Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

JAMES BRAMSTON.

[Died, 1744.]

I HAVE applied to many individuals for information respecting the personal history of this writer, but have not been able to obtain it, even from the quarters where it was most likely to be found. He was born, probably, about the year 1700; was of Christ Church, Oxford, where he

took his degree of A. M.; and was finally vicar of Starting, in Sussex. Besides The Man of Taste, he wrote a political satire, entitled The Art of Politics, and The Crooked Sixpence, in imitation of Philips's Splendid Shilling.

THE MAN OF TASTE.

WHOE'ER he be that to a taste aspires, Let him read this and be what he desires. In men and manners versed, from life I write, Not what was once, but what is now polite. Those who of courtly France have made the tour Can scarce our English awkwardness endure. But honest men who never were abroad, Like England only, and its taste applaud. Strife still subsists, which yields the better goût; Books or the world, the many or the few.

True taste to me is by this touchstone known,
That's always best that's nearest to my own.
To show that my pretensions are not vain,
My father was a play'r in Drury-lane.
Pears and pistachio-nuts my mother sold;
He a dramatic poet, she a scold.
Her tragic Muse could countesses affright,
His wit in boxes was my lord's delight.
No mercenary priest e'er join'd their hands,
Uncramp'd by wedlock's unpoetic bands.
Laws my Pindaric parents matter'd not,
So I was tragi-comically got.

My infant tears a sort of measure kept,
I squalled in distichs, and in triplets wept.
No youth did I in education waste,
Happy in an hereditary taste.

Writing ne'er cramped the sinews of my thumb,
Nor barbarous birch e'er brush'd my tender bum.
My guts ne'er suffer'd from a college cook,
My name ne'er enter'd in a buttery-book.
Grammar in vain the sons of Priscian teach,
Good parts are better than eight parts of speech:
Since these declined, those undeclined they call,
I thank my stars that I declined them all.
To Greek or Latin tongues without pretence,
I trust to mother wit and father sense.
Nature's my guide, all sciences I scorn,
Pains I abhor; I was a poet born.

Yet is my goût for criticism such,

I've got some French, and know a little Dutch.
Huge commentators grace my learned shelves,
Notes upon books out-do the books themselves.
Critics indeed are valuable men,

But hyper-critics are as good again.
Though Blackmore's works my soul with rapture

fill,

With notes by Bentley they'd be better still. The Boghouse-Miscellany's well designed To ease the body, and improve the mind.

Swift's whims and jokes for my resentment call,
For he displeases me that pleases all.
Verse without rhyme I never could endure,
Uncouth in numbers, and in sense obscure.
To him as nature, when he ceased to see,
Milton's an universal blank to me.
Confirm'd and settled by the nation's voice,
Rhyme is the poet's pride, and people's choice.
Always upheld by national support,
Thomson, write blank! but know that for that rea-
Of market, university, and court;

[son

These lines shall live when thine are out of seaRhyme binds and beautifies the poet's lays, [son. As London ladies owe their shape to stays.

Had Cibber's self The Careless Husband wrote,
He for the laurel ne'er had had my vote;
But for his epilogues and other plays,
He thoroughly deserves the modern bays.
It pleases me, that Pope unlaurell'd goes,
While Cibber wears the bays for play-house prose;
So Britain's monarch once uncover'd sat,
While Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimm'd hat.
Long live old Curll! he ne'er to publish fears
The speeches, verses, and last wills of peers.
How oft has he a public spirit shown,
And pleased our ears regardless of his own?
But to give merit due, though Curll's the fame,
Are not his brother booksellers the same?
Can statutes keep the British press in awe,
While that sells best that's most against the law?
Lives of dead play'rs my leisure hours beguile,
And sessions-papers tragedize my style.
"Tis charming reading in Ophelia's life,*

So oft a mother, and not once a wife:
She could with just propriety behave,
Alive with peers, with monarchs in her grave:
Her lot how oft have envious harlots wept,
By prebends buried, and by generals kept.
T'improve in morals Mandevil I read,
And Tyndal's scruples are my settled creed.
I travell'd early, and I soon saw through
Religion all, ere I was twenty-two.
Shame, pain, or poverty shall I endure,
When ropes or opium can my ease procure?
When money's gone, and I no debts can pay,
Self-murder is an honourable way.

As Pasaran directs, I'd end my life,

And kill myself, my daughter, and my wife.

