Rogue-harlot-thief-that live to future ages;
Through many a laboured tome,

Rankly embalmed in thy too natural pages.
Faith, friend De Foe, thou art quite at home!
Not one of thy great offspring thou dost lack,
From pirate Singleton to pilfering Jack.
Here Flandrian Moll her brazen incest brags;
Vice-stript Roxana, penitent in rags,

There points to Amy, treading equal chimes,
The faithful handmaid to her faithless crimes.

V.

Incompetent my song to raise
To its just height thy praise,
Great Mill!

That by thy motion proper

(No thanks to wind, or sail, or working rill)
Grinding that stubborn corn, the Human Will,
Turn'st out men's consciences,

That were begrimed before, as clean and sweet
As flour from purest wheat,

Into thy hopper.

All reformation short of thee but nonsense is,
Or human or divine.

Compared with thee,

VI.

What are the labours of that Jumping Sect,

Which feeble laws connive at rather than respect ! Thou dost not bump,

Thou to thy pupils dost such lessons give

Of how to live

With temperance, sobriety, morality

(A new art),

That from thy school, by force of virtuous deeds, Each Tyro now proceeds

A "Walking Stewart !"

GOING OR GONE.

I.

FINE merry franions,
Wanton companions,
My days are ev'n banyans
With thinking upon ye!
How death, that last stinger,
Finis-writer, end-bringer,
Has laid his chill finger,
Or is laying on ye.

II.

There's rich Kitty Wheatley,
With footing it featly

That took me completely,

She sleeps in the Kirk House;

And poor Polly Perkin,

Whose Dad was still firking

The jolly ale firkin,

She's gone to the Workhouse;

III.

Fine Gard'ner, Ben Carter
(In ten counties no smarter),

Has ta'en his departure

For Proserpine's orchards :

And Lily, postilion,

With cheeks of vermilion,

Is one of a million

That fill up the churchyards;

IV.

And, lusty as Dido,

Fat Clemitson's widow

Flits now a small shadow

By Stygian hid ford;

And good Master Clapton
Has thirty years napt on,
The ground he last hapt on,
Intombed by fair Widford;

V.

And gallant Tom Dockwra,
Of nature's finest crockery,
Now but thin air and mockery,
Lurks by Avernus,

Whose honest grasp of hand
Still, while his life did stand,
At friend's or foe's command,
Almost did burn us.

VI.

Roger de Coverley,

Not more good man than he,
Yet has he equally

Pushed for Cocytus,

With drivelling Worral,

And wicked old Dorrell,

'Gainst whom I've a quarrel,

Whose end might affright us!

VII.

Kindly hearts have I known;
Kindly hearts, they are flown;
Here and there if but one

Linger yet uneffaced,

Imbecile tottering elves,

Soon to be wrecked on shelves, These scarce are half themselves, With age and care crazed.

VIII.

But this day Fanny Hutton
Her last dress has but on ;

Her fine lessons forgotten,

She died, as the dunce died;

And prim Betsy Chambers,

Decayed in her members,

No longer remembers

Things as she once did;

IX.

And prudent Miss Wither
Not in jest now doth wither,
And soon must go-whither

Nor I well, nor you know;
And flaunting Miss Waller,
That soon must befall her,
Whence none can recall her,
Though proud once as Juno !

THE THREE GRAVES.

THESE LINES WERE WRITTEN DURING THE TIME OF THE SPY

SYSTEM.

CLOSE by the ever-burning brimstone beds,
Where Bedloe, Oates, and Judas hide their heads,

I saw great Satan like a sexton stand,

With his intolerable spade in hand,

Digging three graves. Of coffin shape they were,

For those who, coffinless, must enter there

With unblest rites. The shrouds were of that cloth
Which Clotho weaveth in her blackest wrath:

The dismal tinct oppressed the eye, that dwelt

Upon it long, like darkness to be felt.

The pillows to these baleful beds were toads,

Large, living, livid, melancholy loads,

Whose softness shocked, Worms of all monstrous size

Crawled round; and one, upcoiled, which never dies.
A doleful bell, inculcating despair,

Was always ringing in the heavy air.

And all about the detestable pit

Strange headless ghosts and quartered forms did flit ;
Rivers of blood, from dripping traitors spilt,

By treachery stung from poverty to guilt.

I asked the Fiend for whom these rites were meant ?

"These graves," quoth he, "when life's brief oil is spent,

When the dark night comes, and they're sinking bedwards,
I mean for Castles, Oliver, and Edwards."

A

TO CHARLES ADERS, ESQ.

ON HIS COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS BY THE OLD GERMAN MASTERS.

FRIENDLIEST of men, Aders, I never come
Within the precincts of this sacred room,
But I am struck with a religious fear,

Which says, "Let no profane eye enter here."
With imagery from Heaven the walls are clothed,
Making the things of Time seem vile and loathed.
Spare Saints, whose bodies seem sustained by Love
With Martyrs old in meek procession move.
Here kneels a weeping Magdalen, less bright
To human sense for her blurred cheeks; in sight
Of eyes, new touched by Heaven, more winning fair
Than when her beauty was her only care.

A Hermit here strange mysteries doth unlock
In desert sole, his knees worn by the rock.
There Angel harps are sounding, while below
Palm-bearing Virgins in white order
go.
Madonnas, varied with so chaste design,
While all are different, each seems genuine,
And hers the only Jesus: hard outline
And rigid form, by Dürer's hand subdued
To matchless grace and sacro-sanctitude;
Dürer, who makes thy slighted Germany
Vie with the praise of paint-proud Italy.
Whoever enter'st here, no more presume
To name a Parlour or a Drawing-room;
But bending lowly to each holy story,
Make this thy Chapel and thine Oratory.

THE CHANGE.

LOUISA serious grown and mild,
I knew you once a romping child,
Obstreperous much, and very wild.

Then you would clamber up my knees,
And strive with every art to tease,
When every art of yours could please.

Those things would scarce be proper now,-
But they are gone, I know not how,

And woman's written on your brow.