IRREGULAR ODE,

BY MR. MASON.

I.

O GREEN-ROB'D Goddess of the hallow'd shade,
Daughter of Jove, to whom of

yore

Thee, lovely maid, LATONA bore,
Chaste virgin, Empress of the silent glade!
Where shall I woo thee?-Ere the dawn,
While still the dewy tissue of the lawn

Quivering spangles to the eye,

And fills the soul with Nature's harmony?

Or 'mid that murky grove's monastic night,

The tangling net-work of the woodbine's gloom, Each zephyr pregnant with perfume?

Or near that delving dale, or mossy mountain's height?

II.

When Neptune struck the scientific ground,
From Attica's deep-heaving side,

Why did the prancing horse rebound,
Snorting, neighing all around,
With thund'ring feet and flashing eyes—
Unless to show how near allied
Bright science is to exercise?

III.

If then the horse to wisdom is a friend,
Why not the hound? why not the horn?

While low beneath the furrow sleeps the corn,

Nor yet in tawny vest delights to bend !

2

For Jove himself decreed,
That DIAN, with her sandal'd feet,
White-ankled Goddess pure and fleet,
Should with every Dryad lead,
By jovial cry o'er distant plain,

To England's Athens, Brunswick's sylvan train!

IV.

Diana, Goddess all-discerning!
Hunting is a friend to learning!
If the stag, with hairy nose,

In Autumn ne'er had thought of love;

No buck with swollen throat the does With dappled sides had tried to moveNe'er had England's King, I ween, The Muses' seat, fair Oxford, seen.

V. Hunting, thus, is learning's friend! No longer, Virgin Goddess, bend

O'er Endymion's roseate breast--No longer, vine-like, chastely twine Round his milk-white limbs divine!

Your brother's car rolls down the east-
The laughing Hours bespeak the day!
With flow'ry wreaths they strew the way!
Kings of sleep! ye mortal race!
For George with Dian 'gins the Royal chase!

VI.

Visions of bliss, you tear my aching sight;
Spare, O spare your poet's eyes!
See, every gateway trembles with delight,
Streams of glory streak the skies:

U

How each College sounds
With the cry of the hounds!
How Peckwater merrily rings!
Founders, Prelates, Queens, and Kings-
All have had your hunting-day!—

From the dark tomb then break away!
Ah! see they rush to Friar Bacon's tower,
Great George to greet, and hail his natal hour!

VII.

Radcliffe and Wolsey, hand in hand,

;

Sweet gentle shades, there take their stand
With Pomfret's learned dame
And Bodley join'd by Clarendon
With loyal zeal together run,

Just arbiters of fame!

VIII.

That fringed cloud sure this way bends;
From it a form divine descends-
Minerva's self; and in her rear
A thousand saddled steeds appear!
On each she mounts a learned son,
Professor, Chancellor, or Dean;
All by hunting madness won,
All in Dian's livery seen.
How they despise the tim'rous Hare!
Give us, they cry, the furious Bear!
To chase the Lion how they long,
Th' Rhinoceros tall, and Tiger strong!
Hunting thus is learning's prop,

Then may hunting never drop!

And thus an hundred Birth-days more

Shall Heav'n to George afford from its capacious shore.

NUMBER VIII.

ODE,

BY THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.

I.

INDITE, my Muse!-indite! subpana'd is thy lyre! The praises to record, which rules of Court require! 'Tis thou, O Clio! Muse divine,

And best of all the Council Nine,

Must plead my cause!-Great HATFIELD'S CECIL bids me sing

The tallest, fittest man, to walk before the King!

II.

Of Sal'sbury's Earls, the first (so tells th' historic page) "T was Nature's will to make most wonderfully sage;

But then, as if too liberal to his mind,

She made him crook'd before, and crook'd behind *.
'Tis not, thank Heav'n, my Cecil, so with thee;
Thou last of Cecils, but unlike the first;-
Thy body bears no mark'd deformity;—

The Gods decreed, and judgment was revers'd!
For veins of Science are like veins of gold;

Pure, for a time, they run;
They end as they begun―

Alas! in nothing but a heap of mould!

*Rapin observes, that Robert Cecil, the first Earl of Salisbury, was of a great genius; and though crooked before and behind, Nature supplied that defect with noble endowments of mind.

III.

Shall I by eloquence control,
Or challenge send to mighty ROLLE,
Whene'er on Peers he vents his gall?
Uplift my hands to pull his nose,
And twist and pinch it till it grows,

Like mine, aside and small?

Say, by what process may I once obtain
A verdict, Lord, nor let me sue in vain!

In Commons, and in Courts below,
My actions have been tried ;-
There Clients who pay most, you know,
Retain the strongest side!

True to these terms, I preach'd in politics for Pitt,

And Kenyon's law maintain'd against his Sovereign's writ.
What though my father be a porpus,
He may be mov'd by Habeas Corpus—
Or by a call, whene'er the State

Or Pitt requires his vote and weight-
I tender bail for Bootle's warm support
Of all the plans of Ministers and Court!
IV.

And O! should Mrs. Arden bless me with a child,
A lovely boy, as beauteous as myself and mild;
The little Pepper would some caudle lack:
Then think of Arden's wife,
My pretty plaintiff's life,

The best of caudle's made of best of sack!

Let thy decree

But favour me,

My bills and briefs, rebutters and detainers,

To Archy I'll resign
Without a fee or fine,
Attachments, replications, and retainers!