[blocks in formation]

Burn but that Bible which the parson quotes,
And men of spirit all shall cut their throats.
But not to writings I confine my pen,
I have a taste for buildings, music, men.
Young travell'd cox combs mighty knowledge boast,
With superficial smattering at most.

Not so my mind, unsatisfied with hints, [prints.
Knows more than Budgell writes, or Roberts
I know the town, all houses I have seen,
From Hyde-Park corner down to Bednal-Green.
Sure wretched Wren was taught by bungling
To murder mortar, and disfigure stones! [Jones,
Who in Whitehall can symmetry discern?
I reckon Covent-Garden church a barn.
Nor hate I less thy vile cathedral, Paul?
The choir's too big, the cupola's too small:

Substantial walls and heavy roofs I like,
'Tis Vanbrugh's structures that my fancy strike:
Such noble ruins every pile would make,
I wish they'd tumble for the prospect's sake.
To lofty Chelsea, or to Greenwich dome,
Soldiers and sailors all are welcomed home.
Her poor to palaces Britannia brings,
St. James's hospital may serve for kings.
Buildings so happily I understand,

That for one house I'd mortgage all my land.
Doric, Ionic, shall not there be found,
But it shall cost me threescore thousand pound.
From out my honest workmen I'll select
A bricklayer, and proclaim him architect;
First bid him build me a stupendous dome,
Which having finish'd, we set out for Rome;
Take a week's view of Venice and the Brent;
Stare round, see nothing, and come home content.
I'll have my villa too, a sweet abode,
Its situation shall be London road:
Pots o'er the door I'll place like cit's balconies,
Which Bentley calls the gardens of Adonis.

I'll have my gardens in the fashion too,
For what is beautiful that is not new?
Fair four-legg'd temples, theatres that vie
With all the angles of a Christmas-pie.
Does it not merit the beholder's praise,
What's high to sink, and what is low to raise?
Slopes shall ascend where once a green-house
stood,

And in my horse-pond I will plant a wood.
Let misers dread the hoarded gold to waste,
Expense and alteration shows a taste.

In curious paintings I'm exceeding nice,
And know their several beauties by their price.
Auctions and sales I constantly attend,
But choose my pictures by a skilful friend,
Originals and copies much the same,
The picture's value is the painter's name.

My taste in sculpture from my choice is seen, I buy no statues that are not obscene. In spite of Addison and ancient Rome, Sir Cloudesley Shovel's is my favourite tomb. How oft have I with admiration stood, To view some city-magistrate in wood! I gaze with pleasure on a lord-mayor's head, Cast with propriety in gilded lead. Oh could I view, through London as I pass, Some broad Sir Baalam in Corinthian brass:

High on a pedestal, ye freemen, place
His magisterial paunch and griping face;
Letter'd and gilt, let him adorn Cheapside,
And grant the tradesman what a king's denied.
Old coins and medals I collect, 'tis true;
Sir Andrew has 'em, and I'll have em too,
But among friends, if I the truth might speak,
I like the modern, and despise th' antique.
Though in the drawers of my japan bureau,
To lady Gripeall I the Cæsars show,
"Tis equal to her ladyship or me,
A copper Otho, or a Scotch bawbee.
Without Italian, or without an ear,
To Bononcini's music I adhere;
Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
And therefore proper at a sheriff's feast.
My soul has oft a secret pleasure found
In the harmonious bagpipe's lofty sound.
Bagpipes for men, shrill German-flutes for boys,
I'm English born, and love a grumbling noise.
The stage should yield the solemn organ's note,
And Scripture tremble in the eunuch's throat.
Let Sensino sing what David writ,

And hallelujahs charm the pious pit.
Eager in throngs the town to Esther came,
And oratario was a lucky name.

Thou, Heidegger! the English taste hast found,
And rulest the mob of quality with sound.
In Lent, if masquerades displease the town,
Call 'em ridottos, and they still go down.

Go on, prince Phiz! to please the British nation,
Call thy next masquerade a convocation.

Bears, lions, wolves, and elephants I breed,
And Philosophical Transactions read.
Next lodge I'll be Free-mason, nothing less,
Unless I happen to be F. R. S.

I have a palate, and (as yet) two ears,
Fit company for porters or for peers.
Of every useful knowledge I've a share,
But my top talent is a bill of fare.

Sirloins and rumps of beef offend my eyes,
Pleased with frogs fricasseed, and coxcomb-pies;
Dishes I choose, though little, yet genteel,
Snails the first course, and peepers crown the
meal.

