“hence, ‘loathed business,’ which so long
has plunged me in the toiling throng.
forgive, dear sir! and gentle madam!
a drudging younger son of adam,
who’s forc’d from morn to night to labor
or at the pipe, or at the tabor:
nor has he hope ’twill e’er be o’er
till landed on some kinder shore;
some more propitious star, whose rays
benign, may cheer his future days.
ah, think for rest how he must pant
whose life’s the summer of an ant!
[pg 111]
with grief o’erwhelm’d, the wretched abel[15]
is dumb as architect of babel.
—three months of sullen silence—seem
with black ingratitude to teem;
as if my heart were made of stone
which kindness could not work upon;
or benefits e’er sit enshrin’d
within the precincts of my mind.
but think not so, dear sir! my crime
proceeds alone from want of time.
no more a giddy youth, and idle,
without a curb, without a bridle,
who frisk’d about like colt unbroke,
and life regarded as a joke.—
no!—different duties now are mine;
nor do i at my cares repine:
with naught to think of but myself
i little heeded worldly pelf;
but now, alert i act and move
for others whom i better love.
should you refuse me absolution,
condemning my new institution,
’twould chill at once my heart and zeal
for this my little commonweal.—
o give my peace not such a stab!
nor slay—as cain did—name-sake nab.
[pg 112]
this prologue first premis’d, in hopes
such figures, metaphors, and tropes
for pardon will not plead in vain,
we’ll now proceed in lighter strain.
the epistle then goes on to strictures frank and honest, though softened off by courteous praise and becoming diffidence, on a manuscript poem of mr. greville’s, that had been confidentially transmitted to lynn, for the private opinion and critical judgment of mr. burney.
mr. greville, now, was assuming a new character—that of an author; and he printed a work which he had long had in agitation, entitled “maxims, characters, and reflections, moral, serious, and entertaining;” a title that seemed to announce that england, in its turn, was now to produce, in a man of family and fashion, a la bruyere, or a la rochefoucaul. and mr. greville, in fact, waited for a similar fame with dignity rather than anxiety, because with expectation unclogged by doubt.
with mrs. greville, also, mr. burney kept up an equal, or more than equal, intercourse, for their minds were invariably in unison.
[pg 113]
the following copy remains of a burlesque rhyming billet-doux, written by mr. burney in his old dramatic character of will fribble, and addressed to mrs. greville in that of miss biddy bellair, upon her going abroad.
