University of Virginia Library


473

PROEMIUM.

PETRUS LOQUITUR.

Since members lost to manners, growl;
Call poor Sir Joseph ass, and owl;
Nay, oft with coarser epithets revile;
Though pitying much his pigmy merit.
Let me display a Christian spirit,
And try to lift a lame dog o'er a stile.
Though not, like Erskine, in the law a giant,
I must take up the cudgels for my client.
Know by these presents, then, ye noisy crew,
Who at his blushing honours look so blue,
That though Sir Joseph is not deep-discerning,
And though, as all the world well knows,
A nutshell might with perfect ease enclose
Three quarters of his sense, and all his learning;

474

Whose modest wisdom, therefore, never aims
To find the longitude, or burn the Thames;
Yet, as to things he sets himself about,
With tooth and nail, like Hercules, so stout,
He labours for his wish, no matter what;—
I can't say that Sir Joseph lions kills;
Hugs giants, or the blood of hydras spills;
But then most manfully he eats a bat,
Eats toads, or tough, or tender, old, or young,
As in the sweetest strains the Muse hath sung ;
Fit with the hugest Hottentot to cope,
Who dines on raw flesh at the Cape of Hope.
Blest with a phiz, he bids the members tremble!
To deathlike silence turns the direst din;
And where so many savages assemble,
Like hounds they want a proper whipper-in.
Dare members sleep , a set of snoring Goths,
Whilst Blagden reads a chapter upon moths?
Down goes the hammer, cloth'd with thunder!
Up spring the snorers, half without their wigs;
Old graybeards grave, and smock-fac'd prigs,
With ell-wide jaws displaying signs of wonder.
Lo! perseverance is the soul of action!
And courage proper to oppose a faction;
Therefore he sits with wonderful propriety,
The Monro of a mad society:
And that he is both brave and persevering,
Witness the following story, well worth hearing.
 

Blushing honours—the author undoubtedly means the epithet blushing to be understood as synonymous with blooming, and not in a satirical sense: God forbid that the friend of Sir Joseph should mean otherwise!

See Peter's Prophecy.

Frequently, indeed, are the member's sent to the land of shadows by the society's somniferous papers; assisted in a great measure in their voyage by the doctor's drowsy manner of communicating the contents.