Poetry

Master of Christ
By the rest is enticed;
But the Master of Emmanuel
Follows them like a spaniel;
The Master of Benet
Is of the like tenet;
The Master of Pembroke
Has from them his system took;
The Master of Peter’s
Has all the same features;
The Master of St. John’s
Like the rest of the Dons.

As to Trinity Hall
We say nothing at all.

Impromptus

Impromptu by Gray on Going Out of Raby Castle, After Dining with Harry Vane.

Here lives Harry Vane,
Very good claret and fine champaign.

Epigrams on Dr. Keene, Bishop of Chester.

The Bishop of Chester,
Though wiser than Nestor
And fairer than Esther,
If you scratch him will fester.

Here lies Edmund Keene Lord Bishop of Chester,
He eat a fat goose, and could not digest her.

Here lies Mrs. Keene the she Bishop of Chester,
She had a bad face which did sadly molest her.

Parody on an Epitaph.

Now clean, now hideous, mellow now, now gruff,
She swept, she hissed, she ripened and grew rough,
At Brougham, Pendragon, Appleby and Brough.

A Couplet on Dining.

When you rise from your dinner as light as before,
’Tis a sign you have eat just enough and no more.

Couplet About Birds.

There pipes the woodlark, and the song-thrush there
Scatters his loose notes in the waste of air.

Lines

On Dr. Robert Smith

Do you ask why old Focus Silvanus defies,
And leaves not a chestnut in being?
’Tis not that old Focus himself has got eyes,
But because he has writ about seeing.

Lines Spoken by the Ghost of John Dennis at the Devil Tavern

From purling Streams & the Elysian Scene,
From Groves, that smile with never-fading Green
I reascend; in Atropos’ despight
Restored to Celadon, & upper light:
Ye gods, that sway the Regions under ground,
Reveal to mortal View your realms profound;
At his command admit the eye of Day;
When Celadon commands, what God can disobey?
Nor seeks he your Tartarean fires to know,
The house of Torture, & th’ Abyss of Woe;
But happy fields & Mansions free from Pain,
Gay Meads, & springing flowers best please the gentle Swain:
That little, naked, melancholy thing
My Soul, when first she tryed her flight to wing;
Began with speed new Regions to explore,
And blunder’d thro’ a narrow Postern door;
First most devoutly having said its Prayers,
It tumbled down a thousand pair of Stairs,
Thro’ Entries long, thro’ Cellars vast & deep,
Where ghostly Rats their habitations keep,
Where Spiders spread their Webs, & owlish Goblins sleep.
After so many Chances had befell,
It came into a mead of Asphodel:
Betwixt the Confines of the light & dark
It lies, of ’Lyzium the St. James’s Park:
Here Spirit-Beaux flutter along the Mall,
And Shadows in disguise scate o’er the Iced Canal:
Here groves embower’d, & more sequester’d Shades,
Frequented by the Ghosts of Ancient Maids,
Are seen to rise: the melancholy Scene
With gloomy haunts, & twilight walks between
Conceals the wayward band: here spend their time
Greensickness Girls, that died in youthful prime,
Virgins forlorn, all drest in Willow-green-i
With Queen Elizabeth and Nicolini.
More to reveal, or many words to use
Would tire alike your patience & my muse.
Believe, that never was so faithful found
Queen Proserpine to Pluto under ground,
Or Cleopatra to her Mark-Antony
As Orozmades to his Celadony.
P.S.
Lucrece for half a crown will show you fun,
But Mrs. Oldfield is become a Nun.
Nobles & Cits, Prince Pluto & his Spouse
Flock to the Ghost of Covent-Garden house:
Plays, which were hiss’d above, below revive;
When dead applauded, that were damn’d alive:
The People, as in life, still keep their Passions,
But differ something from the world in Fashions.
Queen Artemisia breakfasts on Bohea,
And Alexander wears a Ramilie.

Endnotes

1. King Henry the Sixth, Founder of the College. ↩

2. “And bees their honey redolent of spring.”

   —⁠Dryden’s “Fable on the Pythagorean System”

   ↩

3. “Madness laughing in his ireful mood.”

   —⁠Dryden’s “Fable of Palamon and Arcite,” II 43.

   ↩

4. “⁠—a bank⁠ ⁠…
   O’ercanopied with luscious woodbine.”

   —⁠Midsummer Night’s Dream, II 2.

   ↩

5. “Nare per sestatem liquidam.”

   —⁠Virgil, Georgic, IV 59.

   ↩

6. “… sporting with quick glance
   Show to the sun their waved coats dropped with gold.”

   —⁠Par. Lost, VII 405.

   ↩

7. “While insects from the threshold preach,” etc.

   —⁠M. Green, in The Grotto. Dodsley’s Miscellanies, v 161.

   ↩

8. “… squilla di lontano
   Che paia ’l giorno pianger, che si muore.”

   —⁠Dante, Purgat. l. 8.

   ↩

9. “Ch’ i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco,
   Fredda una lingua, e due begli occhi chiusi
   Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville.”

   —⁠Petrarch, Son. 169.

   ↩

10. “… paventosa speme.”

    —⁠Petrarch, Son. 114.

    ↩

11. Hatton, preferred by Queen Elizabeth for his graceful person and fine dancing. ↩

12. The Housekeeper. ↩

13. Groom of the Chambers. ↩

14. The Steward. ↩

15. A famous highwayman hanged the week before. ↩

16. “Mocking the air with colours idly spread.”

    —⁠Shakespeare’s King John, V 1.

    ↩

17. The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail, that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion. ↩

18. “The crested adder’s pride.”

    —⁠Dryden, Indian Queen.

    ↩

19. Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Craigian-eryri; it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway built by King Edward the First, says, “Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery;” and Matthew of Westminster (ad ann. 1283), “Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdoniae fecit erigi castrum forte.” ↩

20. Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward. ↩

21. Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. They both were