Wish us to call them, smart Friseurs from France;

That he who builds a chop-house, on his door Paints The true old original Blue Boar !'

These are the arts by which a thousand live, Where Truth may smile, and Justice may forgive:

But when, amid this rabble-rout, we find
A puffing poet to his honour blind;
Who slily drops quotations all about,
Packet or Post, and points their merit out;
Who advertises what reviewers say,
With sham editions every second day;
Who dares not trust his praises out of sight,
But hurries into fame with all his might;
Although the verse some transient praise
obtains,

Contempt is all the anxious poet gains.

Now puffs exhausted, advertisements past, Their correspondents stand exposed at last; These are a numerous tribe, to fame unknown, Who for the public good forego their own; Who volunteers in paper-war engage, With double portion of their party's rage: Such are the Bruti, Decii, who appear Wooing the printer for admission here; Whose generous souls can condescend to pray For leave to throw their precious time away. Oh! cruel Woodfall! when a patriot draws

His grey-goose quill in his dear country's

cause,

To vex and maul a ministerial race, Can thy stern soul refuse the champion place?

Alas! thou know'st not with what anxious heart

Turn to his trade, and leave us to our fate. These Roman souls, like Rome's great sons,

are known

To live in cells on labours of their own.
Thus Milo, could we see the noble chief,
Feeds, for his country's good, on legs of beef:
Camillus copies deeds for sordid pay,
Yet fights the public battles twice a day :
E'en now the godlike Brutus views his score
Scroll'd on the bar-board, swinging with the
door;

Where, tippling punch, grave Cato's self you'll

see,

And Amor Patriae vending smuggled tea.

Last in these ranks, and least, their art's dis

grace,

Neglected stand the Muses' meanest race; Scribblers who court contempt, whose verse the eye

Disdainful views, and glances swiftly by:
This Poet's Corner is the place they choose,
A fatal nursery for an infant Muse;
Unlike that corner where true poets lie,
These cannot live, and they shall never die;
Hapless the lad whose mind such dreams in-
vade,

And win to verse the talents due to trade

Curb then, O youth! these raptures as they

rise,

Keep down the evil spirit and be wise; Follow your calling, think the Muses foes, Nor lean upon the pestle and compose.

I know your day-dreams, and I know the

snare

Hid in your flow'ry path, and cry 'Beware.' Thoughtless of ill, and to the future blind,

A sudden couplet rushes on your mind;
Here

you may nameless print your idle
rhymes,

And read your first-born work a thousand times;

Th' infection spreads, your couplet grows

apace,

Stanzas to Delia's dog or Celia's face :
You take a name; Philander's odes are seen,
Printed, and praised, in every magazine:
Diarian sages greet their brother sage,
And your dark pages please th' enlighten'd
age.-

PART I.

Tum porro puer (ut saevis projectus ab undis, Navita) nudus humi jacet infans, indigus omni Vitali auxilio,

Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aequum est,

Cui tantum in vitâ restet transire malorum. LUCRET. de Nat. Rerum, lib. 5, vv. 223-5 and 227-8.1

her

The Child of the Miller's Daughter, and Relation of her Misfortune-A frugal Couple their Kind of Frugality-Plea of the Mother of a natural Child: Churching-Large Family of Gerard Ablett: his Apprehensions: Comparison between his State and that of the wealthy Farmer his Master: his Consolation-An old Man's Anxiety for an Heir: the Jealousy of another on having many-Characters of the Grocer Dawkins and his Friend: their different Kinds of Disappointment-Three Infants named-An Orphan Girl and Village Schoolmistress-Gardener's Child: Pedantry and Conceit of the Father his Botanical Discourse: Method of fixing the Embryo-fruit of Cucumbers-Absurd Effects of Rustic Vanity: observed in the Names of their Children-Relation of the

Vestry Debate on a Foundling: Sir Richard
Monday-Children of various Inhabitants
The poor Farmer-Children of a Profligate :
his Character and Fate-Conclusion.

THE year revolves, and I again explore
The simple annals of my parish poor;

BAPTISMS

What infant-members in my flock appear, What pairs I bless'd in the departed year; And who, of old or young, or nymphs or swains,

Are lost to life, its pleasures and its pains.

No Muse I ask, before my view to bring The humble actions of the swains I sing.How pass'd the youthful, how the old their days;

Who sank in sloth, and who aspired to praise; Their tempers, manners, morals, customs, arts,

What parts they had, and how they 'mploy'd their parts;

By what elated, soothed, seduced, depress'd, Full well I know-these records give the rest.

Is there a place, save one the poet sees, A land of love, of liberty and ease; Where labour wearies not, nor cares suppress Th' eternal flow of rustic happiness; Where no proud mansion frowns in awful state,

Or keeps the sunshine from the cottage-gate; Where young and old, intent on pleasure, throng,

And half man's life is holiday and song? Vain search for scenes like these! no view

appears,

By sighs unruffled or unstain'd by tears; Since vice the world subdued and waters

drown'd,

Auburn and Eden can no more be found.

