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Yet, why impair thy bright perfection?
Or dim thy beauty with a tear?
Had MYRA follow'd my direction,

She long had wanted cause of fear.

STANZAS

ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC, AND DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE 1

AMIDST the clamour of exulting joys,

Which triumph forces from the patriot heart,
Grief dares to mingle her soul-piercing voice,
And quells the raptures which from pleasures start.

O Wolfe! to thee a streaming flood of woe,
Sighing we pay, and think e'en conquest dear ;
Quebec in vain shall teach our breast to glow,
Whilst thy sad fate exhorts the heart-wrung tear.
Alive, the foe thy dreadful vigour fled,

And saw thee fall with joy-pronouncing eyes:
Yet they shall know thou conquerest, though dead-
Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise!

AN ELEGY ON THAT GLORY OF HER SEX,
PUMRS. MARY BLAIZE 2 if

GOOD people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam BLAIZE,
Who never wanted a good word-
From those who spoke her praise.

[1 First printed in The Busy Body, 20th October, 1759, a week after the news of Wolfe's death (on 13th September previous) had reached England.]

[First printed in The Bee, 27th October, 1759. It is modelled on the old song of M. de la Palice, a version of which is to be found in Part iii. of the Ménagiana.]]

1

The needy seldom pass'd her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor, -
Who left a pledge behind.

She strove the neighbourhood to please,
With manners wond'rous winning,
And never followed wicked ways, -
Unless when she was sinning.
At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumber'd in her pew, -
But when she shut her eyes.
Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The king himself has follow'd her,-
When she has walk'd before.

But now her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;

The doctors found, when she was dead,

Her last disorder mortal.

Let us lament, in sorrow sore,

dtect

For Kent-street well may say,

That had she lived a twelve-month more, -
She had not died to-day.

мне дин TO YEOJO TAHT Zо клали Ис DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR'S

BEDCHAMBER1

WHERE the Red Lion flaring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne,
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane;

[1 First printed in a Chinese Letter in The Public Ledger, 2nd May, 1760, afterwards Letter xxix. of The Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 121.]

[i. e. "entire butt beer" or porter.]

There in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug;
A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That dimly show'd the state in which he lay;
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread;
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread :
The royal game of goose was there in view,
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew; 1
The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,
And brave prince William show'd his lamp-black face;?
The morn was cold, he views with keen desire
The rusty grate unconscious of a fire;

With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd,
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board;
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay,
A cap by night-a stocking all the day! 8

nd

d

ON SEEING MRS. * *

PERFORM IN THE

CHARACTER OF *

For you, bright fair, the Nine address their lays,
And tune my feeble voice to sing thy praise.
The heartfelt power of every charm divine,
Who can withstand their all commanding shine?
She how she moves along with every grace,
While soul-brought tears steal down each shining face.
She speaks! 'tis rapture all, and nameless bliss,
Ye gods! what transport e'er compared to this?
As when in Paphian groves the Queen of Love
With fond complaint address'd the listening Jove;

Vide note 1, p. 29.]

William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, 1721-65, -probably silhouette.]

Cf. The Deserted Village, p. 29:

"A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day."]

From Letter lxxxii. of The Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 87, st printed in The Public Ledger, 21st October, 1760. The verses intended as a specimen of the newspaper muse.]

'Twas joy and endless blisses all around,
And rocks forgot their hardness at the sound.
Then first, at last even Jove was taken in,
And felt her charms, without disguise, within.

OF THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT
HON. * * *1

YE muses, pour the pitying tear
For Pollio snatch'd away;
O! had he liv'd another year!
He had not died to-day.

O! were he born to bless mankind
In virtuous times of yore,
Heroes themselves had fallen behind
Whene'er he went before.

How sad the groves and plains appear,
And sympathetic sheep;
Even pitying hills would drop a tear
If hills could learn to weep.

His bounty in exalted strain
Each bard might well display:
Since none implor'd relief in vain
That went reliev'd away.

And hark! I hear the tuneful throng
His obsequies forbid,

He still shall live, shall live as long
As ever dead man did.

[From Letter cii. of The Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. I first printed in The Public Ledger, 4th March, 1761. The verses given as "a specimen of a poem on the decease of a great ma Cf. the Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize, p. 57.]

AN EPIGRAM

ADDRESSED TO THE GENTLEMEN REFLECTED ON IN THE

ROSCIAD, A POEM, BY THE AUTHOR 1

LET not the hungry Bavius' angry stroke
Awake resentment, or your rage provoke-
But pitying his distress, let virtue 2 shine,
And giving each your bounty, let him dine.
For thus retain'd, as learned counsel can,
Each case, however bad, he'll new japan;
And by a quick transition, plainly show
'Twas no defect of yours, but pocket low,
That caus'd his putrid kennel to o'erflow.

TO G. C. AND R. L.

'Twas you, or I, or he, or all together,

'Twas one, both, three of them, they know not whether; This, I believe, between us great or small, You, I, he, wrote it not-'twas Churchill's all.

[From Letter cx. of The Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 193, first printed in The Public Ledger, 14th April, 1761. The epigram, however, had been printed in the Ledger for 4th April, and so was only revived in the letter of ten days later. It is one of Goldsmith's doubtful pieces, but his animosity to Churchill is notorious.]

[Charity (Author's note).]

[Settled at one shilling, the price of the poem (Author's note).] [From the same letter as the preceding epigram. George Colman (G. C.) and Robert Lloyd (R. L.) were supposed to have assisted Churchill in the Rosciad, the "it" of the epigram.]

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