The Birth-Day of Folly An Heroi-Comical Poem, By Peter [i.e. G. A. Stevens]: With Notes Variorum, For the illustration of historical passages relating to the Hero of the Poem, and other remarkable Personages |
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 | The Birth-Day of Folly |  |
THE Birth-Day of FOLLY, AN Heroi-Comical POEM,
With Notes Variorum.
And deem'd by her the fairest of the year,
April's first morn, distinguish'd for her birth;
To sloth she gives the day, the night to mirth.
Her herald, Lauder, vehement and loud,
Brays out this proclamation to the crowd:
“'Tis Folly's birth-day, come at Folly's call;
“To sound her fame the sons of dullness meet
“At sev'n o'clock precisely in Hart-street;
“Come when the hooting Owls begin their flight,
“For Folly keeps her holyday at night.
Where Quin so well perform'd the part of Brute;
Where M---n, late the stage's dullest tool,
Once play'd old Shylock, but now plays the Fool;
A fabrick rose, magnificent of frame,
Which from this grand Projector took its name:
As to the music of the damn'd that fell
Rose Pandemonium on the plains of hell,
So of this pile, 'tis thought, in some ill weather
Rich's Orchestra fiddled it together.
Lo! half-supine luxurious Folly laid:
Pow'rful to lull the most enliven'd sense,
This Sofa was the gift of Indolence:
Her little left eye twinkles to the light,
But open'd wide, and goggling is her right:
Down from her collar to her bosom bare
Her bells hung pendent like a solitaire:
High o'er her ear, light-wavering to the gale,
She wore the plumage of a peacock's tail,
Which, nodding o'er her round unmeaning face,
Gave to her front the French, fantastic grace.
Full fat and fair she waddles in her gate,
And lisps so pretty that she loves to prate;
Her ears she pricks up to herself to list,
And sputters all her meaning in a mist.
Wise in conceit she seems, for all the while
Her face is dimpled with a foolish smile.
A painted fan her fickleness declares,
Which waving gives the ideot Goddess airs;
And grasps an English Plautus in her hand.
The screech-owls hoot, the long-ear'd brethren bray;
Loud squeal the cat-calls with discordant strain,
The sport of Folly, but the poet's pain.
The signal giv'n, all Boobies hear the call,
(The feast of Folly is a feast for all)
Titt'ring they run—tall T---r heads the rout,
And swells his high harangue with many a round about:
“I greet the day benign to You and Me—
“That dire Glaucoma which your eye bedims
“This hand deterges, despumates and skims
“To purge from films opaque your visual ray;
“Pay but ten pieces—that my constant rate is;
“One shilling and this syllabus comes gratis.
“Great in the art no falshoods I maintain;
“In France I'm honour'd, and ador'd in Spain:
“In Prussia, Poland, Portugal I'm known;
“Sweden and Denmark ring with my renown:
“Of me strange things all Germany relates,
“For I'm admir'd thro' all her hundred states:
“Bohemia, Muscovy I've travell'd o'er,
“Kingdoms where Doctors never went before:
“Full well these foreign Courts my pains requite,
“They chuse me member, and they dub me Knight;
“The Patents of the Dignities I've won
“Are all lodg'd safely with my darling Son.
“Your gracious Majesty has heard, I hope,
“I'm Oculist-Physician to the Pope,
“To every Sov'reign Prince in Christendom:
“So well all Europe knows me and my works,
“Next month I'll shew my parts among the Turks;
“Now, now's the lucky time to cure your sight,
“This wonder-working needle sets it right:
“Consult with me, great Queen, nor more regard
“That d---d tar-water, or the pills of Ward.
His golden badge of honour, and brocade.
And thus with sneer sarcastical begun:
“Yet shew some reverence for thy mother's sight:
“Tho' of that glitt'ring pendent justly vain,
“In France tho' honour'd, and ador'd in Spain;
“Tho' Germans, Goths and Huns thy skill admire,
“And many a Nurse, and many a rural Squire,
“Yet I the greatest of all fools should be,
“Tho' Queen of dupes, to trust my eyes with thee.”
