قراءة كتاب Love in the Suds: a Town Eclogue. Being the Lamentation of Roscius for the Loss of His Nyky.

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‏اللغة: English

Love in the Suds: a Town Eclogue. Being the Lamentation of Roscius for the Loss of His Nyky.

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المؤلف:

Kenrick W (William)

دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

الصفحة رقم: 4

"If any author of prolific brains
In this good company feels labour-pains;
If any gentle poet big with rhyme
Has run his reckoning out and gone his time:
Know such that at our hospital of muses
He may lie-in in private if he chuses;
We've single lodgings there for secret sinners
With good encouragement for your beginners."

Prologue to the Fashionable Lover.

It is indeed now plain enough that Roscius has given great encouragement to secret sinners; but I would advise none of our poets to lie in again in private; but to remember the fate of a late tragedy and farce. Poor Clementina, and the lady An hour before marriage, both privately lay-in and miscarried.

9 The Jesuit Ruæus begins the argument of Virgil's second Eclogue with the following explicit declaration, Amabat Virgilius puerum.

The gay Petronius, sophists, wits and bards,
Of old, bestow'd on youth their soft regards;
In modish dalliance pass'd their harmless time
Ev'n modish now in soft Italia's clime.
Could lightenings ever issue from above
To blast poor men for such a crime as love;
When the lewd daughters of incestuous Lot
Were both with child by their own father got?
Poor goody Lot indeed might be in fault,
And justly turn'd to monumental salt:
The matrimonial emblem of a wife:
Needs must be salt a dish to keep for life!
A fable Sodom's fate: in Heav'n above
All is made up of harmony and love;
That such its vengeance I believe not, I;
Historians err and Hebrew Jews will lie.
Sing then, my Muse, a more engaging strain
To lure my Nyky back to Drury-lane.
Tell him the fancied danger all is o'er;
Home he may come and love as heretofore.

IMITATIONS.

Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin.
—— Deos didici securum agere ævum
Nec si quid miri faciat natura, deos id
Tristes ex alto cœli demittere tecto.
—— —— Credat Judæus Apella,
Non ego. ——
Ducite ab urbe domum mea carmina ducite Daphnim.

In vain the vulgar shall for vengeance call,
Or move the justices at Hickes's-hall;
In vain grand juries shall be urg'd by law
In his indictment not to leave a flaw.
Ev'n at the bar should Nyky stand arraign'd,
No verdict 'gainst him should be there obtain'd;
Nay, by the laws and customs of the land,
Tho' trembling Nyky should convicted stand,
The candid jury shall be mov'd t'acquit
A gentleman, an author, and a wit:
For liberal minds with candour ever see
The milder failings of humanity!
Smooth-spoken Mansfield,10 with his vacant face,
In softening accents first shall ope his case;
Which to defend, the want of Merlin's cunning
Shall be supplied by that of Grimbald Dunning.11
E'en at th' Old-Bailey they for Nyk shall plead;
Where would they not, if they were largely fee'd?
Were Nyky summon'd to the bar below,
Well-fee'd these faithful barristers would go;

NOTES.

10 Not the Judge of that name; but the barrister, who, is by no means a judge—— of any thing.

11 See King Arthur, lately revived at Drury-lane Theatre, and attend the pleadings in our courts of law and equity at Westminster, Guildhall, and Lincoln's-inn.

Their tale to Minos would they glibly tell;
Minos the Mansfield, or Chief Judge, of Hell.12
Nor need my Nyky fear a London jury
Will e'er be influenced with a female fury.
Can they who let a prov'd assassin 'scape
Hang up poor Nyky for a friendly rape?
If in the dark to stab, be thought no crime,
What may'nt be hop'd from jurymen in time?
Soon Southern modes, no doubt, they'll reconcile
With the plain manners of our Northern isle;
And e'en new-married citizens be brought
To reckon S——y a venial fault:
When if George Bellas,13 cruel and unkind,
Blast not their loves, with rude tempestuous wind,
In common-council Corydon may burn,
And Corydons for Corydon in turn,
Till every alderman about the chair
Find his Alexis in a new lord-mayor.

IMITATIONS.

Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis.

NOTES.

12 Minos is reported by the poets to have been raised to this high office for his impartiality in the administration of Justice here on earth: what a pity that office is not soon to become vacant; as it might be most luckily filled by as worthy a successor.

13 A boisterous mock-patriot, supposed to be descended from Eolus and Amphitrite, being famous for his mackarel expeditions, his musical knowledge of the fundamental base and public performances on the bassoon.

Sing then, O Muse, a more pathetic strain,
To lure my gentle Nyky back again.
For, sure as Thames resembles

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