The Village and The Newspaper | Page 9

prose.
First, from each brother's hoard a part they draw,
A mutual theft that
never feared a law;
Whate'er they gain, to each man's portion fall,

And read it once, you read it through them all:
For this their runners
ramble day and night,
To drag each lurking deed to open light;
For
daily bread the dirty trade they ply,
Coin their fresh tales, and live
upon the lie:
Like bees for honey, forth for news they spring,-

Industrious creatures! ever on the wing;
Home to their several cells
they bear the store,
Cull'd of all kinds, then roam abroad for more.
No anxious virgin flies to "fair Tweed-side;"
No injured husband
mourns his faithless bride;
No duel dooms the fiery youth to bleed;

But through the town transpires each vent'rous deed.
Should some
fair frail one drive her prancing pair
Where rival peers contend to
please the fair;
When, with new force, she aids her conquering eyes,

And beauty decks, with all that beauty buys:
Quickly we learn
whose heart her influence feels,
Whose acres melt before her glowing
wheels.
To these a thousand idle themes succeed,
Deeds of all kinds, and
comments to each deed.
Here stocks, the state barometers, we view,

That rise or fall by causes known to few;
Promotion's ladder who
goes up or down;
Who wed, or who seduced, amuse the town;
What
new-born heir has made his father blest;
What heir exults, his father
now at rest;
That ample list the Tyburn-herald gives,
And each
known knave, who still for Tyburn lives.
So grows the work, and now the printer tries
His powers no more, but
leans on his allies.
When lo! the advertising tribe succeed,
Pay to be read, yet find but

few will read;
And chief th' illustrious race, whose drops and pills

Have patent powers to vanquish human ills:
These, with their cures, a
constant aid remain,
To bless the pale composer's fertile brain;

Fertile it is, but still the noblest soil
Requires some pause, some
intervals from toil;
And they at least a certain ease obtain
From
Katterfelto's skill, and Graham's glowing strain.
I too must aid, and pay to see my name
Hung in these dirty avenues
to fame;
Nor pay in vain, if aught the Muse has seen,
And sung,
could make these avenues more clean;
Could stop one slander ere it
found its way,
And give to public scorn its helpless prey.
By the
same aid, the Stage invites her friends,
And kindly tells the banquet
she intends;
Thither from real life the many run,
With Siddons
weep, or laugh with Abingdon;
Pleased in fictitious joy or grief, to
see
The mimic passion with their own agree;
To steal a few
enchanted hours away
From self, and drop the curtain on the day.
But who can steal from self that wretched wight
Whose darling work
is tried some fatal night?
Most wretched man! when, bane to every
bliss,
He hears the serpent-critic's rising hiss;
Then groans succeed;
nor traitors on the wheel
Can feel like him, or have such pangs to feel.

Nor end they here: next day he reads his fall
In every paper; critics
are they all:
He sees his branded name with wild affright,
And hears
again the cat-calls of the night.
Such help the STAGE affords: a larger space
Is fill'd by PUFFS and
all the puffing race.
Physic had once alone the lofty style,
The
well-known boast, that ceased to raise a smile:
Now all the province
of that tribe invade,
And we abound in quacks of every trade.
The simple barber, once an honest name,
Cervantes founded, Fielding
raised his fame:
Barber no more--a gay perfumer comes,

On whose
soft cheek his own cosmetic blooms;
Here he appears, each simple
mind to move,
And advertises beauty, grace, and love.
"Come,

faded belles, who would your youth renew,
And learn the wonders of
Olympian dew;
Restore the roses that begin to faint,
Nor think
celestial washes vulgar paint;
Your former features, airs, and arts
assume,
Circassian virtues, with Circassian bloom.
Come, battered
beaux, whose locks are turned to gray,
And crop Discretion's lying
badge away;
Read where they vend these smart engaging things,

These flaxen frontlets with elastic springs;
No female eye the fair
deception sees,
Not Nature's self so natural as these."
Such are their arts, but not confined to them,
The muse impartial
most her sons condemn:
For they, degenerate! join the venal throng,

And puff a lazy Pegasus along:
More guilty these, by Nature less
design'd
For little arts that suit the vulgar kind.
That barbers' boys,
who would to trade advance,
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, amidst 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