To Stern Critics

Here's to our Readers, Health! good Looks!
And Joy ad infinitum
And may they live to read our Books
As long as we may write 'em.

I'll write, because I'll give
You critics means to live;
For should I not supply
The cause, th' effect would die.

Here's to Music,
Joy of joys!
One man's music's
Another man's noise.

Here's to her shadow!
May it mark the hours
Upon the sundial of her life--in flowers!

“Let a man write never so well, there are now-a-days a sort of persons they call critics, that, egad, have no more wit in them than so many hobby-horses: but they’ll laugh at you, Sir, and find fault, and censure things, that, egad, I’m sure they are not able to do themselves; a sort of envious persons, that emulate the glories of persons of parts, and think to build their fame by calumniation of persons that, egad, to my knowledge, of all persons in the world, are in nature the persons that do as much despise all that, as, a, In fine, I’ll say no more of ’em!” REHEARSAL.

All the world knows the story of the tempest-tossed voyager, who, coming upon a strange coast, and seeing a man hanging in chains, hailed it with joy, as the sign of a civilized country. In like manner we may hail, as a proof of the rapid advancement of civili...

Cabin Passenger.            Man at Wheel.

CABIN PASSENGER.
Friend, you seem thoughtful. I not wonder much
That he who sails the ocean should be sad.
I am myself reflective. When I think
Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked
Between his sharp, thin lips, the wedgy waves,
What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls;
What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns,
What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls,
Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes,
Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man,
The half-starved workman, and the well-fed worm;
What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books;
What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains;
Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw, -
I, too, am silent; for all language seems
A mockery...