By every sort of taste your work is graced. Vast stores of modern anecdote we find, With good old story quaintly interlaced-- The theme as various as the reader's mind.
Rome's lie-fraught legends you so truly paint-- Yet kindly,--that the half-turn'd Catholic Scarcely forbears to smile at his own saint, And cannot curse the candid heretic.
Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your page; Our fathers' mummeries we well-pleased behold, And, proudly conscious of a purer age, Forgive some fopperies in the times of old.
Verse-honoring Phoebus, Father of bright _Days_, Must needs bestow on you both good and many, Who, building trophies of his Children's praise, Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any.
Dan Phoebus loves your book--trust me, friend Hone-- The title only errs, he bids me say: For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown, He swears,'tis not a work of _every day_.
TO T. STOTHARD, ESQ. ON HIS ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POEMS OF MR. ROGERS.
Consummate Artist, whose undying name With classic Rogers shall go down to fame, Be this thy crowning work! In my young days How often have I, with a child's fond gaze, Pored on the pictur'd wonders[1] thou hadst done: Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison! All Fielding's, Smollett's heroes, rose to view; I saw, and I believed the phantoms true. But, above all, that most romantic tale[2] Did o'er my raw credulity prevail, Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things, That serve at once for jackets and for wings. Age, that enfeebles other men's designs, But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines. In several ways distinct you make us feel-- _Graceful_ as Raphael, as Watteau _genteel_. Your lights and shades, as Titianesque, we praise; And warmly wish you Titian's length of days.
[Footnote 1: Illustrations of the British Novelists.]
What makes a happy wedlock? What has fate Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate? Good sense--good humor;--these are trivial things, Dear M----, that each trite encomiast sings. But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt From every low-bred passion, where contempt, Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found A harbor yet; an understanding sound; Just views of right and wrong; perception full Of the deform'd, and of the beautiful, In life and manners; wit above her sex, Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks; Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth, To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth; A noble nature, conqueror in the strife Of conflict with a hard discouraging life, Strengthening the veins of virtue, past the power Of those whose days have been one silken hour, Spoil'd fortune's pamper'd offspring; a keen sense Alike of benefit, and of offence, With reconcilement quick, that instant springs From the charged heart with nimble angel wings; While grateful feelings, like a signet sign'd By a strong hand, seemed burn'd into her mind. If these, dear friend, a dowry can confer Richer than land, thou hast them all in her; And beauty, which some hold the chiefest boon, Is in thy bargain for a make-weight thrown.