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Can in her female clubs dispute
What lining best the silk will suit;
What colours each complexion match,
And where with art to place a patch.

If chance a mouse creeps in her sight, Can finely counterfeit a fright;

So sweetly screams if it comes near her,
She ravishes all hearts to hear her;
Can dext'rously her husband tease,
By taking fits whene'er she please;
By frequent practice learns the trick
At proper seasons to be sick;

Thinks nothing gives one airs so pretty,
At once creating love and pity;
If Molly happens to be careless,
And but neglects to warm her hair-lace,
She gets a cold as sure as death,

And vows she scarce can fetch her breath;
Admires how modest women can
Be so robustious, like a man.

In party furious to her power;
A bitter Whig, or Tory sour;
Her arguments directly tend
Against the side she would defend;
Will prove herself a Tory plain,
From principles the Whigs maintain;
And to defend the Whiggish cause,
Her topics from the Tories draws.
O yes! if any man can find
More virtues in a woman's mind,
Let them be sent to Mrs. Harding,
She'll pay the charges to a farthing:
Take notice, she has my commission
To add them in the next edition;
They may outsell a better thing:
So, holla, boys! God save the king!

LAWYERS.

I own the curses of mankind

Sit light upon a lawyer's mind;

The clamours of ten thousand tongues

Break not his rest, nor hurt his lungs.
I own his conscience always free,
Provided he has got his fee:
Secure of constant peace within,

He knows no guilt who knows no sin.
Yet well they merit to be pitied,

By clients always overwitted:
And though the gospel seems to say
What heavy burdens lawyers lay
Upon the shoulders of their neighbour,
Nor lend a finger to the labour,
Always for saving their own bacon,
No doubt the text is here mistaken:
The copy's false, and sense is rackt;
To prove it I appeal to fact,
And thus by demonstration show
What burdens lawyers undergo.
With early clients at his door,
Though he was drunk the night before,
And crop-sick with unclubb'd-for wine,
The wretch must be at court by nine;
Half sunk beneath his briefs and bag,
As ridden by a midnight hag;
Then from the bar harangues the bench,
In English vile, and viler French,
And Latin, vilest of the three,
And all for poor ten moidores' fee.
Of paper how is he profuse!

With periods long, in terms abstruse,
What pains he takes to be prolix!
A thousand lines to stand for six;
Of common sense without a word in,
And is not this a grievous burden!

The lawyer is a common drudge, To fight our cause before the judge! And, what is yet a greater curse, Condemn'd to bear his client's purse, While he, at ease, secure and light, Walks boldly home at dead of night: When term is ended leaves the town, Trots to his country-mansion down, And, disencumber'd of his load, No danger dreads upon the road; Despiseth rapparees, and rides Safe through the Newry mountains' sides.1

SAMUEL BOYSE.

BORN 1708 - DIED 1749.

it because men of genius have been Bohemians, are about as wise as if they desired to be in

[Samuel Boyse is a glaring instance of how | and not a strength, and that those who follow readily a man of genius may be a fool in conduct, and how the grossest manners and most unpardonable vices may co-exist with the most wonderful talent. He is also a proof, if proof were needed, that Bohemianism is a weakness

1 Famous for the exploits of Redmond O'Hanlon, the Irish Robin Hood.

oculated with some foul disease because some great poet or writer had one time suffered from it. Boyse's life is indeed among the saddest in all our long list of many-sided and many-fated authors.

Boyse was born in Dublin in the year 1708. He was the son of a well-known Dissenting minister of that day, one of whose sermons was ordered to be burned by the Irish parliament in 1711. He received the rudiments of his education at a private school, and at eighteen was sent to the University of Glasgow, where, before completing his first year of study, he married a tradesman's daughter. The marriage was an unhappy one; vice and extravagance wedded to vice and extravagance. However, though vexed at his marriage, the foolish father of the foolish poet continued for a while to support him, but this at last ceasing, Boyse moved to Edinburgh, where his genius and talents soon procured him many friends. Among these was the Countess of Eglinton, to whom in 1731 he addressed his first volume of poems. About this time also appeared his elegy on Lady Stormount, entitled The Tears of the Muses, which is still spoken of as a graceful poem, and with which Lord Stormount was so much pleased that he presented Boyse with a handsome donation.

cut a hole large enough to admit his arm, and, placing the paper on his knee, scribbled in the best manner he could."

