"Furnish'd with paper, pen, and ink,
He gravely sat him down--to think:
He bit his nails, and scratch'd his head,
But wit and fancy both were dead:
Or, if with more than usual pain,
A thought came slowly from his brain,
It cost him Lord knows how much time
To shape it into sense or rhyme;
And what was yet a greater curse,
Long thinking made his fancy worse."
[Illustration: THE DISTRESSED POET.]
Such is the fate of many a miserable scribbler who usurps the sacred
name of a poet. Parnassus must be peopled, and the fashionable
versifiers that have no other aim than feeding on the mountain
have sometimes cropped better pasturage at the foot of the hill
than has been found by those hallowed bards who have attained the
summit. Of gentle readers that demand the strains of gentle writers,
there are in this our city an innumerable host. They are sober and
well-disposed persons, good subjects to their king, and useful
members of the community; but being by their various avocations
confined to a smoky town, are debarred from the cheering prospects
of purling streams, waving woods, and shady groves. They have
nevertheless great comfort and delectation in reading descriptions
of scenes so profusely beautified with the amenities of nature.
Happily for such admirers of rural simplicity, there is a band of
pastoral poets who make the press groan with description. Seated
like this unfortunate labourer of the Muses in their attic storey,
and scarcely ever seeing a green tree except in the Moorfields Mall,
they daily present the public with amplifications of verdant meads,
glistening dew-drops, and liquid rains. In the sublime strains of
these gentlemen,
"The misty mountains lift their cloud-capt heads;
The enamell'd mead its velvet carpet spreads;
The groves appear all drest with wreaths of flowers,
And from their leaves drop aromatic showers."[124]
Upon the same principle with our town-made rhymers, who have
generally written about things which they have neither seen, felt,
heard, nor understood, this our distressed poet is now spinning a
poem upon riches. Of their use he probably knoweth little; and of
their abuse, if judgment can be formed from externals, certes he
knoweth less.
Seated upon the side of his bed, without a shirt, but wrapped
in an old night-gown,--enchanted, impressed, inspired with his
subject,--he is disturbed by a nymph of the Lactarium. Her shrill
sounding voice awakes one of the little loves, whose chorus disturbs
his meditations. A link of the golden chain is broken!--a thought is
lost! To recover it, his hand becomes a substitute for the barber's
comb: enraged at the noise, he tortures his head for the fleeting
idea; but, ah! no thought is there!
Proudly conscious that the lines already written are sterling, he
possesses by anticipation the mines of Peru, a view of which hangs
over his head. Upon the table we see Byshe's _Art of Poetry_;[125]
for, like the packhorse who cannot travel without his bells, he
cannot climb the hill of Parnassus without his jingling-book. On
the floor lies the _Grub Street Journal_,[126] to which valuable
repository of genius and taste he is probably a contributor. To show
that he is a master of the profound, and will envelope his subject
in a cloud, his pipe and tobacco-box--those friends to cogitation
deep--are close to him.
His wife, mending that part of his dress in the pockets of which the
affluent keep their gold, is worthy of a better fate. Her figure
is peculiarly interesting.[127] Her face, softened by adversity,
and marked with domestic care, is at this moment agitated by the
appearance of a boisterous woman, insolently demanding payment of the
milk-tally. In the excuse she returns, there is a mixture of concern,
complacency, and mortification. As an addition to the distresses
of this poor family, a dog is stealing the remnant of mutton
incautiously left upon a chair.
The sloping roof and projecting chimney prove the throne of this
inspired bard to be high above the crowd;--it is a garret. The
chimney is ornamented with a dare for larks; and a book, a loaf, the
tea-equipage, and a saucepan, decorate the shelf. Before the fire
hangs half a shirt and a pair of ruffled sleeves. His sword lies on
the floor; for though our professor of poetry waged no war, except
with words, a sword was in the year 1740 a necessary appendage
to every thing which called itself gentleman. At the feet of his
domestic seamstress, the full-dress coat is become the resting-place
of a cat and two kittens: in the same situation is one stocking; the
other is half immersed in the washing-pan. The broom, bellows, and
mop are scattered round the room. The open door shows us that their
cupboard is unfurnished, and tenanted by an hungry and solitary
mouse. In the corner hangs a long cloak, well calculated to conceal
the threadbare wardrobe of its fair owner.
Mr. Hogarth's strict attention to propriety of scenery is evinced by
the cracked plastering of the walls, broken window, and uneven floor,
in the miserable habitation of this poor weaver of madrigals.[128]
The original picture is in the collection of Lord Grosvenor.