A collection of poems in four volumes. By several hands: [pt.1]

NEWMARKET. A SATIRE.

BY THE SAME.

HIS country's hope, when now the blooming heir Has left the parent's, or the guardian's care; Fond to possess, yet eager to destroy, Of each vain youth, say, what's the darling joy? Of each fond frolic what the source and end, His sole and first ambition what?—to spend.

Some 'squires, to Gallia's cooks most dainty dupes, Melt manors in ragouts, or drown in soups: This coxcomb doats on fidlers, till he sees His mortgag'd mountains dcstitute of trees; Convinc'd too late, that modern strains can move, With mightier force than those of Greece, the grove. In headless statues rich, and useless urns, Marmoreo from the classic tour returns; So poor the wretch of current coin, you'd laugh— He cares not—if his g 1.1 Caesars be but safe. Some tread the slippery paths of love's delights, These deal the cards, or shake the box at White's. To different pleasures different tastes incline, Nor the same sea receives the rushing swine.

Tho' drunk alike with Circe's poisonous bowl, In separate sties the mimic monsters roll.

But would ye learn, ye leisure-loving 'squires, How best you may disgrace your prudent sires; How soonest soar to fashionable shame, Be damn'd at once to ruin—and to fame; By hands of grooms ambitious to be crown'd, O greatly dare to tread Olympic ground! Where fam'd Newmarket spreads her tempting plain, There let the chosen steed victorious strain; Where not h 1.2 (as erst was sung in manly lays) Men fly to different ends thro' different ways; Thro' the same path, to the same goal ye run, And are, at once, undoing and undone, Forfeit, forget friends, honour, and estate, Lose all at once—for what?—to win the plate: All are betray'd, and all alike betray, To your own beasts, Actaeon-like, a prey.

What dreams of conquest flush'd Hilario's breast, When the good knight at last retir'd to rest! Behold the youth with new-felt rapture mark Each pleasing prospect of the spacious Park, That Park, where beauties undisguis'd engage, Those beauties less the work of art than age;

In simple state, where genuine Nature wears Her venerable dress of ancient years; Where all the charms of Chance with order meet, The rude, the gay, the graceful, and the great. Here aged oaks uprear their branches. hoar, And form dark groves, which Druids might adore; Pride and support of Britain's conquering cross, Which distant ancestors saw crown'd with moss: With meeting boughs, and deepening to the view, Here shoots the broad umbrageous avenue: Here various trees compose a chequer'd scene, Glowing in gay diversities of green: There the full stream, thro' intermingling glades, Shines a broad lake, or falls in deep cascades. Nor wants there hazle copse, or beechen lawn, To cheer with sun or shade the bounding sawn.

And see the good old seat, whose Gothic towers Awful emerge from yonder tufted bowers; Whose rafter'd hall the crowding tenants fed, And dealt to Age and Want their daily bread: Where garter'd knights, with peerless beauties join'd, At high and solemn festivals have din'd; Presenting oft fair Virtue's shining task, In mystic pageantries, and moral i 1.3 masque.

But vain all ancient praise, or boasts of birth, Vain all the palms of old heroic worth! At once a bankrupt, and a prosperous heir, Hilario bets—Park, house, dissolve in air. With antique armour hung, high trophied rooms Descend to gamesters, prostitutes, and grooms. He sees his steel-clad sires, and mothers mild, Who bravely shook the lance, or sweetly smil'd, All the fair series of the whisker'd race, Whose pictur'd forms the stately gallery grace, Debas'd, abus'd, the price of ill-got gold, To deck some tavern vile, at auctions sold. The parish wonders at th' unopening door, The chimnies blaze, the tables groan no more. Thick weeds around th' untrodden courts arise, And all the social scene in silence lies. Himself, the loss politely to repair, Turns atheist, fidler, highwayman, or player. At length, the scorn, the shame of Man and God, Is doom'd to rub the steeds that once he rode.

Ye rival youths, your golden hopes how vain, Your dreams of thousands on the listed plain! Not more fantastic k 1.4 Sancho's airy course, When madly mounted on the magic horse, He pierc'd heaven's opening spheres with dazzled eyes, And seem'd to soar in visionary skies. Nor less, I ween, precarious is the meed Of young adventurers on the Muse's steed;

For poets have, like you, their destin'd round, And ours is but a race on classic ground.

Long time, soft son of patrimonial ease, Hippolitus had eat firloins in peace: Had quaff'd secure, unvex'd by toils or wife, The mild October of a rural life: Long liv'd with calm domestic conquests crown'd, And kill'd his game on safe paternal ground. As bland he puff'd the pipe o'er weekly news, His bosom kindles with sublimer views. Lo there, thy triumphs, Taaff, thy palms, Portmore, Tempt him to rein the steed, and stake his store. Like a new bruiser on Broughtonic sand, Amid the li••ts our hero takes his stand; Suck'd by the sharper, to the peer a prey, He roils his eyes that witness huge dismay; When lo! the chance of one unlucky heat Strips him of game, strong beer, and sweet retreat. How aukward now he bears disgrace and dirt, Nor knows the poor's last refuge, to be pert.— The shiftless beggar bears of ills the worst, At once with dullness, and with hunger curst. And feels the tasteless breast equestrian fires? And dwells such mighty rage in graver 'squires?

In all attempts, but for their country, bold, Britain, thy conscript counsellors behold; (For some, perhaps, by fortune favour'd yet, May gain a borough by a lucky bet) Smit with the love of the laconic boot, The cap and wig succinct, the silken suit,

Mere modern Phaetons usurp the reins, And scour in rival race Newmarket's plains, See side by side, the Jockey and Sir John, Discuss th' important point—of six to one. For O, my Muse, the deep-felt bliss how dear, How great the pride to gain a Jockey's ear!

