On the first marching of the troops,

The Muses, hopeless of his pardon, Convey'd him underneath their hoops To a small closet in the garden.

So rumour says: (who will, believe.)
But that they left the door ajar,

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Where, safe and laughing in his sleeve,
He heard the distant din of war.

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80

Short was his joy. He little knew
The pow'r of magic was no fable;
Out of the window, whisk, they flew,
But left a spell upon the table.

The words too eager to unriddle,

The poet felt a strange disorder; Transparent bird-lime form'd the middle, And chains invisible the border.

So cunning was the apparatus,

The powerful pot-hooks did so move him, That, will he, nill he, to the great house He went, as if the devil drove him.

Yet on his way (no sign of

grace,

For folks in fear are apt to pray) To Phoebus he preferr'd his case,

And begg'd his aid that dreadful day.

The godhead would have back'd his quarrel;
But with a blush, on recollection,

Own'd that his quiver and his laurel

'Gainst four such eyes were no protection.

The court was sat, the culprit there,

Forth from their gloomy mansions creeping, The lady Janes and Joans repair,

And from the gallery stand peeping:

Such as in silence of the night

Come (sweep) along some winding entry, (Styack has often seen the sight)

Or at the chapel-door stand sentry:

In peaked hoods and mantles tarnish'd,
Sour visages, enough to scare ye,
High dames of honour once, that garnish'd
The drawing-room of fierce Queen Mary.

The peeress comes. The audience stare,
And doff their hats with due submission:
She curtsies, as she takes her chair,

To all the people of condition.

V. 103. Styack] The housekeeper. G

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95

100

105

110

The bard, with many an artful fib,
Had in imagination fenc'd him,
Disprov'd the arguments of Squib,

And all that Groom could urge against him.

But soon his rhetoric forsook him,
When he the solemn hall had seen;
A sudden fit of ague shook him,

He stood as mute as poor Macleane.

Yet something he was heard to mutter,
"How in the park beneath an old tree,
(Without design to hurt the butter,

Or any malice to the poultry,)

"He once or twice had penn'd a sonnet;
Yet hop'd that he might save his bacon:
Numbers would give their oaths upon it,
He ne'er was for a conj'rer taken.”

Var. V. 116. Might. Ms.

115

120

125

V. 115. Squib] Groom of the chamber. G.

James Squibb was the son of Dr. Arthur Squibb, the descendant of an ancient and respectable family, whose pedigree is traced in the herald's visitations of Dorsetshire, to John Squibb of Whitchurch in that county, in the 17th Edw. IV. 1477. Dr. Squibb matriculated at Oxford in 1656, took his degree of M.A. in November, 1662; was chaplain to Colonel Bellasis's regiment about 1685, and died in 1697. As he was in distressed circumstances towards the end of his life, his son, James Squibb, was left almost destitute, and was consequently apprenticed to an upholder in 1712. In that situation he attracted the notice of Lord Cobham, in whose service he con

The ghostly prudes with hagged face
Already had condemn'd the sinner.
My lady rose, and with a grace

She smil❜d, and bid him come to dinner.

“Jesu-Maria! Madam Bridget,

Why, what can the Viscountess mean?" (Cried the square-hoods in woful fidget)

“The times are alter'd quite and clean!

"Decorum's turn'd to mere civility;

Her air and all her manners show it. Commend me to her affability!

Speak to a commoner and poet!"

[Here five hundred stanzas are lost.]

And so God save our noble king,

And guard us from long-winded lubbers,

That to eternity would sing,

And keep my lady from her rubbers.

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tinued for many years, and died at Stowe, in June, 1762. His son, James Squibb, who settled in Saville Row, London, was grandfather of George James Squibb, Esq. of Orchard Street, Portman Square, who is the present representative of this branch of the family. Nicolas.

V. 116. Groom] The steward. G.

V. 120. Macleane] A famous highwayman hanged the week before. G.

See a Sequel to the Long Story in Hakewill's History of Windsor, by John Penn, Esq. and a farther Sequel to that, by the late Laureate, H. J. Pye, Esq.

POSTHUMOUS POEMS AND

FRAGMENTS.

ODE ON THE PLEASURE ARISING FROM VICISSITUDE.

Left unfinished by Gray. With additions by Mason, distinguished by inverted commas. (I have read something that Mason has done in finishing a half-written ode of Gray. I find he will never get the better of that glare of colouring, ⚫ that dazzling blaze of song,' an expression of his own, and ridiculous enough, which disfigures half his writings. V. Langhorne's Lett. to H. More, i. 23.) See Musæ Etonenses, ii. p. 176.

Now the golden morn aloft

Waves her dew-bespangled wing,

V. 1. Sophocl. Antig. v. 103, xpvoćas åμépas Bλépapov; and Dyer. Fleece, lib. iii. "Grey dawn appears, the golden morn ascends.” Luke.

V. 3. "Vermeil cheek," see Milton. Comus, v. 749. Luke. V. 4. "Rorifera mulcens aura, Zephyrus vernas evocat herbas." Senec. Hipp. i. 11. Luke.

V. 8. "Half rob'd appears the hawthorn hedge,

Or to the distant eye displays

Weakly green its budding sprays."

Warton. First of April, i. 180.

See Mant's note on the passage. Add Buchan. Psalm xxiii. p. 36. "Quæ Veris teneri pingit amoenitas."

V. 9.

-"Hinc nova proles,

Artubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas
Ludit."
Lucret. i. 260.