The Works, of the Right Honourable Sir Chas. Hanbury Williams ...

KIND to my frailties still, Eumenes, hear;
Once more I try the patience of your ear.
Not oft I sing; the happier for the town,
So stunn'd already they're quite stupid grown
With monthly, daily-charming things I own.
Happy for them, I seldom court the Nine;
Another art, a serious art, is mine.
Of nauseous verses offer'd once a week,
You cannot say I did it, if you're sick.
'Twas ne'er my pride to shine by flashy fits
Amongst the Daily Advertiser wits.
Content if some few friends indulge my name,
So slightly am I stung with Love of Fame,

VOL. III.

B

I would not scrawl one hundred idle lines-
Not for the praise of all the magazines.

Yet once a moon, perhaps, I steal a night; And, if our Sire Apollo pleases, write. You smile; but all the train the Muse that follow,

Christians and dunces, still we quote Apollo.
Unhappy still our Poets will rehearse

To Goths, that stare astonish'd at their verse
To the rank tribes submit their virgin lays :
So gross, so bestial, is the lust of praise!

I to sound judges from the mob appeal, And write to those who most my subject feel. Eumenes, these dry moral lines I trust With you, whom nought that's moral can disgust. With you I venture, in plain home-spun sense, What I imagine of Benevolence.

Of all the monsters of the human kind, What strikes you most is the low selfish mind."

Books

The Works, of the Right Honourable Sir Chas. Hanbury Williams ..., Band 3