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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395922" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Borough. Letter XIV: Inhabitants Of The Alms-House. Life Of Blaney</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">OBSERVE that tall pale Veteran! what a look<br>Of shame and guilt!--who cannot read that book?<br>Misery and mirth are blended in his face,<br>Much innate vileness and some outward grace;<br>There wishes strong and stronger griefs are seen,<br>Looks ever changed, and never one serene:<br>Show not that manner, and these features all,<br>The serpent's cunning, and the sinner's fall?<br>Hark to that laughter!--'tis the way he takes<br>To force applause for each vile jest he makes;<br>Such is yon man, by partial favour sent<br>To these calm seats to ponder and repent.<br>Blaney, a wealthy heir at twenty-one,<br>At twenty-five was ruin'd and undone,<br>These years with grievous crimes we need not load,<br>He found his ruin in the common road! -<br>Gamed without skill, without inquiry bought,<br>Lent without love, and borrow'd without thought.<br>But, gay and handsome, he had soon the dower<br>Of a kind wealthy widow in his power:<br>Then he aspired to loftier flights of vice,<br>To singing harlots of enormous price:<br>He took a jockey in his gig to buy<br>A horse so valued that a duke was shy:<br>To gain the plaudits of the knowing few,<br>Gamblers and grooms, what would not Blaney do?<br>His dearest friend, at that improving age,<br>Was Hounslow Dick, who drove the western stage.<br>Cruel he was not--if he left his wife,<br>He left her to her own pursuits in life;<br>Deaf to reports, to all expenses blind,<br>Profuse, not just, and careless, but not kind.<br>Yet, thus assisted, ten long winters pass'd<br>In wasting guineas ere he saw his last;<br>Then he began to reason, and to feel<br>He could not dig, nor had he learn'd to steal;<br>And should he beg as long as he might live,<br>He justly fear'd that nobody would give:<br>But he could charge a pistol, and at will<br>All that was mortal, by a bullet kill:<br>And he was taught, by those whom he would call<br>Man's surest guides, that he was mortal all.<br>While thus he thought, still waiting for the day<br>When he should dare to blow his brains away,<br>A place for him a kind relation found,<br>Where England's monarch ruled, but far from English </div><div style="margin:10px 0">ground:<br>He gave employ that might for bread suffice,<br>Correct his habits and restrain his vice.<br>Here Blaney tried (what such man's miseries </div><div style="margin:10px 0">teach)<br>To find what pleasures were within his reach;<br>These he enjoy'd, though not in just the style<br>He once possess'd them in his native isle;<br>Congenial souls he found in every place,<br>Vice in all soils, and charms in every race:<br>His lady took the same amusing way,<br>And laugh'd at Time till he had turn'd them gray;<br>At length for England once again they steer'd,<br>By ancient views and new designs endear'd;<br>His kindred died, and Blaney now became<br>An heir to one who never heard his name.<br>What could he now?--The man had tried before<br>The joys of youth, and they were joys no more;<br>To vicious pleasure he was still inclined,<br>But vice must now be season'd and refined;<br>Then as a swine he would on pleasure seize,<br>Now common pleasures had no power to please:<br>Beauty alone has for the vulgar charms,<br>He wanted beauty trembling with alarms:<br>His was no more a youthful dream of joy,<br>The wretch desired to ruin and destroy;<br>He bought indulgence with a boundless price,<br>Most pleased when decency bow'd down to vice,<br>When a fair dame her husband's honour sold,<br>And a frail countess play'd for Blaney's gold.<br>'But did not conscience in her anger rise?'<br>Yes! and he learn'd her terrors to despise;<br>When stung by thought, to soothing books he fled,<br>And grew composed and harden'd as he read;<br>Tales of Voltaire, and essays gay and slight.<br>Pleased him, and shone with their phosphoric light;<br>Which, though it rose from objects vile and base,<br>Where'er it came threw splendour on the place,<br>And was that light which the deluded youth,<br>And this gray sinner, deem'd the light of truth.<br>He different works for different cause admired,<br>Some fix'd his judgment, some his passions fired;<br>To cheer the mind and raise a dormant flame,<br>He had the books, decreed to lasting shame,<br>Which those who read are careful not to name:<br>These won to vicious act the yielding heart,<br>And then the cooler reasoners soothed the smart.<br>He heard of Blount, and Mandeville, and Chubb,<br>How they the doctors of their day would drub;<br>How Hume had dwelt on Miracles so well,<br>That none would now believe a miracle;<br>And though he cared not works so grave to read,<br>He caught their faith, and sign'd the sinner's </div><div style="margin:10px 0">creed.<br>Thus was he pleased to join the laughing side,<br>Nor ceased the laughter when his lady died;<br>Yet was he kind and careful of her fame,<br>And on her tomb inscribed a virtuous name;<br>'A tender wife, respected, and so forth,'<br>The marble still bears witness to the worth.<br>He has some children, but he knows not where;<br>Something they cost, but neither love nor care;<br>A father's feelings he has never known,<br>His joys, his sorrows, have been all his own.<br>He now would build, and lofty seat he built,<br>And sought, in various ways, relief from guilt.