MOUNTED aloft in Bristol's narrow streets,
Where pride and luxury with meanness meets,
A sturdy collier prest the empty sack,
A troop of thousands swarming on his back;
When sudden to his rapt extatic view
Rose the brown beauties of his red-hair'd Sue.
Music spontaneous echoed from his tongue,
And thus the lover rather bawl'd than sung.
Zaunds! Pri'thee, pretty Zue, is it thee!
Odzookers I mun have a kiss.
A sweetheart should always be free,
I whope you wunt take it amiss.
Thy peepers are blacker than caul,
Thy carcase is sound as a sack,
Thy visage is whiter than ball,
Odzookers I mun have a smack!
The swain descending, in his raptured arms
Held fast the goddess, and despoil'd her charms.
Whilst lock'd in Cupid's amorous embrace,
His jetty skinnis met her red bronz'd face;
It seem'd the sun when labouring in eclipse.
And on her nose he stamp'd his sable lips,
Pleas'd
FANNY OF THE HILL. 1770.
Ir gentle Love's immortal fire
Could animate the quill,
Soon should the rapture-speaking lyre
Sing Fanny of the Hill.
My panting heart incessant moves,
No interval 'tis still;
And all my ravish'd nature loves
Sweet Fanny of the Hill.
Her dying soft expressive eye,
Her elegance must kill;
Ye Gods! how many thousands die
For Fanny of the Hill.
A love-taught tongue, angelic air,
A sentiment, a skill
In all the graces of the fair,
Mark Fanny of the Hill.
Thou mighty Power, eternal Fate,
My happiness to fill,
O! bless a wretched lover's state
With Fanny of the Hill.
Miss F. B, on Redcliff-Hill, Bristol.
The name of Fanny, which was first written, was afterwards cancel
led, and that of Belsy substituted in its stead; but for what reason was best known to the author.-SOUTHEY's Edition.
SINCE happiness was not ordain'd for man,
Let's make ourselves as easy as we can;
Possest with fame or fortune, friend or w
But think it happiness-we want no more.
Hail, Revelation! sphere-envelop'd dame,
To some divinity, to most a name,
Reason's dark-lantern, superstition's sun,
Whose cause mysterious and effect are one-
From thee, ideal bliss we only trace,
Fair as Ambition's dream, or Beauty's face,
But, in reality, as shadowy found
As seeming truth in twisted mysteries bound.
What little rest from over-anxious care
The lords of Nature are design'd to share,
To wanton whim and prejudice we owe.
Opinion is the only God we know.
Our furthest wish, the Deity we fear
In diff'rent subjects, differently appear.
Where's the foundation of religion plac'd?
On every individual's fickle taste.
• In the poem on Happiness are some strokes of satire in a superior style.-DR. GREGORY.
The narrow way the priest-rid mortals tread,
By superstitious prejudice misled.-
This passage leads to Heaven-yet, strange to tell!
Another's conscience finds it lead to hell.
Conscience, the soul-camelion's varying hue,
Reflects all notions, to no notion true.-
The bloody son of Jesse, when he saw
The mystic priesthood kept the Jews in awe,
He made himself an ephod to his mind,
And sought the Lord, and always found him kind:
In murder, horrid cruelty, and lust,
The Lord was with him, and his actions just.
Priestcraft! thou universal blind of all,
Thou idol, at whose feet all nations fall;
Father of misery, origin of sin,
Whose first existence did with fear begin;
Still sparing deal thy seeming blessings out,
Veil thy Elysium with a cloud of doubt-
Since present blessings in possession cloy,
Bid hope in future worlds expect the joy :
Or, if thy sons the airy phantoms slight,
And dawning Reason would direct them right,
Some glittering trifle to their optics hold;
Perhaps they'll think the glaring spangle gold,
And, madded in the search of coins and toys,
Eager pursue the momentary joys.
Mercator worships Mammon, and adores
No other deity but gold and wes.
Catcott is very fond of talk and fame-
His wish a perpetuity of name;
Which to procure, a pewter altar's made,
To bear his name, and signify his trade;
In pomp burlesqued the rising spire to head,
To tell futurity a pewterer's dead.
Incomparable Catcott, still pursue
The seeming happiness thou hast in view :
Unfinish'd chimnies, gaping spires complete,
Eternal fame on oval dishes beat;
Ride four-inch bridges, clouded turrets climb,
And bravely die—to live in after-time.
Horrid idea! if on rolls of fame
The twentieth century only find thy name.
Unnoticed this in prose or tagging flower,
He left his dinner to ascend the tower.
Then, what avails thy anxious spitting pain?
Thy laugh-provoking labours are in vain.
On matrimonial pewter set thy hand;
Hammer with ev'ry power thou canst command;
Stamp thy whole self, original as 'tis,
To propagate thy whimsies, name, and phiz-
Then, when the tottering spires or chimnies fall,
A Catcott shall remain admired by all.
Eudo, who has some trifling couplets writ,
Is only happy when he's thought a wit
Thinks I've more judgment than the whole Reviews, Because I always compliment his muse.
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