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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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381

PROEMIUM.

Some time ago the Lyric Peter,
With much sublimity of metre,
Did prophesy a minister would tumble!
To verify the poet's ode,
Behold it pleaseth man and God,
In anger, his high mightiness to humble!
Good man! but not the Man of Ross;
He's down! procumbit humi bos.
How like unto a crow, or rook,
Shot near his nest (a mortal wound),
He hung and bled, with downcast look,
Before he sous'd at last to ground!
Yes! like those black birds much too long we saw
The culprit hanging by a single claw.
What a vile bramble he has been,
May now with half an eye be seen.—
Look at us!—What poor shiv'ring sheep, alack

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Naked and lank—most closely shorn!
This hooking, dragging imp has torn
The healthful, warming fleece from every back!
Gone! gone some good-for-nothing ribs to treat;
But woe to that poor sheep which dar'd to bleat!
Sing, heavenly muse, to whom our wool all goes:—
To warm Dundas, Long, Wyndham, Canning, Rose,
Old Liverpool and cub, with each compeer.—
While they carousing swill'd their toast and sack,
We bit, in anguish, musty bread and black,
And writhing got the gripes from dead small-beer.
‘Try Pitt again,’ some fools exclaim.
He has been tried, and tried, and tried
The hobbling nation, still more lame,
Has now nor crutch, nor ass to ride.
‘He'll mend,’ they roar.—He mend! the mumer—
Aye, mend just like sour ale in mummer.
Lo, then, our sad state-carpenter dismiss'd!
No longer now his bungling art befools:
Yet from the service when the man was hiss'd,
Why leave behind his budget and his tools?
Glad as a bird that 'scapes the kite, I'll drop
The lamentations of poor Jeremiah;
Of gay Pindarics open a fresh shop,
And pour the song of triumph with Isaiah.