Pigs' heads, with hair on, much my fancy

please;

I love young cauliflow'rs if stew'd in cheese,
And give ten guineas for a pint of peas.
No tattling servants to my table come,
My grace is silence, and my waiter dumb.
Queer country-puts extol queen Bess's reign,
And of lost hospitality complain.

Say, thou that dost thy father's table praise,
Was there mahogany in former days?

Oh, could a British barony be sold!

I would bright honour buy with dazzling gold.
Could I the privilege of peer procure,
The rich I'd bully, and oppress the poor.
To give is wrong, but it is wronger still
On any terms to pay a tradesman's bill.
I'd make the insolent mechanics stay,
And keep my ready money all for play.
I'd try if any pleasure could be found
In tossing up for twenty thousand pound:

Had I whole counties, I to White's would go,
And set land, woods, and rivers, at a throw.
But should I meet with an unlucky run,
And at a throw be gloriously undone;
My debts of honour I'd discharge the first;
Let all my lawful creditors be cursed:
My title would preserve me from arrest,
And seizing hired horses is a jest.

I'd walk the morning with an oaken stick, With gloves and hat, like my own footman Dick; A footman I would be in outward show,

In sense and education truly so.

As for my head, it should ambiguous wear
At once a periwig and its own hair.
My hair I'd powder in the women's way,
And dress and talk of dressing more than they.
I'll please the maids of honour if I can ;
Without black velvet breeches, what is man?
I will my skill in button-holes display,
And brag how oft I shift me every day.
Shall I wear clothes in awkward England made?
And sweat in cloth to help the woollen trade?
In French embroid'ry and in Flanders lace,
I'll spend the income of a treasurer's place.
Deard's bill for baubles shall to thousands mount,
And I'd out-di'mond even the di'mond count.
I would convince the world by tawdry clothes,
That belles are less effeminate than beaux,
And doctor Lamb should pare my lordship's toes.
To boon companions I my time would give;
With players, pimps, and parasites, I'd live.
I would with jockeys from Newmarket dine,
And to rough-riders give my choicest wine;
I would caress some stableman of note,
And imitate his language and his coat.
My evenings all I would with sharpers spend,
And make the thief-catcher my bosom friend;
In Fig the prize-fighter by day delight,
And sup with Colley Cibber every night.
Should I perchance be fashionably ill,
I'd send for Misaubin, and take his pill.
I should abhor, though in the utmost need,
Arbuthnot, Hollins, Wigan, Lee, or Mead;

But if I found that I grew worse and worse,
I'd turn off Misaubin and take a nurse.
How oft when eminent physicians fail,
Do good old women's remedies prevail! [years,
When beauty's gone, and Chloe's struck with
Eyes she can couch, or she can syringe ears.
Of graduates I dislike the learned rout,
And choose a female doctor for the gout.

Thus would I live, with no dull pedants cursed; Sure, of all blockheads, scholars are the worst. Back to your universities, ye fools!

And dangle arguments on strings in schools:
Those schools which universities they call,
"Twere well for England were there none at all.
With ease that loss the nation might sustain,
Supplied by Goodman's-fields and Drury-lane.
Oxford and Cambridge are not worth one farthing,
Compared to Haymarket and Covent-garden;
Quit those, ye British youth, and follow these,
Turn players all, and take your 'squire's degrees.
Boast not your incomes now, as heretofore,
Ye book-learn'd seats! the theatres have more:
Ye stiff-rump'd heads of colleges, be dumb;
A single eunuch gets a larger sum.

Have some of you three hundred by the year?
Booth, Rich, and Cibber, twice three thousand

clear.

Should Oxford to her sister Cambridge join

A year's rack-rent and arbitrary fine,
Thence not one winter's charge would be defray'd,
For play-house, opera, ball, and masquerade.
Glad I congratulate the judging age,

The players are the world, the world the stage.
I am a politician too, and hate,
Of any party, ministers of state:
I'm for an act, that he, who sev'n whole years
Has served his king and country, lose his ears.

Thus from my birth I'm qualified, you find,
To give the laws of taste to human kind.
Mine are the gallant schemes of politesse,
For books and buildings, politics and dress.
This is true taste, and whoso likes it not,
Is blockhead, coxcomb, puppy, fool, and sot.

WILLIAM MESTON.

[Born, 1688. Died, 1745.]

