6 I, by twenty sail attended, Did this Spanish town affright: I had cast them with disdain, And obeyed my heart's warm motion, 7 For resistance I could fear none, Had our foul dishonour seen, Nor the sea the sad receiver Of this gallant train had been.` 8 Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying, And her galleons leading home, 9 Unrepining at thy glory, VOL. III. Thy successful arms we hail; And let Hosier's wrongs prevail. 10 Hence, with all my train attending We recall our shameful doom, 11 O'er these waves for ever mourning WILLIAM WHITEHEAD. THERE was also a Paul Whitehead, who wrote a satire entitled 'Manners,' which is highly praised by Boswell, and mentioned contemptuously by Campbell, and who lives in the couplet of Churchill 'May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?) William Whitehead was the son of a baker in Cambridge, was born in 1715, and studied first at Winchester, and then in Clare Hall, in his own city. He became tutor to the son of the Earl of Jersey, wrote one or two poor plays, and in 1757, on the death of Colley Cibber, was appointed Poet-Laureate-the office having previously been refused by Gray. This roused against him a large class of those 'beings capable of envying even a poet-laureate,' to use Gray's expression, and especially the wrath of Churchill, then the man-mountain of satiric literature, who, in his 'Ghost,' says 'But he who in the laureate chair, And by his patent proves his wit,' &c. To these attacks Whitehead, who was a good-natured and modest man, made no reply. In his latter years the Laureate resided in the family of Lord Jersey, and died in 1785. His poem called 'Variety' is light and pleasant, and deserves a niche in our 'Specimens.' VARIETY. A TALE FOR MARRIED PEOPLE. A gentle maid, of rural breeding, And called each clown she saw, a faun! The human heart's minutest clue; Yet shrewd observers still declare, (To show how shrewd observers are,) Though plays, which breathed heroic flame, And novels, in profusion, came, Imported fresh-and-fresh from France, She only read the heart's romance. The world, no doubt, was well enough To smooth the manners of the rough; Might please the giddy and the vain, Those tinselled slaves of folly's train: But, for her part, the truest taste She found was in retirement placed, Where, as in verse it sweetly flows, 'On every thorn instruction grows.' Not that she wished to be alone,' As some affected prudes have done; She knew it was decreed on high We should increase and multiply;' And therefore, if kind Fate would grant Her fondest wish, her only want, A cottage with the man she loved Was what her gentle heart approved; In some delightful solitude Where step profane might ne'er intrude; But Hymen guard the sacred ground, And virtuous Cupids hover round. Not such as flutter on a fan Round Crete's vile bull, or Leda's swan, Fate heard her prayer: a lover came, Who felt, like her, the innoxious flame; One who had trod, as well as she, The flowery paths of poesy; Had warmed himself with Milton's heat, Could every line of Pope repeat, Or chant in Shenstone's tender strains, 'In short, she looked, she blushed consent; He grasped her hand, to church they went; And every matron that was there, With tongue so voluble and supple, O halcyon days! 'Twas Nature's reign, Two smiling springs had waked the flowers |