the heart to compliment the head; With strict propriety their care's confined To weigh out words, while passion halts behind.

To syllable-dissectors they appeal, Allow them accent, cadence, fools may feel;

But, spite of all the criticising elves, Those who would make us feel, must feel themselves.

His eyes, in gloomy socket taught to roll, Proclaim'd the sullen habit of his soul, Heavy and phlegmatic he trod the stage, Too proud for tenderness, too dull for rage. When Hector's lovely widow shines in tears, Or Rowe's gay rake dependent virtue jeers, With the same cast of features he is seen To chide the libertine, and court the queen. From the tame scene, which without passion flows,

With just desert his reputation rose;
Nor less he pleased, when, on some surly

In Brute he shone unequall'd: all agree Garrick's not half so great a brute as he. When Cato's labour'd scenes are brought to view,

With equal praise the actor labour'd too; For still you'll find, trace passions to their root,

Small difference 'twixt the stoic and the brute.

In fancied scenes, as in life's real plan,

He could not, for a moment, sink the man;
In whate'er cast his character was laid,
Self still, like oil, upon the surface play'd.
Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in:
Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff-still 'twas Quin.
Next follows Sheridan-a doubtful name,
As yet unsettled in the rank of fame.
This, fondly lavish in his praises grown,
Gives him all merit; that allows him none.
Between them both we'll steer the middle

course,

Nor, loving praise, rob judgment of her force.
Just his conceptions, natural and great:
His feelings strong, his words enforced with
weight.

Was speech-famed Quin himself to hear him speak,

Envy would drive the colour from his cheek:
But step-dame nature, niggard of her grace,
Denied the social powers of voice and face.
Fix'd in one frame of features, glare of eye,
Passions, like chaos, in confusion lie;
In vain the wonders of his skill are tried
To form distinctions nature hath denied.
His voice no touch of harmony admits,
Irregularly deep and shrill by fits:

The two extremes appear like man and wife,
Coupled together for the sake of strife.

His action's always strong, but sometimes

such,

That candour must declare he acts too

much,

Why must impatience fall three paces back?
Why paces three return to the attack?
Why is the right-leg too forbid to stir,
Unless in motion semicircular?

Why must the hero with the nailor vie,
And hurl the close-clench'd fist at nose or
eye?

In royal John, with Philip angry grown,
I thought he would have knock'd poor Davies

down.

Inhuman tyrant! was it not a shame,
To fright a king so harmless and so tame ?
But spite of all defects, his glories rise;
And art, by judgment form'd, with nature

vies:

Behold him sound the depth of Hubert's

soul,

Whilst in his own contending passions roll; View the whole scene, with critic judgment

scan,

And then deny him merit if you can.
Where he falls short, 'tis nature's fault

alone;

Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own.

Another can't forgive the paltry arts By which he makes his way to shallow hearts;

Mere pieces of finesse, traps for applause"Avaunt, unnat'ral start, affected pause.'

For me, by nature form'd to judge with phlegm,

I can't acquit by wholesale, nor condemn.
The best things carried to excess are wrong:
The start may be too frequent, pause too
long;

But, only used in proper time and place,
Severest judgment must allow them grace.

If bunglers, form'd on imitation's plan, Just in the way that monkeys mimic man, Their copied scene with mangled arts disgrace,

And pause and start with the same vacant face,

We join the critic laugh; those tricks we

scorn,

Which spoil the scenes they mean them to adorn.

But when, from nature's pure and genuine

source,

These strokes of acting flow with gen'rous force,

When in the features all the soul's portray'd,

And passions, such as Garrick's, are dis

play'd,

To me they seem from quickest feelings caught:

Each start is nature; and each pause is thought.

When reason yields to passion's wild alarms,

And the whole state of man is up in arms; What but a critic could condemn the play'r, For pausing here, when cool sense pauses there?

