Upon His Town Fables and Elegies

‘Tis hard, I vow, that Fashion’s crowded pit

Should clap a prayer for his want of wit,

Yet such we find whene’er our glance surveys

Our modern critics, and the bards they praise.

Zoilus declares no verses to be good

Which by the public can be understood,

Whilst babbling Macer puffs with pomp profound

Him who least shews the world we see around.

Oh, for a tongue to speak in calm defence

Of just perspective and untwisted sense!

Oh, for a hand to fit the laurel bough

On the sane slopes of some well-balanc’d brow!

Oh, for a time when art may have its due

For painting what it sees, unwarp’d and true!

Perchance some future age, with clearer sight,

To melt the clouds, and shed a fav’ring glow

On quills that scintillate, whate’er they shew:

Then may we spy the solid worth that gleams

In easy numbers and familiar themes;

Worth that our biass’d eyes have vainly sought

Beyond the tumid realms of inward thought.

‘Tis then, when sense may guide our growing taste,

And prove our depths but emptiness and waste,

That decent wreaths and proper fame shall crown

The bard of wit, and singer of the town.

Your stanzas, KLEINER, shine with flawless grace,

And a light world with fluent lightness trace;

For you no stupid groves, remote and drear,

Without the play’s and coffee-house’s cheer;

No idle pastures of the languid Muse,

Where not a fop his powder’d course pursues;

Bright as the lamps that gild your well-lov’d streets,

Your verse parades, adorning all it treats!

Who shall contend that rural themes surpass

The talk of towns, and Fashion’s bevell’d glass?

What nymph or faun could wake a nobler strain

Than the pert belles and beaux of Drury-Lane;

What sylvan bow’r excite a warmer spark

Than the trim windings of St. James’s Park?

And what fam’d castle furnish more delight

Than any theatre we haunt at night?

Yours, then, skill’d KLEINER, to record in song

The godlike pleasures of the polish’d throng;

The little stratagems, shifts, hates, and greeds

In which the byck and idol find their needs;

Ombre and basset, and the puppet-show,

The opera’s tinsel, and the tie-wig’s snow;

Lap-dog and link-boy, journeyman and jade;

Mob, Mohock, madness, and the masquerade.

What fields are here, where epic pens may range

Round Vauxhall-Gardens, and the New-Exchange!

What more could Homer (but for blindness) ask,

Than yonder party-patch or vizard-masque?

Swords, canes, and buckles; curls and flounces vie

To prompt an Iliad or an Odyssey!

And’you, blest bard, had kept in crystal rhyme

These gay memorials of the town and time;

In your brisk line see Chartres rise again,

And with its revels shock the sober train;

See Nash, at Bath and Tunbridge, wield his sway,

And on our careless joys an order lay;

See each smooth trifle—in the cosmic plan

As grave and weighty as the fate of man!

For you have learnt the hollowness of all,

And match an Adam’s with a tucker’s fall!

Let none maintain, that truer life is found

In some Arcadia’s dreary distant ground:

Chaos rules all, and no distinction keeps

Betwixt the place which stirs, and that which sleeps.

‘Tis yours to draw that living, flowing Styx

Where chairs and coaches, lords and beggars mix;

Where in one seething, glitt’ring, pois’nous tide

Our mortal vermin wriggle side by side;

Life here prevails, as thro’ the surface breaks

That tawdry force, which man’s chief nature makes.

KLEINER, we hail you! Laureate of the town;

First of your order, ripe for high renown;

May purer taste increasing honours give,

And crown you Cham whilst yet you write and live.

Your tuneful lines the greater value prove

Of routs in town, o’er vigils in the grove;

And subtly change, with wizard’s art divine,

A slough of folly to a sea of wine!