Wheresoe'er he roam-- Knock when you will--he's sure to be at home.
* * * * * VIII.
ON A DEAF AND DUMB ARTIST.[1] [Footnote 1: Benjamin Ferrers--Died A.D.

1732.] And hath thy blameless life become A prey to the devouring tomb?
A more mute silence hast thou known, A deafness deeper than thine own, While Time was?
and no friendly Muse, That mark'd thy life, and knows thy dues, Repair with quickening verse the breach.
And write thee into light and speech?
The Power, that made the Tongue, restrain'd Thy lips from lies, and speeches feign'd; Who made the Hearing, without wrong Did rescue thine from Siren's song.
He let thee _see_ the ways of men, Which thou with pencil, not with pen, Careful Beholder, down didst note, And all their motley actions quote, Thyself unstain'd the while.

From look Or gesture reading, more than _book_, In letter'd pride thou took'st no part, Contented with the Silent Art, Thyself as silent.

Might I be As speechless, deaf, and good, as He! * * * * * IX.
THE FEMALE ORATORS.
Nigh London's famous Bridge, a Gate more famed Stands, or once stood, from old Belinus named, So judged Antiquity; and therein wrongs A name, allusive strictly to _two Tongues_[1] Her School hard by the Goddess Rhetoric opes, And _gratis_ deals to Oyster-wives her Tropes.
With Nereid green, green Nereid disputes, Replies, rejoins, confutes, and still confutes.
One her coarse sense by metaphors expounds, And one in literalities abounds; In mood and figure these keep up the din: Words multiply, and every word tells in.
Her hundred throats here bawling Slander strains; And unclothed Venus to her tongue gives reins In terms, which Demosthenic force outgo, And baldest jests of foul-mouth'd Cicero.
Right in the midst great Ate keeps her stand, And from her sovereign station taints the land.
Hence Pulpits rail; grave Senates learn to jar; Quacks scold; and Billingsgate infects the Bar.
[Footnote 1: _Bilinguis_ in the Latin.] * * * * * PINDARIC ODE TO THE TREAD-MILL.
I.
Inspire my spirit, Spirit of De Foe, That sang the Pillory, In loftier strains to show A more sublime Machine Than that, where thou wert seen, With neck outstretcht and shoulders ill awry, Courting coarse plaudits from vile crowds below-- A most unseemly show! II.
In such a place Who could expose thy face, Historiographer of deathless Crusoe! That paint'st the strife And all the naked ills of savage life, Far above Rousseau?
Rather myself had stood In that ignoble wood, Bare to the mob, on holiday or high-day.
If nought else could atone For waggish libel, I swear on bible, I would have spared him for thy sake alone, Man Friday! III.
Our ancestors' were sour days, Great Master of Romance! 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 labor'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-stript 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.
VI.
Compared with thee, What are the labors of that Jumping Sect, Which feeble laws connive at rather than respect?
Thou dost not bump, Or jump, But _walk_ men into virtue; betwixt 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, postilion, With cheeks of vermilion, Is one of a million That fill up the church-yards; 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 napt on, The ground he last hapt on, Entomb'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 Betsey 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 Jubal, Before that dirty blacksmith Tubal By stroke on anvil, or by summ'at, 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 twixt 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.
THE WIFE'S TRIAL; OR, THE INTRUDING WIDOW.
A Dramatic poem.
FOUNDED ON MR.

CRABBE'S TALE OF "THE CONFIDANT." * * * * * CHARACTERS.
MR.