These happy infants, early taught to shun All that the world admires beneath the Sun, Scorn'd the weak bands mortality could tie, And fled impatient to their native sky.
Dear precious babes!-Alas! when, fondly wild, A mother's heart hung melting o'er her child, When my charm'd eye a flood of joy express'd, And all the father kindled in my breast, A sudden paleness seiz'd each guiltless face, And Death, though smiling, crept o'er ev'ry grace. Nature! be calm-heave not th' impassion'd sigh, Nor teach one tear to tremble in my eye. A few unspotted moments pass'd between Their dawn of being, and their closing scene: And sure no nobler blessing can be giv'n, When one short anguish is the price of Heav'n.
SOME antiquarians, grave, and loyal, Incorporate by charter royal, Last winter, on a Thursday night, were Met in full senate at the Mitre. The president, like Mr. Mayor, Majestic took the elbow chair, And gravely sat in due decorum With a fine gilded mace before him. Upon the table were display'd A British knife without a blade, A comb of Anglo-Saxon seal, A patent with king Alfred's seal, Two rusted mutilated prongs, Suppos'd to be St. Dunstan's tongs, With which he, as the story goes, Once took the Devil by the nose. Awhile they talk'd of ancient modes, Of manuscripts, and Gothic codes, Of Roman altars, camps, and urns, Of Caledonian shields and churns: Whether the Druid slipt or broke The mistletoe upon the oak? If Hector's spear was made of ash? Or Agamemnon wore a sash? If Cleopatra dress'd in blue, And wore her tresses in a queue?
At length a dean, who understood All that had pass'd before the flood, And could in half a minute show ye A pedigree as high as Noah, Got up, and with a solemn air, (First humbly bowing to the chair)
"If aught," says he, "deserves a name Immortal as the roll of Fame, This venerable group of sages Shall flourish in the latest ages, And wear an amaranthine crown When kings and empires are unknown. Perhaps c'en I, whose humbler knowledge Ranks me the lowest of your college, May catch from your meridian day At least a transitory ray:
For I, like you, through ev'ry clime, Have trac'd the step of hoary Time, And gather'd up his sacred spoils With more than half a cent'ry's toils, Whatever virtue, deed, or name, Antiquity has left to fame,
In every age, and every zone, In copper, marble, wood, or stone, In vases, flow'r-pots, lamps, and sconces, Intaglios, cameos, gems, and bronzes, These eyes have read through many a crust Of lacker, varnish, grease, and dust; And now, as glory fondly draws My soul to win your just applause, I here exhibit to your view A medal fairly worth Peru, Found, as tradition says, at Rome, Near the Quirinal Catacomb."
He said, and from a purse of sattin, Wrapp'd in a leaf of monkish Latin, And taught by many a clasp to join, Drew out a dirty copper coin.
Still as pale Midnight when she throws On Heav'n and Earth a deep repose, Lost in a trance too big to speak, The synod ey'd the fine antique; Examin'd ev'ry point and part, With all the critic skill of art; Rung it alternate on the ground In hopes to know it by the sound; Applied the tongue's acuter sense To taste its genuine excellence, And with an animated gust Lick'd up the consecrated rust: Nor yet content with what the eye By its own sun-beams could descry, To ev'ry corner of the brass They clapp'd a microscopic glass; And view'd in raptures o'er and o'er The ruins of the learned ore.
Pythagoras, the learned sage,
As you may read in Pliny's page, With much of thought, and pains, and care, Found the proportions of a square, Which threw him in such frantic fits As almost robb'd him of his wits, And made him, awful as his name was, Run naked through the streets of Samos. With the same spirits doctor Romans, A keen civilian of the Commons, Fond as Pythagoras to claim The wreath of literary fame, Sprung in a frenzy from his place Across the table and the mace,
And swore by Varro's shade that he Conceiv'd the medal to a T.
"It rings," says he, "so pure and chaste, And has so classical a taste,
That we may fix its native home Securely in imperial Rome.
That rascal, Time, whose hand purloins From Science half her kings and coins, Has eat, you see, one half the tail, And hid the other in a veil:
But if, through cankers, rust, and fetters, Misshapen forms, and broken letters, The critic's eye may dare to trace An evanescent name and face, This injur'd medal will appear, As mid-day sunshine, bright and clear. The female figure on a throne Of rustic work in Tibur' stone, Without a sandal, zone, or boddice, Is Liberty's immortal goddess; Whose sacred fingers seem to hold A taper wand, perhaps of gold:
Which has, if I mistake not, on it The Pileus, or Roman bonnet: By this the medallist would mean To paint that fine domestic scene, When the first Brutus nobly gave His freedom to the worthy slave."
When a spectator 'as got the jaundice, Each object, or by sea or land, is Discolour'd by a yellow hue, Though naturally red or blue.
