The curs, without one atom of court-breeding,
With watery jaws, have whined, and pawed, and barked;
Showed anxiousness about the mutton-bone,

And 'stead of your mouth, wished it in their own;
And if you gave this bone to one or t'other,
Heavens! what a snarling, quarrelling, and pother!
This oft, perhaps, has touched you to the quick,
And made you teach good manners by a kick;
And, if the tumult was beyond all bearing,
A little bit of sweet emphatic swearing,-
An eloquence of wondrous use in wars
Amongst sea-captains and the brave Jack-tars.

Now tell me honestly-pray don't you find
Somewhat in Christians just of the same kind
That you experienced in the curs,
Causing your anger and demurs?

As, for example, when your mistress, Fame,
Wishing to celebrate a worthy name,

Takes up her trump to give the just applause,

How have you, puppy-like, pawed, wished, and
whined,

And growled, and cursed, and swore, and pined,
And longed to tear the trumpet from her jaws !
The dogs deserve their kicking to be sure;
But you! O fie, boys! go, and sin no more!

TO MYSELF.

O THOU! Whose daring works sublime

Defy the rudest rage of Time,

Say!-for the world is with conjecture dizzy,

Did Mousehole give thee birth, or Mevagizzy?

Hail, Mevagizzy! what a town of note!

Where boats, and men, and stinks, and trade, are stirring;

Where pilchards come in myriads to be caught;
Pilchard! a thousand times as good's a herring!

Pilchard, the idol of the Popish nation!
Hail, little instrument of vast salvation!
Pilchard, I ween, a most soul-saving fish,

On which the Catholics in Lent are crammed,-
Who, had they not, poor souls, this lucky dish,
Would flesh eat, and be consequently damned.
Pilchards! whose bodies yield the fragrant oil,
And make the London lamps at midnight smile;
Which lamps, wide-spreading salutary light,

Beam on the wandering Beauties of the night,
And show each gentle youth their cheeks' deep roses,
And tell him whether they have eyes and noses.
Hail, Mousehole! birthplace of old Doll Pentreath,1
The last who jabbered Cornish-so says Daines,
Who bat-like haunted ruins, lane, and heath,

With Will-o'-Wisp, to brighten up his brains.
Daines, who a thousand miles unwearied trots,
For bones, brass farthings, ashes, and old pots,
To prove that folks of old, like us, were made
With heads, eyes, hands, and toes, to drive a trade.

FAREWELL ODES (1786),2

I.

PETER, like famed Christina, queen of Sweden,
Who thought a wicked court was not an Eden,
This year resigns the laurel crown for ever!
What all the famed Academicians wish-
No more on painted fowl, and flesh, and fish,
He shows the world his carving skill so clever.
Brass, iron, woodwork, stone, in peace shall rest :-
"Thank God!" exclaim the works of Mr. West.

"Thank God!" the works of Loutherbourg exclaim-
For guns of critics no ignoble game-

"No longer now afraid of rhyming praters,

Shall we be christened tea-boards, varnished waiters!
No verse shall swear that ours are pasteboard rocks;
Our trees, brass wigs; and mops, our fleecy flocks."

"Thank heaven !" exclaims Rigaud, with sparkling eyes—
"Then shall my pictures in importance rise,

And fill each gaping mouth and eye with wonder."
Monsieur Rigaud,

It may be so.

To think thy stars have made so strange a blunder,
That bred to paint the genius of a glazier!

That spoiled, to make a dauber, a good brazier !
None but thy partial tongue (believe my lays)
Can dare stand forth the herald of thy praise :
Could Fame applaud, whose voice my verse reveres,
Justice should break her trump about her ears.

1 A very old woman of Mousehole, supposed (falsely however) to have been the last who spoke the Cornish language. The honourable antiquarian, Daines Barrington Esq., journeyed, some years since, from London to the Land's-end, to converse with this wrinkled yet delicious morceau.

2 Concluding a series of criticisms in verse on the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy.

"Thank Heaven!" cries Mr. Garvy; and "Thank God!" Cries Mr. Copley, "that this Man of Ode

No more, barbarian-like, shall o'er us ride;
No more, like beads in nasty order strung,
And round the waist of this vile Mohock hung,
Shall academic scalps indulge his pride.

"No more hung up in this dread fellow's rhyme,
Which he most impudently calls sublime,
Shall we, poor inoffensive souls,
Appear just like so many moles,
Trapped in an orchard, garden, or a field;
Which mole-catchers suspend on trees,
To show their titles to their fees,—
Like doctors, paid too often for the killed."

