The Village and The Newspaper | Page 7

a noisy throng.
When evening comes, she comes
with all her train;
Of LEDGERS, CHRONICLES, and POSTS again.

Like bats, appearing when the sun goes down,
From holes obscure
and corners of the town.
Of all these triflers, all like these, I write;


Oh! like my subject could my song delight,
The crowd at Lloyd's one
poet's name should raise,
And all the Alley echo to his praise.

In shoals the hours their constant numbers bring,
Like insects waking
to th' advancing spring;
Which take their rise from grubs obscene that
lie
In shallow pools, or thence ascend the sky:
Such are these base
ephemeras, so born
To die before the next revolving morn.
Yet thus
they differ: insect-tribes are lost
In the first visit of a winters frost;

While these remain, a base but constant breed,
Whose swarming sons
their short-lived sires succeed;
No changing season makes their
number less,
Nor Sunday shines a sabbath on the press!
Then lo! the sainted MONITOR is born,
Whose pious face some
sacred texts adorn:
As artful sinners cloak the secret sin,
To veil
with seeming grace the guile within;
So moral Essays on his front
appear,
But all is carnal business in the rear;
The fresh-coin'd lie,
the secret whisper'd last,
And all the gleanings of the six days past.
With these retired through half the Sabbath-day,
The London lounger
yawns his hours away:
Not so, my little flock! your preacher fly,

Nor waste the time no worldly wealth can buy;
But let the decent
maid and sober clown
Pray for these idlers of the sinful town:
This
day, at least, on nobler themes bestow,
Nor give to WOODFALL, or
the world below.
But, Sunday past, what numbers flourish then,
What wondrous
labours of the press and pen;
Diurnal most, some thrice each week
affords,
Some only once,--O avarice of words!
When thousand
starving minds such manna seek,
To drop the precious food but once
a week.
Endless it were to sing the powers of all,
Their names, their numbers;
how they rise and fall:
Like baneful herbs the gazer's eye they seize,

Rush to the head, and poison where they please:
Like idle flies, a
busy, buzzing train,
They drop their maggots in the trifler's brain:

That genia soil receives the fruitful store,
And there they grow, and
breed a thousand more.

Now be their arts display'd, how first they choose
A cause and party,
as the bard his Muse;
Inspired by these, with clamorous zeal they cry,

And through the town their dreams and omens fly;
So the Sibylline
leaves were blown about,
Disjointed scraps of fate involved in doubt;

So idle dreams, the journals of the night,
Are right and wrong by
turns, and mingle wrong with right.- Some champions for the rights
that prop the crown,
Some sturdy patriots, sworn to pull them down;

Some neutral powers, with secret forces fraught,
Wishing for war,
but willing to be bought:
While some to every side and party go,

Shift every friend, and join with every foe;
Like sturdy rogues in
privateers, they strike
This side and that, the foes of both alike;
A
traitor-crew, who thrive in troubled times,
Fear'd for their force, and
courted for their crimes.
Chief to the prosperous side the numbers sail,
Fickle and false, they
veer with every gale;
As birds that migrate from a freezing shore
In
search of warmer climes, come skimming o'er,
Some bold
adventurers first prepare to try
The doubtful sunshine of the distant
sky;
But soon the growing Summer's certain sun
Wins more and
more, till all at last are won:
So, on the early prospect of disgrace,

Fly in vast troops this apprehensive race;
Instinctive tribes! their
failing food they dread,
And buy, with timely change, their future
bread.
Such are our guides; how many a peaceful head,
Born to be still, have
they to wrangling led!
How many an honest zealot stol'n from trade,

And factious tools of pious pastors made!
With clews like these
they thread the maze of state,
These oracles explore, to learn our fate;

Pleased with the guides who can so well deceive,
Who cannot lie
so fast as they believe.
Oft lend I, loth, to some sage friend an ear,
(For we who will not
speak are doom'd to hear);
While he, bewilder'd, tells his anxious
thought,
Infectious fear from tainted scribblers caught,
Or idiot

hope; for each his mind assails,
As LLOYD'S court-light or
STOCKDALE'S gloom prevails.
Yet stand I patient while but one
declaims,
Or gives dull comments on the speech he maims:
But oh!
ye Muses, keep your votary's feet
From tavern-haunts where
politicians meet;
Where rector, doctor, and attorney pause,
First on
each parish, then each public cause:
Indited roads, and rates that still
increase;
The murmuring poor, who will not fast in peace;
Election
zeal and friendship, since declined;
A tax commuted, or a tithe in
kind;
The Dutch and Germans kindling into strife;
Dull port and
poachers vile; the serious ills of life.
Here comes the neighbouring Justice, pleased to guide
His little club,
and in the chair preside.
In private business his commands prevail,

On public themes his reasoning turns the scale;
Assenting silence
soothes his happy ear,
And, in or out, his party triumphs here.
Nor here th' infectious rage for party stops,
But flits along from
palaces to shops;
Our weekly journals o'er the land abound,
And
spread their