Will you begone, sir, with your bob-wigs and your bibles, and show up the gentleman? Quip. Lord, ma'am! he's only a poor author. He knows his place, I hope. Belinda. Some mad poet, whom the boys have chalked. Quip. 'Twas a work of supererogation, madam; 'tis displayed in openstitch all down the seam of his coat, as plain as ABC on a sampler. He's as threadbare as a cobweb, and as patch'd and piebald as harlequin-mountebank; his linen is a foil to the paleness of his cheek, and his cravat won't serve to hang him when he's starved to the weight of a dried alligator; his lips are as blue as an old maid's nose in December, and his nose slits the wind like the neb of a weathercock; if I was as blind as the lion on the knocker, I could tell him for a poet. Indeed he hints so much, by these rhymes. [Giving a pamphlet. Lady A. Ay, a presentation-copy of a new poem; rhymes witnout end, and ends without rhyme. What shall we do with this wight? Are you in the vein for ridicule, ladies? How think you of brightening your wit on this dull whetstone? Penelope. Let us have him, for a frolic. Chloe. I doat upon poor authors; they are such bashful, awkward, dirty creatures. Lady A. And such excellent butts. Poor authors are generally bad authors; and their best quality is, that they are good laughing-stocks, with their oddities, their vanities, and their pretensions. We'll quiz this disciple. Show him up, sir. Quip. I will show up the monster, with all due delay. [Exit. Lady A. What say you, shepherdesses? Shall we make him fool in the middle, or spread into a crescent, and let him face us all,-if he can ? Camilla. A crescent, by all the rules of good generalship. One of my great-grandsires was a captain of trainbands in th' apocryphal days of King Noll, so you must defer to my tactics. Lady A. Quickly then; fall back, right and left. Confront me with an empty chair; so, that will do. Now, sharpen your glances and barb your tongues; strike him blind and dumb with beauty and wit; if the shield of his dullness be not quite impenetrable, a seven-fold perdition awaits his temerity. Marian. Poor devil! Lady A. What does he out of his garret, then? Chloe. I will simply annihilate him, with one blow of my left eye. Lady A. Hist! Here comes Moon-calf. Mark how he'll play the profound at his entrée. Chloe. Chloe, thy left eye! Enter QUIP ushering in HELICON. Lady A. Walk in, sir; walk in; there is no hydra here, though heads are so thick. Walk in. (Aside.) The very garb of a genius by courtesy. The sinner is not amiss, though; his leg is well chiselled. Helicon. Madam......I......Madam, a...a...a...... Lady A. Come on, sir; your eloquence will never find its way to our hearts from so far. A little nearer;-I entreat, sir;-nearer ;-nearer.Here is a softer seat than you'll find on Parnassus. Belinda. How he devours the carpet! (to Camilla.) Lady A. Come, sir ;-nearer, I pray you. Yon chair seems enamoured of the glories of your presence, and stands with open arms to receive you ; be not so coy. Chloe. He'll be on his nose before he reaches it. Penelope. What a puzzle for precedence between his feet! Sylvia. His hair is most poetically dishevelled. (to each other.) Lady A. Sit, sir; sit. Do you disdain this humble quadruped? "Tis not so volatile, I grant you, as Pegasus, that rocking-horse of Muses' children (whereby they gain capital fractures), but-ha! seated at last. Now, young sir, will you exhibit yourself a little more categorically? We cannot judge of the work by the frontispiece. A few words of introduction, Master Bayleaf, an you be not blank as a common-place-book. (Aside.) The fellow hath a fine eye of his own if he could look through it. Helicon. Madam... Your ladyship...I...you... Marian. This smells of the clouds; the gentleman appears somewhat obnubilated. Penelope. Nay, 'tis the phrase of his profession,-sublime incomprehensibility. Camilla. Hear him out, ladies. For my part, I think he talks very intelligible nonsense. Helicon. I had... Madam, I had a...a...a... Sylvia. A prologue! Camilla. Apasty! Penelope. A pick-tooth! (Searching his pockets.) Chloe. A plough-share! Belinda. A pug-dog! Marian. A printer's-devil! Helicon. No, no, no ;-I beseech ;-no, no.