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While yet a friend to Freedom heárty,
An honest, but a starving party.
He pass'd for but a simple wretch,
And lov'd his bottle and a catch:
He deem'd himself no very wise-man,
Nor aim'd at better than Excise-man;
To breeding had such poor pretence,
Most thought he wanted common sense.
Not courtly Athens, though polite
As Paris, could improve the wight.
Where'er he pass'd, the mob was eager
To laugh at so grotesque a figure.
Yet Horace o'er the sparkling bowl,

I grant, had talents for a droll;

And hence, though sprung from dunghill earth, He pleas'd the courtiers with his mirth;

Next wisely ventur'd to renounce

His principles, and rose at once,

Rose from a bankrupt to the sum

Of human happiness—a plum!

Then drank, and revel'd, and grew big,
Yet still an awkward dirty pig.

Lo! then the people felt his gall,

"Twas "Sturdy beggars, damn ye all !"
Mindless of others love or spite,

He car'd not, so he pleas'd the knight;
And wrote, and wrote, as was the fashion,
To praise the knight's administration.
Nay once, all worldly zeal so warm is,
He wrote in praise of standing armies:
Such arts your darling Horace grew by;
Such might have rais'd an arrant booby.

OLD

OLD OLIVER;

OR,

THE DYING SHEPHERD.

A CANTATA.

BY PETER PINDAR.

RECITATIVE.

THE Shepherd OLIVER, grown white with

years,

Like some old oak weigh'd down bywinter snows, Now drew the village sighs, and village tears, His eye-lids sinking to their last repose.

Yet ere expir'd LIFE's trembling flame, and pale, Thus to the bleating bands around his door,

That seem'd to mourn his absence from their vale,

The feeble Shepherd spoke, and spoke no more!

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No more on your hills I

appear,

And together our pleasure pursue:'

No more, at the

peep of the day,

From valley to valley we rove,

'Mid the streamlets, and verdure of May,

'Mid the zephyrs, and shade of the grove.

No more to my voice shall ye run,

And, bleating, your Shepherd surround; And, while I repose in the sun,

Like a guard, watch my sleep on the ground.

When WINTER, with tempest and cold, Dims the eye of pale NATURE with woe,

I lead you no more to the fold,

With your fleeces all cover'd with snow.

Oh, mourn not at OLIVER's death!
Unwept my last sand let it fall:

Ye too must resign your sweet breath,
For who his past years can recall?

Oh, take all your Shepherd can give Receive my last thanks, and last sigh; Whose simplicity taught me to live,

And whose innocence teaches to die!

END OF VOL. II.

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