The Village and The Newspaper | Page 7

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 plague and influenzas round;?The village, too, the peaceful, pleasant plain,?Breeds the Whig farmer and the Tory swain;?Brookes' and St Alban's boasts not, but, instead,?Stares the Red Ram, and swings the Rodney's Head:-?Hither, with all a patriot's care, comes he?Who owns the little hut that makes him free;?Whose yearly forty shillings buy the smile?Of mightier men, and never waste the while;?Who feels his freehold's worth, and looks elate,?A little prop and pillar of the state.
Here he delights the weekly news