Preserve the church! and lay not careless hands
On sculls that cannot teach, and will not learn.
CLOWN. Turned Soldier.

The clown, the child of nature, without guile,
Blest with an infant's ignorance of all

But his own simple pleasures; now and then
A wrestling-match, a foot-race, or a fair:
Is balloted, and trembles at the news;

Sheepish he doffs his hat, and mumbling swears
A bible oath to be whate'er they please,

To do he knows not what. The task perform'd,
That instant he becomes the serjeant's care,
His pupil, and his torment, and his jest.
His awkward gait, his introverted toes,
Bent knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks,
Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees,
Unapt to learn, and form'd of stubborn stuff,
He yet by slow degrees puts off himself,
Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well;
He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk;
He steps right onward, martial in his air,
His form, and movement; is as smart above
As meal and larded locks can make him; wears
His hat, or his plum'd helmet, with a grace.
COLISEUM.

But when the rising moon begins to climb
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;
When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,
And the low night-breeze waves along the air,
The garland forest, which the gray-walls wear,
Like Laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head,
When the light shines serene, but doth not glare
Then in this magic circle raise the dead!-

Cowper.

Cooper.

Heroes have trod this spot-'tis on their dust ye tread.

A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,

And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.
Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but cleared?
Alas! developed, opens the decay,

When the colossal fabric's form is neared

It will not bear the brightness of the day,

Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away.

CONTRADICTION.

Ye powers, who rule the tongue, if such there are,

And make colloquial happiness your care,

Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate,

A duel in the form of a debate,

The clash of arguments and jar of words,
Worse than the mortal blunt of rival swords,
Decide no question with their tedious length,
For opposition gives opinion strength.
Divert the champions prodigal of breath;
And put the peaceably dispos'd to death.
O! thwart me not, Sir Soph, at ev'ry turn,
Nor carp at ev'ry flaw you may discern;
Though syllogisms hang not on my tongue,
I am not surely always in the wrong;
'Tis hard if all is false that I advance,

A fool must now and then be right by chance.
Not that all freedom of dissent I blame;
No there I grant the privilege I claim.
A disputable point is no man's ground;
Rove where you please, 'tis common all around.
Discourse may want an animated-No,

To brush the surface, and to make it flow;

Byron.

CONVERSATION.

But still remember, if you mean to please,
To press your point with modesty and ease,
The mark at which my juster aim I take,
Is contradiction for its own dear sake,
Set your opinion at whatever pitch,

Knots and impediments make something hitch;
Adopt his own, 'tis equally in vain,

Your thread of argument is snapt again.

CONVERSATION. Common, Satirized.

The circle form'd, we sit in silent state,
Like figures drawn upon a dial plate;

Yes ma'am, and no ma'am, utter'd softly, show
Ev'ry five minutes how the minutes go;
Each individual, suff'ring a constraint
Poetry may, but colours cannot paint;
As in close committee on the sky,
Reports it hot or cold, or wet or dry;
And finds a changing clime a happy source
Of wise reflection, and well-tim'd discourse.
We next inquire, but softly and by stealth,
Like conservators of the public health.
Of Epidemic throats, if such there are,

And coughs, and rheums, and phthisic, and catarrh.
That theme exhausted a wide chasm ensues,

Fill'd up at last with interesting news,

Who danc'd with whom, and who are like to wed,
And who is hang'd, and who is brought to bed:
But fear to call a more important cause,
As if 'twere treason against English laws.
The visit paid, with ecstasy we come,
As from a sev'n years transportation home,
And there resume an unembarrass'd brow,
Recov'ring what we lost we know not how,

The faculties, that seem'd reduc'd to nought,
Expression and the privilege of thought.

CORRUPTION.

Cowper

Vice is undone if she forgets her birth,
And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth:
But 'tis the Fall degrades her to a whore
Let Greatness own her, and she's mean no more.
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,
Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless;
In golden chains the willing world she draws,
And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws;
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead
Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car
Old England's Genius, rough with many a scar,
Dragg'd in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
His flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our youth all livery'd o'er with foreign gold,
Before her dance, behind her crawl the old!
See thronging millions to the Pagod run,
And offer country, parent, wife, or son!
Hear her black trumpet thro' the land proclain,
That not to be corrupted is the shame.
In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in pow'r,
'Tis av'rice all, ambition is no more!
See all our nobles begging to be slaves
See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up with reverential awe,
At crimes that scape or triumph o'er the law
While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry:
"Nothing is sacred now but villany."

Pope.

COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

COTTAGER. Simplicity of, contrasted.
Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store;
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket-light;
She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,
Has little understanding and no wit,

Receives no praise; but, though her lot be such,
(Toilsome and indigent) she renders much;
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew;
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes
Her title to a treasure in the skies.

O happy peasant! O unhappy bard!
His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward ;
He prais'd perhaps for ages yet to come,
She never heard of half a mile from home:
He lost in errors his vain heart prefers,
She safe in the simplicity of hers.

COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.
The toil worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

45

Cowper

And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

Belyve the elder bairns come drappin in,

At service out amang the farmers roun',

Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparklin in her e'e,