Born but to vex, to torture, to destroy,
Too wild for use, too exquisite for joy;
By some mysterious curse ordain'd to know
Each wit a rival, and each fool a foe.
For 'tis a crime too great to be forgiv'n,
A giant sin that bars the gate of Heav'n.
If these meridian suns but dare to shine
In the same orb with Cibber's Muse and mine.
Yet, spite of Envy, Science might be great,
Could Science but allow her sons to eat:
Could he, whose name along the stream of time
Expanded flies, and lives in ev'ry clime,
Exalt his spirits with some nobler fare
Than the thin breezes of St. James's air.

Immortal Halley! thy unwearied soul
On Wisdom's pinion flew from pole to pole,
Th' uncertain compass to its task restor❜d,
Each ocean fathom'd, and each wind explor'd,
Commanded trade with ev'ry breeze to fly,
And gave to Britain half the Zémblian sky.

And see, he comes, distinguish'd, lov'd, carest,
Mark'd by each eye, and hugg'd to ev'ry breast;
His godlike labours wit and science fire,
All factions court him, and all sects admire:
While Britain, with a gratitude unknown
To ev'ry age but Nero's and our own,
A gratitude that will for ever shame
. The Spartan glory, and th' Athenian name—
Tell it, ye winds! that all the world may hear-
Blest his old age with-ninety pounds a year.
Are these our triumphs? these the sums we give
To ripen genius, and to bid it live?
Can Britain in her fits of madness pour
One half her Indies on a Roman whore,
And still permit the weeping Muse to tell
How poor neglected Desaguliers fell?

How he, who taught two gracious kings to view
All Boyle ennobled, and all Bacon knew,
Died in a cell, without a friend to save,
Without a guinea, and without a grave?

Posterity, perhaps, may pay the debt
That senates cancel, and that courts forget:
Yet, ah! what boots it when our bards expire
That Earth's last ages hang upon the lyre?
Can Middleton the dust of Tully raise?
Does Pompey listen in his urn to praise?
Tell me if Philip's son enjoy to day
Th' applauding pean, or the loud huzza,
That shook pale Asia through her ev'ry shore
When Porus fell, and Freedom was no more?
Yet though Content's fantastic image flies
From the bright mirrors of the learn'd and wise,
Perhaps the fair, too partial to the great,
Lives but amidst the luxuries of state:
Fond to instruct Ambition how to please,
She joins the pomps of majesty with ease,
Forsakes the cottage to adorn the court,
Alike at Rome, Vienna, or the Porte.

Tell me, O visier! if th' imperial robe That gives a slave to nod o'er half the globe, Say, if yon crescent, by each Turk ador'd, The plume's proud sables, and the hallow'd sword, Expand the heart, the gleams of bliss refine, And make the virtues of the bosom thine?

Ill-fated wretch! to ev'ry storm a slave That caprice wings, or madness bids to rave; For ever jealous of a woman's pow'r, For ever trembling at the midnight hour, Through life's wild eddies toss'd by hope and fear, Rais'd by a smile, and murder'd by a tear!

At length, each wish destroy'd, each vision fled,
The black seraglio steals upon his bed:
And he, whose glories mingled with the skies,
Adores the bowstring, licks the dust, and dies.
O! could a king in Heav'n's bright pomps ap-
And make an angel as he makes a peer; [pear,
Could he command the heart to beam as far
As the soft radiance of the ducal star;
Forbid one sad anxiety to glow,
One pang to torture, and one tear to flow:
Fly then on all the whirlwind's rapid wing,
To steal a title, or to bribe a string;
In the full blaze of glory be display'd,
And leave Affliction to the vale and shade.
Yet, ere you go, ere proud Ambition call
Each yielding wish to Marli, or Whitehall,
O pause-lest virtue ev'ry guard resign,
And the sad fate of Ripperda be thine.

