THE CANDIDATE:

OR, THE CAMBRIDGE COURTSHIP.

[See character of Lord Sandwich in "Chrysal." See Scott's Lives of the Novelists, i. p. 169; Davies. Biog. and Lit. Anecdotes; Churchill's Verses on Lord Sandwich, in Candidate and Duellist; "From his youth upwards," &c. Cradock's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 117. 148. vol. iv. p. 163. 223; Miss Hawkins's Anecdotes, p. 239; Bell's Fugitive Poetry, v. xvi. p. 93. 172; Wilkes. Letters, i. p. 211. ii. p. 220; Walpole. Letters to Lord Hertford, p. 51-65. 102. by which it appears that Warburton had dedicated his Sermons to Lord Sandwich, but expunged his name for Pitt's. I have seen "A letter of advice from Alma Mater to her beloved son, Jemmy Twitcher, 1764."]

WHEN sly Jemmy Twitcher had smugg'd up his face,

With a lick of court whitewash, and pious grimace,
A wooing he went, where three sisters of old
In harmless society guttle and scold.

66

"Lord! sister," says Physic to Law, “I declare, Such a sheep-biting look, such a pick-pocket air! Not I for the Indies: - you know I'm no prude, — But his nose is a shame, - and his eyes are so

――

lewd!

4

"But, Rigby, what did I for thee endure,
Thy serpent's tooth admitted of no lure:
Shelburne and Calcraft! O! the holy band

See, see, with Gower caballing where they stand," &c. *These verses were written a short time previous to the election of a high-steward of the University of Cambridge, for which office the noble lord alluded to (Lord Sandwich) made an active canvass.

V. 8. Nose] In all editions printed by mistake "Name."

Then he shambles and straddles so oddly I

fear

No-at our time of life 'twould be silly, my dear." "I don't know," says Law, "but methinks for his look,

11

'Tis just like the picture in Rochester's book; Then his character, Phyzzy,- his morals — his

life

When she died, I can't tell, but he once had a wife. They say he's no Christian, loves drinking and -g,

15

V. 9.

W

And all the town rings of his swearing and roaring! His lying and filching, and Newgate-bird tricks ; Not I-for a coronet, chariot and six.”

Divinity heard, between waking and dozing, Her sisters denying, and Jemmy proposing: From table she rose, and with bumper in hand, She strok'd up her belly, and strok'd down her band[ing! "What a pother is here about wenching and roarWhy, David lov'd catches, and Solomon w-g: Did not Israel filch from th' Egyptians of old 25 Their jewels of silver and jewels of gold? The prophet of Bethel, we read, told a lie: He drinks-so did Noah;-he swearsso do I:

"That babe of grace Who ne'er before at sermon show'd his face, See Jemmy Twitcher shambles."

20

Heroic Epistle, 125, note. See Hurd. Obs. on this word, in Cradock. Memoirs, vol. i. 117; and Anecdote, p. 164.

V. 16. But see Cradock. Memoirs, vol. iv. 166.

To reject him for such peccadillos, were odd;
Besides, he repents for he talks about G**

[To Jemmy]

'Never hang down your head, you poor penitent

elf,

Come buss me I'll be Mrs. Twitcher myself."

*

*

*

*

*

[The concluding couplet is too gross to give. ED.] "From recollection I am sure Lord Sandwich was aware of Gray; for about the time he offered himself as high-steward, contrary to his usual maxim of not seeing an enemy on public occasions, he once said to me, I have my private reasons for knowing his absolute inveteracy.' Cradock. iv. 223.

999

EXTRACTS.

*

PROPERTIUS, LIB. III. ELEG. V. v. 19.

"Me juvat in primâ coluisse Helicona juventâ," &c.

IMITATED.

LONG as of youth the joyous hours remain,
Me may Castalia's sweet recess detain,
Fast by the umbrageous vale lull'd to repose,
Where Aganippe warbles as it flows;

Or roused by sprightly sounds from out the trance, I'd in the ring knit hands, and join the Muses' dance.

Give me to send the laughing bowl around,
My soul in Bacchus' pleasing fetters bound;
Let on this head unfading flowers reside,
There bloom the vernal rose's earliest pride; 10

And when, our flames commission'd to destroy, Age step 'twixt Love and me, and intercept the joy;

When my changed head these locks no more shall
And all its jetty honours turn to snow; [know,
Then let me rightly spell of Nature's ways;
To Providence, to HIM my thoughts I'd raise,
Who taught this vast machine its steadfast laws,
That first, eternal, universal cause;

Search to what regions yonder star retires,
That monthly waning hides her paly fires,
And whence, anew revived, with silver light
Relumes her crescent orb to cheer the dreary
night:

How rising winds the face of ocean sweep,
Where lie the eternal fountains of the deep,
And whence the cloudy magazines maintain
Their wintry war, or pour the autumnal rain;
How flames perhaps, with dire confusion hurl'd,
Shall sink this beauteous fabric of the world;
What colours paint the vivid arch of Jove;
What wondrous force the solid earth can move, 30
When Pindus' self approaching ruin dreads,

Shakes all his pines, and bows his hundred heads;
Why does yon orb, so exquisitely bright,
Obscure his radiance in a short-liv'd night;
Whence the Seven Sisters' congregated fires,
And what Bootes' lazy waggon tires;
How the rude surge its sandy bounds control;
Who measured out the year, and bade the sea-

sons roll;

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20

25

35

40

If realms beneath those fabled torments know,
Pangs without respite, fires that ever glow,
Earth's monster brood stretch'd on their iron bed,
The hissing terrors round Alecto's head,
Scarce to nine acres Tityus' bulk confined,
The triple dog that scares the shadowy kind,
All angry heaven inflicts, or hell can feel,
The pendent rock, Ixion's whirling wheel,
Famine at feasts, or thirst amid the stream;
Or are our fears the enthusiast's empty dream,
And all the scenes, that hurt the grave's repose,
But pictured horror and poetic woes.

These soft inglorious joys my hours engage; Be love my youth's pursuit, and science crown my age.

*1738. Et. 22.

45

50

PROPERTIUS, LIB. II. ELEG. I. v. 17.

"Quod mihi si tantum, Mæcenas, fata dedissent," &c. YET would the tyrant Love permit me raise My feeble voice, to sound the victor's praise, To paint the hero's toil, the ranks of war, The laurell'd triumph, and the sculptured car; No giant race, no tumult of the skies, No mountain-structures in my verse should rise, Nor tale of Thebes, nor Ilium there should be, Nor how the Persian trod the indignant sea; Not Marius' Cimbrian wreaths would I relate, Nor lofty Carthage struggling with her fate. 10

5