The works of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland. With prefaces, biographical and critical, by S. Johnson

THE

POEMS OF MR. CAWTHORN.

MISS

Some heav'n-born genius, panting to explore
The scenes oblivion wifh'd to live no more,
Found Abelard in grief's fad pomp array'd,
And call'd the melting mourner from the fhade.
Touch'd by his woes, and kindling at his rage,
Admiring nations glow'd from age to age;
From age to age the foft infection ran,
Taught to lament the hermit in the man;
Pride dropt her creft, Ambition learn'd to figh,
And dove-like pity stream'd in every eye.

Sick of the world's applaufe, yet fond to warm
Each maid that knows with Eloife to charm,
He asks of verfe to aid his native fire,
Refines, and wildly lives along the lyre;
Bids all his various paffions throb anew,
And hopes, my fair, to steal a tear from you.
O bleft with temper, bleft with skill to pour
Life's ev'ry comfort on each focial hour;
Chafte as thy blushes, gentle as thy mien,
Too grave for folly, and too gay for spleen ;
Indulg'd to win, to foften, to infpire,
To melt with mufic, and with wit to fire;
To blend, as judgment tells thee how to please,
Wisdom with smiles, and majesty with ease;
Alike to virtue as the Graces known,
And proud to love all merit but thy own!

These are thy honours, thefe will charms fupply, When those dear funs fhall fet in either eye; While She, who, fond of drefs, of paint, and place, Aims but to be a goddess in the face; Born all thy fex illumines to defpife, Too mad for thought, too pretty to be wife, Haunts for a year fantaftically vain, With half our Fribbles dying in her train ; Then finks, as beauty fades and paffion cools, The scorn of coxcombs, and the jeft of fools,

Abelard and Eloija flourished in the twelfth century: they were two of the most diftinguished perfons of their age in learning and beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate paffion. After long courfe of calamities, they retired each to a veral convent, and confecrated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this feparation that a letter of Abelard's to a friend, which contained the hiftory of his misfortunes, fell into the hands of Eloifa: this occafioned thofe celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted) which give fo lively a picture of the struggles of Grace and Nature, Virtue and Paffion.

MR. POPE.

H! why this boding start? this fudden pain,
That wings my pulfe, and fhoots from vein
to vein !

What mean, regardless of yon midnight bell,
Thefe earthborn vifions faddening o'er my cell!
What strange diforder prompts these thoughts to
glow,

Thefe fighs to murmur, and these tears to flow?
'Tis fhe, 'tis Eloifa's form reftor'd,

Once a pure faint, and more than faints ador'd:
She comes in all her killing charms confess'd,
Glares thro' the gloom, and pours upon my breaft,
Bids heaven's bright guard from Paraclete remove,
And drags me back to mifery and love.

Enjoy thy triumphs, dear illufion! fee
This fad apoftate from his God to thee;
See at thy call, my guilty warmths return,
Flame thro' my blood, and fteal me from my urn.
Yet, yet, frail Abelard! one effort try,
Ere the last lingering spark of virtue die ;
The deadly charming forcerefs controul,
And, fpite of nature, tear her from thy foul.
Long has that foul, in thefe unfocial woods,
Where anguish mufes, and where forrow broods,
From love's wild vifionary wishes stray'd,
And fought to lofe thy beauties in the fhade.
Faith dropp'd a fmile, devotion lent her fire,
Woke the keen pang, and fanctified defire;
Led me enraptur'd to the bleft abode,
And taught my heart to glow with all its God,

But, O! how weak fair faith and virtue prove
When Eloifa melts away in love!

When her fond foul, impaffion'd, rapt, unveil'd,
No joy forgotten, and no wish conceal'd,
Flows thro' her pen as infant-softness free,
And fiercely springs in ecftacies to me!
Ye heav'ns! as walking in yon facred fane,
With every feraph warm in every vein,
Just as remorfe had rous'd an aching figh,
And my torn foul hung trembling in my eye,
In that kind hour thy fatal letter came,
I saw, I gaz'd, I shiver'd at the name;
The confcious lamps at once forgot to shine,
Prophetic tremors shook the hallow'd shrine;
Priefts, cenfers, altars from thy genius fled,
And heav'n itself fhut on me while I read.

