  A DIALOGUETO THE MEMORY OF MR. ALEXANDER POPE. To * * Esq. of * * with a Life of the late Ingenious Mr. Wm. Hogarth. Dear Cosmopolitan,—I know I should address you a Rondeau, Or else announce what I've to say At least en Ballade fratrisÉe; But No: for once I leave Gymnasticks, And take to simple Hudibrasticks; Why should I choose another Way, When this was good enough for Gay? You love, my Friend, with me, I think, That Age of Lustre and of Link; Of Chelsea China and long "s"es, Of Bag-wigs and of flowered Dresses; That Age of Folly and of Cards, Of Hackney Chairs and Hackney Bards; —No H—lts, no K—g—n P—ls were then Dispensing Competence to Men; The gentle Trade was left to Churls, Your frowsy Tonsons and your Curlls; The Author in a Sheep-skin Back; Then Savage and his Brother-Sinners In Porridge-Island div'd for Dinners; Or doz'd on Covent Garden Bulks, And liken'd Letters to the Hulks;— You know that by-gone Time, I say, That aimless easy-moral'd Day, When rosy Morn found Madam still Wrangling at Ombre or Quadrille, When good Sir John reel'd Home to Bed, From Pontack's or the Shakespear's Head; When Trip convey'd his Master's Cloaths, And took his Titles and his Oaths; While Betty, in a cast Brocade, Ogled My Lord at Masquerade; When Garrick play'd the guilty Richard, Or mouth'd Macbeth with Mrs. Pritchard; When Foote grimac'd his snarling Wit; When Churchill bullied in the Pit; When the Cuzzoni sang— But there! The further Catalogue I spare, Having no Purpose to eclipse That tedious Tale of Homer's Ships;— This is the Man that drew it all From Pannier Alley to the Mall, From Bird-Cage Walk to Lewknor's Lane;— Its Rakes and Fools, its Rogues and Sots; Its brawling Quacks, its starveling Scots; Its Ups and Downs, its Rags and Garters, Its Henleys, Lovats, Malcolms, Chartres; Its Splendour, Squalor, Shame, Disease; Its quicquid agunt Homines;— Nor yet omitted to pourtray Furens quid possit Foemina;— In short, held up to ev'ry Class Nature's unflatt'ring looking-Glass; And, from his Canvass, spoke to All The Message of a Juvenal. Take Him. His Merits most aver: His weak Point is—his Chronicler! Novr. 1, 1879. HENRY FIELDING.(To James Russell Lowell.) Not from the ranks of those we call Philosopher or Admiral,— Neither as Locke was, nor as Blake, Is that Great Genius for whose sake We keep this Autumn festival. And yet in one sense, too, was he A soldier—of humanity; And, surely, philosophic mind Belonged to him whose brain designed That teeming Comic Epos where, As in Cervantes and MoliÈre, Jostles the medley of Mankind. Our English Novel's pioneer! His was the eye that first saw clear How, not in natures half-effaced By cant of Fashion and of Taste,— Not in the circles of the Great, Faint-blooded and exanimate, Which we to-day reap after him. No:—he stepped lower down and took The piebald People for his Book! Ah, what a wealth of Life there is In that large-laughing page of his! What store and stock of Common-Sense, Wit, Wisdom, Books, Experience! How his keen Satire flashes through, And cuts a sophistry in two! How his ironic lightning plays Around a rogue and all his ways! Ah, how he knots his lash to see That ancient cloak, Hypocrisy! Whose are the characters that give Such round reality?—that live With such full pulse? Fair Sophy yet Sings Bobbing Joan at the spinet; We see Amelia cooking still That supper for the recreant Will; We hear Squire Western's headlong tones Bawling "Wut ha?