In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

263 JAMES EYRE WEEKS (c.1719 – 1762–1775) James Eyre Weeks was born in Cork and educated at Trinity College Dublin where he was a contemporary of Thomas Sheridan, the actor and elocution teacher. He was ordained into the Church of Ireland and became tutor to the young Marquis of Lansdowne – later, as Lord Shelburne, an unpopular prime minister of Britain. Little is known of Weeks’s life, though he was actively involved with the Dublin theatre and may, at one stage, have kept a school in Tralee. He published poems on a variety of topics, a (mildly indecent) play and an irreverent Dublin newspaper as well an oratorio and several school books on geography. He also spent time in London and contributed the poem that follows to The London Magazine in December 1762. Weeks spent his later years as a rector in County Cork. On the late Fog Lost and bewilder’d in the thick’ning mist, We stray amid th’irrefragable1 gloom, Nor can th’all piercing eye of day himself Penetrate here; behind a sizy2 cloud The rays of light, his orient messengers, Are intercepted, nor can steer their course Wreckt on a coast of jet3 — ev’n beauty’s eye, Compos’d of azure, here is impotent, And all subduing is herself subdu’d. We justle each, by eye-sight unappriz’d 10 Of meeting, in the anarchy of shade. Nature herself seems in the vapours4 now, Sullen is ev’ry prospect,5 and the trees As we approach them, seem like hanging webs Spun by the spider; ev’n the great St Paul’s With his huge dome and cupolas, appears A craggy precipice, rude, unform’d, stubborn. 1 dark. 2 hard, black rock. 3 in a state of nervous disorder. 4 (1) outlook; (2) view; (3) what can be seen in the prospect glass or spectacles. 5 264 Or like the ruins of an ancient fort Upon a hill, when twilight shuts the day. Or if Meridian Phœbus shews his face, 20 He seems a ball of molten copper-ore, Or like a beacon on a foggy coast. Absolute shade maintains despotic sway, Palpable darkness, for we see by touch; The beams of day refracted in the cloud, Like birds in storms, are dubious where to fly; The coach or wagon warns us by the noise To shun the danger; by our ears we see The threat’ning wheels. We strike against each post, Like ships against a bank, or sunken rock, 30 For sight is vain, where nature disappears. The lamps are feeble as the socket snuffs Of candles just expiring, rush-lights dim Like those within a cellar’s dreary vault. ’Tis universal mourning, colours fade And ev’n the soldiers, black as undertakers, Resemble lobsters, black before they’re red. Long streets of houses seem as pencil’d out In charcoal prospects;6 the design of boys: While by no marks directed, oft we miss 40 Our well-known passage; boats upon the Thames Appear but as the buoys of distant ships, Or corks afloat, upon the tawny flood. Nature’s fine liv’ry, fac’d with ever-green, Is chequer’d o’er with motly spots of ink; The wheezing lungs are heard in ev’ry street, And nature seems one universal blank. i.e. as if they are charcoal drawings of the street. 6 ...

Share