What!—the proud honours of the chair
Must I no more, with Cecil[(a)], share?—
Still be my soul serene
Virtù, or virtue’s but a name,
Brutus and Galloway exclaim,
And sighing quit the scene.
Too sure I heard a warning knell,
And told my Critic Brother Bell[(b)]
The fall of seats[(c)] and stocks;
Yet fondly sooth’d by Bolla’s airs,
Thought Taylor’s bottom, and his chairs
Secure with keys and locks.[(d)]
But ah! how Fortune loves to joke!
Expell’d am I, who sung and spoke
As loud as at the Fair:[(e)]
While yearly, with six thousand pound,
The Commons Addington have bound
Their Servant to the Chair.
My purer taste, my classic eye,
Unzon’d Thalia could descry,
Who stepp’d beyond her place:
How oft I warn’d, in either house,
That charms too plain at last would rouse
The Mitre and the Mace!
I with Pandolfo watch’d the sphere,
When Mars on Venus shone so clear,
That Saturn[(f)] felt the shock:
Grave Shute and Henry shrunk at Love,
And at the loose flesh-colour’d glove,
That blush’d at twelve o’clock.
I said, some folks would thunder Greek
At Hilligsberg’s Morale lubrique,
And Parisot’s costume![(g)]
Where shall Paullinia, tight and round,[(h)]
In vest appropriate now be found,
With India’s palm and plume?
Old Q—nsb—ry feels his dotard qualm,
Terpsichorè can pour no balm
O’er half his visual ray;
Nor William[(i)] can console the Sag,
Nor Elisée[(k)] his pain assuage,
Nor Yarmouth smooth his way.
When Marinari’s[(l)] magic hand
Traced the bold view in fabled land,
For Fawns and Wood-nymphs meet
Ah, soon, I cried, may Sal’sb’ry think,
’Tis just, that they who dance should drink,
And they who sing, should eat.[(ll)]
For this, in arbitrating state,
In presence of the wise and great,
I sung the Sovereign’s air:[(m)]
Firm was my voice, for Taylor smil’d;
Nor deem’d I then, (too well beguil’d,)
How slippery was the Chair.
Nor G—rd—n’s coarse and brawny Grace,
The last new Woman in the Place[(n)]
With more contempt could blast;
Not Marlb’rough’s damp on Blandford’s purse
To me could prove a heavier curse;
My fame, my glory past.