Part 1 (2/2)

For he like PHOEBUS' self can touch the string, And opera-songs compose--like any thing!

What shall I do, now NYKY's fled away?

For who like him can either sing or say?

IMITATIONS.

Quo te, Moeri, pedes; an qu via ducit in urbem?

Nymphae, noster amor, Libethrides, nunc mihi carmen, Quale meo Codro, concedite; proxima Phoebi Versibus ille facit.---- Quid facerem?

NOTES.

[1] The brother and constant companion of ROSCIUS; the Mercury of our theatrical Jupiter, whom he dispatches with his divine commands to mortal poets and miserable actors.

For me, alas! who well compos'd the song When lovely PEGGY[2] liv'd, and I was young; By age impair'd, my piping days are done, My memory fails, and ev'n my voice is gone.

My feeble notes I yet must strive to raise; Boeotian Muses! aid my feeble lays: A little louder, and yet louder still, Aid me to raise my failing voice at will; Aid me as loud as Hercules did bawl, For Hylas lost, lost NYKY back to call; While London town, and all its suburbs round In echoes, NYKY, NYKY, back resound.

IMITATIONS.

---- ---- Saepe ego longos Cantando puerum memini me condere soles Nunc oblita mihi tot carmina: vox quoque Moerim Jam fugit ipsa---- Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque.

---- Musae paul majora canamus.

---- Hylan nautae quo fonte relictum Clama.s.sent; ut littus Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret.

NOTES.

[2] PEGGY WOFFINGTON, on whom our ROSCIUS, then her inamorato, made a famous song, beginning with the following stanza:

_Once more I'll tune the vocal sh.e.l.l, To hills and dales my pa.s.sion tell, A flame which time can never quell, That burns for thee, my Peggy._

Whom fliest thou, frantic youth, and whence thy fear?

Blest had there never been a grenadier!

Unhappy NYKY, by what frenzy seiz'd, Couldst thou with such a monstrous thing be pleas'd?

What, tho' thyself a loving horse-marine,[3]

A common foot-soldier's a thing obscene.

Not fabled Nymphs, by spleen turn'd into cows, Bellow'd to nasty bulls their amorous vows; Tho' turn'd their loving horns upon each other, b.u.t.ting in play, as brother might with brother.

Unhappy NYKY, whither dost thou stray, Lost to thy friends, o'er hills and far away?

IMITATIONS.

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