2
"These chords that speak so well, my humble friend,
Were borrow'd from the bowels of a goat;
And even I, when life is at an end,
May still survive, and be a thing of note;
For then some artist of harmonic skill
Shall twist my tripe into as sweet a trill."
3
The horse, as if in laughter, neigh'd aloud,
And answer'd thus: "Poor wretch! of what avail
Would be the simple chords which makes thee proud,
Unless I had supplied them from my tail
With many a hair to form the fiddle-bow,
Whose movement makes the hidden music flow?
4
"And though the loss may pain me, I'm content;
For, after all, it gladdens me to see,
While I am still alive, the instrument
Indebted for its harmony to me.
But say, what pleasure can its accents give
To solace thee when thou hast ceased to live?"
5
Thus many a wretched writer, who has tried
With unsuccessful efforts to engage
Contemporary praise, appeals with pride
Unto the judgment of a future age;
As if posterity's approving breath
Could gratify "the dull cold ear of death."
VI. THE PARROTS AND THE MONKEY.
Two parrots fresh from St Domingo,
Where each had learn'd a different lingo
For half that isle of sugar-cane
Belongs to France, and half to Spain—
A captain's gift to his Amanda,
Were caged within the same veranda;
And, though unable for a while
To understand each other's style,
They soon contrived (for what can balk
A parrot's or a woman's talk ?)
To find, despite their education,
A medium of conversation.
For blending, as they gabbled on,
Their French and Spanish into one,
They form'd a dialect betwixt
The two, in which the two were mixt—
A dialect that served to tell
Their parrot-news in, just as well
As if it had consisted wholly
Of French or Spanish phrases solely.
But when their mistress—one whose hue
Of intellect inclined to blue;
And ah! unto a true blue-stocking
All licenses of speech are shocking—
O'erheard her brace of birds harangue
In such an incoherent slang,
A mess of words whose misalliance
Sets sense and syntax at defiance,
And might be (for they sounded oddly)
Indecent, or at least ungodly,
She parted them, in hopes that each,
When caged beyond the other's reach,
Would soon resume his own vernacular,
And utter nonsense less oracular.
But though the Gallic bird at once
Reform'd, and banish'd from his sconce
The Spanish tongue as incommode,
Because elle n'était pas du mode,
An idiom too precise and prim
For fashionable fowls like him;
The Spanish bird would not retrench
A single syllable of French,
But still continued, though alone,
To jabber it, as if its tone
Enrich'd the old Castilian tongue,
As gardens are enrich'd by dung.
One day, instead of olla, he
Called for un gratin de bouillie,
When, with a face of much amazement,
A monkey, from a neighbouring casement,
