Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 108

[3] 'Lift:' sky.

[4] 'Linn:' a waterfall.

[5] 'Blate:' bashful.

[6] 'Pensylie:' sprucely.

[7] 'A-jee:' to one side.

[8] 'Owrelay:' cravat.

[9] 'Dorty:' pettish.

[10] 'Dawted wean:' spoiled child.

[11] 'Tarrows at its meat:' refuses its food.

[12] 'f.e.c.kless:' silly.

[13] 'Orp:' fret.

[14] 'Glowers:' stares.

[15] 'Barlichoods:' cross-moods.

[16] 'Skaith:' harm.

[17] 'Feil:' many.

[18] 'Fasheous:' troublesome.

[19] 'Scads itself wi' brue:' scalds itself with broth.

[20] 'Deil gaes o'er John Wabster:' all goes wrong.

[21] 'Toom:' empty.

[22] 'Speat:' land-flood.

[23] 'A dyvour:' bankrupt.

[24] 'Mows:' jest.

[25] 'Rowth:' plenty.

[26] 'Maiks:' mates.

[27] 'Hag-abag:' huckaback.

[28] 'White bigonets:' linen caps or coifs.

[29] 'Dozins:' dwindles.

[30] 'Airt:' quarter.

We come now to another cl.u.s.ter of minor poets,--such as Robert Dodsley, who rose, partly through Pope's influence, from a footman to be a respectable bookseller, and who, by the verses ent.i.tled 'The Parting Kiss,'--

'One fond kiss before we part, Drop a tear and bid adieu; Though we sever, my fond heart, Till we meet, shall pant for you,' &c.--

seems to have suggested to Burns his 'Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;'

--John Brown, author of certain tragedies and other works, including the once famous 'Estimate of the Manners and Principles of Modern Times,' of which Cowper says--

'The inestimable Estimate of Brown Rose like a paper kite and charmed the town; But measures planned and executed well s.h.i.+fted the wind that raised it, and it fell:'

and who went mad and died by his own hands;--John Gilbert Cooper, author of a fine song to his wife, one stanza of which has often been quoted:--

'And when with envy Time transported Shall think to rob us of our joys; You'll in your girls again be courted, And I'll go wooing in my boys;'--

Cuthbert Shaw, an unfortunate author of the Savage type, who wrote an affecting monody on the death of his wife;--Thomas Scott, author of 'Lyric Poems, Devotional and Moral: London, 1773;'--Edward Thompson, a native of Hull, and author of some tolerable sea-songs;--Henry Headley, a young man of uncommon talents, a pupil of Dr Parr in Norwich, who, when only twenty-one, published 'Select Beauties of the Ancient English Poets,' accompanied by critical remarks discovering rare ripeness of mind for his years, who wrote poetry too, but was seized with consumption, and died at twenty-two;--Nathaniel Cotton, the physician, under whose care, at St Alban's, Cowper for a time was;--William Hayward Roberts, author of 'Judah Restored,' a poem of much ambition and considerable merit;--John Bampfylde, who went mad, and died in that state, after having published, when young, some sweet sonnets, of which the following is one:--

'Cold is the senseless heart that never strove With the mild tumult of a real flame; Rugged the breast that music cannot tame, Nor youth's enlivening graces teach to love The pathless vale, the long-forsaken grove, The rocky cave that bears the fair one's name, With ivy mantled o'er. For empty fame Let him amidst the rabble toil, or rove In search of plunder far to western clime.

