1694-5. 2. March.

A house there stands where once a convent stood,
A nursery still to the old convent brood:
This ever hospitable roof of yore
The famous sign of the old Osiris bore,
A fair red Io, hieroglyphic-fair,
For all the suckling wits o’ the town milcht there.
This long old emblematic, that had past
Full many a bleak winter’s shaking blast,
At last with age fell down, some say, confusion,
Shamed and quite dasht at the new Revolution;
Dropt out of modesty, (as most suppose,)
Not daring face the new bright Royal Rose.
Here in supiner state, ’twixt reaking tiff,
And fumigating clouds of funk and whiff,
Snug in a nook, his dusky tripos, sits
A senior Delphic ’mongst the minor wits;
Feared like an Indian god, a god indeed
True Indian, smoked with his own native weed.
From this oped mouth, soft eloquence rich mint
Steals now and then a keen well-hammered hint,
Some sharp state raillery, or politic squint,
Hard midwived wit, births by slow labours stopt,
Sense not profusely shower’d, but only dropt.
Sometimes for oracles yet more profound,
A titillating sonnet’s handed round,
Some Abdication-Damon madrigal,
His own sour pen’s too overflowing gall.
I must confess in pure poetic rage,
Bowed down to the old Moloch of that age,
His strange bigotted muse our wonder saw,
Tuned to the late great court tarantula.
What though worn out in pleasures old and stale,
The reverend Outly sculkt within the pale;
It was enough, like the old Mahomet’s pigeon,
He lured to bread, and masked into religion.
Had that, now silent, muse been but so kind
As to this funeral-dirge her numbers joined,
On that great theme what wonders had he told!
For though the bard, the quill is not grown old,
Writes young Apollo still, with his whole rays
Encircled and enriched, though not his bays.
Thus when the wreath, so long, so justly due,
The great Mecænas from those brows withdrew,
With pain he saw such merit sunk so far,
Shamed that the dragon’s tail swept down the star.
Not that the conscience-shackle tied so hard,
But had he been the prophet, as the bard,
Prognostick’d the diminutive slender birth
His seven-hill’d mountain-labour has brought forth,
His foreseen precipice; that thought alone
Had stopt his fall, secured him all our own;
Free from his hypochondriac dreams he had slept,
And still his unsold Esau’s birthright kept.
’Tis thus we see him lost, thus mourn his fall;
That single teint alone has sullied all.
So have I in the Muses garden seen
The spreading rose, or blooming jessamine;
Once from whose bosom the whole Hybla train
The industrious treasurers of the rich plain,
Those winged foragers for their fragrant prey,
On loaded thighs bore thousand sweets away:
Now shaded by a sullen venomed guest
Cankered and sooted o’er to a spider’s nest.
His sweets thus soured, what melancholy change,
What an ill-natur’d lour, a face so strange!
His life one whole long scene of all unrest,
And airy hopes his thin cameleon-feast;
Pleased only with the pride of being preferred,
The echoed voice to his own listning herd,
A magisterial Belweather tape,
The lordly leader of his bleating troop.
These doctrines our young Sullenists preach round,
The texts which their poetic silence found.
But why the doctor of their chair, why thou,
Their great rabbinic voice, thus silent too?
Could Noll’s once meteor glories blaze so fair,
To make thee that all-prostrate zealot there?
Strange, that that fiery nose could boast that charm
Thy muse with those seraphic raptures warm!
And our fair Albion star to shine so bleak,
Her radiant influence so chill, so weak!
Gorged with his riotous festival of fame,
Could thy weak stomach pule at Mary’s name!
Or was thy junior palate more canine,
And now in years grows squeamish, and more fine!
Fie, peevish-niggard, with thy flowing store
To play the churl,—excuse thy shame no more.

No. IX.
VERSES
OCCASIONED BY READING
MR DRYDEN’S FABLES.
INSCRIBED TO
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
BY MR JABEZ HUGHES.

Musæum ante omnes, medium nam plurima turba
Hunc habet, atque humeris extantem suspicit altis.—Virg.

TO THE READER.

1720-1, March.

It is now almost fourteen years since these lines were first written; and as I had no thought of making them public, I laid them aside among other papers; where they had still continued private, if it had not, in a manner, become my duty to print them, by the noble regard which is paid to Mr Dryden’s memory, by his grace the Duke of Buckingham, who, to his high quality, has added the liberal distinction of having long been at once both an eminent patron of elegant literature, and the most accomplished judge and pattern of it.

It might indeed seem an adventurous presumption to offer so trivial a poem to his Grace’s view; but he who is able to instruct the most skilful writer, will have benevolence enough to forgive the imperfections of the weakest, and to consider the inscribing these slight verses to his Grace, merely as a respectful acknowledgment of the common obligation he has laid upon all who have a true value for English poetry, by thus honouring the remains of a man who advanced it so highly, and is so justly celebrated for beauty of imagination, and force and delicacy of expression and numbers.

I must also observe, that I have had the happiness to see one part of these verses abundantly disproved by Mr Pope, and accordingly I retract it with pleasure; for that admirable author, who evidently inherits the bright invention, and the harmonious versification of Mr Dryden, has increased the reputation his other ingenious writings had obtained him, by the permanent fame of having finished a translation of the Iliad of Homer, with surprising genius and merit.