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as one not unworthy to sit with guests of whatever rank. The earl and countess were now advanced in years, and his biographer informs us, that Whitehead "willingly devoted the principal part of his time to the amusement of his patron and patroness, which it will not be doubted by those, who know with what unassuming ease, and pleasing sallies of wit, he enlivened his conversation, must have made their hours of sickness or pain pass away with much more serenity." The father of lord Nuneham also gave him a general invitation to his table in town, and to his delightful seat in the country, and the two young lords, during the whole of his life, bestowed upon him every mark of affection and respect.

During this placid enjoyment of high life, he produced The School for Lovers, a comedy, which was performed at Drury Lane in the year 1762. In the advertisement prefixed to it, he acknowledges his obligations to a small dramatic piece written by M. de Fontenelle. This comedy was not unsuccessful, but was written on a plan so very different from all that is called comedy, that the critics were at a loss where to place it. Mr. Mason, who will not allow it to be classed among the sentimental, assigns it a very high station among the small list of our genteel comedies.

In the same year, he published his Charge to the Poets, in which, as laureat, he humorously assumes the dignified mode of a bishop giving his visitatorial instructions to his clergy. He is said to have designed this as a continuation of The Dangers of writing Verse. There seems, however, no very close connection, while as a poem it is far superior, not only in elegance and harmony of verse, but in the alternation of serious advice and genuine humour, the whole chastened by candour for his brethren, and a kindly wish to protect them from the fastidiousness of criticism, as well as to heal the mutual animosities of the genus irritabile.

In this laudable attempt, he had not even the happiness to conciliate those whose cause he pleaded. Churchill, from this time, attacked him whenever he attacked any, but Whitehead disdained to reply, and only adverted to the animosity of that poet in a few lines which he wrote towards the close of his life, and which appear to be part of some longer poem. They have already been noticed in the Life of Churchill, and are now added among the fragments copied from Mr. Mason's Memoirs.

One consequence of Churchill's animosity, neither silence nor resentment could avert. Churchill, at this time, had possession of the town, and made some characters unpopular merely by joining them with others who were really so. Garrick was so frightened at the abuse he threw out against Whitehead, that he would not venture to bring out a tragedy which the latter offered to him. Such is Mr. Mason's account, but if it was likely to succeed, why was it not produced when Churchill and his animosities were forgotten? Why amidst all the revolutions of the stage, some of which have not been unfavourable to much worse pieces than Whitehead would have written, does it yet remain in manuscript?

The story, however, may be true; for when, in 1770, he offered his Trip to Scotland, a farce, to Mr. Garrick, he conditioned that it should be produced without the name of the author. The secret was accordingly preserved both in acting and publishing, and the farce was performed and read for a considerable time, without a suspicion that the grave author of The School for Lovers had relaxed into the broad mirth and ludicrous improbabilities of farce.

In 1774, he collected his poems and dramatic pieces together, with the few exceptions already noticed, and published them in two volumes under the title of Plays and Poems, concluding with the Charge to the Poets, as a farewell to the Muses. He had, however, so

much leisure, and so many of those incitements which a poet and a moralist cannot easily resist, that he still continued to employ his pen, and proved that it was by no means worn out. In 1776 he published Variety, a Tale for married People, a light, pleasing poem, in the manner of Gay, which speedily ran through five editions. His Goat's Beard (in 1777) was less familiar and less popular, but is not inferior in moral tendency and just satire on degenerated manners. It produced an attack, entitled Ass's Ears, a Fable, addressed to the Author of the Goat's Beard, in which the office of laureat is denied to men of genius, and judged worthy to be held only by such poets as Shadwell and Cibber.

The Goat's Beard was the last of Whitehead's publications. He left in manuscript the tragedy already mentioned, which Garrick was afraid to perform; the name Mr. Mason conceals, but informs us that the characters are noble, and the story domestic. He left also the first act of an Edipus; the beginning, and an imperfect plan of a tragedy founded òn king Edward the Second's resignation of his crown to his son, and of another composed of Spanish and Moorish characters; and a few small poetical pieces, some of which Mr. Mason printed in the volume to which he prefixed his Memoirs, in 1788. They are now before the reader in one series, with a poem which Whitehead published in 1758, but omitted in his edition of 1770. It has the humble title of Verses to the People of England, whom he endeavours to excite to revenge their country's wrongs by a more spirited support of the war. The stanza is perhaps too short for the dignity of the subject, but it gives a rapidity to some glowing and vigorous sentiments. Mr. Mason has not noticed this piece, of which he could not be ignorant, as it was published with the author's name. Perhaps it appeared to disadvantage by a comparison with Akenside's Ode to the Country Gentlemen of England, published at the same time.

After he had taken leave of the public as an author, except in his official productions, he continued to enjoy the society of his friends for some years, highly respected for the intelligence of his conversation and the suavity of his manners. His death, which took place on April 14, 1785, was sudden. In the spring of that year he was confined at home for some weeks by a cold and cough which affected his breast, but occasioned so little interruption to his wonted amusements of reading and writing, that when lord Harcourt visited him the morning before he died, he found him revising for the press a paper which his lordship conjectured to be the birth-day ode. At noon finding himself disinclined to taste the dinner his servant brought up, he desired to lean upon his arm from the table to his bed, and in that moment he expired, in the seventieth year of his age. He was interred in South Audley Street chapel.