Something betwixt a monkey and a man,
(Not far behind in impudence the first)
Who ap'd all characters, and wore the worst;
Expressive thrice he shook his empty head,
Pertly address'd the dame, and thus he said:
“You deign to tip your own dear son the wink?
“Great patron, friend, and mother of us all:
“So keen your Piercer, and so sweet your smile,
“You charm us at the distance of a mile.
“To crown with high festivity the night,
“If jest, and farce, and mimickry delight,
“The stingless satire, and the ideot sneer,
“I'll mount my rostrum, and turn Auctioneer.
“My Taste consists of foolery and fun;
“Without your succour I had been undone:
“To you 'tis owing that I please the great;
“Thro' you I eat to live, and live to eat:
“That I the chatt'ring of maccaws exceed,
“And learn queer faces from the monkey breed,
“Like Proteus boast dexterity of limb—
“To you I owe it all, and not to him:
“Yours be the praise, that from my infant state
“You taught your son to move, to grin, to prate.
As Auctioneer, with hammer in his hand:
The Goddess watch'd him sly, and at his head
Hurling her Plautus, thus indignant said;
“Born on Bæotian bogs,—away, begone,
“Go, and reserve the squeezings of thy brains
“To brew small-beer , and feed the pigs with grains.
Abasht he stood—shame fluster'd him all o'er,
And he once blusht, who never blusht before;
Fear made him fly, and with amazing art,
He took three strides, and jumpt into a quart.
The mighty master of the sev'nfold face:
Lo! bronz'd in matchless impudence he stands,
And spreads to heav'n his high-directed hands,
As if on some infernal plot intent:
Such is his figure, when with pray'rs obscene,
And many a slice of blasphemy between,
He weekly mounts his stall, while Justice sleeps,
And rebel to his God a horrid sabbath keeps.
But hark! he hums, and hems, his voice to clear,
Turns up his eyes, and bellows in her ear:
“Screens all the dull, and destitute of sense,
“Pleas'd ev'n to smile propitious on thy son,
“Who lives by nonsense, ribaldry, and pun,
“Who virtue, and religion turns to sport,
“Chaplain domestic I attend thy court.
“For thee, alas! what plagues have I endur'd?
“What bruises suffer'd that can ne'er be cur'd?
“From kicks, and cudgels, thrashings, thwacks, and thumps,
“From airy blankets, and from wat'ry pumps?
“Behold from head to foot I'm black and blue.
“In thy old cause I rhyme, and roar, and drink ,
“And write about thee, and about thee think;
“And wilt not thou, O Queen, my soul's delight,
“All these my suff'rings, all my pains requite?
“Consider well my case, and weigh my plea,
“And fix me snug in some pacific See.
“Mean while this book, my Coup de grace, receive,
“'Tis all at present that I have to give,
“That sends at once, like magic's pow'rful spell,
“The foes of Folly, and of me to hell:
“This is Clare-market's glory and its joy,
“And daily conn'd by ev'ry butcher's boy;
“Cleavers and marrow-bones its praises spread—
“I hold it meet by Folly to be read.
And thus the boozy Orator derides;
“Unknown, my Chaplain and Buffoon, to me?
“Which oft with pity I have ponder'd o'er,
“Where I myself so large a portion bore?
“Heav'n knows what sorrows cause my heart to ach,
“That Henley thus should suffer for my sake!
“My doughty Champion whom I hold so dear,
“The jolly friend of butchers and of beer:
“Yet, yet proceed, with zeal my cause defend,
“To scoundrels only, and their friends, a friend;
“Scorn law, and sense, and all their weak attacks,
“I'll soon appoint thee Bishop to the Blacks.
M---n, the great Inquisitor arose,
Full of vain hopes to pocket up the pelf,
He smil'd so grim as if he mockt himself:
Where once a week Religion goes to pot;
Where the learn'd Baker absolute controuls,
Grand President, and Master of the Rolls.
