The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] ... With a Copious Index. To which is prefixed Some Account of his Life. In Four Volumes |
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The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] | ||
AN ODE TO SIR JOSEPH BANKS,
ON THE Report of his Elevation to the important Dignity of a Privy Counsellor.
He becomes honours as a sow does a saddle.
PROVERBS.
Inventive newspapers, I can't believe ye!
Impossible! ye certainly are fibbing!
Sir Joseph dubb'd a counsellor of state!
'Tis laughing at too high a rate;
Lord! what a joke! ye certainly are squibbing!
And shown such wondrous want of wit,
Ye think that any fable will go down.
Now, pray be careful, sirs, of what you print;
There's danger—yes, indeed, there's danger in't—
Woe to the wight that ridicules a crown!
A monarch wanteth sharp instructors:
Then pray speak truth, ye men of news,
And do not thus the world amuse:
It is not—cannot—must not be!
And wants no talk on butterflies,
On eggs and bird-nests, newts and weeds:
He wants a man to talk on wars,
On dread invasions, wounds, and scars,
On stumps, and carcasses, and heads.
And with a net his captive hamper,
Sir Joseph is expert, and must delight;
But, as for politics!—O Heav'n!
The board must very hard be driv'n,
To choose a swearing tadpole knight!
Sir Joseph's very bitterest foe
Must certainly allow him peerless merit;
Where, on a wag-tail, and tom-tit,
He shines, and sometimes on a nit,
Displaying pow'rs few gentlemen inherit.
Subduing ev'ry thing he darts his eye on;
Rather, I ween, an intellectual flea,
Hopping on Science's broad bony back,
Poking its pert proboscis of attack,
Drawing a drop of blood, and fancying it a sea!
(And marv'lous things oft come to pass),
Should he be dubb'd a king's adviser;
'Twill be so wonderful a change—
So very, very, very strange!
What's stranger still, the council won't be wiser!
Then privy counsellor in spite
If, for the last, he hands has kiss'd;
There's not a reptile on his list
E'er knew a stranger transmutation.
To take so dignified a place?
But probably the knight will say, the elf,
‘Why should not I, as well as some of those
Who this same wondrous board compose?
There are not wiser fellows than myself.’
That's true.—
Sir Joseph on a beetle's brain,
A fly, a toad, a tadpole's tail:
While Pitt is on the emperor's loan,
For Britain's jaws so hard a bone,
Sir Joseph's on a weed and snail!
And turns, poor man! his hopeless eyes
On what may lift us from the bog;
The knight his head for flea-traps rakes,
Or louse-traps, or deep-studying makes
A pair of breeches for a frog .
Shall weep o'er England's groans and troubles,
Ordering great guns to make the Frenchmen caper;
Of reptiles will the knight be dreaming,
And instruments for insects scheming,
To stretch their little limbs on paper.
All for the good of our great state,
A moth should flutter, would the man sit quiet?
Forgetting state affairs, the knight
Would seize his hat with wild delight,
And, chasing, make the most infernal riot:
O'erturning benches, statesmen, ev'ry thing,
To make a pris'ner of the mealy wing!
A simple story;
An Æsop's tale, by way of illustration,
Proving Sir Joseph's awkward elevation.
(For cats like Christians said their pray'rs of yore),
That he would make her a young lady fair;
And how, of rattling thunder the great God
Consented to it with his usual nod,
And made her pretty too as she could stare.
When in her deary's loving arms lock'd tight,
She heard behind the bed a rat;
Sudden from his embrace she gave a spring,
Forgetting love, and kiss, and ev'ry thing,
To catch the vermin like a cat:
And how, to punish her, with huge disdain,
The angry god made miss a cat again.
Forget his partiality and love;
And as Jove justly serv'd the cat, to shame her;
So, from a counsellor, the king of men
May make the knight a grub-hunter agen,
And bid him mind his butterflies and hammer.
Since the foregoing Ode was given to the printer, it is too true that the newspapers were in the right. The knight is bonâ fide dubbed a privy counsellor. Ridicule enjoys a second feast on the occasion. Her first treat was his elevation to the chair of the immortal Newton.
Sir Joseph must not complain at his being so frequently the subject of a poetical laugh; Folly is the natural and fair game of Satire. To wreak his revenge on the Muse, by condemning her to silence, let him cease to play the fool. Amotâ causâ, tollitur effectus—I beg the knight's pardon, for I recollect that he has forgotten all his Latin, and retains his native vulgar tongue only.
Notwithstanding a thousand experiments in favour of pointed conductors, the knight and co. will not allow the ingenious Franklin, the father of electricity, to be in the right with respect to the superiority of points to nobs: too obstinate (and perhaps too ignorant) to be convinced, and too haughty to yield.
The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] | ||