Dear fmiling mischief; art thou ftill the fame,
The ftill pale victim of too foft a flame?
Warm as when firft, with more than mortal fhine,
Each melting eye-ball mix'd thy foul with mine?
Have not thy tears, for ever taught to flow,
The glooms of abfence, and the pangs of woe,
The pomp of facrifice, the whifper'd tale,
The dreadful vow yet hov'ring o'er thy veil,
Drove this bewitching fondness from thy breast,
Curb'd the loose wish, and form'd each pulfe to
reft?

And canft thou still, ftill bend the fuppliant knee
To love's dread fhrine, and weep and figh for me?
Then take me, take me, lock me in thy arms,
Spring to my lips, and give me all thy charms.
No-fly me, fly me, fpread th' impatient fail,
Steal the lark's wing, and mount the swifteft gale;
Skim the vaft ocean, freeze beneath the pole,
Renounce me, curfe me, root me from thy foul;
Fly, fly, for juftice bears the arm of God,
And the grafp'd vengeance only waits his nod.

Are these thy wishes? can they thus aspire ?
Does phrenzy form them, or does grace inspire?
Can Abelard, in hurricanes of zeal,
Betray his heart, and teach thee not to feel?
Teach thy enamour'd fpirit to disown

Each human warmth, and chill thee into stone?

Ah! rather let my tendereft accents move

The laft wild accents of unholy love;
On that dear bofom trembling let me lie,
Pour out my foul, and in fierce raptures die,
Rouse all my passions, act my joys new.
Farewell, ye cells! ye martyr'd faints! adieu !
Sleep, confcience! fleep, each awful thought

drown'd,

And feven-fold darknefs veil the scene around.

What means this pause, this agonizing start, This glimpfe of heav'n quick rushing thro' heart?

Methinks I fee a radiant cross display'd-
A wounded Saviour bleeds along the fhade:
Around th' expiring God bright angels fly,
Swell the loud hymn, and open all the sky.
O fave me, fave me, ere the thunders roll,
And hell's black caverns swallow up my foul.

Return, ye scenes!-Ah, no, from fancy fly,
On time's ftretch'd wing, till each idea die,
Eternal fly; fince all that learning gave,
Too weak to conquer, and too fond to fave,
To love's foft empire every with betray'd,
And left my laurels with'ring in the shade.
Let me forget that, while deceitful fame
Grafp'd her thrill trump, and fill'd it with my name,
Thy ftronger charms, impower'd by heav'n to move
Each faint, each bleft infenfible to love,

At once my foul from bright ambition won,
I hugg'd the dart, I wish'd to be undone :
No more pale fcier.ce durft my thoughts engage,
Infipid dulness hung on every page;
The midnight-lamp no more enjoy'd its blaze,
No more my spirit flew from maze to maze :
Thy glances bade philosophy refign
Her throne to thee, and every fenfe was thine.
But what could all the frofts of wisdom do,
Oppos'd to beauty, when it melts in you?
Since thefe dark, cheerlefs, folitary caves,
Death-breathing woods, and daily-opening graves,
Misshapen rocks, wild images of woe,
For ever howling to the deeps below;
Ungenial deferts, where no vernal show'r
Wakes the green herb, or paints th' unfolding
flow'r ;

Th' embrowning glooms these holy manfions shed,
The night-born horrors brooding o'er my bed,
The difmal scenes black melancholy pours
O'er the fad vifions of enanguifh'd hours;
Lean abftinence, wan grief, low-thoughted care,
Distracting guilt, and, hell's worft fiend, despair,
Confpire in vain, with all the aids of art,
To blot thy dear idea from my heart.

