MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

AN EPISTLE,

ADDRESSED TO SIR THOMAS HANMER, ON HIS EDITION OF
SHAKSPEARE'S WORKS.

SIR,

WHILE, born to bring the Muse's happier days,
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays,

While nursed by you she sees her myrtles bloom,
Green and unwithered o'er his honored tomb;
Excuse her doubts, if yet she fears to tell
What secret transports in her bosom swell:
With conscious awe she hears the critic's fame,
And blushing hides her wreath at Shakspeare's name.
Hard was the lot those injured strains endured,
Unowned by Science, and by years obscured:
Fair Fancy wept; and echoing sighs confessed
A fixed despair in every tuneful breast.

Not with more grief the afflicted swains appear,
When wintry winds deform the plenteous year;
When lingering frosts the ruined seats invade
Where Peace resorted, and the Graces played.

Each rising art by just gradation moves,
Toil builds on toil, and age on age improves :

The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage,
And graced with noblest pomp her earliest stage.
Preserved through time, the speaking scenes impart
Each changeful wish of Phædra's tortured heart;
Or paint the curse that marked the Theban's reign,
A bed incestuous, and a father slain.

With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow,
Trace the sad tale, and own another's woe.

To Rome removed, with wit secure to please,
The comic Sisters kept their native ease:
With jealous fear, declining Greece beheld
Her own Menander's art almost excelled;
But every Muse essayed to raise in vain.
Some labored rival of her tragic strain:
Ilissus' laurels, though transferred with toil,
Drooped their fair leaves, nor knew the unfriendly soil.

As Arts expired, resistless Dulness rose;

Goths, Priests, or Vandals, — all were Learning's foes.
Till Julius first recalled each exiled maid,
And Cosmo owned them in the Etrurian shade:
Then, deeply skilled in Love's engaging theme,
The soft Provençal passed to Arno's stream:
With graceful ease the wanton lyre he strung;
Sweet flowed the lays — but Love was all he sung.
The gay description could not fail to move,
For, led by Nature, all are friends to Love.

But Heaven, still various in its works, decreed
The perfect boast of time should last succeed.
The beauteous union must appear at length,
Of Tuscan fancy, and Athenian strength :
One greater Muse Eliza's reign adorn,
And even a Shakspeare to her fame be born!

Yet, ah! so bright her morning's opening ray,
In vain our Britain hoped an equal day!
No second growth the western isle could bear,
At once exhausted with too rich a year.
Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part ;
Nature in him was almost lost in art.
Of softer mould the gentle Fletcher came,
The next in order, as the next in name;

With pleased attention, 'midst his scenes we find
Each glowing thought that warms the female mind;
Each melting sigh, and every tender tear;

The lover's wishes, and the virgin's fear.
His
every
strain the Smiles and Graces own;
But stronger Shakspeare felt for man alone :
Drawn by his pen, our ruder passions stand
The unrivalled picture of his early hand.

With gradual steps and slow, exacter France
Saw Art's fair empire o'er her shores advance :
By length of toil a bright perfection knew,
Correctly bold, and just in all she drew:

Till late Corneille, with Lucan's spirit fired,
Breathed the free strain, as Rome and he inspired:
And classic judgment gained to sweet Racine
The temperate strength of Maro's chaster line.

But wilder far the British laurel spread,
And wreaths less artful crown our poet's head.
Yet he alone to every scene could give
The historian's truth, and bid the manners live.
Waked at his call I view, with glad surprise, .
Majestic forms of mighty monarchs rise.