So impudent, I own myself no knave:
So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me :
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Yet touch'd and shamed by ridicule alone.
O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence,
Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!
To all but Heaven-directed hands denied,
The Muse may give thee, but the gods must guide
Reverent I touch thee! but with honest zeal;
To rouse the watchmen of the public weal,
To virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall,
And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall.
Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains,
That counts your beauties only by your stains,
Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day!
The MUSE's wing shall brush you all away :
All his grace preaches, all his lordship sings,
All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings;
All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,
Like the last gazette, or the last address.
When black ambition stains a public cause',
A monarch's sword when mad vain-glory draws,
Not Waller's wreath can hide the nation's scar,
Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star.
Not so, when diadem'd with rays divine,
Touch'd with the flame that breaks from Virtue's shrine, Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die,
And opes the temple of Eternity.
There, other trophies deck the truly brave,
Than such as Anstish casts into the grave;
Far other stars than * and **
And may descend to Mordington from STAIR ;
• Weak and slight sophistry against virtue and honour. Thin colours over vice, as unable to hide the light of truth as cobwebs to shade the sun. f The case of Cromwell in the civil war of England, and of Louis XIV. in his conquest of the Low Countries.
g See his Ode on Namur, where (to use his own words) "Il a fait un astre de la plume blanche que le roy porte ordinairement à son chapeau, et qui est en effet une espèce de comète, fatale à nos ennemis."
h The chief herald at arms. It is the custom, at the funeral of great peers, to cast into the grave the broken staves and ensigns of honour.
i John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, Knight of the Thistle, served in all the wars under the Duke of Marlborough, and afterwards as ambassador in France.
(Such as on HOUGH's unsullied mitre shine,
Or beam, good DIGBY, from a heart like thine ;)
Let Envy howl, while heaven's whole chorus sings,
And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;
Let Flattery sickening see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,
And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine.
Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw,
When Truth stands trembling on the edge of law ;
Here, last of Britons ! let your names be read;
Are none, none living? let me praise the dead,
And for that cause which made your fathers shine,
Fall by the votes of their degenerate line.
F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began,
And write next winter more Essays on Man*.
Dr. John Hough, Bishop of Worcester, and the Lord Digby: the one an assertor of the Church of England, in opposition to the false measures of King James II.; the other as firmly attached to the cause of that king: both acting out of principle, and equally men of honour and virtue.
This was the last poem of the kind printed by our author, with a resolution to publish no more, but to enter thus, in the most plain and solemn manner he could, a sort of PROTEST against that insuperable corruption and depravity of manners which he had been so unhappy as to live to see. Could he have hoped to have amended any, he had continued those attacks; but bad men were grown so shameless and so powerful, that ridicule was become as unsafe as it was ineffectual. The poem raised him, as he knew it would, some enemies: but he had reason to be satisfied with the approbation of good men, and the testimony of his own conscience.
IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR. SWIFT.
'Tis true, my lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you, June the third;
Changed it to August, and in short
Have kept it as you do at court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetick?
In town, what objects could I meet ?
The shops shut up in every street,
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W* and H** both in town!
"The dog-days are no more the case. 'Tis true, but winter comes apace: Then southward let your bard retire, Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire, And you shall see, the first warm weather, Me and the butterflies together.
My lord, your favours well I know ;
"Tis with distinction you bestow;
And not to every one that comes,
Just as a Scotsman does his plums :
Pray take them, sir.-Enough's a feast :
Eat some, and pocket up the rest."
What, rob your boys? those pretty rogues!
No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs.'
Thus fools, with compliments besiege ye,
Contriving never to oblige ye.
Scatter your favours on a fop,
Ingratitude's the certain crop ;
And 'tis but just, I'll tell
You give the things you never care for.
A wise man always is, or shou'd
Be mighty ready to do good:
But makes a difference in his thought
Betwixt a guinea and a groat.
Now this I'll say, you'll find in me
A safe companion, and a free;
But if you'd have me always near-
A word, pray, in your honour's ear.
I hope it is your resolution
To give me back my constitution !
The sprightly wit, the lively eye,
The engaging smile, the gaiety,
That laugh'd down many a summer sun,
And kept you up so oft till one :
And all that voluntary vein,
As when Belinda raised my strain.
A weasel once made shift to slink
In at a corn-loft through a chink;
But having amply stuff'd his skin,
Could not get out as he got in :
Which one belonging to the house
('Twas not a man, it was a mouse)
Observing, cried, "You 'scape not so!
Lean as you came, sir, you must go."
Sir, you may spare your application, I'm no such beast, nor his relation; Nor one that temperance advance, Cramm'd to the throat with ortolans : Extremely ready to resign
All that may make me none of mine.
South-sea subscriptions take who please,
Leave me but liberty and ease.
'Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,
Who praised my modesty and smiled.
Give me, I cried, (enough for me)
My bread, and independency!
So bought an annual rent or two,
And lived-just as you see I do;
Near fifty, and without a wife,
I trust that sinking fund, my life.
Can I retrench? yes, mighty well,
Shrink back to my paternal cell,
A little house, with trees a-row,
And, like its master, very low.
There died my father, no man's debtor,
And there I'll die, nor worse nor better.
To set this matter full before ye,
Our old friend Swift will tell his story.
Harley, the nation's great support,'
But you may read it, I stop short.
THE FIRST PART IMITATED IN THE YEAR 1714, BY DR. SWIFT, THE LATTER PART ADDED AFTERWARDS.
I'VE often wish'd that I had clear
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace-walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood.
Well, now I have all this and more,
I ask not to increase my store;
"But here a grievance seems to lie,
All this is mine but till I die;
I can't but think 'twould sound more clever,
To me and to my heirs for ever.
"If I ne'er got or lost a groat,
By any trick, or any fault;
And if I pray by Reason's rules,
And not like forty other fools,
As thus, 'Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker!
To grant me this and t' other acre :
Or, if it be thy will and pleasure,
Direct my plough to find a treasure :'
But only what my station fits,
And to be kept in my right wits,
Preserve, Almighty Providence!
Just what you gave me, competence :
And let me in these shades compose
Something in verse as true as prose ;
|