Delufive, fightlefs God of warm defire!
Why would't thou wish to fet a wretch on fire?
Why lives thy foft divinity where woe
Heaves the pale figh, and anguish loves to glow!
Fly to the mead, the daify-painted vale,
Breathe in its sweets, and melt along the gale;
Fly where gay scenes luxurious youths employ,
Where ev'ry moment steals the wing of joy :
There may'st thou fee, low proftrate at thy throne,
Devoted flaves, and victims all thy own;
Each village-fwain the turf-built fhrine shall raise,
And kings command whole hecatombs to blaze.

O memory! ingenious to revive
Each fleeting hour, and teach the past to live,
be Witness what conflicts this frail bofom tore!
What griefs I fuffer'd; and what pangs I bore!
How long I ftruggled, labour'd, ftrove to fave
An heart that panted to be still a slave!
When youth, warmth, rapture, spirit, love and flame,
Seiz'd every fenfe, and burnt thro' all my frame;
From youth, warmth, rapture, to these wilds I filed,
My food the herbage, and the rock my bed.
There, while thefe venerable cloisters rise
O'er the bleak furge, and gain upon the skies,
My wounded foul indulg'd the tear to flow
O'er all her fad viciffitudes of woe;
Profufe of life, and yet afraid to die,
Guilt in my heart, and horror in my eye,
With ceafelefs pray'rs, the whole artill’ry giv'n
To win the mercies of offended heav'n,
Each hill, made vocal, echoed all around,
While my torn breaft knock'd bleeding on the
ground.

Return, ye hours! when, guiltless of a ftain,
My ftrong-plum'd genius throbb'd in every vein;
When, warm'd with all th' Egyptian fanes inspir'd,
All Athens boafted, and all Rome admir'd;
My merit in its full meridian fhone,
Each rival blushing, and each heart my own.

Yet, yet, alas! though all my moments fly,
Stain'd by a tear, and darken'd in a figh,
Tho' meagre fafts have on my cheeks display'd
The dusk of death, and sunk me to a shade,
Spite of myself the ftill-empoisoning dart

Aid me, fair faith! affift me, grace divine! Ye martyrs bless me, and, ye faints! refine Ye facred groves! ye heav'n-devoted walls! Where folly fickens, and where virtue calls; Ye vows! ye altars! from this bofom tear

Shoots thro' my blood, and drinks up all my heart: Voluptuous love, and leave no anguish there:

My vows and wishes wildly disagree,

And grace itself mistakes my God for thee.

Athwart the glooms that wrap the midnight-sky,

My Eloifa fteals upon my eye;

For ever rifes on the folar ray,

A phantom brighter than the blaze of day.
Where-e'er I go, the visionary guest
Pants on my lip, or finks upon my breast;
Unfolds her fweets, and, throbbing to destroy,
Winds round my heart in luxury of joy;
While loud Hofannas shake the shrines around,
I hear her fofter accents in the found;
Her idol-beauties on each altar glare,
And heav'n much-injur'd has but half my pray'r:
No tears can drive her hence, no pangs controul,
For ev'ry object brings her to my foul.

Laft night, reclining on yon airy steep,
My bufy eyes hung brooding o'er the deep;
The breathless whirlwinds flept in ev'ry cave,
And the foft moon-beam danc'd from wave to wave;
Each former blifs in this bright mirror seen,
With all my glories, dawn'd upon the scene,
Recall'd the dear aufpicious bour anew,
When my fond foul to Eloifa flew;
When, with keen fpeechlefs agonies oppreft,
Thy frantic lover snatch'd thee to his breast,
Gaz'd on thy blushes, arm'd with ev'ry grace,
And faw the goddess beaming in thy face;
Saw thy wild, trembling, ardent wishes move
Each pulfe to rapture, and each glance to love.
But, lo! the winds defcend, the billows roar,
Foam to the clouds, and burst upon the shore,
Vaft peals of thunder o'er the ocean roll,

Oblivion! be thy blackest plume difplay'd
O'er all my griefs, and hide me in the fhade;
And thou, too fondly idoliz'd! attend
While awful reason whispers in the friend.
Friend, did I fay! Immortals! what a name!
Can dull, cold friendship own fo wild a flame?
No; let thy lover, whose enkindling eye
Shot all his foul between thee and the sky,
Whose warmth bewitch'd thee, whofe unhallow'd
fong

