She said, and from each envious son A discontented murmur run

Around the table; all in place

Thought his full praise their own disgrace,
Wondering what stranger she had got,
Who had one vice that they had not:
When straight the portals open flew,
And, clad in armour, to their view
Martin, the Duellist, came forth;
All knew, and all confess'd his worth;
All justified, with smiles array'd,

The happy choice their dam had made.

THE PROPHECY OF FAMINE':

A Scots Pastoral.

INSCRIBED TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ.

233

Nos patriam fugimus. VIRGIL.

WHEN Cupid first instructs his darts to fly
From the sly corner of some cook-maid's eye,
The stripling raw, just enter'd in his teens,
Receives the wound, and wonders what it means;
His heart, like dripping, melts, and new desire
Within him stirs each time she stirs the fire;
Trembling and blushing he the fair one views,
And fain would speak, but can't—without a Muse.
So to the sacred mount he takes his way,
Prunes his young wings, and tunes his infant lay,
His oaten reed to rural ditties frames,

To flocks and rocks, to hills and rills proclaims,
In simplest notes and all unpolish'd strains,
The loves of nymphs, and eke the loves of swains.

Clad, as your nymphs were always clad of yore, In rustic weeds-a cook-maid now no moreBeneath an aged oak Lardella lies

Green moss her couch; her canopy the skies.

1 Mr. Wilkes pronounced of this poem before its appearance in Jan. 1763, that he was sure it would take, as it was at once personal, poetical, and political:' his prediction was accomplished. The Prophecy of Famine almost exceeded the Rosciad in popularity and in extent of circulation.

From aromatic shrubs the roguish gale [vale.
Steals young perfumes, and wafts them through the
The youth, turn'd swain, and skill'd in rustic lays,
Fast by her side his amorous descant plays.
Herds low,flocks bleat,pies chatter, ravens scream,
And the full chorus dies adown the stream.
The streams, with music freighted, as they pass
Present the fair Lardella with a glass,
And Zephyr, to complete the lovesick plan,
Waves his light wings, and serves her for a fan.
But when maturer Judgment takes the lead,
These childish toys on Reason's altar bleed; [awe,
Form'd after some great man, whose name breeds
Whose every sentence Fashion makes a law;
Who on mere credit his vain trophies rears,
And founds his merit on our servile fears;
Then we discard the workings of the heart,
And nature's banish'd by mechanic art;

Then, deeply read, our reading must be shown:
Vain is that knowledge which remains unknown;
Then Ostentation marches to our aid,

And letter'd Pride stalks forth in full parade;
Beneath their care behold the work refine,
Pointed each sentence, polish'd every line;
Trifles are dignified, and taught to wear
The robes of ancients with a modern air;
Nonsense with classic ornaments is graced,
And passes current with the stamp of taste.

Then the rude Theocrite is ransack'd o'er,
And courtly Maro call'd from Mincio's shore;
Sicilian Muses on our mountains roam,
Easy and free as if they were at home;
Nymphs, Naïads, Nereids, Dryads, Satyrs, Fauns
Sport in our floods and trip it o'er our lawns;

Flowers which once flourish'd fair in Greece and

Rome

More fair revive in England's meads to bloom; Skies without cloud exotic suns adorn,

And roses blush, but blush without a thorn; Landscapes unknown to dowdy Nature rise, And new creations strike our wondering eyes. For bards like these, who neither sing nor

say,

Grave without thought, and without feeling gay,
Whose numbers in one even tenor flow,
Attuned to pleasure and attuned to woe;
Who, if plain Common Sense her visit pays,
And mars one couplet in their happy lays,
As at some ghost affrighted, start and stare,
And ask the meaning of her coming there;
For bards like these a wreath shall Mason' bring,
Lined with the softest down of Folly's wing;
In Love's pagoda shall they ever doze,
And Gisbal kindly rock them to repose;
My Lord
to letters as to faith most true-
At once their patron and example too-

2 William Mason, author of Elfrida, Caractacus, an Elegy on the Death of the Countess of Coventry, and some other pieces of inferior merit, was the intimate friend and executor of Gray, whose life he wrote and prefixed to an edition of his works. Mr. Mason, through the patronage of the Holdernesse family, obtained considerable church preferment, and died Precentor of York, April 5, 1797, aged 71. There is a want of nerve in all his productions, which will ever prevent his attaining a station in English poetry much above mediocrity.

3 Gisbal, an Hyperborean tale, said to be translated from the fragments of Ossian, the son of Fingal. The stupidity of this piece can only be equaled by its scurrility.

Shall quaintly fashion his love-labour'd dreams, Sigh with sad winds, and weep with weeping streams *;

Curious in grief (for real grief, we know,
Is curious to dress up the tale of woe),
From the green umbrage of some Druid's seat
Shall his own works in his own way repeat.

Me, whom no Muse of heavenly birth inspires,
No judgment tempers when rash genius fires;
Who boast no merit but mere knack of rhyme,
Short gleams of sense, and satire out of time;
Who cannot follow where trim fancy leads
By prattling streams o'er flower-empurpled meads;
Who often, but without success, have pray'd
For apt Alliteration's. artful aid 3;

Who would but cannot, with a master's skill,
Coin fine new epithets which mean no ill;
Me, thus uncouth, thus every way unfit
For pacing poesy and ambling wit,

Taste with contempt beholds, nor deigns to place
Amongst the lowest of her favour'd race.

A harsh censure on Lord Lyttelton's Monody on his Wife; which, though like all his productions, highly laboured, contains many beauties.

5 Mason's poetry abounds with instances of a ridiculous fondness for alliteration.

Those who admire Virgil's

Validas in viscera vertite vires

must be pleased with the following specimens-
And vainly venturous soar on waxen wing,-
Chased by a charm still lovelier than the last,-
And wean her from a world she loved so well-
This let me learn, and learning let me live;

with many other instances: such as boisterous breath, wayward world, lovely lawn, soft serenity, liquid lustre, &c.