Pleased that no more my verses shall annoy,

Glad that my blister Odes shall cease their stinging,] Each wooden figure's mouth expands with joyHark! how they all break forth in singing!—

In boastful sounds the grinning artists cry;' "Lo! Peter's hour of insolence is o'er: His Muse is dead-his lyric pump is dry

His Odes, like stinking fish, not worth a groat a score.
Art thou then weak like us, thou snarling sniveller?
Art thou like one of us, thou lyric driveller?

"Our kings and queens in glory now shall lie,
Each unmolested, sleeping in his frame;
Our ponds, our lakes, our oceans, earth, and sky,
No longer, scouted, shall be put to shame.
No poet's rage shall root our stumps and stumplings,
And swear our clouds are flying apple-dumplings.
Fame shall proclaim how well our plum-trees bud,
And sound the merits of our marle and mud.

"Our oaks, our brushwood, and our lofty elms,
No jingling tyrant's wicked rage o'erwhelms,
Now this vile feller is laid low:

In peace shall our stone-hedges sleep,
Our huts, our barns, our pigs and sheep,
And wild fowl, from the eagle to the crow.

"They who shall see this Peter in the street
With fearless eye his front shall meet,

And cry, 'Is this the man of keen remark?
Is this the wight ?' shall be their taunting speech;
'A dog! who dared to snap each artist's breech,
And bite Academicians like a shark!

"He whose broad cleaver chopped the sons of paint; Crushed like a marrowbone each lovely saint;

Spared not the very clothes about their backs;

The little duck-winged cherubims abused,

That could not more inhumanly be used,

Poor lambkins! had they fallen among the blacks;He, once so furious, soon shall want relief, Staked through the body like a paltry thief.

"How art thou fallen, O Cherokee !' they cry;
'How art thou fallen!' the joyful roofs resound;
'Hell shall thy body for a rogue surround;
And there for ever roasting mayst thou lie :
Like Dives, mayst thou stretch in fires along,
Refused one drop of drink to cool thy tongue !'"

Ye goodly gentlemen, repress your yell;

Your hearty wishes for my health restrain;

For, if our works can put us into hell,

Kind Sirs! we certainly shall meet again.
Nay, what is worse, I really don't know whether
We must not lodge in the same room together.

II.

A MODEST love of praise I do not blame-
But I abhor a rape on Mistress Fame.
Although the lady is exceeding chaste,

Young forward bullies seize her round the waist;
Swear, nolens volens, that she shall be kissed;
And, though she vows she does not like 'em,
Nay, threatens for their impudence to strike 'em,
The saucy rascals still persist.

Reader!-of images here's no confusion

Thou therefore understand'st the bard's allusion.

But possibly thou hast a thickish head,

And therefore no vast quantity of brain :—

Why then, my precious pig of lead,

'Tis necessary to explain.

Some artists, if I so may call 'em,—
So ignorant, the foul fiend maul 'em,
Mere drivellers in the charming art,—
Are vastly fond of being praised,

Wish to the stars, like Blanchard,1 to be raised:
And raised they should be, reader,—from a cart.

1 The famous Aeronaut.

If disappointed in some Stentor's tongue,
Upon themselves they pour forth prose or song;
Or buy it in some venal paper,
And then heroically vapour.

What prigs to immortality aspire,

Who stick their trash around the room Trash, meriting a very different doom,I mean the warmer regions of the fire.

Heaven knows that I am angered to the soul

To find some blockheads of their works so vainSo proud to see them hanging cheek by jowl

With his whose powers the art's high fame sustain.

To wondrous merit their pretension,
On such vicinity-suspension,

Brings to my mind a not unpleasant story,
Which, gentle readers, let me lay before ye.

A shabby fellow chanced one day to meet
The British Roscius in the street,

Garrick, of whom our nation justly brags. The fellow hugged him, with a kind embrace. "Good Sir, I do not recollect your face,"

Quoth Garrick. "No?" replied the man of rags. "The boards of Drury you and I have trod

Full many a time together, I am sure.”

"When?" with an oath cried Garrick; "for, by God,

I never saw that face of yours before !—

What characters, I pray,

Did you and I together play?"

"Lord!" quoth the fellow,

think not that I mock

When you played Hamlet, Sir,—I played the cock.”

1 The President Reynolds,

2 In the Ghost Scene.