Inebriety and the Candidate | Page 3

bargain'd with her
blood.
These, honest Curio, are thine, and these
Are the dull
treasures of a brain at peace;
No wit intoxicates thy gentle skull,
Of
heavy, native, unwrought folly full:
Bowl upon bowl in vain exert

their force,
The breathing spirit takes a downward course,
Or
mainly soaring upwards to the head,
Meets an impenetrable fence of
lead.
Hast thou, oh reader! searched o'er gentle Gay,
Where various
animals their powers display?
In one strange group a chattering race
are hurl'd,
Led by the monkey who had seen the world.
Like him
Fabricio steals from guardian's side,
Swims not in pleasure's stream,
but sips the tide:
He hates the bottle, yet but thinks it right
To boast
next day the honours of the night;
None like your coward can
describe a fight.
See him as down the sparkling potion goes,
Labour
to grin away the horrid dose;
In joy-feigned gaze his misty eyeballs
float,
Th' uncivil spirit gurgling at his throat;
So looks dim Titan
through a wintry scene,
And faintly cheers the woe-foreboding swain.
Timon, long practised in the school of art,
Has lost each finer feeling
of the heart;
Triumphs o'er shame, and, with delusive wiles,
Laughs
at the idiot he himself beguiles:
So matrons, past the awe of censure's
tongue,
Deride the blushes of the fair and young.
Few with more
fire on every subject spoke,
But chief he loved the gay immoral joke;

The words most sacred, stole from holy writ,
He gave a newer
form, and called them wit.
Vice never had a more sincere ally,
So
bold no sinner, yet no saint so sly;
Learn'd, but not wise, and without
virtue brave,
A gay, deluding, philosophic knave.
When Bacchus'
joys his airy fancy fire,
They stir a new, but still a false desire;
And
to the comfort of each untaught fool,
Horace in English vindicates the
bowl.
"The man," says Timon, "who is drunk is blest,
No fears
disturb, no cares destroy his rest;
In thoughtless joy he reels away his
life,

Nor dreads that worst of ills, a noisy wife."
"Oh! place me,
Jove, where none but women come,
And thunders worse than thine
afflict the room,
Where one eternal nothing flutters round,
And
senseless titt'ring sense of mirth confound;
Or lead me bound to
garret, Babel-high,
Where frantic poet rolls his crazy eye,
Tiring the

ear with oft-repeated chimes,
And smiling at the never-ending rhymes:

E'en here, or there, I'll be as blest as Jove,
Give me tobacco, and
the wine I love."
Applause from hands the dying accents break,
Of
stagg'ring sots who vainly try to speak;
From Milo, him who hangs
upon each word,
And in loud praises splits the tortured board,

Collects each sentence, ere it's better known,
And makes the
mutilated joke his own.
At weekly club to flourish, where he rules,

The glorious president of grosser fools.
But cease, my Muse! of those or these enough,
The fools who listen,
and the knaves who scoff;
The jest profane, that mocks th' offended
God,
Defies his power, and sets at nought his rod;
The empty laugh,
discretion's vainest foe,
From fool to fool re-echoed to and fro;
The
sly indecency, that slowly springs
From barren wit, and halts on
trembling wings:
Enough of these, and all the charms of wine,
Be
sober joys and social evenings mine;
Where peace and reason,
unsoil'd mirth, improve
The powers of friendship and the joys of love;

Where thought meets thought ere words its form array,
And all is
sacred, elegant, and gay:
Such pleasure leaves no sorrow on the mind,

Too great to fall, to sicken too refined;
Too soft for noise, and too
sublime for art,
The social solace of the feeling heart,
For sloth too
rapid, and for wit too high,
'Tis virtue's pleasure, and can never die!
"THE CANDIDATE" {2}
A POETICAL EPISTLE TO THE
AUTHORS OF THE MONTHLY REVIEW.
AN INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS OF THE AUTHOR TO HIS
POEMS.
Multa quidem nobis facimus mala saepe poetae,
(Ut vineta egomet
caedam mea) cum tibi librum
Sollicito damus, aut fesso, &c.
HORACE, Epistle 1.
Ye idler things, that soothed my hours of care,
Where would ye

wander, triflers, tell me where?
As maids neglected, do ye fondly
dote,
On the tair type, or the embroider'd coat;
Detest my modest
shelf, and long to fly
Where princely Popes and mighty Miltons lie?

Taught but to sing, and that in simple style,
Of Lycia's lip, and
Musidora's smile; -
Go then! and taste a yet unfelt distress,
The fear
that guards the captivating press;
Whose maddening region should ye
once explore,
No refuge yields my tongueless mansion more.
But
thus ye'll grieve, Ambition's plumage stript,
"Ah, would to Heaven,
we'd died in manuscript!"
Your unsoil'd page each yawning wit shall
flee,
- For few will read, and none admire like me. -
Its place, where
spiders silent bards enrobe,
Squeezed betwixt Cibber's Odes and
Blackmore's Job;
Where froth and mud, that varnish and deform,

Feed the lean critic and the fattening worm;
Then sent disgraced--the
unpaid printer's bane -
To mad Moorfields, or sober Chancery Lane,

On dirty stalls I see your hopes expire,
Vex'd by the grin of your
unheeded sire,
Who half reluctant has his care resign'd,
Like a
teased parent, and is rashly kind.
Yet rush not all, but let some scout go forth,
View the strange land,
and tell us of its worth;
And should he there barbarian usage