She stretches, gapes, unglues her eyes,
And asks if it be time to rise:
Of headache and the spleen complains;
And then, to cool her heated brains,
Her night-gown and her slippers brought her,
Takes a large dram of citron-water.
Then to her glass; and, "Betty, pray
Don't I look frightfully to-day?
But was it not confounded hard?
Well, if I ever touch a card!
Four mattadores, and lose codille!
Depend upon't, I never will.
But run to Tom, and bid him fix
The ladies here to-night by six."
Madam, the goldsmith waits below; He says, 'His business is to know
If you'll redeem the silver cup
He keeps in pawn?"""First, show him up."
"Your dressing-plate he'll be content
To take, for interest cent. per cent.
And, madam, there's my Lady Spade,
Hath sent this letter by her maid."
"Well, I remember what she won;
And hath she sent so soon to dun?
Here, carry down those ten pistoles
My husband left to pay for coals:
I thank my stars, they all are light;
And I may have revenge to-night."
Now, loitering o'er her tea and cream,
She enters on her usual theme;
Her last night's ill success repeats,
Calls Lady Spade a hundred cheats:
"She slipped spadillo in her breast,
Then thought to turn it to a jest:
There's Mrs Cut and she combine,
And to each other give the sign."
Through every game pursues her tale,
Like hunters o'er their evening ale.
LINES ON HIS OWN DEATH.
The time is not remote, when I
Must by the course of nature die;
When, I foresee, my special friends
Will try to find their private ends:
And, though 'tis hardly understood,
Which way my death can do them good,
Yet thus, methinks, I hear them speak:
66 See, how the dean begins to break!
Poor gentleman! he droops apace!
You plainly find it in his face.
That old vertigo in his head
Will never leave him, till he's dead.
Besides, his memory decays:
He recollects not what he says;
He cannot call his friends to mind;
Forgets the place where last he dined;
Plies you with stories o'er and o'er;
He told them fifty times before.
How does he fancy we can sit
To hear his out-of-fashion wit?
But he takes up with younger folks,
Who for his wine will bear his jokes.
Faith, he must make his stories shorter,
Or change his comrades once a quarter:
In half the time he talks them round,
There must another set be found.
"For poetry, he's past his prime;
He takes an hour to find a rhyme:
His fire is out, his wit decayed,
His fancy sunk, his muse a jade.
I'd have him throw away his pen-
But there's no talking to some men."
And then their tenderness appears
By adding largely to my years:
"He's older than he would be reckoned,
And well remembers Charles the Second.
He hardly drinks a pint of wine;
And that, I doubt, is no good sign.
His stomach, too, begins to fail;
Last year we thought him strong and hale;
But now he's quite another thing;
I wish he may hold out till spring."
They hug themselves and reason thus:
It is not yet so bad with us.
In such a case they talk in tropes,
And by their fears express their hopes.
Some great misfortune to portend,
No enemy can match a friend.
With all the kindness they profess,
The merit of a lucky guess—
When daily how-d'ye's come of course,
And servants answer: "Worse and worse!".
Would please them better than to tell,
That, God be praised! the dean is well.
Then he, who prophesied the best,
Approves his foresight to the rest:
"You know I always feared the worst,
And often told you so at first."
He'd rather choose that I should die,
Than his prediction prove a lie.
Not one foretells I shall recover,
But all agree to give me over.
Behold the fatal day arrive!
How is the dean? he's just alive.
Now the departing prayer is read;
He hardly breathes. The dean is dead.
Before the passing-bell begun,
The news through half the town has run;
"Oh! may we all for death prepare!
What has he left? and who's his heir?"
I know no more than what the news is;
'Tis all bequeathed to public uses.
"To public uses! there's a whim!
What had the public done for him?
Mere envy, avarice, and pride:
He gave it all-but first he died.
And had the dean in all the nation
No worthy friend, no poor relation?
So ready to do strangers good,
Forgetting his own flesh and blood!"
Now Grub Street wits are all employed;
With elegies the town is cloyed:
Some paragraph in every paper
To curse the dean or bless the Drapier.
The doctors, tender of their fame,
Wisely on me lay all the blame:
"We must confess his case was nice;
But he would never take advice.
Had he been ruled, for aught appears,
He might have lived these twenty years;
From Dublin soon to London spread,
'Tis told at court the dean is dead.
And Lady Suffolk in the spleen
Runs laughing up to tell the queen;
The queen so gracious, mild, and good,
Cries: "Is he gone! 'tis time he should.
He's dead, you say; then let him rot!
I'm glad the medals were forgot.
I promised him, I own; but when?
I only was the princess then;
But now as consort of the king,
You know 'tis quite another thing."
Now Charteris, at Sir Robert's levee,
Tells with a sneer the tidings heavy;
Why, if he died without his shoes
(Cries Bob), I'm sorry for the news:
Oh, were the wretch but living still,
And in his place my good friend Will!
Or had a mitre on his head,
Provided Bolingbroke was dead!"
Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains: Three genuine tomes of Swift's Remains! And then to make them pass the glibber, Revised by Tibbalds, Moore, and Cibber. He'll treat me as he does my betters, Publish my will, my life, my letters; Revive the libels born to die, Which Pope must bear, as well as I. Here shift the scene, to represent
How those I love, my death lament.
Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day.
St John himself will scarce forbear
To bite his pen, and drop a tear.
The rest will give a shrug, and cry:
"I'm sorry-but we all must die!"
Why do we grieve that friends should die? No loss more easy to supply.
One year is past; a different scene!
No further mention of the dean,
Who now, alas! no more is missed,
Than if he never did exist.
Where's now the favourite of Apollo?
Departed: and his works must follow;
Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date.
Some country squire to Lintot goes,
Inquires for Swift in verse and prose.
Says Lintot: "I have heard the name;
He died a year ago." "The same."
He searches all the shop in vain.
"Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane.
I sent them, with a load of books,
Last Monday to the pastry-cook's.
To fancy they could live a year!
I find you're but a stranger here.
The dean was famous in his time,
And had a kind of knack at rhyme.
His way of writing now is past;
The town has got a better taste.
I keep no antiquated stuff."
ADDISON, famous both as a prose and poetical writer, was the son of the Dean of Litchfield, and born at Milston, Wiltshire, on the 1st May 1672. He was entered at Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of fifteen, and soon distinguished himself by his classical knowledge. In 1695 a complimentary poem, written by him on one of King William's campaigns, obtained for him a pension of L.300 a-year to enable him to travel. resided abroad for two years, where he wrote his "Poetical Letter from Italy" to Lord Halifax. In 1704 he was appointed under secretary of state, and accompanied the Marquis of Wharton, the lord lieutenant, to Ireland. While there he contributed largely to the "Tatler," which had just been started by Steele. His career as an essayist threw all his contemporaries into the shade, and his papers in the "Spectator" were read wherever English literature existed. In 1713 appeared his "Tragedy of Cato." On this his chief fame as a poet rests; it met with immense popularity, and was translated into many foreign languages. Addison is also the author of some of our finest hymns. In 1716 he married the Dowager Countess of Warwick, by whom he had one daughter. The marriage was far from being a happy one. A year after he was appointed secretary of state, but not finding the situation suited to his talents, he retired into private life with a pension of L.1500 a year. In his retirement he was ever busy with the pen, and wrote many pieces of sacred poetry. Addison died at Holland House, on the 17th June 1719, in the forty-ninth year of his age.
|