Whilst, working from the heart, the fire I trace,

And mark it strongly flaming to the face; Whilst, in each sound, I hear the very man ; I can't catch words, and pity those who

Hence to thy praises, Garrick, I agree, And, pleased with nature, must be pleased with thee.

Now might I tell, how silence reign'd throughout,

And deep attention hush'd the rabble rout! How ev'ry claimant, tortured with desire, Was pale as ashes, or as red as fire:

But, loose to fame, the Muse more simply acts,

Rejects all flourish, and relates mere facts.

The judges, as the several parties came, With temper heard, with judgment weigh'd each claim,

And, in their sentence happily agreed,

In name of both, great Shakspeare thus decreed:

"If manly sense; if nature link'd with art;

If thorough knowledge of the human heart; If pow'rs of acting vast and unconfined;

If fewest faults with greatest beauties join'd; If strong expression, and strange pow'rs

which lie

Within the magic circle of the eye;

If feelings which few hearts, like his, can know,

And which no face so well as his can show; Deserve the pref'rence;-Garrick, take the chair;

Nor quit it-till thou place an equal there." Churchill.-Born 1731, Died 1764.

958. FROM THE PROPHECY OF
FAMINE.

Two boys, whose birth beyond all question springs

From great and glorious, though forgotten, kings,

Shepherds of Scottish lineage, born and bred On the same bleak and barren mountain's head,

By niggard nature doom'd on the same rocks To spin out life, and starve themselves and flocks,

Fresh as the morning, which, enrobed in mist,

The mountain's top with usual dulness kiss'd,

Jockey and Sawney to their labours rose; Soon clad, I ween, where nature needs no clothes,

Where, from their youth, inured to winter skies,

Dress and her vain refinements they despise.

Jockey, whose manly high-boned checks to

crown

With freckles spotted flamed the golden down,

With mickle art could on the bagpipes play, E'en from the rising to the setting day;

Sawney as long without remorse could bawl Home's madrigals, and ditties from Fingal Oft at his strains, all natural though rude, The Highland lass forgot her want of food, And whilst she scratch'd her lover into rest, Sunk pleased, though hungry, on her Sawney's breast.

Far as the eye could reach, no tree was

seen,

Earth, clad in russet, scorn'd the lively green.

The plague of locusts they secure defy,
For in three hours a grasshopper must die.
No living thing, whate'er its food, feasts
there,

But the cameleon, who can feast on air.
No birds, except as birds of passage, flew,
No bee was known to hum, no dove to coo.
No streams as amber smooth, as amber clear,
Were seen to glide, or heard to warble here.
Rebellion's spring, which through the country

ran,

Furnish'd, with bitter draughts, the steady clan.

No flow'rs embalm'd the air, but one white rose,

Which on the tenth of June by instinct blows,

By instinct blows at morn, and, when the shades

Of drizzly eve prevail, by instinct fades.
One, and but one poor solitary cave,
Too sparing of her favours, nature gave;
That one alone (hard tax on Scottish pride!)
Shelter at once for man and beast supplied.
Their snares without entangling briers
spread,

And thistles, arm'd against th' invader's head,

Stood in close ranks all entrance to oppose. Thistles now held more precious than the

rose.

All creatures which, on nature's earlie.t plan,

Were form'd to loathe, and to be loathed by

man,

Which owed their birth to nastiness and spite,

Deadly to touch, and hateful to the sight, Creatures, which when admitted in the ark. Their saviour shunn'd, and rankled in the dark,

Found place within: marking her noisome road

With poison's trail, here crawl'd the bloated toad;

Their webs were spread of more than common size,

And half-starved spiders prey'd on halfstarved flies;

In quest of food, efts strove in vain to crawl;

Slugs, pinch'd with hunger, smear'd the slimy wall;

The cave around with hissing serpents rung; On the damp roof unhealthy vapour hung;

And Famine, by her children always known, As proud as poor, here fix'd her native throne.