Give me to waste the hours in amorous play With Delia, beauteous maid, and build the rhyme, Praising her flowing hair, her snowy arms, And all that prodigality of charms, Formed to enslave my heart, and grace my lay;'--

Lord Chesterfield, who wrote some lines on 'Beau Nash's Picture at full length, between the Busts of Newton and Pope at Bath,' of which this is the last stanza--

'The picture placed the busts between, Adds to the thought much strength; Wisdom and Wit are little seen, But Folly's at full length;'--

Thomas Penrose, who is more memorable as a warrior than as a poet, having fought against Buenos Ayres, as well as having written some elegant war-verses;--Edward Moore, a contributor to the _World_;--Sir John Henry Moore, a youth of promise, who died in his twenty-fifth year, leaving behind him such songs as the following:--

'Cease to blame my melancholy, Though with sighs and folded arms I muse with silence on her charms; Censure not--I know 'tis folly; Yet these mournful thoughts possessing, Such delights I find in grief That, could heaven afford relief, My fond heart would scorn the blessing;'--

the Rev. Richard Jago, a friend of Shenstone's, and author of a pleasing fable ent.i.tled 'Labour and Genius;'--Henry Brooke, better known for a novel, once much in vogue, called 'The Fool of Quality,' than for his elaborate poem ent.i.tled 'Universal Beauty,' which formed a prototype of Darwin's 'Botanic Garden,' but did not enjoy that poem's fame;--George Alexander Stevens, a comic actor, lecturer on 'heads,' and writer of some poems, novels, and Baccha.n.a.lian songs:--and, in fine, Mrs Greville, whose 'Prayer for Indifference' displays considerable genius. We quote some stanzas:--

'I ask no kind return in love, No tempting charm to please; Far from the heart such gifts remove That sighs for peace and ease.

'Nor ease, nor peace, that heart can know That, like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy and woe, But, turning, trembles too.

'Far as distress the soul can wound, 'Tis pain in each degree; 'Tis bliss but to a certain bound-- Beyond, is agony.

'Then take this treacherous sense of mine, Which dooms me still to smart, Which pleasure can to pain refine, To pain new pangs impart.

'Oh, haste to shed the sovereign balm, My shattered nerves new string, And for my guest, serenely calm, The nymph Indifference bring.'

ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE.

This writer was born at Burton-on-Trent, in 1705. He was educated at Westminster and Cambridge, and studied law at Lincoln's Inn. He was a man of fortune, and sat in two parliaments for Wenlock, in Shrops.h.i.+re.

He died in 1760. His imitations of authors are clever and amusing, and seem to have got their hint from 'The Splendid s.h.i.+lling,' and to have given it to the 'Rejected Addresses.'

IMITATION OF THOMSON.

----Prorumpit ad aethera nubem Turbine, fumantem piceo. VIRG.

O thou, matured by glad Hesperian suns, Tobacco, fountain pure of limpid truth, That looks the very soul; whence pouring thought Swarms all the mind; absorpt is yellow care, And at each puff imagination burns: Flash on thy bard, and with exalting fires Touch the mysterious lip that chants thy praise In strains to mortal sons of earth unknown.

Behold an engine, wrought from tawny mines Of ductile clay, with plastic virtue formed, And glazed magnific o'er, I grasp, I fill.

From Paetotheke with pungent powers perfumed, Itself one tortoise all, where s.h.i.+nes imbibed Each parent ray; then rudely rammed, illume With the red touch of zeal-enkindling sheet, Marked with Gibsonian lore; forth issue clouds Thought-thrilling, thirst-inciting clouds around, And many-mining fires; I all the while, Lolling at ease, inhale the breezy balm.

But chief, when Bacchus wont with thee to join, In genial strife and orthodoxal ale, Stream life and joy into the Muse's bowl.

Oh, be thou still my great inspirer, thou My Muse; oh, fan me with thy zephyrs boon, While I, in clouded tabernacle shrined, Burst forth all oracle and mystic song.

IMITATION OF POPE.

--Solis ad ortus Vanescit fumus. LUCAN.

Blest leaf! whose aromatic gales dispense To Templars modesty, to parsons sense: So raptured priests, at famed Dodona's shrine, Drank inspiration from the steam divine.

Poison that cures, a vapour that affords Content, more solid than the smile of lords: Rest to the weary, to the hungry food, The last kind refuge of the wise and good.

Inspired by thee, dull cits adjust the scale Of Europe's peace, when other statesmen fail.

By thee protected, and thy sister, beer, Poets rejoice, nor think the bailiff near.