Call'd thy rapt ear to die upon his tongue,
Now ftrongly rouze, while heav'n his zeal inspires,
Diviner transports, and more holy fires ;
Calm all thy paffions, all thy peace restore,
And teach that snowy breast to heave no more.
Torn from the world, within dark cells immur'd,
By angels guarded, and by vows secur'd,
To all that once awoke thy fondness dead,
And hope, pale forrow's last sad refuge, fled;
Why wilt thou weep, and figh, and melt in vain,
Brood o'er falfe joys, and hug th' ideal chain?
Say, canft thou wish that madly wild to fly
From yon bright portal opening in the sky,
Thy Abelard should bid his God adieu,
Pant at thy feet, and taste thy charms anew?
Ye heav'ns! if, to this tender bofom woo'd,
Thy mere idea harrows up my blood;
If one faint glimpse of Eloife can move
The fierceft, wildest agonies of love;
What shall I be, when, dazzling as the light,
Thy whole effulgence flows upon my sight?
Look on thyself, confider who thou art,
And learn to be an abbess in thy heart.

The flame-wing'd lightning gleams from pole to See, while devotion's ever melting strain

pole.

At once the pleafing images withdrew,
And more than horrors crouded in my view:
Thy uncle's form, in all his ire array'd,
Serenely dreadful, ftalk'd along the shade:
Pierc'd by his sword I funk upon the ground,
The fpeétre ghaftly smil'd upon the wound;
A group of black infernals round me hung,
And tofs'd my infamy from tongue to tongue.
Detefted wretch! how impotent thy age!
How weak thy malice! and how kind thy rage!
Spite of thyfelf, inhuman as thou art,
Thy murdering hand has left me all my heart;
Left me each tender, fond affection warm,
A nerve to tremble, and an eye to charm.
No, cruel, cruel, exquifite in ill!
Thou thought'ft it dull barbarity to kill;
My death had robb'd lost vengeance of her toil,
And scarcely warm'd a Scythian to a smile :
Sublimer furies taught thy foul to glow
With all their favage mysteries of woe;
Taught thy unfeeling poniard to destroy
The powers of nature, and the fource of joy;
To stretch me on the racks of vain defire,
Each paffion throbbing, and each wish on fire;
Mad to enjoy, unable to be bleft,

Fiends in my veins, and hell within my breast,

Pours the loud organ thro' the trembling fane,
Yon pious maids each earthly wish disown,
Kifs the dread cross, and croud upon the throne;
O let thy foul the facred charge attend,
Their warmths inspirit, and their virtues mend;
Teach every breast from every hymn to steal
The cherub's meekness, and the seraph's zeal;
To rife to rapture, to diffolve away
In dreams of heav'n, and lead thyself the way;
Till all the glories of the bleft abode
Blaze on the scene, and every thought is God.
While thus thy exemplary cares prevail,
And make each vestal spotlefs as her veil,
Th' eternal spirit o'er thy cell shall move
In the foft image of the mystic dove;
The longest gleams of heavenly comfort bring,
Peace in his fmile, and healing on his wing;
At once remove affliction from thy breast,
Melt o'er thy foul, and hush her pangs to reft.
O that my foul, from love's curft bondage free,
Could catch the transports that I urge to thee!
O that fome angel's more than magic art
Would kindly tear the hermit from this heart!
Extinguish every guilty fenfe, and leave
No pulfe to riot, and no figh to heave.
Vain, fruitless wish! ftill, ftill the vig'rous flame
Bursts, like an earthquake, thro' my shatter'd frame;

Spite of the joys that truth and virtue prove,
I feel but thee, and breathe not but to love ;
Repent in vain, fcarce with to be forgiv'n,
Thy form my idol, and thy charms my heav'n.
Yet, yet, my fair! thy nobler efforts try,
Lift me from earth and give me to the sky;
Let my loft foul thy brighter virtues feel,
Warm'd with thy hopes, and wing'd with all thy

zeal.