This glorious wretch, indulg'd at once to move
A nation's wonder, and a monarch's love,
Blest with each charm politer courts admire,
The grace to soften, and the soul to fire,
Forsook his native bogs with proud disdain,
And, though a Dutchman, rose the pride of Spain.
This hour the pageant waves th' imperial rod,
All Philip's empire trembling at his nod;
The next disgrac'd he flies to Britain's isle,
And courts the sunshine of a Walpole's smile:
Unheard, despis'd, to southern climes he steers,
And shines again at Sallé and Algiers,
Bids pale Morocco all his schemes adore,
And pours her thunder on th' Hesperian shore:
All Nature's ties, all Virtue's creeds belied,
Each church abandon'd, and each God denied,
Without a friend, a sepulchre to shield
His carcass from the vultures of the field,
He dies, of all Ambition's sons the worst,
By Afric hated, and by Europe curst.

"He earns his fate who will for phantoms toil," Exclaims the goddess of the mirthful smile.

From wild ambition, with her every care, The scenes of grandeur, and the pomps of war, From all a court's proud pageantry admires, All science wishes, and all glory fires, Fly to my arms, from fame, from anguish free, And taste a luxury of bliss with me. For me the genial spring, the vernal show'r, Wake the bright verdure, and th' unfolding flow'r; Arabia's sweets in all my moments fly, The zephyr's plumage, and the wing of joy, Each richer viand that the air provides, That earth unbosoms, or that ocean hides, All that can Nature's finer organs move, The pow'rs of music, and the folds of love, To my keen senses are indulgent giv'n, In one wild ecstasy of life and Heav'n.

"Yet, yet, dear youth! the fair enchantress shun,

To yield a moment is to be undone :

All Etna's poisons mingle with her breath,
The seeds of sickness, and the gales of death,

She aims to ruin, lives but to beguile,

And all Hell's horrors brood beneath her smile."
'Tis thus, my Lyttelton! that men pursue
Each varied mode of pleasure but the true;
To ev'ry vice, each luxury a prey,
That murders bliss, and hurries life away,
Their headstrong passions after phantoms run,
And still mistake a meteor for a sun.

Yet hear, ye wand'rers! hear, while we impart A light that sheds fair peace on ev'ry heart;

Which, Aristides! beam'd on thy exile,
And made a Regulus mid tortures smile.

Virtue, immortal Virtue! born to please,
The child of Heaven, and the source of ease,
Bids ev'ry bliss on human life attend,
To ev'ry rank a kind, a faithful friend;
Inspirits Nature midst the scenes of toil,
Smoothes Languor's cheek, and bids fell Want re-
coil;

Shines from the mitre with unsullied rays,

Glares on the crest, and gives the star its blaze;
Supports Distinction, spreads Ambition's wings,
Forms saints of queens, and demigods of kings;
O'er grief, oppression, envy, scorn prevails,
And makes a cottage greater than Versailles.

WIT AND LEARNING:

AN ALLEGORY.

SPOKEN AT THE ANNIVERSARY, 1757.

WHOEVER looks on life will see
How strangely mortals disagree:
This reprobates what that approves,
And Tom dislikes what Harry loves;
The soldier's witty on the sailor,
The barber drolls upon the tailor;
And he who makes the nation's wills,
Laughs at the doctor and his pills.

Yet this antipathy we find
Not to the sons of Earth confin'd;
Each schoolboy sees, with half an eye,
The quarrels of the Pagan sky:
For all the poets fairly tell us,

That gods themselves are proud and jealous;
And will, like mortals, swear and hector,
When mellow'd with a cup of nectar.

But waving these, and such like fancies,
We meet with in the Greek roinances,
Sav, shall th' historic Muse retail
A little allegoric tale?

Nor stole from Plato's mystic tome, nor
Translated from the verse of Homer,
But copied, in a modern age,
From Nature, and her fairest page.
Olympian Jove, whose idle trade is
Employ'd too much among the ladies,
Though not of manners mighty chaste,
Was certainly a god of taste;
Would often to his feasts admit
A deity, whose name was Wit;
And, to amuse the more discerning,
Would ask the company of Learning.
Learning was born, as all agree,
Of Truth's half sister, Memory;
A nymph who rounded in her shape was
By that great artist Esculapius.

Euphrosine, the younger grace,
Matchless in feature, mien, and face,
Who, like the beauties of these late days,
Was fond of operas and cantatas,
Would often to a grot retire
To listen to Apollo's lyre;

And thence became, so Ovid writ,

A mother to the god of wit.