Here Barbers, Taylors, Tinkers take degrees,
And vent their new-laid notions as they please;
Here, as the full-froth'd pots are push'd about,
Priest-puzzling arguments are hammer'd out.
This place the Goddess deems the best of schools,
And aptly terms it, Paradise of Fools:
Here stood vast volumes of her friends of old,
Some plain, some letter'd , some trickt off in gold;
Men who had risk'd their ears in her behalf,
Morgan in Sheep , and Mandevil in Calf;
And Woolston here all miracles deny'd;
But finest far, the fav'rites of the club,
Here beam'd the works of Bolingbroke and Chubb.
To prove that Englishmen may cut their throats;
All these great Authors, and a thousand more
Which studious M---n had read o'er and o'er;
And now propos'd t'instruct with lectures sage,
The Law, the Church, the Senate, and the Stage,
Dark points to settle, and with learned skill
Reason of Fate, of Prescience and Free-will;
Of myst'ries deep, of moral good and evil,
Of trade, plays, Pasquin, Faustus and the Devil:
Intent the Goddess stood, and ere the man
The prologue to his colloquy began,
Sign'd by old Satan, mighty Prince of Hell,
Which, ting'd with brimstone, in an instant blaz'd,
And, while the crowd with dreadful wonder gaz'd,
(To luckless M---n's infinite disgrace,)
As cook-maids singe a goose, she sing'd his face:
It still retains the dark tartarian hue,
Hideous and horrid, neither black nor blue:
“Off, off, away, she cried, I've heard enough,
“No more I'll suffer this confounded stuff;
“Come hither every dupe and every dunce,
“I'll stop with supper all your mouths for once.”
As round their Queen the drones at evening creep,
And with mixt murmur lull the hive to sleep;
So these the dame inviron round and round,
And every booby sends a hollow sound;
So strong the savoury scent of supper draws,
They clamour universally applause.
In Folly's livery, parti-colour'd cloaths,
Prompt at her whistle, a large table spread,
Produc'd vast voiders, and a load of bread;
Three butts of beer which Parsons had supply'd
They brought in well-tann'd jacks of good cow-hide:
Then smoak'd the solid supper on the board,
Such as Van Hogan Mogan might afford;
Beneath a cover first came store of fish,
A jowl of Codd, Chubbs, Gudgeons in a dish;
Wit-damping puddings, tripe in butter fry'd,
Fat chitterling and goose on every side:
Stern at the bottom grinn'd, still breathing dread,
The bristly horrors of a huge hog's head;
Pale Fribble saw the hideous monster stare,
Call'd out for draps, and sunk beside his chair.
“Eat on, eat on, said Folly, till ye burst—
“But, O my Chaplain, let me serve you first,
“My friend, my deputy, my greatest fool,
“You preach my dictates, and you teach my school;
“And therefore, noodles, ye may help yourselves.”
Quick at her word they slic'd thro' thick and thin,
They heap'd their platters, and they laid it in,
So like pork-bolting boors , that Colley swore,
They cram'd as if they'd never supt before:
But long they cou'd not cram who eat so fast;
For hungry curs are satisfy'd at last.
The bones remov'd, they briskly pusht about
Full pots of porter, three threads, stale and stout,
Bumpers of punch, and nipperkins of stum,
Of windy cyder, and of mawky mum.
The potent liquors, as the bowls they drain,
Soon seiz'd the vacant regions of the brain:
Then Riot reign'd; with dunce encounter'd dunce,
And every sapscull shot his bolt at once:
The perfect image of a Flemish feast,
Where each dull sot is turn'd into a beast.
Of Dame Religion, Politicks, and Whoring.
So strange the hubbub, and so loud the din,
'Twas heard o'er Holbourn, and all Lincoln's-Inn;
It reach'd industrious Welsh, who took the cue,
And soon assembled his thief-catching crew,
Full fifty Bruisers resolute and rough,
Some clad in buckram, and some clad in buff,
Like English rusticks who no taste profess,
They came sans ceremonie, sans politesse,
Seiz'd every guest, and in Round-house secur'd,
Or in the Counter, durance vile, immur'd,
There to consume the spunging night in sorrow,
And stand before Sir Radamanth to-morrow:
There may no Buggs their tedious hours molest,
While with the writer all his readers rest.
