Save that in yonder velvet-mantled box A moping Countess to her Grace complains Of macaws, monkeys, perroquets, and shocks, And losses _vaist_ and _vaistly_ paltry gains. Behind those rugged spikes that bag-wigs shade, Where tuneful Folios lie in many a heap, Each in his narrow line for ever laid The embryo crotchets of the “Guardian” sleep. The long, long trill of quaver-torturing Brent,[2] Miss Hallam[2] twittering from her tender throat, Thy clarion, Beard,[2] that Echo’s ear has rent, No more shall rouze each lowly-slumbering note. For these no more a parent’s breast shall burn; His busy fingers ply their evening care; Poor banish’d children! never to return, Nor their own tender sire’s applause to share. Oft did the City Nymph their sweetness own Their force the stubborn sentinel has broke; How jocund did they drive the dull farce down, When wit and sense expir’d without a joke! Yet let not genius mock their useless toil, Their transient honours and their life not long, Nor sense behold with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of a song. The pomp of Tragedy, expression’s power, And all that Garrick, all that Quin e’er gave, Have found alike th’ inevitable hour, And the Fifth Act still led them to the grave. Forgive, ye Bards, th’ involuntary fault, If love parental shall no trophies raise, Where in th’ Orchestra’s low sequestered vault The coxcomb Fidler plies his arm for praise. Can pensive Arne, with animated strain, Back to its audience call his fleeting Play? Can Music’s voice the hand of death restrain, Or soothing sounds prolong the fatal day? Perhaps, ere this, he many an Opera made, Which, though not pregnant with celestial fire, Might yet, like this, its little night have sway’d, And wak’d to extacy the living lyre. But shrill rehearsal each unprinted page, Lavish of grins and squalls, did n’er unroll The hiss contemptuous and the catcall’s rage Repress’d the great ambition of his soul. Full many a book, of purest page serene, The high ungenial cells of Grub-street bear; Full many a pamphlet leaves the press unseen, In Moorfields dangling to the desart air. Some village * * * * * *, who a wife’s fell frown, A vixen wife with music has withstood, Some blind Corelli oft may scrape unknown, Some Arne, not guilty of an Opera’s blood Th’ applause of listening Boxes to command, Damnation’s pain and ruin to dispise; To scatter crotchets o’er a fidling land, And read their influence in a lady’s eyes, Their lot forbade; nor circumscrib’d alone Their tuneful empire, but their pride confin’d, Forbade pert Nonsense to usurp the throne Of Taste, and banish genius from mankind.