In 1742 he got thrown into a sponginghouse, but by some means obtained his liberty before long. About this time he wrote several poems, "but these, though excellent of their kind, were lost to the world by being introduced with no advantage." He had also constantly recourse to the meanest tricks to procure donations or so-called loans. Sometimes he would cause his wife to appear in tears and declare that he was on the point of death, and when relieved by some one his benefactor would probably be astonished by meeting the dying man next day in the street. In 1743 he published a successful ode on the Battle of Dettingen, entitled Albion's Triumph. In 1745 he was at Reading, engaged on a hack work "An Historical Review of the Transactions of Europe, from the Commencement of the War with Spain in 1739, to the Insurrection in Scotland in 1745." This appeared in 1747, and, according to one of his biographers, "is said not to be destitute of merit."

While at Reading his wife died, and on his return to London Boyse for a time acted a little more decently than usual. Reform, however, was now almost too late: his health was ruined, and he could only drag on a miserable career until, in May, 1749, after a lingering illness, he died in a low lodging in Shoe Lane, and was buried by the parish authorities of St. Bride's.

In the two volumes of Boyse's works which have been published many poems deserve to rank very high. The Home of Content is a poem which might have been written by Akenside at his very best; but The Glory of the Deity is a noble poem, which Akenside even at his best could never have written. Harvey, no very great critic, by the way, speaks of it as "a beautiful and instructive poem;" and Fielding, a much more weighty authority, gives a quotation from it which he calls "a noble one, and taken from a poem long since buried in oblivion; a proof that good books, no more than good men, do not always survive the bad." However, the poem had not fallen into such oblivion as Fielding imagined, for by 1752 a third edition of it had appeared. The chief beauties of Boyse's poetry are, strange to say, sublimity, elegance, and

The success of these publications, as well as the favour of those able to further him, might well have been used by Boyse as a first step towards fame and greatness. But his nature was low and grovelling, and so soon as he became possessed of a pound or two it was spent in vulgar but costly luxuries and dissipation. He soon fell into such a state of wretchedness and contempt that he determined to leave Edinburgh and try his fortune in the great metropolis. This decision he made known to the Duchess of Gordon, who, still believing in his abilities, gave him a letter of recommendation to Pope, and obtained him another to Lord-chancellor King. However, on coming to London he was too indolent to make use of the recommendations, and in a short time he had fallen so low that he had no clothes to appear in. Cibber says that he had neither shirt nor coat nor any kind of apparel; "the sheets in which he lay were gone to the pawnbroker's; he was obliged to be confined to bed with no other covering than a blanket; and he had little support but what is got by writ-pathos; their chief defect a certain looseness ing letters to his friends in the most abject style. His mode of studying and writing was curious: he sat up in bed, with the blanket wrapped about him, through which he had

of construction in places, caused by rapidity of production and utter want of revision. His poems were each flung upon the world to serve some momentary purpose, and when

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To keep him from the breath of Boreas thin.
An easy path along the verdant ground
Soon to his hospitable cottage led;
Ere yet instructed, I my error found,

Nor knew the cause my first emotion bred
Till, as into his clean abode we went,

Kind Patience whispered me our host was called
Content.

Sweet was his earthen floor with rushes spread,
Sweet was each shell-wrought bowl and wooden
dish,

Sweet was the quilt composed his healthy bed,
Nor wanted he for fowl or sun-dried fish,
And milk of sheep, and turf, a plenteous store,
Which lay beneath his comfortable roof;
No storms, no accidents could make him poor,
He and his house, I ween, were weather-proof.
A bachelor he wonde, devoid of care,
Which made him now appear so healthy and so fair.

Long time with Patience fair discourse he held
(Oft had the goddess been his welcome guest),
Nor she the friendly intercourse repell'd,
But the good sire familiarly address'd.
Thus were we happily conversant set,
When from the neighbouring village rose a cry,
And drew our hasty steps where numbers met,
Like us, appear'd to know the reason- -Why?
Nor needed answer: on the seaweed spray-
Too visible reply!--the wave-toss'd body lay.

How stood I shock'd-when in the semblant face
(By death unalter'd, or the cruel flood)
I could of Lycidas each feature trace,
Young Lycidas, the learned and the good.

And sing the funeral dirge in Runic rhyme,
Allotted to the sage or warrior dead:
While as these fruitless honours are bestow'd,
Content, with sober speech, his purpose thus avow'd:

"What boots thee now, lost youth! that cross the
main

Thou spread the daring sail from pole to pole,
Wealth to acquire, and knowledge to attain,—
Knowledge, the nobler treasure of thy soul.
Beneath the scorching of the medial line,
On Afric's sand, and India's golden coast,
Virtue gave thee with native truth to shine,
Drest in each excellence that youth could boast,
And now she gives thee from the wave to rise,
And reach the safer port prepared thee in the skies.

"Yet take these honours, thy deserv'd reward,
Call this untroubled spot of earth thy own,
Here shall thy ashes find a due regard,
And annual sweets around thy grave be thrown:
Directing Heaven ordain'd thy early end
From fraud and guilt to save thy blameless youth;
To show that death no terrors can attend
Where piety resides and holy truth.