Unless, with Mr. Mason, we conclude that where Whitehead was unsuccessful, the public was to blame, it will not be easy to prove his right to a very high station among English poets. Yet perhaps he did not so often fall short from a defect of genius, as from a timidity which inclined him to listen too frequently to the corrections of his friends, and to believe that what was first written could never be the best. Although destitute neither of invention nor ease, he repressed both by adhering, like his biographer, to certain standards of taste which the age would not accept, and like him too, consoled himself in the hope of some distant era when his superior worth should be acknowledged.

As a prose writer he has given proofs of classical taste and reading in his Observations on the Shield of Æneas, originally published in Dodsley's Museum, and afterwards annexed to Warton's Virgil; and of genuine and delicate humour in three papers of The World, No. 12, 19, and 58. These he reprinted in the edition of his works, published in 1774.

POEMS

OF

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD.

THE

DANGER OF WRITING VERSE.

AN EPISTLE. 1741.

Quæ poterant unquam satis expurgare Cicutæ, Ni melius dormire putem, quam scribere versus?

HOR.

OU ask me, sir, why thus by phantoms aw'd,

Why, when retirement soothes this idle art, To fame regardless sleeps the youthful heart? "Twould wrong your judgment, should I fairly say Distrust or weakness caus'd the cold delay: Hint the small diff'rence, till we touch the lyre, 'Twixt real genius and too strong desire; The human slips, or seeming slips pretend, Which rouse the critic, but escape the friend; Nay which, though dreadful when the foe pursues, You pass, and smile, and still provoke the Muse. Yet, spite of all you think, or kindly feign, My hand will tremble while it grasps the pen. For not in this, like other arts, we try Our light excursions in a summer sky, No casual flights the dangerous trade admits; But wits, once authors, are for ever wits. The fool in prose, like Earth's unwieldy son, May oft rise vig'rous, though he's oft o'erthrown: One dangerous crisis marks our rise or fall; By all we're courted, or we 're shun'd by all. Will it avail, that, unmatur'd by years, My easy numbers pleas'd your partial ears, If now condemn'd, ev'n where he 's valu'd most, The man must suffer if the poet's lost; For wanting wit, be totally undone, And barr'd all arts for having fail'd in one? When fears like these his serious thoughts engage, No bugbear phantom curbs the poet's rage. 'Tis powerful reason holds the straiten'd rein, While flutt'ring fancy to the distant plain Sends a long look, and spreads her wings in vain.

But grant for once, th' officious Muse has shed Her gentlest influence on his infant head, Let fears lie vanquish'd, and resounding Fame Give to the bellowing blast the poet's name. And see! distinguish'd from the crowd he moves, Each finger marks him, and each eye approves! Secure, as halcyons brooding o'er the deep, The waves roll gently, and the thunders sleep, Obsequious Nature binds the tempest's wings, And pleas'd attention listens while he sings!

O blissful state, O more than human joy!
What shafts can reach him, or what cares annoy?
What cares, my friend? why all that man can
know,

Oppress'd with real or with fancy'd woe.
Rude to the world, like Earth's first lord expell'd,
To climes unknown, from Eden's safer field;
No more eternal springs around him breathe,
Black air scowls o'er him, deadly damps beneath;
Now must he learn, misguided youth, to bear
Each varying season of the poet's year:
Flatt'ry's full beam, detraction's wintry store,
The frowns of fortune, or the pride of pow'r.
His acts, his words, his thoughts no more his

own,

Each folly blazon'd, and each frailty known.
Is he reserv'd?-his sense is so refin'd,
It ne'er descends to trifle with mankind.
Open and free?-they find the secret cause
Is vanity; he courts the world's applause.
Nay, though he speak not, something still is seen,
Each change of face betrays a fault within.
If grave, 'tis spleen; he smiles but to deride;
And downright awkwardness in him is pride.
Thus must he steer through fame's uncertain seas,
Now sunk by censure, and now puff'd by praise;
Contempt with envy strangely mix'd endure,
Fear'd where caress'd, and jealous thongh secure.

One fatal rock on which good authors split-
Is thinking all mankind must like their wit;
And the grand business of the world stand still
To listen to the dictates of their quill.