Wit was a strange unlucky child,

Exceeding sly, and very wild;

Too volatile for truth or law,
He minded but his top or taw ;
And, ere he reach'd the age of six,
Had play'd a thousand waggish tricks.—
He drill'd a hole in Vulcan's kettles,
He strew'd Minerva's bed with nettles,
Climb'd up the solar car to ride in 't,
Broke off a prong from Neptune's trident,
Stole Amphitrite's fav'rite sea-knot,
And urin'd in Astrea's tea-pot.

Learning, a lad of sober mien,
And half a pedant at fifteen,
Had early thrown away his corals,
To study Nature, and her morals;
Was always, let who would oppose it,
Fast by Minerva in her closet;

And while gay Wit, as black as soot all,
Was kicking up and down a foot-ball,
Learning, with philosophic eye,
Rang'd ev'ry corner of the sky;
Spent many a play-day to unriddle
The music of Apollo's fiddle;
And, if he ever chanc'd to meet
His uncle Merc'ry in the street,
Or on his flight, th' audacious brat
Stopp'd him to ask of this or that:
As how the Moon was evanescent,
Was now an orb, and now a crescent?
Why of the Graces each undrest was?
Why Pallas never wore a cestus?
Why Ceres reign'd o'er corn and sallads?
And why the Muses dealt in ballads?

With these discordant tastes and manners,
And listed under diff'rent banners,
Learning and Wit, as says the fable,
Appear'd at Jove's imperial table,
And threw out all their force and fire,
Obedient to th' ethereal sire.

Wit, with his sly satiric vein,
Was always sure to entertain:
He rallied with a tongue as keen
As Rab'lais, or the Irish dean;
And told his tale with such a grace,
With such an eye, and such a face,
As made the nectar flow each cup o'er,
And set the synod in an uproar.

Learning had not the skill to hit
The comic cast, and life of Wit:
With look morose, and awkward air,
He sat ungraceful in his chair;
With diffidence and blushes spoke,
And had no relish for a joke;
So that the little urchin Cupid
Thought him insensible and stupid;
And Hebe, though a well-bred lass,
Would scarcely offer him his glass.

However, when the sprightly bowl
Had thaw'd the ice about his soul,
He then, with majesty, began
To talk of letters, and of man ;
Correct, sententious, cool, severe,
He gain'd upon the attentive ear,
Charm'd all the gods, but Wit and Comus,
And that abusive cynic, Momus.

In length of time, as oft the case is
In many sublunary places,
These demigods with jealous eye
Began to look a little shy;

And oft, to wound each other's breast,

Let off a keen sarcastic jest.

Learning, with many a stroke, would hit
The pert vivacity of Wit;

And Wit threw all his keenest satire
On Learning's slow, pedantic nature.

It happen'd once when Jove had made
A feast in Ida's holy shade,

And all the gods, whose heads could bear it,
Had emptied each a flask of claret;
Wit, who from his celestial liquor
Wagg'd his free tongue a little quicker,
Began, with many a bitter scoff,

To play his brother Learning off;
Ask'd him if yet his pains and care
Had learnt to make the circle square?

If all his visionary ravings

Cou'd weave brocade from walnut shavings?
If his mechanic skill cou'd catch
Perpetual motion in a watch?
Or forge a pendulum endued
With power to tell the longitude?
Learning had much ado to sit,
And hear the petulance of Wit:
A ghastly paleness spread his look,

His nerves with quick convulsions shook :
At length, in accents loud and high,
Vesuvius flaming in his eye,

He burst" And dar'st thou, wayward chit!
Thon ideot god of ideot Wit!

Untaught as yet to know thy letters,
Affront, thou insolent! thy betters?
Here, puppy! with this penny get
A horn-book, or an alphabet;
And see if that licentious eye
Can tell a great A from an I?
Throw but another jest on me,
I'll lay thee, miscreant! on my knee,
And print such welks thy naked seat on,
As never truant felt at Eton."

