Now poets from all quarters ran
To see the house of brother Van ;
Look'd high and low, walk'd often round,
But no such house was to be found.
One asks the waterman hard by,
Where may the poet's palace lie?
Another of the Thames inquires
If he has seen its gilded spires?
At length they in the rubbish spy
A thing resembling a goose-pye:
Thither in haste the poets throng,
And gaze in silent wonder long,
Till one in raptures thus began
To praise the pile and builder Van.
Thrice happy poet! who may'st trail
Thy house about thee like a snail;
Or, harness'd to a nag, at ease
Take journeys in it like a chaise;
Or in a boat, whene'er thou wilt,
Canst make it serve thee for a tilt.
Capacious House! 'tis own'd by all
Thou'rt well contrived, though thou art small;
For every wit in Britain's isle
May lodge within thy spacious pile.
Like Bacchus thou, as poets feign,
Thy mother burn'd, art born again,
Born like a phoenix from the flame,
But neither bulk nor shape the same:
As animals of largest size
Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies,
A type of modern wit and style,
The rubbish of an ancient pile;
So chemists boast they have a power
From the dead ashes of a flower
Some faint resemblance to produce,
But not the virtue, taste or juice.
Some modern rhymers wisely blast
The poetry of ages past,
Which after they have overthrown,
They from its ruins build their own.'
WHO COMMANDED THE BRITISH FORCES IN SPAIN.
MORDANTO fills the trump of Fame,
The Christian world his deeds proclaim,
And prints are crowded with his name.
In journeys he outrides the post,
Sits up till midnight with his host,
Talks politics, and gives the toast.
Knows every prince in Europe's face,
Flies like a squib from place to place,
And travels not, but runs a race.
From Paris Gazette a-la-main,
This day arrived, without his train,
Mordanto in a week from Spain.
A messenger comes all a-reek
Mordanto at Madrid to seek ;
He left the town above a week.
Next day the postboy winds his horn, And rides through Dover in the morn; Mordanto's landed from Leghorn.
Mordanto gallops on alone,
The roads are with his followers strown, This breaks a girth, and that a bone:
His body, active as his mind,
Returning sound in limb and wind,
Except some leather lost behind.
A skeleton in outward figure,
His meagre corpse, though full of vigour, Would halt behind him were it bigger.
So wonderful his expedition,
When you have not the least suspicion, He's with you like an apparition.
Shines in all climates like a star;
In senates bold, and fierce in war;
A land commander and a tar.
Heroic actions early bred in,
Ne'er to be match'd in modern reading, But by his namesake Charles of Sweden.
MOTTO ON WHITSHED'S COACH'.
LIBERTAS ET NATALE SOLUM !
LIBERTY AND MY NATIVE COUNTRY!
LIBERTAS et natale solum!
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em ;
Could nothing but thy chief reproach
Serve for a motto on thy coach?
But let me now the words translate:
Natale solum, my estate;
My dear estate! how well I love it!
My tenants, if you doubt, will prove it;
They swear I am so kind and good,
I hug them till I squeeze their blood.
Libertas bears a large import:
First, how to swagger in a court;
And, secondly, to show my fury
Against an uncomplying jury:
And, thirdly, 'tis a new invention
To favour Wood, and keep my pension:
And, fourthly, 'tis to play an odd trick,
Get the great seal, and turn out Broderick :
And, fifthly, (you know whom I mean)
To humble that vexatious Dean:
1 The noted chief justice who twice prosecuted the Drapier, and dissolved the grand jury for not finding the bill against him.
And, sixthly, for my soul to barter it,
For fifty times its worth to Carteret.
Now since your Motto thus
you construe, I must confess you've spoken once true. Libertas, et natale solum!
You had good reason when you stole 'em.
OR, THE RECEIPT TO FORM A BEAUTY.
WHEN Cupid did his grandsire Jove entreat
To form some beauty by a new receipt,
Jove sent, and found, far in a country-scene,
Truth, innocence, good-nature, look serene;
From which ingredients first the dexterous boy
Pick'd the demure, the awkward, and the coy:
The Graces from the court did next provide
Breeding, and wit, and air, and decent pride;
These Venus gleans from every spurious grain
Of nice coquette, affected, pert, and vain :
Jove mix'd up all, and his best clay employ'd,
Then call'd the happy composition Floyd.
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