Hurt if they fail, and yet how few succeed!
What's born in leisure men of leisure read;
And half of those have some peculiar whim
Their test of sense, and read but to condemn.
Besides, on parties now our fame depends,
And frowns or smiles, as these are foes or friends.
Wit, judgment, nature join; you strive in vain;
'Tis keen invective stamps the current strain.
Fix'd to one side, like Homer's gods, we fight,
These always wrong, and those for ever right.
And would you choose to see your friend, resign'd
Each conscious tie which guides the virtuous mind,
Embroil'd in factions, hurl with dreaded skill
The random vengeance of his desp'rate quill?
'Gainst pride in man with equal pride declaim,
And hide ill-nature under virtue's name?
Or, deeply vers'd in flattery's wily ways,
Flow in full reams of undistinguish'd praise?
To Vice's grave, or Folly's bust bequeath
The blushing trophy, and indignant wreath?
Like Egypt's priests 1, bid endless temples rise,
And people with Earth's pests th' offended skies?
The Muse of old her native freedom knew,
And wild in air the sportive wand'rer flew ;
On worth alone her bays eternal strow'd,
And found the hero, ere she hymn'd the god.
Nor less the chief his kind support return'd,
No drooping Muse her slighted labours mourn'd;
But stretch'd at ease she prun'd her growing wings,
By sages honour'd, and rever'd by kings.
Ev'n knowing Greece confess'd her early claim,
And warlike Latium caught the gen'rous flame.
Not so our age regards the tuneful tongue,
'Tis senseless rapture all, and empty song:
No Pollio sheds his genial influence round,
No Varus listens while the groves resound.
Ev'n those, the knowing and the virtuous few,
Who noblest ends by noblest means pursue,
Forget the poet's use; the powerful spell
Of magic verse, which Sidney paints so well.
Forget that Homer wak'd the Grecian flame,
That Pindar rous'd inglorious Thebes to fame,
That every age has great examples given
Of virtue taught in verse, and verse inspir'd by
Heaven.

But I forbear-these dreams no longer last,
The times of fable and of flights are past.
To glory now no laurel'd suppliants bend,
No coins are struck, no sacred domes ascend.
Yet ye, who still the Muse's charms admire,
And best deserve the verse your deeds inspire,
Ev'n in these gainful unambitious days,
Feel for yourselves at least, ye fond of praise,
And learn one lesson taught in mystic rhyme,
""Tis verse alone arrests the wings of Time."
Fast to the thread of life 3, annex'd by Fame,
A sculptur'd medal bears each human name,
O'er Lethe's streams the fatal threads depend,
The glitt'ring medal trembles as they bend;
Close but the shears, when chance or nature calls,
The birds of rumour catch it as it falls;
Awhile from bill to bill the trifle 's tost,
The waves receive it, and 'tis ever lost!

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But should the meanest swan that cuts the stream
Consign'd to Phoebus, catch the favour'd name,
Safe in her mouth she bears the sacred prize
To where bright Fame's eternal altars rise.
'Tis there the Muse's friends true laurels wear,
There great Augustus reigns, and triumphs there.
Patrons of arts must live till arts decay,
Sacred to verse in every poet's lay.

Thus grateful France does Richlieu's worth proclaim,
Thus grateful Britain doats on Somers' name.
And, spite of party rage and human flaws,
And British liberty and British laws,
Times yet to come shall sing of Anna's reign,
And bards, who blame the measures, love the men.
But why round patrons climb th' ambitious bays?
Is interest then the sordid spur to praise? [jay
Shall the same cause, which prompts the chatt'ring
To aim at words 4, inspire the poet's lay?
And is there nothing in the boasted claim
Of living labours and a deathless name?
The pictur'd front, with sacred fillets bound?
The sculptur'd Bust, with laurels wreath'd around?
The annual roses scatter'd o'er his urn,
And tears to flow from poets yet unborn?

Illustrious all! but sure to merit these,
Demands at least the poet's learned ease.
Say, can the bard attempt what's truly great,
Who pants in secret for his future fate?
Him serious toils, and humbler arts engage,
To make youth easy, and provide for age;
While lost in silence hangs his useless lyre, [fire.
And, though from Heav'n it came,fast dies the sacred
Or grant true genius with superior force
Bursts every bond, resistless in its course;
Yet lives the man, how wild soe'er his aim,
Would madly barter fortune's smiles for fame!
Or distant hopes of future ease forego,
For all the wreaths that all the Nine bestow?
Well pleas'd to shine, through each recording page,
The hapless Dryden of a shameless age?

Ill-fated bard! where'er thy name appears,
The weeping verse a sad memento bears.
Ah! what avail'd th' enormous blaze between
Thy dawn of glory, and thy closing scene!
When sinking nature asks our kind repairs,
Unstrung the nerves, and silver'd o'er the hairs;
When stay'd reflection comes uncall'd at last,
And grey experience counts each folly past,
Untun'd and harsh the sweetest strains appear,
And loudest pæans but fatigue the ear.

'Tis true the man of verse, though born to ills,
Too oft deserves the very fate he feels.
When, vainly frequent at the great man's board,
He shares in every vice with every lord:
Makes to their taste his sober sense submit,
And 'gainst his reason madly arms his wit;
Heav'n but in justice turns their serious heart
To scorn the wretch, whose life belies his art.

Whom youth might rev'rence and grey hairs ap-
He, only he, should haunt the Muse's grove,

prove;

Whose Heav'n-taught numbers, now, in thunder
roll'd,

Might rouse the virtuous and appal the bold;
Now, to truth's dictates lend the grace of ease,
And teach instruction happier arts to please.
For him would Plato change their gen'ral fate,
And own one poet might improve his state.

4 Perseus,

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