Hence good and evil mix'd, but man has skill

And power to part them, when he feels the will!

Toil, care, and patience bless th' abstemious few,

Fear, shame, and want the thoughtless herd pursue.

Behold the cot! where thrives-th' industrious swain,

Source of his pride, his pleasure, and his gain;

Screen'd from the winter's wind, the sun's last ray

Smiles on the window and prolongs the day; Projecting thatch the woodbine's branches stop,

And turn their blossoms to the casement's top: All need requires is in that cot contain❜d, And much that taste untaught and unrestrain'd

Surveys delighted; there she loves to trace, In one gay picture, all the royal race; Around the walls are heroes, lovers, kings; The print that shows them and the verse that sings.

Here the last Lewis on his throne is seen, And there he stands imprison'd, and his queen;

To these the mother takes her child, and shows What grateful duty to his God he owes ; Who gives to him a happy home, where he Lives and enjoys his freedom with the free; When kings and queens, dethroned, insulted, tried,

And here Saint Monday's worthy votaries live,

In all the joys that ale and skittles give.

Now lo! in Egypt's coast that hostile fleet, By nations dreaded and by Nelson beat; And here shall soon another triumph come, A deed of glory in a day of gloom; Distressing glory! grievous boon of fate! The proudest conquest, at the dearest rate.

On shelf of deal beside the cuckoo-clock, Of cottage-reading rests the chosen stock; Learning we lack, not books, but have a kind For all our wants, a meat for every mind : The tale for wonder and the joke for whim, The half-sung sermon and the half-groan'd hymn.

No need of classing; each within its place, The feeling finger in the dark can trace; 'First from the corner, farthest from the wall,' Such all the rules, and they suffice for all.

There pious works for Sunday's use are

found;

Companions for that Bible newly bound; That Bible, bought by sixpence weekly saved, Has choicest prints by famous hands engraved ;

Has choicest notes by many a famous head, Such as to doubt have rustic readers led; Have made them stop to reason why? and how?

And, where they once agreed, to cavil now. Oh! rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain;

Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,

schools:

And there his son, who, tried by years of pain,
Proved that misfortunes may be sent in vain.
The magic-mill that grinds the gran'nams
young,

Close at the side of kind Godiva hung;
She, of her favourite place the pride and joy,
Of charms at once most lavish and most coy,
By wanton act, the purest fame could raise,
And give the boldest deed the chastest praise.
There stands the stoutest Ox in England

fed; There fights the boldest Jew, Whitechapel bred;

sun;

In moles and specks we Fortune's gifts discern, And Fate's fix'd will from Nature's wanderings learn.

Of Hermit Quarle we read, in island rare, Far from mankind and seeming far from care; Safe from all want, and sound in every limb; Yes! there was he, and there was care with him.

Unbound and heap'd, these valued works beside,

Lay humbler works, the pedler's pack supplied;

Yet these, long since, have all acquired a

name;

The Wandering Jew has found his way to fame;

And fame, denied to many a labour'd song, Crowns Thumb the great, and Hickerthrift the strong.

There too is he, by wizard-power upheld, Jack, by whose arm the giant-brood were quell'd:

His shoes of swiftness on his feet he placed; His coat of darkness on his loins he braced; His sword of sharpness in his hand he took, And off the heads of doughty giants stroke: Their glaring eyes beheld no mortal near; No sound of feet alarm'd the drowsy ear; No English blood their pagan sense could smell,

But heads dropp'd headlong, wondering why they fell.

These are the peasant's joy, when, placed

at case,

Half his delighted offspring mount his knees.

To every cot the lord's indulgent mind Has a small space for garden-ground assign'd; Here-till return of morn dismiss'd the farmThe careful peasant plies the sinewy arm, Warm'd as he works, and casts his look around On every foot of that improving ground: It is his own he sees; his master's eye Peers not about, some secret fault to spy; Nor voice severe is there, nor censure known ;

Hope, profit, pleasure,-they are all his own. Here grow the humble cives, and, hard by them,

The leek with crown globose and reedy stem;

High climb his pulse in many an even row, Deep strike the ponderous roots in soil below;

To this infected row, we term our street.
Here, in cabal, a disputatious crew
Each evening meet; the sot, the cheat, the
shrew:

Riots are nightly heard :-the curse, the cries
Of beaten wife, perverse in her replies;
While shrieking children hold each threat'ning
hand,

And sometimes life, and sometimes food demand:

Boys, in their first-stol'n rags, to swear begin,
And girls, who heed not dress, are skill'd in gin:
Snarers and smugglers here their gains divide;
Ensnaring females here their victims hide;
And here is one, the sibyl of the row,
Who knows all secrets, or affects to know.