But 'tis not timber, lead, and stone,
An architect requires alone
To finish a fine building
The palace were but half complete,
If he could possibly forget
The carving and the gilding.
As similarity of mind,
Or something not to be defined,
First fixes our attention;
So manners decent and polite,
The same we practised at first sight,
Must save it from declension.
The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How well he knows your merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed,
To pardon or to bear it.
Some act upon this prudent plan,
Say little, and hear all you can ;
Safe policy, but hateful.
So barren sands imbibe the shower,
But render neither fruit nor flower,-
Unpleasant and ungrateful.
The man I trust, if shy to me,
Shall find me as reserved as he,
And deaf to all his pleading;
I will withdraw my trust again;
Determined not to entertain
A spy on my proceeding.
These samples-for alas! at last
These are but samples, and a taste
Of evils yet unmentioned-
May prove the task a task indeed,
In which 'tis much if we succeed,
However well-intentioned.
Pursue the search, and you will find
Wisdom and knowledge of mankind
To be at least expedient,
And, after summing all the rest,
Religion ruling in the breast
A principal ingredient.
There is a sober serious grace,
A sanctity, in friendship's face,
That proves it heaven-descended.
The love of woman not so pure,
Nor, even when truest, so secure
To last till life is ended.
THE PIPE AND THE SNUFF BOX
SENT TO THE REV. MR. NEWTON, RECTOR OF ST. MARY WOOLNOTH
SAYS the Pipe to the Snuff-box, "I can't understand
What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face,
That you are in fashion all over the land,
And I am so much fallen into disgrace.
"Do but see what a pretty contemplative air
I give to the company,-pray do but note 'em,—
You would think that the wise men of Greece were all there, Or, at least, would suppose them the wise men of Gotham.
My breath is as sweet as the breath of blown roses, While you are a nuisance where'er you appear; There is nothing but snivelling and blowing of noses, Such a noise as turns any man's stomach to hear."
Then, lifting his lid in a delicate way,
And opening his mouth with a smile quite engaging, The Box in reply was heard plainly to say,
"What a silly dispute is this we are waging!
"If you have a little of merit to claim,
You may thank the sweet-smelling Virginian weed; And I, if I seem to deserve any blame,
The before-mentioned drug in apology plead.
"Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own, No room for a sneer, much less a cachinnus;
We are vehicles, not of tobacco alone,
But of any thing else they may choose to put in us."
Sons adversa gerit stimulum, sed tendit et alas. Pungit api similis, sed velut ista fugit.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.
If reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time
I feel a wish by cheerful rhyme
To soothe my friend, and, had I power,
To cheat him of an anxious hour;
Not meaning (for I must confess,
What 'twere but folly to suppress)
His pleasure or his good alone,
But squinting partly at my own.
But though the sun is flaming high
In the centre of yon arch, the sky,
And he had once (and who but he?)
The name for setting genius free,
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeservèd praise,
And he by no uncommon lot
Was famed for virtues he had not;
Or whether, which is like enough,
His Highness may have taken huff,
So seldom sought with invocation,
Since it has been the reigning fashion
To disregard his inspiration,-
I seem no brighter in my wits
For all the radiance he emits
Than if I saw, through midnight vapour,
The glimmering of a farthing taper.
Oh for a succedaneum, then,
To accelerate a creeping pen!
Oh for a ready succedaneum
Quod caput, cerebrum, et cranium
Pondere liberet exoso,
Et morbo jam caliginoso!
'Tis here; this oval box, well filled
With best tobacco finely milled,
Beats all Anticyra's pretences
To disengage the encumbered senses.
O Nymph of transatlantic fame,
Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy name,
Whether reposing on the side
Of Oroonoquo's spacious tide,
Or listening with delight not small
To Niagara's distant fall,
'Tis thine to cherish and to feed
The pungent nose-refreshing weed,
Which, whether pulverised, it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or whether, touched with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine-
Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free,
To touch with a satiric wipe
That symbol of thy power, the pipe;
So may no blight infest thy plains
And no unseasonable rains,
And so may smiling peace once more
Visit America's sad shore
And thou, secure from all alarms
Of thundering drums and glittering arms,
Rove unconfined beneath the shade
Thy wide expanded leaves have made;
So may thy votaries increase,
And fumigation never cease.
May Newton with renewed delights
Perform thine odoriferous rites,
While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing shrine;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.
To watch the storms, and hear the sky
Give all our almanacks the lie;
To shake with cold, and see the plains
In autumn drowned with wintry rains;
'Tis thus I spend my moments here,
And wish myself a Dutch Mynheer;
I then should have no need of wit,
For lumpish Hollander unfit!
Nor should I then repine at mud,
Or meadows deluged with a flood;
But in a bog live well content,
And find it just my element :
Should be a clod, and not a man;
Nor wish in vain for Sister Ann,
With charitable aid to drag
My mind out of its proper quag;
Should have the genius of a boor,
And no ambition to have more.
CLOSE by the threshold of a door nailed fast
Three kittens sat; each kitten looked aghast.
I, passing swift and inattentive by,
At the three kittens cast a careless eye;
Not much concerned to know what they did there; Not deeming kittens worth a poet's care.
But presently a loud and furious hiss
Caused me to stop, and to exclaim, "What's this?' When lo! upon the threshold met my view,
With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue,
A viper, long as Count de Grasse's queue.
Forth from his head his forkèd tongue he throws,
Darting it full against a kitten's nose;
Who, having never seen in field or house
The like, sat still and silent as a mouse;
Only projecting, with attention due,
Her whiskered face, she asked him, "Who are you?”
On to the hall went I, with pace not slow,
But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe :
With which well armed I hastened to the spot,
To find the viper, but I found him not.
And turning up the leaves and shrubs around,
Found only that he was not to be found.
But still the kittens, sitting as before,
Sat watching close the bottom of the door.
"I hope,” said I, " the villain I would kill
Has slipped between the door and the door's sill;
And if I make despatch, and follow hard,
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