And when, low-bending at the hallow'd fhrine,
Thy contrite heart fhall Abelard resign ;
When pitying heav'n, impatient to forgive,
Unbars the gates of light and bids thee live;
Seize on th' aufpicious moment ere it flee,
And afk the fame immortal boon for me.

That when thefe black terrific fcenes are o'er,
And rebel nature chills the foul no more;
When on thy cheek th' expiring roses fade,
And thy laft luftres darken in the shade;
When arm'd with quick varieties of pain,
Or creeping dully flow from vein to vein,
Pale death thall fet my kindred-fpirit free.
And thefe dead orbs forget to doat on thee;
Some pious friend, whofe wild affections glow
Like ours in fad fimilitude of woe,
Shall drop one tender, fympathizing tear,
\ Prepare the garland, and adom the bier ;
Our lifelefs reliques in one tomb enshrine,
And teach thy genial duft to mix with mine.
Meanwhile, divinely purg'd from every stain,
Our active fouls fhall climb th' ethereal plain,
To each bright cherub's purity afpire,
Catch all his zeal, and pant with all his fire;
There, where no face the glooms of anguish wears,
No uncle murders, and no paffion tears,
Enjoy with heav'n eternity of reft,
For ever bleffing, and for ever bleit.

E LEGY

TO THE

Alas! my HUGHES! and muft this mourning
verfe

Refign thy triumph to attend thy hearse!
Was it for this that friendship's genial flame
Woke all my wishes from the trance of fame?
Was it for this I left the hallow'd page,
Where ev'ry science beams of ev'ry age;

On thought's ftrong pinion rang'd the martial scene,
From Rome's first Cæfar to the great Eugene ;
Explor'd th' embattled van, the deep'ning line,
Th' enambush'd phalanx, and the fpringing mine;
Then, pale with horror, bent the fuppliant knee,
And heav'd the figh, and dropp'd the tear for thee!
What boots it now, that when, with hideous roar,
The gath'ring tempeft howl'd from ev'ry thore,
Some pitying angel, vigilant to fave,

Spread all his plumes, and fnatch'd thee from the wave?

Preferv'd thee facred from the fell disease,

When the blue plague had fir'd th' autumnal breeze? Ah! when my hero panted to engage

Where all the battle burst in all its rage;

Where dreadful flew the miffive deaths around,
And the mad faulchion blush'd from wound to
wound ;

Was he deny'd the privilege to bleed,
Sav'd on the main to fall upon the Tweed?

Ye graces! tell with what address he stole
The lift'ning ear, and open'd all the foul.
What tho' rough winter bade his whirlwinds rife,
Hid his pale funs, and frown'd along his skies,
Pour'd the big deluge on the face of day,
My HUGHES was here to fmile the glooms away,
With all the luxuries of found to move
The pulfe of glory, or the figh of love;
And, fpite of winter, laffitude, or pain,
Taught life and joy to throb in ev'ry vein.
Fancy! dear artist of the mental pow'r!
Fly,fetch my genius to the focial hour ;
Give me again his glowing sense to warm,
His fong to warble, and his wit to charm.
Alas! alas! how impotently true

Th' aerial pencil forms the scene anew!

E'en now, when all the vision beams around,
And my ear kindles with th' ideal found-
Just as the fmiles, the graces live impreft,
And all his image takes up all my breaft-

MEMORY OF CAPTAIN HUGHES, Some gloomy phantom brings the awful bier,

A PARTICULAR FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S.

AIN were the task to give the foul to glow, The nerve to kindle, and the verse to flow; When the fond mourner, hid from ev'ry eye, Bleeds in the anguish of too keen a figh; And, loft to glory, loit to all his fire, Forgets the port before he grafps the lyre.

Nature ! 'tis thine with manly warmth to mourn Expiring virtue, and the cloting urn;

To teach, dear Seraph! o'er the good and wife
The dirge to murmur, and the buft to rife.
Come then, O guiltles of the tear of art!
Sprung from the sky, and thron'd within the heart!
O come, in all the pomp of grief array'd,
And weep the warrior, whilft I grace the fhade.

