The Poems of John Byrom :: :: University of Virginia Library

Will you please to permit me, my very good Lord,
Some Night when you meet upon ancient Record,
Full worthily filling Antiquity's Throne
To propose to your Sages a Doubt of my own,—
A certain moot Point of a national Kind?
For it touches all England to have it defin'd
With a little more Fact, by what Kind of a Right
Her Patron, her Saint, is a Cappadox Knight?

471

II

I know what our Songs and our Stories advance,
That St. George is for England, St. Denys for France;
But the French, tho' uncertain what Denys it was.
All own he converted and taught 'em their Mass;
And most other Nations, I fancy, remount
To a Saint, whom they chose upon some such Account,
But I never could learn, that for any like Notion,
The English made Choice of a Knight Cappadocian.

III

Their Conversion was owing (Event, one would hope,
Worth rememb'ring at least) to a Saint and a Pope,—

472

To a Gregory known by the First, and the Great,
Who sent, to relieve them from Pagan Deceit,
St. Austin the Monk; and both Sender and Sent
Had their Days in old Fasti that noted th' Event.
Now, my Lord, I would ask of the Learn'd and Laborious,
If Ge-orgius ben't a Mistake for Gregorius.

IV

In Names so like-letter'd it would be no Wonder
If hasty Transcribers had made such a Blunder;
And Mistake in the Names, by a Slip of their Pen,
May perhaps have occasion'd Mistake in the Men.
That this has been made, to omit all the rest,
Let a Champion of yours, your own Selden, attest:
See his Book upon Titles of Honour, that Quarter
Where he treats of St. George and the Knights of the Garter.

V

There he quotes from Froissart, how at first, on the Plan
Of a Lady's blue Garter, blue Order began,
In one thousand three hundred and forty and four.
But the Name of the Saint in Froissart is Gregore:
So the Chronicle Writer or printed or wrote
For George, without Doubt, says the marginal Note.
Be it there a mistake!—But, my Lord, I'm afraid
That the same, vice-versâ, was anciently made.

VI

For tho' much has been said by the great Antiquarian
Of an Orthodox George, Cappadocian and Arian:

473

“How the Soldiers first came to be Patron of old,
I have not,” says he, “Light enough to behold.”
A Soldier-like Nation, he guesses (for want
Of a Proof that it did so) would choose him for Saint;
For in all his old Writings no Fragment occurr'd
That saluted him Patron, 'till Edward the Third.

VII

His Reign he had guess'd to have been the first Time,
But for old Saxon Prose and for old English Rime,
Which mention a George, a great Martyr and Saint,
Tho' they say not a Word of the Thing that we want.
They tell of his Tortures, his Death, and his Pray'r,
Without the least Hint of the question'd Affair:
That Light, I should guess, with Submission to Selden,
As he was not the Patron, he was not beheld in.

474

VIII

The Name in French, Latin, and Saxon, 'tis hinted,
Some three or four Times, is mis-writ or mis-printed;
He renders it George;—but, allowing the Hint,
And the Justice of Change both in Writing and Print,
Some George by like Error (it adds to the Doubt)
Has turn'd our Converter St. Gregory out.
He, or Austin the Monk, bid the fairest by far
To be Patron of England, till Garter and Star.

IX

In the old Saxon Custom of crowning our Kings,
As Selden has told us, amongst other Things
They nam'd in the Pray'rs which his Pages transplant,
The Virgin, St. Peter, and one other Saint,
Whose Connection with England is also exprest,
And yields in this Case such a probable Test,
That, a Patron suppos'd, we may fairly agree
Such a Saint is the Person, whoever it be.

475

X

Now, with Mary and Peter, when Monarchs are crown'd,
There is only a Sanctus Gregorius found;
And his Title Anglorum Apostolus too,
With which a St. George can have nothing to do.
While Scotland and Ireland and France and Spain claims
A St. Andrew, St. Patrick, St. Denys, St. James,
Both Apostle and Patron—for Saint so unknown
Why should England reject an Apostle her own?

XI

This, my Lord, is the Matter. The plain simple Rimes
Lay no Fault, you perceive, upon Protestant Times.
I impute the Mistake, if it should be one, solely
To the Pontiffs succeeding, who christen'd Wars holy,—
To Monarchs, who madding around their round Tables,
Preferr'd to Conversion their Fighting and Fables.
When Soldiers were many, good Christians but few,
St. George was advanc'd to St. Gregory's Due.

476

XII

One may be mistaken, and therefore would beg
That a Willis, a Stukeley, an Ames, or a Pegge,—
In short, that your Lordship and all the fam'd Set
Who are under your Auspices happily met,
In perfect good Humour—which you can inspire,
As I know by Experience—would please to enquire,
To search this one Question, and settle, I hope:
“Was Old England's Old Patron a Knight, or a Pope?”