WILLIAM MESTON was born in the parish of Midmar, in Aberdeenshire. He received a liberal education at the Marischal College of Aberdeen, and was for some time one of the teachers in the High School of that city. He removed from that situation to be preceptor to the young Earl of Marshal, and to his brother, who was afterward the celebrated Marshal Keith, and by the interest of the family was appointed professor of philosophy in the Marischal College. On the breaking out of the rebellion of 1715, he followed the fortunes of his misguided patrons, who made him governor of Dunotter Castle. After the battle of Sherrif Muir, till the act of indemnity was passed, he lurked with a few fugitive associates, for whose

amusement he wrote several of the burlesque poems to which he gave the title of Mother Grim's Tales. Not being restored to his professorship, he lived for some time on the hospitality of the Countess of Marshal, and after her death established an academy successively at Elgin, Turiff, Montrose, and Perth, in all of which places he failed, apparently from habits of careless expense and conviviality. The Countess of Elgin supported him during the decline of his latter days, till he removed to Aberdeen, where he died of a languishing distemper. He is said to have been a man of wit and pleasantry in conversation, and of considerable attainments in classical and mathematical knowledge.

[blocks in formation]

There lived a gentleman, possess'd
Of all that mortals reckon best;
A seat well chosen, wholesome air,
With gardens and with prospect fair;
His land from debt and jointure free,
His money never in South Sea;
His health of body firm and good,
Though past the hey-day of his blood;
His consort fair, and good, and kind,
His children rising to his mind;
His friends ingenuous and sincere,
His honour, nay, his conscience, clear:
He wanted naught of human bliss
But power to taste his happiness.
Too near, alas! this great man's hall,
A merry Cobbler had a stall;
An arch old wag as e'er you knew,
With breeches red and jerkin blue;
Cheerful at working as at play,
He sung and whistled life away.
When rising morning glads the sky,
Clear as the merry lark on high;
When evening shades the landscape veil,
Late warbling as the nightingale.
Though pence came slow, and trade was ill,
Yet still he sung, and whistled still;
Though patch'd his garb, and coarse his fare,
He laugh'd and cast away old care.
The rich man view'd with discontent
His tatter'd neighbour's merriment;
With envy grudged, and pined to see
A beggar pleasanter than he;
And by degrees to hate began
Th' intolerable happy man,
Who haunted him like any sprite,
From morn to eve, by day and night.

It chanced as once in bed he lay,
When dreams are true, at break of day,
He heard the Cobbler at his sport,
And on a sudden to cut short.
Whether his morning draught he took,
Or warming whiff of morning smoke,
The squire suspected, being shrewd,
This silence boded him no good;
And 'cause he nothing saw or heard,
A Machiavelian plot he fear'd.

Straight circumstances crowded plain,
To vex and plague his jealous brain;
Trembling, in panic dread he lies,
With gaping mouth and staring eyes;
And straining, lustful, both his ears,
He soon persuades himself he hears
One skip and caper up the stairs;
Sees the door open quick, and knew
His dreaded foe in red and blue;
Who, with a running jump, he thought,
Leapt plumb directly down his throat,
Laden with tackle of his stall,

Last, ends and hammer, strap and awl.
No sooner down, than, with a jerk,
He fell to music and to work.

If much he grieved our Don before,
When but o' th' outside of the door,
How sorely must he now molest,
When got the inside of his breast?
The waking dreamer groans and swells,
And pangs imaginary feels:
Catches and scraps of tunes he hears
For ever ringing in his ears;
Ill-savour'd smells his nose displease,
Mundungus strong, and rotten cheese:
He feels him when he draws his breath,
Or tugs the leather with his teeth,
Or beats the sole, or else extends
His arm to the utmost of his ends;
Enough to crack, when stretch'd so wide,
The ribs of any mortal side.
Is there no method, then, to fly
This vile intestine enemy?
What can be done in this condition,
But sending instant for physician!
The doctor, having heard the case,
Burst into laughter in his face,
Told him he need no more than rise,
Open his windows and his eyes,
Whistling and stitching, there to see
The Cobbler as he used to be.

Sir," quoth the patient, "your pretences
Shall ne'er persuade me from my senses.
How should I rise? the heavy brute
Will hardly let me wag a foot.
Though seeing for belief may go,
Yet feeling is the truth you know.
I feel him in my sides, I tell ye;
Had you a Cobbler in your belly,
You scarce could stir as now you do;
I doubt your guts would grumble too.
Still do you laugh? I tell you, sir,
I'd kick you soundly, could I stir.
Thou quack, that never hadst degree
In either University;

Thou mere licentiate without knowledge,
The shame and scandal of the college;
I'll call my servants if you stay;
So, doctor, scamper while you may!"