—wut ha?" to Jones. Are they not present now to us,— The Parson with his Æschylus? Slipslop the frail, and Northerton, Are they not breathing, moving,—all The motley, merry carnival That Fielding kept, in days agone? He was the first who dared to draw Mankind the mixture that he saw; Not wholly good nor ill, but both, With fine intricacies of growth. He pulled the wraps of flesh apart, And showed the working human heart; He scorned to drape the truthful nude With smooth, decorous platitude! He was too frank, may be; and dared Too boldly. Those whose faults he bared, Writhed in the ruthless grasp that brought Into the light their secret thought. Therefore the Tartuffe-throng who say "Couvrez ce sein," and look that way,— Therefore the Priests of Sentiment Rose on him with their garments rent. Therefore the gadfly swarm whose sting Plies ever round some generous thing, Buzzed of old bills and tavern-scores, Old "might-have-beens" and "heretofores";— Then, from that garbled record-list, Made him his own Apologist. And was he? Nay,—let who has known Nor Youth nor Error, cast the stone! If to have sense of Joy and Pain Too keen,—to rise, to fall again, To live too much,—be sin, why then, This was no pattern among men. But those who turn that later page, The Journal of his middle-age, Watch him serene in either fate,— Philanthropist and Magistrate; Watch him as Husband, Father, Friend, Faithful, and patient to the end; Grieving, as e'en the brave may grieve, But for the loved ones he must leave: These will admit—if any can— That 'neath the green Estrella trees, No Artist merely, but a Man, Wrought on our noblest island-plan, Sleeps with the alien Portuguese. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW."Nec turpem senectam Degere, nec cithara carentem." —Hor. i. 31. "Not to be tuneless in old age!" Ah! surely blest his pilgrimage, Who, in his Winter's snow, Still sings with note as sweet and clear As in the morning of the year When the first violets blow! Blest!—but more blest, whom Summer's heat, Whom Spring's impulsive stir and beat, Have taught no feverish lure; Whose Muse, benignant and serene, Still keeps his Autumn chaplet green Because his verse is pure! Lie calm, O white and laureate head! Lie calm, O Dead, that art not dead, Since from the voiceless grave, Thy voice shall speak to old and young While song yet speaks an English tongue By Charles' or Thamis' wave! CHARLES GEORGE GORDON."Rather be dead than praised," he said, That hero, like a hero dead, In this slack-sinewed age endued With more than antique fortitude! "Rather be dead than praised!" Shall we, Who loved thee, now that Death sets free Thine eager soul, with word and line Profane that empty house of thine? Nay,—let us hold, be mute. Our pain Will not be less that we refrain; And this our silence shall but be A larger monument to thee. VICTOR HUGO.He set the trumpet to his lips, and lo! The clash of waves, the roar of winds that blow, The strife and stress of Nature's warring things, Rose like a storm-cloud, upon angry wings. He set the reed-pipe to his lips, and lo! The wreck of landscape took a rosy glow, And Life, and Love, and gladness that Love brings Laughed in the music, like a child that sings. Master of each, Arch-Master! We that still Wait in the verge and outskirt of the Hill Look upward lonely—lonely to the height Where thou has climbed, for ever, out of sight! ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.EMIGRAVIT, OCTOBER VI., MDCCCXCII. Grief there will be, and may, When King Apollo's bay Is cut midwise; Grief that a song is stilled, Grief for the unfulfilled Singer that dies. Not so we mourn thee now, Not so we grieve that thou, Master, art passed, Since thou thy song didst raise, Through the full round of days, E'en to the last. Grief there may be, and will, When that the Singer still Sinks in the song; When that the wingÉd rhyme Fails of the promised prime, Ruined and wrong. Not thus we mourn thee—we— Not thus we grieve for thee, Master and Friend; Since, like a clearing flame, Clearer thy pure song came E'en to the end. Nay—nor for thee we grieve E'en as for those that leave Life without name; Lost as the stars that set, Empty of men's regret, Empty of fame. Rather we count thee one Who, when his race is run, Layeth him down, Calm—through all coming days, Filled with a nation's praise, Filled with renown. |
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