See, like a routed host, with headlong pace, Thy Members pour amid the mingling race! All ask, what crowds the tumults could produce— " Is Bedlam or the commons all broke loose? Such noise and nonsense, betting, damning, sinking, Such emphasis of oaths, and claret drinking! Like school-boys freed, they run as chance directs, Proud from a well-bred thing to risque their necks. The warrior's scar not half so graceful seems, As, at Newmarket, dislocated limbs.

Thy sages hear, amid th' admiring crowd Adjudge the stakes, most eloquently loud: With critic skill, o'er dubious bets preside, The low dispute, or kindle, or decide: All empty wisdom, and judicious prate, Of distanc'd horses, gravely six the fate, Guide the nice conduct of a daring match, And o'er th' equestrian rights, with care paternal watch.

Mean time, no more the mimic patriots rise, To guard Britannia's honour, warm and wise: No more in senates dare assert her laws, Nor pour the bold debate in Freedom's cause:

Neglect the counsels of a sinking land, And know no rostrum, but Newmarket's l 1.5 stand.

Are these the sage directive powers design'd, With the nice search of a sagacious mind, In judgment's scales the fate of realms to weigh, Britannia's interest, trade, and laws survey? O say, when least their sapient schemes are crost, Or when a nation, or a match is lost? Who dams and sires with more exactness trace, Than of their country's kings the sacred race: Think London journies are the worst of ills, And set their hands to articles for bills: Strangers to all historians sage relate, Theirs are the memoirs of th' equestrian state: Unskill'd in Albion's past and present views, Who m 1.6 Cheny's records for Rapin peruse.

Go on, brave youths, till, in some future age, Whips shall become the senatorial badge; 'Till England see her thronging senators Meet all at Westminster, in boots and spurs; See the whole house, with mutual frenzy mad, Her patriots all in leathern breeches clad; Of bets, for taxes, learnedly debate, And guide, with equal reins, a steed and state.

How would a virtuous n 1.7 Houhnhym neigh disdain, To see his brethren brook th' imperious rein; Bear slavery's wanton whip, or galling goad, Smoak thro' the glebe, or trace the destin'd road, And robb'd of manhood by the murderous knife, Sustain each fordid toil of servile life. Yet O, what rage would touch his generous mind, To see his sons of more than mortal kind; A kind, with each ingenuous virtue blest, That fills the prudent head, or valorous breast, Afford diversion to that monster base, That meanest spawn of man's half-monkey race; In whom pride, avarice, ignorance conspire, That hated animal, a Yahoo-'squire.

How are th' adventurers of the British race Chang'd from the chosen chiefs of ancient days; Who, warm'd with genuine glory's honest thirst, Divinely labour'd in the Pythian dust. Theirs was the wreath that lifted from the throng, Theirs was the Theban bard's recording song. Mean time, to manly emulation blind, Slaves to each vulgar vice that stains the mind, Our British Therons issue to the race, Of their own generous coursers the disgrace. What tho' the grooms of Greece ne'er took the odds, They won no bets—but then they soar'd to gods;

And more an Hiero's palm, a Pindar's ode, Than all th' united plates of George bestow'd.

Greece! how I kindle at thy magic name, Feel all thy warmth, and catch the kindred flame. Thy solemn scenes, and awful visions rise, In ancient grace, before my musing eyes. Here Sparta's sons in mute attention hang, While sage Lycurgus pours the mild harangue; There Xerxes' host, all pale with deadly fear, Shrink at her o 1.8 fated hero's flashing spear. Here, hung with many a lyre of silver string, The laureat walks of sweet Ilissus spring: And lo! where, rapt in beauty's heavenly dream, Hoar Plato walks his oliv'd Academe.—

Yet ah! no more the seat of art and arms Delights with wisdom, or with virtue warms. Lo! the stern Turk, with more than Gothic rage, Has blasted all the bays of ancient age; No more her groves by sacred feet are trod, Each Attic Grace has left the lov'd abode. Fall'n is fair Greece! by Luxury's pleasing bane Seduc'd, she drags a barbarous foreign chain,

Britannia, watch! O trim thy withering bays, Remember thou hast rivall'd Graecia's praise, Great Nurse of works divine! yet oh! beware Lest thou the fate of Greece, my Country, share.

Recall thy wonted worth with conscious pride, Thou too hast seen a Solon in a Hyde; Hast bade thine Edwards and thine Henry's rear, With Spartan fortitude, the British spear; Alike hast seen thy sons deserve the meed, Or of the moral, or the martial deed.

Notes

• g 1.1

  Antique medals.
• h 1.2

  Alluding to those well known lines of Sir John Denham, in Cooper's Hill, on London.

  " —Thro' several ways they run, " Some to undo, and some to be undone."
• i 1.3

  It was a fashionable practice among our ancient nobility and gen|try, of both sexes, to perform personally in entertainments of this kind. Nothing could be a more delightful or rational method of spending an evening than this. Milton's Comus was thus exhibited at Ludlow-Castle, in the year 1631. See Ben Johnson's Masques.
• k 1.4

  Clavileno. See Don Quixote.
• l 1.5

  A kind of scaffold, where is held a consistory, made up of se••…••… very eminent gentlemen for determining doubtful cases in the 〈◊〉〈◊〉 &c. This place might not improperly be called a Pandaemonium.
• m 1.6

  The accurate and annual author of an historical list of the run|ning-horses, &c.
• n 1.7

  Vide Gulliver's travels, voyage to the Houhnhyms.
• o 1.8

  Leonidas.