What, though the CAUSES may not be explain'd,
Since these effects are duly ascertain❜d,
Let not self interest, prejudice, or pride,
Induce mankind to set the means aside :

Means, which, though simple, are by Heaven design'd,
To alleviate the woes of human kind;
Life's darkest scenes with radiant light to cheer,
Wipe from the cheek of agony the tear.

Blest be his memory, who, in happy hour,
Gave to humanity this wondrous power;

Friend to the wretched, time shall write thy name,
A second Howard, on the rolls of Fame
When late the fiend of Pestilence could boast
His power resistless o'er the western coast,
Poison'd the air with fell mephitick breath,
Gave countless thousands to the realms of death;
Unmov'd by fear, though relatives implore,
Mov'd by no claim, save pity for the poor,
Thou didst, humane, with goodlike aim essay,
By med'cine's power, his fury to allay;
But soon COLUMBIA mourn'd a PERKINS' doom,
Which swell'd the triumph of the sateless tomb.

Ye worthy, honour'd, philanthropick few,
The Muse shall weave her brightest wreaths for you,
Who, in HUMANITY's bland cause, unite,
Nor heed the shafts by interest aim'd, or spite;
Like the great Pattern of Benevolence,

Hygeia's blessings to the poor dispense;

And, though oppos'd by folly's servile brood,

ENJOY THE LUXURY OF DOING GOOD.

CANTO I.

OURSELF!

ARGUMENT.

GREAT Doctor Caustick is a sage
Whose merit gilds this iron age,
And who deserves, as you'll discover,
When you have conn'd this canto over,
For grand discoveries and inventions,
A dozen peerages and pensions;
But, having met with rubs and breakers,
From Perkins' metal mischief makers;
With but three halfpence in his pocket,
In verses blazing like sky rocket,
He first sets forth in this petition
His high deserts but low condition.

FROM

garret high, with cobwebs hung, The poorest wight that ever sung, Most gentle Sirs, I come before ye,

To tell a lamentable story.

B

What makes my sorry case the sadder,
I once stood high on Fortune's ladder;"
From whence contrive the fickle jilt did,
That your petitioner should be tilted.

And soon th' unconscionable flirt,
Will tread me fairly in the dirt,
Unless, perchance, these pithy lays
Procure me pence as well as praise.

Already doom'd to hard quill-driving,
'Gainst spectred poverty still striving,
When e'er I doze, from vigils pale,
Dame Fancy locks me fast in jail.

Necessity, though I am no wit,
Compels me now to turn a poet;
Not born, but made, by transmutation,
And chymick process, call'd-starvation!

I once stood high on Fortune's ladder.

Although Dame FORTUNA was, by ancient mythologists, represented as a whimsical being, cutting her capers on the periphery of a large wheel, I am justified in accommodating her goddesship with a ladder, by virtue of a figure in rhetorick called POETICA LICENTIA, (anglice) poets' licentiousness.

Though poet's trade, of all that I know,

Requires the least of ready rhino;

I find a deficit of cash is

An obstacle to cutting dashes.

For gods and goddesses, who traffick
In cantos, odes, and lays seraphick,
Who erst Arcadian whistle blew sharp,
Or now attune Apollo's jews-harp,

Have sworn they will not loan me, gratis,
Their jingling sing-song apparatus,

Nor teach me how, nor where to chime in
My tintinabulum of rhyming.2

What then occurs? A lucky hit-
I've found a substitute for wit;

On Homer's pinions mounting high,

I'll drink Pierian puddle dry.3

2 My tintinabulum of rhyming.

"The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme." COWPER.

3 I'll drink Pierian puddle dry.

Pursuant to Mr. Pope's advice;

"Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

Beddoes (bless the good doctor) has
Sent me a bag full of his gas,*

4

Sent me a bag full of his gas.

This wondrous soul-transporting modification of matter is christened by chymists gaseous oxyd of nitrogen, and, as will be evident, from the following sublime stanzas, and my judicious comments thereon (in which I hold the microscope of criticism to those my peculiar beauties which are not visible to the naked eye of common sense) is a subject worthy the serious attention of the poet and physiologist.

Any "half-formed witling," as Pope says (Essay on Criticism) "may hammer crude conceptions into a sort of measured nonsense, vulgarly called prose bewitched." But the daring mortal, who aspires to "build with lofty rhyme" an Ævi Monumentum, before he sets about the mighty enterprise, must be filled with a sort of incomprehensible quiddam of divine inflation. Then, if he can keep clear of Bedlam, and be allowed the use of pen, ink, and paper, every line he scribbles, and every phrase he utters, will be a miracle of sublimity. Thus one Miss Sibyl remained stupid as a barber's block, till overpowered by the overbearing influence of Phebus. But when

-ea fræna furenti

Concutit, et stimulos sub pectore vertit Apollo,

the frantick gipsy muttered responses at once sublime, prophetick, and unintelligible,

Indeed, this furor mentis, so necessary an ingredient in the composition of the genuine poet, sometimes terminates