"Remark too the dimpling, sweet smile
Lady Marg'ret's fine countenance wears."
The following is the passage in Mr. Sheridan's poem, entire; and the beauty of the six favorite lines shines out so conspicuously, that we cannot wonder at their having been so soon detached, like ill-set jems, from the loose and clumsy workmanship around them.
"But, hark!—did not our bard repeat
The love-born name of M-rg-r-t?—
Attention seizes every ear;
"We pant for the description here:
If ever dulness left thy brow,
'Pindar,' we say, ''twill leave thee now.'
But O! old Dulness' son anointed
His mother never disappointed!—
And here we all were left to seek
A dimple in F-rd-ce's cheek!
"And could you really discover,
In gazing those sweet beauties over,
No other charm, no winning grace,
Adorning either mind or face,
But one poor dimple to express
The quintessence of loveliness?
….Mark'd you her cheek of rosy hue?
Mark'd you her eye of sparkling blue?
That eye in liquid circles moving;
That cheek abash'd at Man's approving;
The one, Love's arrows darting round;
The other, blushing at the wound:
Did she not speak, did she not move,
Now Pallas—now the Queen of Love!"
There is little else in this poem worth being extracted, though it consists of about four hundred lines; except, perhaps, his picture of a good country housewife, which affords an early specimen of that neat pointedness of phrase, which gave his humor, both poetic and dramatic, such a peculiar edge and polish:—
"We see the Dame, in rustic pride,
A bunch of keys to grace her side,
Stalking across the well-swept entry,
To hold her council in the pantry;
Or, with prophetic soul, foretelling
The peas will boil well by the shelling;
Or, bustling in her private closet,
Prepare her lord his morning posset;
And, while the hallowed mixture thickens,
Signing death-warrants for the chickens:
Else, greatly pensive, poring o'er
Accounts her cook had thumbed before;
One eye cast up upon that great book,
Yclep'd The Family Receipt Book;
By which she's ruled in all her courses,
From stewing figs to drenching horses.
—Then pans and pickling skillets rise,
In dreadful lustre, to our eyes,
With store of sweetmeats, rang'd in order,
And potted nothings on the border;
While salves and caudle-cups between,
With squalling children, close the scene."
We find here, too, the source of one of those familiar lines, which so many quote without knowing whence they come;—one of those stray fragments, whose parentage is doubtful, but to which (as the law says of illegitimate children) "pater est populus."
"You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading."
In the following passage, with more of the tact of a man of the world than the ardor of a poet, he dismisses the object nearest his heart with the mere passing gallantry of a compliment:—
"O! should your genius ever rise,
And make you Laureate in the skies,
I'd hold my life, in twenty years,
You'd spoil the music of the spheres.
—Nay, should the rapture-breathing Nine
In one celestial concert join,
Their sovereign's power to rehearse,
—Were you to furnish them with verse,
By Jove, I'd fly the heavenly throng,
Though Phoebus play'd and Linley sung."