Wit, with resentment raving wild,
Thus call'd an ideot and a child,
Without preambles or excuses,
Seiz'd upon Mercury's caduceus,
And with such force the weapon throws,
It flatted half his rival's nose:
While he, Minerva's boast and care,
Pluck'd a large bodkin from her hair,
And aim'd the steely pointed dart
With such dexterity of art,
That, had not beauty's lovely queen,
Fair Venus, spread her fan between,
And taught the flying death to fix
Guiltless among the iv'ry sticks,
Wit's future triumphs had been o'er,
And Europe heard his name no more.

Jove, who had no supreme delight in
Domestic brawis, or civil fighting,
Since first he heard the nuptial tune flow
So sweetly from the tongue of Juno,
Vex'd that these two illiberal guests
Should dare to violate his feasts,
In a tremendous fit of choler,
Seiz'd both their worships by the collar,
And, minding not their meek submitting,
Kick'd them from Ida down to Britain.
Poor Learning had the luck to fall
Plump in the area of Clare-hall,
Just as old Wilcox, from a slope,
Was gazing through his telescope,
To find a comet whose bright tail is
Eccentric from the time of Thales.
VOL XIV.

Pleas'd with his scientific look,
He sent him first to Sam the cook;
And having fill'd his empty belly
With mutton broth and meagre jelly,
Gave him a robe of sleek prunella,
And very wisely made him fellow.

Wit, as his destiny decrees,
Dropp'd in the court of Common-Pleas,
Upon a truss of briefs and bills,
And took the shape of justice Willes:
But soon observing round the columns
Reports in half a thousand volumes;
And, finding all those earth-worm souls
Who hold th' Exchequer, or the Rolls,
He left the law, and all its drudges,
With curses, to my lords the judges,
Call'd for a coach, and went to dwell
At Robin Dodsley's in Pall-Mall.

'Twas right for now where'er he came
He busied all the tongues of Fame;
Was welcome to the festal board,
And had his footman, and his lord;
Would often visit in a chair
The noble Stanhope in May-fair;
Or dine, when business would permit,
With that great statesman William Pitt,
'Tis said too he was sometimes seen
On Garrick's visionary scene;
But Garrick, who prefers a guinea
To all the eloquence of Pliny,
Observing this unlucky railer
Was neither mechanist nor tailor;
That half the audience of the day
Came not to hear, but see, a play;
That many a 'squire, and many a cit,
Were pleas'd with any thing but Wit;
Shut out, with much indecent rage,
The genius of the comic stage,
And open'd his theatric inn
To Scaramouch and Harlequin.

Learning would sometimes drop his gown,
And take a winter-jaunt to town;
Often call'd in at Hitch's shop,
And din'd at Dolly's on a chop;
On Thursday met the grave resort
Of spider merchants in Crane-court,
To rack a cockle, or to see
The nice dissection of a flea:
But having never chanc'd to wear

A bag-wig or a solitaire,

And dressing in a kersey, thicker
Than that which clothes a Cornish vicar,
He seldom had the luck to eat

In Berkeley Square, or Grosvenor Street.
'Twas written in the book of Fate,
These rivals should each other hate;
No wonder then that each proud imp was
As wayward here as on Olympus.
Wit look'd on Learning, as he grew great,
Just as a felon looks on Newgate:
While Learning, who could never hide
His haughty academic pride,
Had such a keen contempt for Wit,
He call'd him nothing but the chit;
And, if he met him at noon-day,
Would turn his face another way.

However, on some festal nights

By chance they both dropp'd in at White's
With learned lords, and noble bards,
Who had no appetite for cards,

Ꮪ

And could decide whene'er they met
Momentous truths without a bet.
Wit with vivacity of tongue
First led th' admiring ear along;
His fancy active, wild, and free as
Conception when she breeds ideas,
Flew o'er each undiscover'd part
Of Nature, and the worlds of art,

And brought with such a nice decorum
A group of images before him,
So genuine, yet so uncommon,
With such a glow of tints upon 'em,
That all was spirit, force, and sense,
Loose as the zone of negligence,
Simple as Truth's fair handmaid, Nature,
And deadly as the sting of satire.
Dejected Learning sat oppress'd;
Around him flew the taunt and jest:
Whatever just remarks he made,
Or to demonstrate, or persuade,
Wit, by some sly malicious comment,
Took off, or routed in a moment.
However, when a pause appear'd,
And sober reason could be heard,
He then in all his thunder rises,
Strips off his rival's thin disguises;
Shows where his misconceiving sense
Led to a groundless consequence,
Mistook an errour for a wonder,
A demonstration for a blunder,
Or, having a delusive scent got,
Affirm'd the very thing he meant not.

