SUGGESTED BY A VIEW, IN 1766, OF THE SEAT AND RUINS OF A DECEASED NOBLEMAN, AT KINGSGATE, KENT.
OLD, and abandon'd by each venal friend,
Here Hd form'd the pious resolution
To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.
On this congenial spot he fix'd his choice;
Earl Goodwin trembled for his neighbouring sand;
Here sea-gulls scream, and cormorants rejoice,
And mariners, though shipwreck'd, dread to land.
Here reign the blustering North and blighting East,
No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing;
Yet Nature could not furnish out the feast,
Art he invokes new horrors still to bring.
Here mouldering fanes and battlements arise,
Turrets and arches nodding to their fall,
Unpeopled monasteries delude our eyes,
And mimic desolation covers all.
"Ah!" said the sighing peer, "had B―te been true, Nor M-'s, R-'s, B-'s friendship vain,
Far better scenes than these had blest our view,
And realized the beauties which we feign:
Purged by the sword, and purified by fire,
Then had we seen proud London's hated walls;
Owls would have hooted in St. Peter's choir,
And foxes stunk and litter'd in St. Paul's."
WHILE WALKING WITH MR. NICHOLLS IN THE SPRING IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CAMBRIDGE.
THERE pipes the woodlark, and the song-thrush there Scatters his loose notes in the waste of air.
PART OF AN EPITAPH ON THE WIFE OF MASON.
TELL them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, 'Twas e'en to thee; yet the dread path once trod. Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,
And bids the pure in heart behold their God.
EXTEMPORE EPITAPH ON ANNE, COUNTESS OF DORSET.
Now clean, now hideous, mellow now, now gruff, She swept, she hiss'd, she ripen'd, and grew rough, At Brougham, Pendragon, Appleby, and Brough.
GREAT D draws near-the dutchess sure is come,
Open the doors of the withdrawing-room;
Her daughters deck'd most daintily I see,
The dowager grows a perfect double D.
E enters next, and with her Eve appears,
Not like yon dowager deprest with years;
What ease and elegance her person grace,
Bright beaming, as the evening-star, her face;
Queen Esther next-how fair e'en after death,
Then one faint glimpse of Queen Elizabeth;
No more, our Esthers now are nought but Hetties,
Elizabeths all dwindled into Betties;
In vain you think to find them under E,
They're all diverted into H and B.
F follows fast the fair-and in his rear,
See folly, fashion, foppery, straight appear,
All with fantastic clews, fantastic clothes,
With fans and flounces, fringe and furbelows.
Here Grub-street geese presume to joke and jeer,
All, all, but Grannam Osborne's Gazetteer.
High heaves his hugeness H; methinks we see.
Henry the Eighth's most monstrous majesty;
But why on such mock grandeur should we dwell?
H mounts to heaven, and H descends to hell.
As H the Hebrew found, so I the Jew,
See Isaac, Joseph, Jacob, pass in view;
The walls of old Jerusalem appear,
See Israel, and all Judah thronging there.
P pokes his head out, yet has not a pain;
Like Punch, he peeps, but soon pops in again;
Pleased with his pranks, the Pisgys call him Puck,
Mortals he loves to prick, and pinch, and pluck;
Now a pert prig, he perks upon your face,
Now peers, pores, ponders, with profound grimace,
Now a proud prince, in pompous purple drest,
And now a player, a peer, a pimp, or priest;
A pea, a pin, in a perpetual round,
Now seems a penny, and now shows a pound;
Like perch or pike, in pond you see him come,
He in plantations hangs like pear or plum,
Pippin or peach; then perches on the spray,
In form of parrot, pye, or popinjay.
P, Proteus-like, all tricks, all shapes can show,
The pleasantest person in the Christ-Cross row.
As K a king, Q represents a queen,
And seems small difference the sounds between ;
K, as a man, with hoarser accents speaks,
In shriller notes Q like a female squeaks;
Behold K struts, as might a king become,
Q draws her train along the drawing room,
Slow follow all the quality of state,
Queer Queensbury only does refuse to wait.
Thus great R reigns in town, while different far, Rests in retirement little rural R;
Remote from cities lives in lone retreat,
With rooks and rabbit burrows round his seat
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