-A letter, only a letter ; but.. but...I...I have...not... Lady A. What, sir! a grandson of Mnemosyne, and forget yourself? Chloe. What he'd give that the sky fell! Chloe, thy left eye hath done this. Penelope. He'll melt into his shoes, if we veil not our Helicon. I beams. Camilla. Hush! hush! hush! Marian. What? (to each other.) Camilla. He retails star-melody; the music of the spheres; which has all the best properties of harmony but sound. Listen! listen! Helicon. -I— Sylvia. Sweet, but exceeding small. Belinda. Tender and pathetic as a one-string'd lyre. Chloe. Have ye never heard a mouse squeak in a cupboard? Penelope. Troth, he's about as musical as a dumb-bell. Camilla. And as frank of his song as an owl at sunrise. Marian. Little less mute than a minnow. Lady A. A cricket chirps thunder, by comparison. Hark'e, Master Faintheart! Helicon. Fair-lady. Belinda. Keen, keen. Chloe. As a bulrush. Lady A. Ay, sir; you are quick at a proverb; they are the ready coin of conversation, but you'll never win me by them. I say, Master Spare-wit; take my counsel; make a living testament; bequeath your silence to scolding wives, and your modesty to barmaids and innkeepers' daughters; 'twill be a most charitable endowment; you'll be canonized by all lovers of peace and good-breeding, and husbands and travellers will kneel to your wooden worship ever after. Camilla. He has less magnanimity than a worm. A nettle has more spirit of valour in it. Sylvia. Pray sir, may I crave your name? a short task for your rhetoric. Helicon. Helicon, lady. Sylvia. O,-an emigrant from Boeotia, I presume? Helicon. Your-countryman, lady. Lady A. Ha? Belinda. You are good authority for the age of the moon, Master Poet; is she in the full? Helicon. She reigns, in the crescent. Lady A. Ay, ay? Camilla. Perhaps, sir, like the birds, though you can't speak you can whistle? There are few poets now-a-days but are twitterers. Helicon. God-a-mercy, madam! you would make me think I was nearer a fool than a poet. Lady A. What's this? Marian. Good now, do, pray; be a good bird. Or, swan-like, have you put off your song till you die?" Helicon. Will you have me pipe of your beauty? Marian. Ay: brown though I be, I am yet a fair subject; there are sonnets to prove it, I assure you. Come, look me straight in the charms; and when thou hast drank a crop-full of inspiration, make up thy mouth like a puny songster and whistle me the Sweet Jugg of your flattery. Helicon. It is a task: nathless-Whu, whu-I' faith, I cannot, for laughing. Yet there is provocation in your face for a song. Lady A. (Aside.) Ho! ho! this is not simple simplicity. We'll prove it, anon. Chloe. I would give a thousand pound for those locks of raven. So wild and wizard-like! Well, well! Nature's a rare periwig-maker. Could you spare me a keep-sake? 'twould look well in a locket. Come, I will let you off for a posy on this ring. Nay, it will put you to your wit's end, I compute. Helicon. A pretty ring Is a pretty thing Chloe. O! well done, Namby Pamby! Well said, well said, Dan Damonand-Daphne! Helicon. Indeed, la, no; no, indeed. You could out-do me yourself, in this way, fair mistress. Lady A. (Aside.) Now, for my soul, can I not tell a simper from a sneer. Penelope. Hem!-You men of genius seldom travel without your portfolios of smart sayings; compliments cut to the measure of all faces, and poetical frankincense to propitiate the nostrils of vanity. Have you ne'er an acrostic ready-penned, which would fit our entitlements? no preserved panegyric, nor extempore eulogy prepared for occasion, which would suit our deservings? Helicon. Many, many. Lady A. Prithee, sweet sir, make our auriculars familiar with one o'them; the best i' the bag, an it please you; we would fain have a sample of your vocation. A word to your wisdom: beat a poetical flourish on the drum of our hearing, else you'll pass for an ordinary man, notwithstanding this contemplativeness. (Aside.) Now for a laurel or a cock's-comb! Helicon. Ye beautiful glitterings!-Beautiful, beam-fed things Of light!-Ethereal shadows! who have come from Lady A. Fool! fool! this is the very cant of poetry. No more of that, sir; 'tis beyond our deserts; we disclaim all divinityship. Helicon. O! you are mortal, then! Lady A. Mere models for painters' goddesses. No more; in the very superfluity of compliment. Helicon. Indeed? Marian. Ay, sir; we're tired of immortality. Awph! Camilla. For my part, I had rather be Joan than Juno, any day in the year. Chloe. I always squeal when I'm pinch'd. Do the gods make faces when they weep at a tragedy? Lady A. No, no, Master Poet, we are no more divine than the perfectibility of flesh and blood will allow of. The cream of the earth, if you will; but nothing more transcendent. Helicon. Who would have thought it! That this silken magnificence,this costly investiture,-this embroidered perplexity of thread and silver,should enwrap such a homely commodity as brown clay! Was this velvet wrought to disguise earthen-ware? And are pitchers to be dressed in satin petticoats? 