יי!

One thus despatch'd, a second came, Of equal or of greater fame, Who swore him mad as a March hare; For doctors, when provoked, will swear, To drive such whimsies from his pate, He dragg'd him to the window straight;

H

But jilting fortune can devise
To baffle and outwit the wise.
The Cobbler, ere exposed to view,
Had just pull'd off his jerkin blue,

Not dreaming 'twould his neighbour hurt,
To sit in fresco in his shirt.

"Oh," quoth the patient, with a sigh,
"You know him not so well as I.
The man that down my throat is run,
Has got a true blue jerkin on."
In vain the doctor raved and tore,
Argued and fretted, stamp'd and swore;
Told him he might believe as well,
The giant of Pantagruel

Did oft, to break his fast, and sup,
For potch'd eggs swallow windmills up;
Or that the Holland dame could bear
A child for every day o' th' year.
The vapour'd dotard, grave and sly,
Mistook for truth each rapping lie,
And drew conclusions such as these,
Resistless from the premises.

"I hope, my friends, you'll grant me all,
A windmill's bigger than a stall:
And since the lady brought alive,
Children three hundred sixty-five,
Why should you think there is not room
For one poor Cobbler in my womb?"
Thus, every thing his friends could say,
The more confirmed him in his way;
Further convinced by what they tell,
"Twas certain, though impossible.

Now worse and worse his piteous state
Was grown, and almost desperate;
Yet still the utmost bent to try,
Without more help he would not die.
An old physician, sly and shrewd,
With management of face endued,
Heard all his tale, and ask'd, with care,
How long the Cobbler had been there;
Noted distinctly what he said,
Lift up his eyes and shook his head;
And, grave, accosts him in this fashion,
After mature deliberation,

With serious and important face:
"Sir, yours is an uncommon case;
Though I've read Galen's Latin o'er,
I never met with it before;

Nor have I found the like disease
In stories of Hippocrates."
Then, after a convenient stay,
"Sir, if prescription you'll obey,
My life for yours, I'll set you free
From this same two-legg'd tympany.
*** Your throat, you know, is wide,
And scarcely closed since it was tried.
The same way he got in, 'tis plain,
There's room to fetch him back again.
I'll bring the forked worm away
Without a dysenteria.
Emetics strong will do the feat,
If taken quantum sufficit.
I'll see myself the proper dose,
And go hypnotics to compose."

The wretch, though languishing and weak, Revived already by the Greek, Cries, "What so learn'd a man as you Prescribes, dear doctor, I shall do."

The vomit speedily was got, The Cobbler sent for to the spot, And taught to manage the deceit, And not his doublet to forget. But first the operator wise Over his eyes a bandage ties, For vomits always strain the eyes. "Courage! I'll make you disembogue, Spite of his teeth, th' unlucky rogue; I'll drench the rascal, never fear, And bring him up, or drown him there." Warm water down he makes him pour, Till his stretch'd guts could hold no more; Which, doubly swoln, as you may think, Both with the Cobbler and the drink, What they received against the grain, Soon paid with interest back again. "Here comes his tools: he can't be long Without his hammer and his thong." The Cobbler humour'd what was spoke, And gravely carried on the joke; As he heard named each single matter, He chuck'd it souse into the water; And then, not to be seen as yet, Behind the door made his retreat. The sick man now takes breath awhile, Strength to recruit for further toil: Unblinded, he, with joyful eyes, The tackle floating there espies; Fully convinced with his mind, The Cobbler would not stay behind, Who to the alehouse still would go, Whene'er he wanted work to do; Nor could he like his present place, He ne'er loved water in his days. At length he takes a second bout, Enough to turn him inside out: With vehemence so sore he strains, As would have split another's brains. "Ah! here the Cobbler comes, I swear!" And truth it was, for he was there; And, like a rude ill-manner'd clown, Kick'd, with his foot, the vomit down. The patient, now grown wondrous light, Whipt off the napkin from his sight; Briskly lift up his head, and knew The breeches and the jerkin's hue; And smiled to hear him grumbling say, As down the stairs he ran away, He'd ne'er set foot within his door, And jump down open throats no more: No, while he lived, he'd ne'er again Run, like a fox, down the red lane. Our patient thus (his inmate gone) Cured of the crotchets in his crown, Joyful, his gratitude expresses,

With thousand thanks and hundred pieces; And thus, with much of pains and cost, Regain'd the health-he never lost.

« AnteriorContinuar »