Here take thy rest within this hallow'd ground,
Till the last trump emit the death-awakening
sound."

He ceas'd: attentive to the words he said,
In earth the natives place the honoured clay,
With holy rites they cover up his head,
A spotless grave where never mortal lay.
Charm'd with the simple manners of the isle,
I wish'd some further knowledge to receive;
Here could have dwelt with old Content awhile,

"O Heaven!" cried I, "what sorrows will he feel, And learn'd of him the happiness to live!

Debarr'd the promis'd hope of thy return;

Not all his skill the mental wound can heal,

Or cure a loss he must so justly mourn!
How will he weep when in the ocean grave
He hears a brother lost he could have died to save."

Here with observant eye, and look serene,
Thus check'd the good old man my plaintive speech:
"Best in submission piety is seen,
That lesson let thy kind conductress teach:
But lest the youth thy friend bewails should want
The rites departed merit ought to find,
Let these assembled natives kindly grant
The unpolluted grave, by Heaven assign'd;
A corpse that claim'd a due interment more
Yet never wafted wave to Faroe's guiltless shore!"

He said obedient to his just commands
The zealous youth the breathless body bear;
Some form the sepulchre with careful hands,
While round the virgins drop the artless tear.
Such flowers as nature grants the ruder clime,
Such flowers around with pious care they shed.

When Patience from my side abruptly broke,
And starting at the loss I suddenly awoke!

THE GLORY OF THE DEITY.

But oh, adventurous Muse, restrain thy flight.
Dare not the blaze of uncreated light!
Before whose glorious throne, with dread surprise.
Th' adoring seraph veils his dazzled eyes;
Whose pure effulgence, radiant to excess,
No colours can describe or words express:
All the fair beauties, all the lucid stores
Which o'er thy works thy hand resplendent pours,
Feeble thy brighter glories to display,
Pale as the moon before the solar ray.

See on his throne the gaudy Persian placed
In all the pomp of the luxuriant East,
While mingling gems the borrow'd day unfold,
And the rich purple waves emboss'd with gold:

Yet mark this scene of painted grandeur yield
To the fair lily that adorns the field;
Obscur'd behold the fainter lily lies
By the rich bird's inimitable dyes;

Yet these survey, confounded and undone
By the superior lustre of the sun;

That sun himself withdraws his lessen'd beam
From thee the glorious Author of his frame.

Transcendent Power! sole arbiter of fate,
How great thy glory, and thy bliss how great.
To view from thy exalted throne above
(Eternal source of light, and life, and love)
Unnumber'd creatures draw their smiling birth
To bless the heavens or beautify the earth,
While systems roll obedient to thy view,
And worlds rejoice-which Newton never knew!
Then raise the song, the general anthem raise,
And swell the concert of eternal praise!
Assist, ye orbs, that form this boundless whole,
Which in the womb of space unnumber'd roll;
Ye planets who compose our lesser scheme,
And bend concertive round the solar frame;
Thou eye of nature, whose extensive ray
With endless charms adorns the face of day,
Consenting raise the harmonious joyful sound,
And bear his praises through the vast profound!
His praise, ye winds, that fan the cheerful air,
Swift as they pass along your pinions bear!
His praise let ocean through her realms display,
Far as her circling billows can convey!
His praise, ye misty vapours, wide diffuse,
In rains descending, or in milder dews!
His praises whisper, ye majestic trees,
As your tops rustle to the gentle breeze!
His praise around, ye flow'ry tribes exhale.
Far as your sweets embalm the spicy gale!
His praise, ye dimpl'd streams, to earth reveal,
As pleas'd ye murmur through the flow'ry vale!
His praise, ye feather'd choirs, distinguish'd sing.
As to your notes the vocal forests ring!
His praise proclaim, ye monsters of the deep.
Who in the vast abyss your revels keep;
Or ye, fair natives of our earthly scene,

Who range the wilds or haunt the pasture green!
Nor thou, vain lord of earth, with careless ear
The universal hymn of worship hear,
But ardent in the sacred chorus join,
Thy soul transported with the task divine. —
While by his works the Almighty is confess'd
Supremely glorious and supremely bless'd!

Great Lord of life, from whom this humble frame
Derives the power to sing thy holy name,
Forgive the lowly muse whose artless lay
Has dared thy sacred attributes survey!
Delighted oft through nature's beauteous fields
Has she adored thy wisdom bright revealed;
Oft have her wishes aim'd the secret song,
But awful reverence still withheld her tongue.
Yet as thy bounty lent the reasoning beam,
As feels my conscious breast thy vital flame,

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