'Tis a matter for philosophy to rub the pate about; a phenomenon of contradiction; that creatures who hold their sighs as dear as the breath of amaranth, their glances at the price of diamonds and stonestars, and their lips above all profitable purchase,-shall be as frail and perishable as the vases on their own mantle-pieces, shall have less of endurance in them than is to be found in so many Magdalens or Madonnas on a church pannel; and shall be subject to the commonest law of dissolution, which reduces the milk-maid and the poor peasant girl to their pri mitive condition of-dust. Why, I will get you a virgin from the land of old Nile, who, without either gown or stomacher, smock or petticoat, kerchief or slipper, buffetted by the winds, pelted by the rain, and bastinadoed by the sand, has stood these three thousand years. Lady A. Ha! ha! ha! One of the irritable race, after all! What a Cynical reproof of our gaiety! True, sir, your sphinxes are admirable economists; they save, just as much as we spend; patterns for all housewives; notable old maids, as ever sat with their hands before them; what a pity they are not aware of their own virtues! Indeed, and upon mine honourable maidenhood, and by the peaked toe of my sandal, our rigid sisters of the sandbanks deserve their immortality. Would we were like them! Have you no power of petrifaction in your face, sir? Could you not freeze us into marble, with those Gorgon tresses and icy regards? Ha! ha! ha! 'twould save a world of ribbands and laces; we should be wonderful gainers by the metamorphosis; hey, Master Helicon? - Helicon. Why, you would escape wrinkles;-to the sex, the bitterest part of mortality. Lady A. Ay, verily; and it might be, moreover, our good hap to couch upon the door-posts of Fame's temple, as guardian divinities to mad poets, and profane authors of all ranks and estates in the commonweath of insanity. Helicon. Exaltation beyond the mental charter of your race. There is a statute in nature against it, a Salique Law of the mind. I have perused the rolls of Fame, and, sad as it is strange! can find no record of a daughter of the earth having ever been seen near the temple. Lady A. Yes, yes, yes; one, if no more. Helicon. What! the brown girl of Mitylene? Lady A. The same; poor Sappho, Lesbian Sappho. Helicon. She who tempted the winds; flew without wings; fathomed the depth of the Lover's Leap, but never told the reckoning; stept from the high-hung gallery of the cliff into the spacious bodiless air; and took a swoop at the ocean, never to rise; she, I say Lady A. Ah, yes! ah, yes! spare her sweet memory. She, whom the dim-peak'd rocks of Leucady Held high to the clamorous winds that reft her hair, Was but a sheet to wind her; down she sank! And wheeling sea-birds scream'd her funeral knell : Yet still, the fool, the witless, wilful fool, Ev'n in the tumult of this murderous time, Babbled of Phaon! Phaon!-Nought but this The dissonant shrill-piped winds could prate of; nought but this, Choak'd these untimely murmurs, nought but Phaon! How now, sirrah? Quip. A backslider, madam. One that fell away from the grace of that gentleman's society, after 'a had picked a hole in his coat. (Giving a letter.) Lady A. Silence !-Begone, sir! Quip. Tipitywitchet! The Devil's turned fuller. Ahem!-Varium et mutabile semper femina, which is to say in plain mother-English,-A woman and a weathercock are hatch'd o' the same hen. Pass! (Exit.) Helicon. This letter meant to have been my introduction. Lady A. Words did better. I have seen this character. (Reading.) "With my best love and dearest regards to your ladyship, I commend the bearer of this letter to your most favourable reception. He is a man of genius and my friend. Were I to say more in his commendation, I should but impeach your Ladyship's respect for merit, and sincerity towards "Your much more than sister, "LEONORE." Ladies, I take your leave. (Drawing Helicon apart.) Sir, you and I must call each other friends. What shall my first good office be to deserve your estimation? Helicon. Your guests retire, and whisper. I would not be the theme of a (Pointing to them.) corner. Lady A. Window-flies, sir! window-flies! fond of buzzing in an angle, heed them not. Yet stay; they will prophesy the sound of your lips from their motion; and turn it to scandalous purposes too! A fault of their chins, sir; they have no beards to be plucked for their impertinence. Two hours hence, I shall be alone; will you give me your conversation? Helicon. It will exchange for much more than its value; I shall wait upon your Ladyship. Lady A. Then (Aloud.) Fare you well, sir. We owe you a morning's entertainment. Fare you well, gentle Master Evergreen! All. Fare you well, sir. Helicon. I am honoured by the courtesy; deeply honoured. (Exit.) ODE: AUTUMN. I. I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Tom Hood |