See Paradise lost, B. 1.
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet.
A grievous mistake of the transcriber! I never beheld Plautus in English: there is indeed a Gentleman, Mr. Thomas Cook of South-Lambeth, as remarkable for his singular modesty, as for the brilliancy of his Genius, or the accuracy and sobriety of his Judgment: he wrote a poem called the Battle of the Poets, in which he very judiciously gives Philips and Welsted the superiority over Swift and Pope; he, I say, has taken in subscription-money for a translation of Plautus into English, I very well remember he had a guinea of me, but I never heard that the book was publish'd, therefore, it cannot be English Plautus: wonderful, on this occasion, is the sagacity of Mr. Cibber junior, who reads English Plutus, that is, a comedy of Aristophanes translated by Mr. Tibbald or Theobald; quam vide at the Trunkmaker's in St. Paul's church-yard. Scriblerus.
In the Daily Advertiser of January 31, 1755, the Doctor thus modestly speaks of himself.—Rome, Dec. 27. The Chevalier Taylor, celebrated Medicine Oculist to their Imperial Majesties, the Kings of Great Britain, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and to all the sovereign Princes in Europe, arriv'd a few weeks since in this capital from Muscovy; the morning after his arrival was presented to his Holiness; the reputation he has acquir'd here from the success he had with the Princesses of Ruspuly, Justinana, and with many other illustrious personages, together with a number extraordinary of the subjects of this country. The Pope has not only been pleas'd to grant him three different audiences, but has declared him, by Patent, Medicine Oculist to his Person and Court, and to give him yet a greater mark of his favour, has caused him to be made Chevalier of his court, to be received as a member of the Roman senate, and a fellow of the Roman university. The Patents of these dignities, together with all the others he has received from the courts and universities abroad, are in the hands of his son in London. By a list it appears, that the Chevalier is now Physician-Oculist (by Patent) to six crown'd heads, to near twenty sovereign princes; member of almost all the universities, academies, and societies of the learned in Europe. That he is the author of 24 different works that he has wrote himself in different languages, three of which are published in Italian. And, to complete all, he was received as a member of the university of Padua by Order of the senate of Venice, with distinct approbation from the famous professor Morgany: And this crowned by the dignities he has received from the court and senate of Rome. The Chevalier will direct his course through Italy, where he will end his tour through all Europe. Medicus sum.
My authority for this word I take from an excellent comedy or farce called Taste, wrote by the ingenious Mr. Foote; in which Lady Pentweazel very humourously says, “All my family by the mother's side were famous for their eyes; I have a great aunt among the beauties at Windsor; she has a sister at Hampton-court, a perdigious fine woman: she had but one eye indeed, but that was a Piercer— that one eye got her three husbands: we were call'd the gimlet-ey'd family.”
Again Plautus!— Unpardonable is the negligence of this stupid transcriber: correct it again and read Plutus. Scrib.
Mr. F— is turn'd brewer, and therefore may properly be said to have converted his choice spirits into malt spirits. Alexander Stevens.
That is a quart bottle: O reader bless thyself that thou art at last come to the discovery of the person who did not jump into a quart bottle. Ignoramus.
see Dunciad, b. ii. ver. 425.
And to mere mortals seem'd a Priest in drink—
a parody on that verse of Horace, B. ii. Sat. 1. ver. 70.
To Virtue only, and her friends a friend.
Pope.
A Porter-house in Butcher Row, when every Monday a company of people meet to dispute on all sort of topicks, particularly Religion and State-affairs. The President is a Baker, who regulates the society extremely well; he sits with a hammer in his hand, and knocks any man down that speaks longer than five minutes. Alexander the Corrector.
