Ungrateful Party !—in declining age

To hiss a hoary vet'ran off the stage.

Ami. Mourn not, my Friend, thy public life is

o'er,

There's nothing left behind thee to deplore;

For what is pow'r, but trouble, care, and pain?
Hard to acquire, uneasy to retain.

O! fly from court, to nature's rural scenes,
To patient drudges leave the ways and means;
There health is borne on ev'ry breeze that blows,
There murm'ring streams shall lull thee to repose.

Geo. What fancied scenes of happiness you trace, Strange comfort for a statesman out of place! Who, by no oaths political confin'd, Dare, (mirabile dictu !) speak his mind. Are hills, and dales, and valleys, half so gay As bright St. James's on a Levee day? What fierce extatic transports fill my soul, To hear the drivers swear, the coaches roll; The courtiers compliment, the ladies clack, The satins rustle, and the whalebones crack! What! shall a fallen Minister regale

On slices of brown bread, and homebrew'd ale ?— Lay his opinion open to rebuke,

And please a Boor-when he might charm a Duke?

And, O! the greatest nuisance in the land,
Shall squire and vicar shake him by the hand,
Or bellowing huntsman, follow'd by his pack,
With hearty thump salute him on the back?—
No, let me rather live to see the day,
That joins me to the politics of Grey,-
Adopt mad schemes by restless Tierney plann'd,
Or, all unnotic'd, at a Levee stand.—

Let me the words of blust'ring Fuller quote,
Or to that puppy Holland give my vote
To calculate the ex-officio fibs

Of my old worthy friend, Sir Vicary Gibbs!
Or, once for all, in winding up the sum
Of evils present, past, and yet to come,
O, let me be proclaim'd, by Hawkers loud,
Political Jack-Pudding of the crowd.

Ami. Since you're resolv'd, I have no more to say, But banish care and sorrow for a day; Some disappointment* cross'd the Regent's mind, The Queen look'd grave, or Hertford prov'd unkind; But let the worst arrive; now, pray consider, You can but truckle to the highest bidder.

* This conjecture is reasonable: it is not uncommon to see "Cœlestibus iræ,"-Anger in heavenly minds.

ECLOGUE IV.

CRAMBO.

'Twas in that glorious season of the year, When leaves are green, and op'ning buds appear, When tuneful songsters ply the feather'd wing, And Nature welcomes the return of Spring; 'Twas in that month, when urchins, loos'd from school,

Make (fond of mischief,) many an April Fool, And to some crabbed dame, demurely cry"Your stocking's down, your cap is pinn'd awry!" 'Twas in that season, when the God of Day Once more resumes his renovating sway, When soft the rivers glide, the zephyrs blow, And farmers see their future harvests grow.

*Two prowling Bailiffs, hunting after prey,
Thro' ancient Grub Street sped their cautious way,
When, just at dawn, with joyful hearts they found
The tuneful Crambo prostrate on the ground.

Chromis et Mnasilus in antro

Silenum pueri somno vidère jacentum, &c. &c.

That Crambo, whom, with wondrous toil and pain,
Three tedious days they sought, but sought in vain;
That Crambo, who, though tipsy and in tatters,
Was crown'd the very prince of Odes and Satires;
That Crambo, who defied a groaning pit,
And still was thought a poet and a wit,
And, ne'er repining at his fate severe,
Was damn'd at Covent-Garden twice a-year.

Now, with a piece of cord, both long and hard,
The wary
bailiffs bound the sleeping bard;
His pockets next they rummag'd, but the duns
Found nought but scraps of epigrams and puns,
Flat, fulsome, panegyrics, stiff in stays,
Remnants of farce, and fragments of new plays;
An ode to riches, an address to dawn,

With duplicates of sundry things in pawn ;
Proposals for a volume in the press,

Letters to friends complaining of distress,
Beseeching they would all with open hands come;
And lott'ry puffs for Bish and Lady Branscomb.
Much more they found of literary trash,
But not one single halfpenny in cash.
Cursing with disappointment verse and prose,
The bailiffs tweak'd poor Crambo by the nose,
Who starting from his trance, and mad with pain,
Strove to get free, and bellow'd out amain.—

L

*"Loose me," he cry'd, "'twas dangerous to bind A sleeping Bard; as you shall quickly find; When my Lord Ellenb'rough once knows the mat

ter, he

Declares you guilty of assault and battery.

But if you let me go, (rejoin'd the wit,)
You of this daring outrage I acquit ;

And if you'll grant your company so long,
We'll seal the mutual bargain with a song."

'Agreed," the Bailiffs cry'd, "no more our slave; Come, tune your pipes, and let us have the stave."

+He rais'd his voice; and soon, a motley throng Of gaping hearers crowded to the song.

Not more applause, when puppets dance on wire, Or some arch Merry-Andrew swallows fire; Not more applause, when Kemble, full of death, Stalks forth with bloody daggers in Macbeth; Not more applause, when Catalani's throat Pours forth a soft, mellifluous, pleasing note, Which seems to us the music of the spheres;

* Solvite me, pueri: satis est potuisse videri. Carmina, quæ vultis, cognoscite: carmina vobis: &c. + Tum verò in numerum Faunósque ferásque videres Ludere, tum rigidas motare cacumina quercus. Nec tantùm Phobo gaudet Parnassia rupes,

Nec tantùm Rhodope mirantur et Ismarus Orphea.