Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 046.djvu/447

Tas.A thousand thanks
Unto the gracious Duke.
Mont.You are pale, my friend—
'Tis plain you are far from well. At court
They tell us you are often troubled with
These fits of melancholy.
Tas.How! my Lord?
Mont. Yet the expression of your face has not
That frightful air such patients often have.
Tas. My Lord, I am not so mad as they may think
At court. At least I can distinguish still
The worthy man from—— But proceed—your errand?
Mont. See now, I always told his highness, when
We spoke of your misfortune, it was nothing
But some corporeal malady that springs
From bile diseased, and which at times breaks out
In fancies.
Tas. (aside.) Patience!—grant me patience, Heaven!
Mont. Yourself are much to blame for your condition.
In many good gifts you are not deficient—
Gifts that are known and praised as they deserve;
But, pardon me, you have indulged too much
A vain and overweening fantasy,
And hopes, which, if they were not criminal,
At least were foolish.
Tas. (Sighing.)That is true!
Mont.You poets
Are, it is said, an irritable race—
All things offend you. Now, confess it fairly,
The Delia Crusca's censure of your poem
Has given you more vexation than it ought.
Tas. Not so, fair sir! If what I write be good,
'Tis not the critic's voice can make it ill.
Try it, indeed, they may! A voice within
Tells me to trust the spirit that inspires me.
I have given delight to many a feeling heart;
I've seen the tear in many an eye, which, raised
Above this low existence by my strain,
Soar'd on my fancy's wing, and many thanks
From worthy men and noble dames were mine—
What care I for the Crusca or its censure!
Mont. Ha! ha! I give you joy, good friend.
Tas.Laugh on.
The art which God has given me, is to me
A blessing, which for none on earth I'd barter.
Not folly, dulness, envy, persecution,
Not even imprisonment, can tear it from me.
The rescued treasure rests within my breast,
And sleeps secure against a better time.
The gift of God I never have degraded—
I never courted mean applause; my strain
Has sounded only for the great and good.
Humble me—persecute me:—Be it so:
Laugh at my dreams, if laughable they seem—
I leave you your advantage in the world;
But leave me mine, which you need little envy.
Mont. I grudge it not, Torquato; nor desire
My dreams should ever lead me to St Anne's.
Tas. Right! very right! And yet, Montecatino,
Far as you stand in fortune's light befoie me,
At court so favour'd, so esteem'd; so much
Of honour gain'd, and hoping more to win,
In all the sunshine of a master's favour—
While I am banish'd by his wrath, to dwell
Forsaken, sick, calumniated, here;