Alexander the Corrector reads Morgan in Goat, asserting that the hide of a Goat, especially with the hair on, is more properly adapted to a Welshman than a Sheep-skin; but this is taking it for granted that Morgan was a Welshman—I retain Sheep with Peter, who doubtless had an eye to the note on this identical person in the Dunciad, B. ii. line 414. which I shall give at length—“Morgan] a Writer against Religion, distinguished no otherwise from the rabble of his tribe, than by the pompousness of his title; for having stolen his Morality from Tindal, and his Philosophy from Spinoza, he calls himself, by the courtesy of England, a Moral Philosopher.” Whence it is plain he was a Thief, and Thieves are naturally sheepish. Tim.
An Author who had not his name for nothing—he wrote a book called The Fable of the Bees, “to prove that Moral Virtue is the invention of Knaves, and Christian Virtue the imposition of Fools; and that Vice is necessary, and alone sufficient for the Happiness of any Society.” Calf indeed! Tim.
Writers against the Religion of their Country, the first, Dr. Mat. Tindal, was fellow of All-Soul's College, Oxford,—and Author of a book called, The Rights of the Christian Church, and of Christianity as old as the Creation. The Doctor was not only remarkable as an Infidel, but likewise for his debauch'd Life, and blasphemous conversation: he was publickly reprimanded by the society of All-Souls, as an egregious Fornicator: see several stories relating to this last part of his character in a pamphlet, intitled The Conduct of Mat. Tindal, L. L. D. by a Member of All-Souls. Tindal being confin'd with sickness, was visited by a Gentleman, who asked him, How it was with him? Tindal replied, He believed he was a dying man. Are you so, said the Gentleman, and what do you think will become of you? why, you'll as certainly be damn'd as you are now alive; he spoke—Tindal trembled— “the Devils also believe and tremble.”
Toland was the Author of the Atheist's Liturgy, called Pantheisticon. Scrib. jun.
Thomas Woolston, an impious madman, who wrote in a most insolent style against the Miracles of the Gospel, in the year 1726. Warburton.
Henry St. John Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, in the emblazoning of whose character Mr. Pope has well nigh lost his own: Mr. Brown in his Essay on Satire, speaking of Pope, very beautifully says,
Did Friendship e'er mislead thy wandring Muse?That Friendship sure may plead the great excuse:
That sacred Friendship which inspir'd thy song,
Fair in defect, and amiably wrong.
Upon the publication of this Author's post-humous works a Gentleman said, that Lord Bolingbroke had left a Blunderbuss charged with goose-shot aimed against the Morality and Religion of his Country; but being afraid to fire it himself, he hired a fellow for half a crown, one Mallet a Scotchman, to let it off after his death.—Peter himself.
Thomas Chubb, the great Oracle of Infidels, originally a Tallowchandler at Salisbury: he unfortunately turn'd his hand to writing, and that turn'd his head. He wrote several tracts or treatises; that on Abraham's offering up Isaac is I think far the best: Tom's opinion of Abraham is, that he was an honest, well-meaning, but a very silly fellow, that did not understand the common principles of Morality: who fancied he had a commission from God to do a very wicked thing. Scrib. jun.
Count de Passeran, Author of a pamphlet intitled, A philosophical dissertation on Death, being a defence of Suicide: this man and Mr. John Morgan were taken into custody of a messenger in November 1732, for writing the aforesaid pamphlet. Scrib.
Such were the topicks of the fallen Angels: see Milton's Paradise Lost, book ii. ver. 557.
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will and Fate,
Fixt Fate, free Will, Foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandring mazes lost.
Of Good and Evil much they argued then,
Of Happiness and final Misery.
Passion and Apathy, and Glory and Shame,
Vain Wisdom all, and false Philosophy.
A weekly paper, intitled, The Devil, wrote by one J. S—who is just as good a writer of prose as he is a poet: see him alive at Berkley-square Coffee-house. Tim.
Certain men in Kent, Sussex and other southern counties, who instead of living like other men upon beef, mutton, plumb-pudding, &c. delight, when hungry, to swallow, without mastication (which they call bolting) large portions of fat pickled pork, about five inches long and two in diameter. I knew a man who at fifteen bolts devoured three pounds of good Pork. Tim.
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