<br>Restless, for ever anxious to obtain<br>Ease for the heart by ramblings of the brain,<br>He would have pictures, and of course a Taste,<br>And found a thousand means his wealth to waste.<br>Newmarket steeds he bought at mighty cost;<br>They sometimes won, but Blaney always lost.<br>Quick came his ruin, came when he had still<br>For life a relish, and in pleasure skill:<br>By his own idle reckoning he supposed<br>His wealth would last him till his life was closed;<br>But no! he found this final hoard was spent,<br>While he had years to suffer and repent.<br>Yet, at the last, his noble mind to show,<br>And in his misery how he bore the blow,<br>He view'd his only guinea, then suppress'd,<br>For a short time, the tumults in his breast,<br>And mov'd by pride, by habit, and despair,<br>Gave it an opera-bird to hum an air.<br>Come ye! who live for Pleasure, come, behold<br>A man of pleasure when he's poor and old;<br>When he looks back through life, and cannot find<br>A single action to relieve his mind;<br>When he looks forward, striving still to keep<br>A steady prospect of eternal sleep;<br>When not one friend is left, of all the train<br>Whom 'twas his pride and boast to entertain, -<br>Friends now employ'd from house to house to run,<br>And say, 'Alas! poor Blaney is undone!' -<br>Those whom he shook with ardour by the hand,<br>By whom he stood as long as he could stand,<br>Who seem'd to him from all deception clear,<br>And who, more strange! might think themselves </div><div style="margin:10px 0">sincere.<br>Lo! now the hero shuffling through the town,<br>To hunt a dinner and to beg a crown;<br>To tell an idle tale, that boys may smile;<br>To bear a strumpet's billet-doux a mile;<br>To cull a wanton for a youth of wealth<br>(With reverend view to both his taste and health);<br>To be a useful, needy thing between<br>Fear and desire--the pander and the screen;<br>To flatter pictures, houses, horses, dress,<br>The wildest fashion, or the worst excess;<br>To be the gray seducer, and entice<br>Unbearded folly into acts of vice:<br>And then, to level every fence which law<br>And virtue fix to keep the mind in awe,<br>He first inveigles youth to walk astray,<br>Next prompts and soothes them in their fatal way,<br>Then vindicates the deed, and makes the mind his </div><div style="margin:10px 0">prey.<br>Unhappy man! what pains he takes to state -<br>(Proof of his fear!) that all below is fate;<br>That all proceed in one appointed track,<br>Where none can stop, or take their journey back:<br>Then what is vice or virtue?--Yet he'll rail<br>At priests till memory and quotation fail;<br>He reads, to learn the various ills they've done,<br>And calls them vipers, every mother's son.<br>He is the harlot's aid, who wheedling tries<br>To move her friend for vanity's supplies;<br>To weak indulgence he allures the mind,<br>Loth to be duped, but willing to be kind;<br>And if successful--what the labour pays?<br>He gets the friend's contempt and Chloe's praise,<br>Who, in her triumph, condescends to say,<br>'What a good creature Blaney was to-day!'<br>Hear the poor demon when the young attend,<br>And willing ear to vile experience lend;<br>When he relates (with laughing, leering eye)<br>The tale licentious, mix'd with blasphemy:<br>No genuine gladness his narrations cause,<br>The frailest heart denies sincere applause;<br>And many a youth has turn'd him half aside,<br>And laugh'd aloud, the sign of shame to hide.<br>Blaney, no aid in his vile cause to lose,<br>Buys pictures, prints, and a licentious Muse;<br>He borrows every help from every art,<br>To stir the passions and mislead the heart:<br>But from the subject let us soon escape,<br>Nor give this feature all its ugly shape;<br>Some to their crimes escape from satire owe;<br>Who shall describe what Blaney dares to show?<br>While thus the man, to vice and passion slave,<br>Was, with his follies, moving to the grave,<br>The ancient ruler of this mansion died,<br>And Blaney boldly for the seat applied:<br>Sir Denys Brand, then guardian, join'd his suit:<br>''Tis true,' said he, 'the fellow's quite a brute -<br>A very beast; but yet, with all his sin,<br>He has a manner--let the devil in.'<br>They half complied, they gave the wish'd retreat,<br>But raised a worthier to the vacant seat.<br>Thus forced on ways unlike each former way,<br>Thus led to prayer without a heart to pray,<br>He quits the gay and rich, the young and free,<br>Among the badge-men with a badge to be:<br>He sees an humble tradesman rais'd to rule<br>The gray-beard pupils of this moral school;<br>Where he himself, an old licentious boy,<br>Will nothing learn, and nothing can enjoy;<br>In temp'rate measures he must eat and drink,<br>And, pain of pains! must live alone and think.<br>In vain, by fortune's smiles, thrice affluent </div><div style="margin:10px 0">made,<br>Still has he debts of ancient date unpaid;<br>Thrice into penury by error thrown,<br>Not one right maxim has he made his own;<br>The old men shun him,--some his vices hate,<br>And all abhor his principles and prate;<br>Nor love nor care for him will mortal show,<br>Save a frail sister in the female row.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395922" data-title="The Borough. Letter XIV: Inhabitants Of The Alms-House. Life Of Blaney de George Crabbe" data-description="OBSERVE that tall pale Veteran! what a look
Of shame and guilt!--who cannot read that book?
Misery and mirth are blended in his face,
Much innate vileness and some outward grace;
There wishes strong and stronger griefs are seen,
Looks ever changed..."></div>
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