This was the case with 'squire Thynne, A barrister of Lincoln's Inn, Who never lov'd to think or speak Of any thing but ancient Greek. In all disputes his sacred guide was The very venerable Suidas;
And though he never deign'd to look In Salkeld, Littelton, or Coke, And liv'd a stranger to the fees And practice of the Common-Pleas; He studied with such warmth and awe, The volumes of Athenian law, That Solon's self not better knew The legislative plan he drew; Nor cou'd Demosthenes withstand The rhet'ric of his wig and band: When, full of zeal and Aristotle, And fluster'd by a second bottle, He taught the orator to speak His periods in correcter Greek.
"Methinks," quoth he, "this little piece Is certainly a child of Greece: Th' ærugo has a tinge of blue Exactly of the Attic hue; And, if the taste's acuter feel May judge of medals as of veal, I'll take my oath the mould and rust Are made of Attic dew and dust. Crities may talk, and rave, and foam, Of Brutus and imperial Rome; But Rome, in all her pomp and bliss, Ne'er struck so fine a coin as this. Besides, thongh Time, as is his way, Has eat th' inscription quite away, My eye can trace, divinely true, In this dark curve a little Mu: And here, you see, there seems to lie The ruins of a Doric Xi.
Perhaps, as Athens thought, and writ With all the pow'rs of style and wit, The nymph upon a couch of mallows Was meant to represent a Pallas; And the baton upon the ore Is but the olive-branch she bore."
He said-but Swinton, full of fire, Asserted that it came from Tyre: A most divine antique he thought it, And with an empire would have bought it. He swore the head in full profile was Undoubtedly the head of Belus; And the reverse, though hid in shade, Appear'd a young Sidonian maid, Whose tresses, buskins, shape, and mieų, Mark'd her for Dido at sixteen; Perhaps the very year when she was First married to the rich Sichæus. The rod, as he could make it clear, Was nothing but a hunting-spear, Which all the Tyrian ladies bore,
To guard them when they chas'd the boar.
A learned friend, he could confide on, Who liv'd full thirty years at Sidon, Once show'd him, midst the seals and rings Of more than thirty Syrian kings, A copper piece, in shape and size Exactly that before their eyes, On which, in high relief, was seen The image of a Tyrian queen;
Which made him think this other dame A true Phoenician, and the same. The next, a critic, grave and big, Hid in a most enormous wig,
Who in his manner, mien, and shape was A genuine son of Esculapius,
Wonder'd that men of such discerning In all th' abstruser parts of learning, Cou'd err, through want of wit or grace, So strangely in so plain a case.
"It came," says he, "or I will be whipt, From Memphis in the Lower Egypt. Soon as the Nile's prolific flood Has fill'd the plains with slime and mud, All Egypt in a moment swarms With myriads of abortive worms, Whose appetites would soon devour Each cabbage, artichoke, and flow'r, Did not some birds, with active zeal, Eat up whole millions at a meal, And check the pest while yet the year Is ripening into stalk and ear. This blessing, visibly divine, Is finely portray'd on the coin; For here this line, so faint and weak, Is certainly a bill or beak; Which bill, or beak, upon my word, In hieroglyphics means a bird, The very bird whose num'rons tribe is Distinguish'd by the name of ibis. Besides the figure with the wand, Mark'd by a sistrum in her hand, Appears, the moment she is seen, An Isis, Egypt's boasted queen. Sir, I'm as sure, as if my eye Had seen the artist cut the die,
That these two curves, which wave and float thus, Are but the tendrils of the lotus, Which, as Herodotus has said, Th' Egyptians always eat for bread." He spoke, and heard, without a pause, The rising murmur of applause; The voice of admiration rang On ev'ry ear from ev'ry tongue: Astonish'd at the lucky hit, They star'd, they deify'd his wit.
But ah! what arts by Fate are tried To vex and humble human pride! To pull down poets from Parnassus, And turn grave doctors into asses! For whilst the band their voices raise To celebrate the sage's praise, And Echo through the house convey'd Their peans loud to man and maid; Tom, a pert waiter, smart and clever, A droit pretence who wanted never, Curious to see what caus'd this rout, And what the doctors were about, Slyly stepp'd in to snuff the candles, And ask whate'er they pleas'd to want else. Soon as the synod he came near,
Loud dissonance assail'd his ear;
Strange mingled sounds, in pompous style, Of Isis, Ibis, Lotus, Nile;
And soon in Romans' hand he spies The coin, the cause of all their noise. Quick to his side he flies amain, And peeps, and snuffs, and peeps again. And though antiques he had no skill in, He knew a sixpence from a shilling; And, spite of rust or rub, cou'd trace On humble brass Britannia's face. Soon her fair image he descries, And, big with laughter and surprise,
He burst-"And is this group of learning So short of sense and plain discerning, That a mere halfpenny can be To them a curiosity?
If this is your best proof of science, With wisdom Tom claims no alliance; Content with Nature's artless knowledge, He scorns alike both school and college." More had he said-but, lo! around
A storm in ev'ry face he found: On Romans' brow black thunders hung, And whirlwinds rush'd from Swinton's tongue; Thynne lightning flash'd from ev'ry pore, And Reason's voice was heard no more.
The tempest ey'd, Tom speeds his flight, And, sneering, bids 'em all good night; Convine'd that Pedantry's allies
May be too learned to be wise.
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