Yet, after all, since mirth and drinking
Are priz'd above sedater thinking,
Though Learning got a world of praise,
And added splendour to his bays,
Their lordships, frighten'd at th' expense
Of list'ning to exalted sense,

And deeming that the taint of knowledge
Would make the coffee-house a college,
Determin'd, in a full committee,

That man's great end was to be witty:
And therefore order'd, every soul,
Wit should be enter'd on the roll,
And be allow'd, to raise his vein,
A weekly present of champaigue;
That if proud Learning should presume
To set his foot within the room,
Arthur should show him to the door,
And bid the pedant come-no more.
Learning, thus kick'd from ev'ry palace,
And left a victim to the gallows,
Began to see that skill in letters

Would ne'er advance him with his betters;
That though he led them through the dark
With all the lights of Locke and Clarke,
And made his heart, and head, and eyes ach
With reading Nature, and sir Isaac,

Yet all that wisdom could not be

Priz'd like a lively repartee;

He therefore, in a gloomy fit,

Resolv'd to set up for a wit;

But found, alas! howe'er he drest her,

That Science was a wretched jester;

That though he jok'd from moon to moon,
He made a very dull buffoon;

For all his jocular narrations
Smelt of his algebra equations,
And came upon the tortur'd ear
Stiff as the periods of Dacier.

Wit, too, whose excellence and merit

Was mere vivacity of spirit,
Observing that your graver folk
Had little value for a joke,

Would needs, in Nature's bold defiance,
Mount the tremendous chair of Science;
And dar'd to argue pro and con

As gravely as the grave Sorbonne :
But wanting all that fine discerning
Which marks the character of Learning,
And all the elemental rules

Of erudition, and the schools,
The gay professor oft mistook
Alike his question and his book;
Dropp'd a conundrum out of season,
And jested when he ought to reason.

Thus on the world's wild billows tost,
And half their moments idly lost,
Tir'd of applause, and sick of strife,
They each resolv'd to take a wife.
Learning, who often went to see
Lady Anne Bentinck at her tea,
Met there a maid as fair as chaste,
In life's full bloom, whose name was Taste.
'Twas then his heart began to move
With the first tender throb of love,
And often heav'd, he knew not why,
With something softer than a sigh.
He gaz'd, he blush'd, he courted, prest,
And was at length completely blest:
For she, who had not learnt to doat
On Folly in a scarlet coat,
To Learning's blissful arms resign'd
Her graceful form and lovely mind.
Wit too, when past the fire of youth,
Was married to the vestal, Truth:
A nymph whose awful air and mien
Display'd the beauty, and the queen.

Tradition tells us, Hymen swore
That, till this bright auspicious hour,
There never in his holy house was
So fine a group of noble spouses;

For both the bridegrooms, ou their marriage,
Improv'd in temper, sense, and carriage.
Learning, his charming wife to please,
Assum'd her elegance and ease;
Aud Wit, to humour Truth, agreed
To pause, to doubt, reflect, and read.
In short, they led delicious lives,
Belov'd, and honour'd by their wives;
And, happy in their nuptial duties,
Each had a progeny of beauties,
Matchless in feature, form, and parts,
Distinguish'd by the name of Arts.

FATHER'S EXTEMPORE CONSOLATION
ON THE DEATH OF TWO DAUGHTERS',
WHO LIVED ONLY TWO DAYS.

LET vulgar souls endure the body's chain,
Till life's dull current ebbs in every vein,
Dream out a tedious age, ere, wide display'd,
Death's blackest pinion wraps them in the shade.

1 The author's twin-daughters, Anne and Mary. C.