Here for the sullen sky was overcast, And summer shrunk beneath a wint'ry blast, A native blast which, arm'd with hail and rain,

Beat unrelenting on the naked swain

The boys for shelter made; behind, the sheep,

Of which those shepherds every day take keep,

Sickly crept on, and with complainings rude,
On nature seem'd to call, and bleat for food.
Jock. Sith to this cave by tempest we're
confined,

And within ken our flocks, under the wind,
Safe from the pelting of this perilous storm,
Are laid among yon thistles, dry and warm,
What, Sawney, if by shepherd's art we try
To mock the rigour of this cruel sky?
What if we tune some merry roundelay?
Well dost thou sing, nor ill doth Jockey
play.

Saw. Ah, Jockey, ill advisest thou, I wis,
To think of songs at such a time as this.
Sooner shall herbage crown these barren
rocks,

Sooner shall fleeces clothe these ragged flocks,

Sooner shall want seize shepherds of the south,

And we forget to live from hand to mouth,
Than Sawney, out of season, shall impart
The songs of gladness with an aching heart.
Jock. Still have I known thee for a silly

swain:

Of things past help, what boots it to complain ?

Nothing but mirth can conquer fortune's spite ;

No sky is heavy, if the heart be light:

Patience is sorrow's salve; what can't be cured,

So Donald right areeds, must be endured.

Saw. Full silly swain, I wot, is Jockey

now;

How didst thou bear thy Maggy's falsehood? how,

When with a foreign loon she stole away, Didst thou forswear thy pipe and shepherd's lay?

Where was thy boasted wisdom then, when I Applied those proverbs, which you now apply?

Jock. O she was bonny! All the Highlands round

Was there a rival to my Maggy found? More precious (though that precious is to all)

Then the rare med'cine which we brimstone call.

Or that choice plant, so grateful to the nose,
Which in I know not what far country grows,
Was Maggy unto me; dear do I rue,
A lass so fair should ever prove untrue.

Saw. Whether with pipe or song to charm the ear,

Through all the land did Jamie find a peer?
Cursed be that year by ev'ry honest Scot,
And in the shepherd's calendar forgot,
That fatal year, when Jamie, hapless swain,
In evil hour forsook the peaceful plain.
Jamie, when our young laird discreetly fled,
Was seized, and hang'd till he was dead, dead,
dead.

Jock. Full sorely may we all lament that day;

For all were losers in the deadly fray,
Five brothers had I on the Scottish plains,
Well dost thou know were none more hopeful
swains:

Five brothers there I lost, in manhood's pride,

Two in the field, and three on gibbets died:
Ah! silly swains, to follow war's alarms!
Ah! what hath shepherds' life to do with
arms!

Saw. Mention it not-There saw I stran-
gers clad

In all the honours of our ravish'd plaid,
Saw the Ferrara too, our nation's pride,
Unwilling grace the awkward victor's side.
There fell our choicest youth, and from that
day

Mote never Sawney tune the merry lay; Bless'd those which fell! cursed those which still survive,

To mourn fifteen renew'd in forty-five.
Thus plain'd the boys when from her throne

of turf,

With boils emboss'd, and overgrown with scurf,

Vile humours, which, in life's corrupted well,

Mix'd at the birth, not abstinence could quell,

Pale Famine rear'd the head; her eager

eyes,

Where hunger ev'n to madness seem'd to rise,

Speaking aloud her throes and pangs of heart,

Strain'd to get loose, and from their orbs to start;

Her hollow cheeks were each a deep-sunk cell,

Where wretchedness and horror loved to

dwell;

With double rows of useless teeth supplied, Her mouth from ear to ear, extended wide, Which, when for want of food her entrails

pined,

She oped, and, cursing, swallow'd nought but wind;

All shrivell'd was her skin, and here and there

Making their way by force, her bones lay bare:

Such filthy sight to hide from human view, O'er her foul limbs a tatter'd plaid she

threw.