O where is wisdom when by this o'erpower'd? The state is censured, and the maid deflower'd? And wilt thou still, O Squire, brew ale so strong? Hear then the dictates of prophetic song. Methinks I see him in his hall appear, Where the long table floats in clammy beer, 'Midst mugs and glasses shatter'd o'er the floor, Dead drunk, his servile crew supinely snore; Triumphant, o'er the prostrate brutes he stands, The mighty bumper trembles in his hands; Boldly he drinks, and, like his glorious sires, In copious gulps of potent ale expires. EXTRACT FROM TRIVIA. THROUGH winter streets to steer your course aright, How to walk clean by day, and safe by night; Where winding alleys lead the doubtful way, For thee the scavenger bids kennels glide When the black youth at chosen stands rejoice, And clean your shoes" resounds from every voice; When late their miry sides stage-coaches show, And damsels first renew their oyster-cries: The wooden heel may raise the dancer's bound, Nor should it prove thy less important care, To choose a proper coat for winter's wear. Now in thy trunk thy D'Oily habit fold, The silken drugget ill can fence the cold; The frieze's spongy nap is soak'd with rain, And showers soon drench the camblet's cockled grain; True Witney (a) broad-cloth, with its shag un shorn, Unpierced is in the lasting tempest worn: Be this the horseman's fence, for who would wear Amid the town the spoils of Russia's bear? Within the roquelaure's clasp thy hands are pent, Hands, that, stretch'd forth, invading harms pre vent. Let the loop'd bavaroy the fop embrace, Be thine of kersey firm, though small the cost, If the strong cane support thy walking hand, While softer chairs the tawdry load convey (a) A town in Oxfordshire. (b) A Joseph, wrap-rascal, &c. (c) A chocolate-house in St James' Street. Imprudent men Heaven's choicest gifts profane : SONG. SWEET Woman is like the fair flower in its lustre, But when once pluck'd, 'tis no longer alluring, To Covent-Garden 'tis sent (as yet sweet), There fades, and shrinks, and grows past all enduring, Rots, stinks, and dies, and is trod under feet. WILLIAM SHENSTONE. BORN 1714-DIED 1763. SHENSTONE was born at the place his fine taste has since made so celebrated, the Leasowes in Hales-Owen. His first instructress was an old dame, the prototype of his village schoolmistress. Shenstone discovered an early taste for reading, and while at Oxford published a small poetical miscellany. His father died while he was still very young; and on quitting college, and coming to his small patrimony, instead of engaging in any active profession, he led a sauntering life of elegant poetic indolence, going about from one fashionable watering-place to another, composing elegies and celebrating Phillis, whom he liked better to praise than marry; as, Johnson says, he might have obtained the lady if he had chosen. In this manner life glided away, and satiety and ennui crept on the solitary poetical dreamer. Shenstone's ruling passion was the embellishment of his estate, to which, by involving his fortune, he sacrificed his domestic comfort and ease of mind. It is not a little curious to see how the rural poetical bachelor is estimated by another of the same species, whose life was chiefly spent in collegesthe poet Gray. "Poor man!" says Gray, " he was always wishing for money, for fame, and other distinctions; and his whole philosophy consisted in living against his will in retirement, and in a place which his taste had adorned, but which he only enjoyed when people of note came to commend it: his correspondence is about nothing else but this place and his own writings, with two or three neighbouring clergymen, who wrote verses too." His lyrics are generally pleasing; his ballad of Jemmy Daw son is an agreeable imitation of the old ballad of Gilderoy, and some of his strains even reach true natural pathos. Every young reader has been delighted with the pastoral ballad. The Schoolmistress is a beautiful unique. |