'Tis o'er the bright delufive fcene is o'er,
And war's proud vifions mock the foul no more;
The laurel fades, th' imperial car retires,
All youth ennobles, and all worth admires.

And the short rapture melts into a tear.

Thus in the lake's clear crystal we descry The bright diffusion of a radiant sky→ Reflected nature sheds a milder green; While half her forefts float into the scene. Ah! as we gaze the lucklefs zephyr flies, The furface trembles, and the picture dies.

O bleft with all that youth can give to please, The form majeftic, and the mien of ease, Alike empowr'd by nature, and by art, To ftorm the rampart, and to win the heart; Correct of manners, delicate of mind, With fpirit humble, and with truth refin'd; For public life's meridian funshine made, Yet known to ev'ry virtue of the shade; In war, while all the trumps of fame infpire, Each paffion raving, and each with on fire; At home, without or vanity, or rage; As foft as pity, and as cool as age.

M-.

AND A-

HILE airy Belville, guiltless of a school,
Shines out a French edition of a fool,
Studies his learned taylor once a week,
But curfes ev'ry fyllable of Greek ;

I fit, and think o'er all that Sparta fir'd,
That Athens boafted, and that Romé admir'd.
Enraptur'd fancy, bufied with the theme,
Forms ev'ry bright idea to a dream,
Paints all the charming pageantry anew,
And brings at once each claffic to my view.
Now, fondly wild, I thunder in the war,

Shake the keen fpear, and mount th' imperial car;
With daring Regulus to Carthage run,
Or nobly bleed with Brutus in a fon;
Seize, Cafca-like, on Cæfar's gorgeous veft,
And boldly plant a dagger in his breaft.
Now, foftly-breathing all the muse's fire,
I drop the faulchion, and I grafp the lyre ;
With Pindar's pinion skim the bleft abode,
Or ftrive to charm Auguftus with an ode.

Come then, my Lelius! come, my joy and pride!

Whofe friendthip fooths me, while thy precepts

guide;

Thou, whofe quick eye has glanc'd thro' every age,

View'd every scene, and studied ev'ry page;

Teach me, like thee, with ev'ry virtue bleft,

To catch each eye, and steal to ev'ry breast;

To rife to all that in each patriot shone,

And make each hero's happiness my own.

Say, fhall I, with a triumph in my view,

Fame's air-drefs'd goddess thro' each scene pursue ;

Ambitious court her in the pomp of war,

And number every trophy by a scar?

Shall I, with Solon, form the moral plan,

And aim to mould a favage to a man?

Or, pleas'd to rival every Grecian sage,"

Glean Plato's fenfe, and copy Homer's rage.

A-.

You ask me, Sir! what few would care to give,

Some grave instructions how you ought to live.

You with that envied blifsful fcene to find,

That charms the taste, and dignifies the mind;

That nobly mingles every art to please,

And joins the majefty of life to ease.

VOL. VII.

Hear then, my friend! the doctrine I disclose,

As true as if difplay'd in pompous profe;
As if Locke's facred hand the page had wrote,
And every doctor stamp'd it with a vote.

All lots are equal, and all states the fame,
Alike in merit, tho' unlike in name.
In Reason's eye no difference lies between
Life's noon-day luftres or her milder scene.
'Tis not the plate that dignifies the board,
Nor all the titles blazing round a lord;
'Tis not the fplendid plume, the embroider'd vest,
The gorgeous fword-knot, or the martial creft,
That lends to life the fimile, the jeft, the glee,
Or makes his honour happier than me.
When Florio's acres ftretch'd o'er half the land,
A gilded chariot roll'd him thro' the Strand:
Reduc'd at last with humbler scenes to mix,
He fimoak'd a fpeculative pipe at Dick's.
The fame great genius, in or out of pow'r-
Eafe fmooth'd his brow, and foften'd ev'ry hour;
Taught him to live as happy in a shed,
As when a dutchefs grac'd his nuptial bed.