ARGUMENT.
Peter sorely complaineth of Miss Hannah's cracked
Instrument—announceth Women superior
to Miss Hannah.—Miss Hannah laugheth in her
Sleeve at the Bishop's Praise.—Peter thinketh
that Mount Parnassus would have shed no Tears
had Miss Hannah never written—he blameth the
Bishop for making a Show of Miss Hannah.—
Peter exhibiteth his Candour, in condemning
rather the Flattery of the Bishop, than Miss
Hannah's literary Imbecility.—Peter rippeth
up the Blue-stocking Club, for their foolish Exhibition
of Miss Hannah—he acknowledgeth the
Power of Novelty, particularly with respect to
a Pamphlet of one of the smaller Rats of the
Queen's Closet, called Mathias—he giveth the
little Animal a good Drubbing.—Peter hinteth
at some of Miss Hannah's clerical Friends in
the Reviews—sensibly animadverteth on the
varnish-eating Power of Father Time.
Indeed, Miss Hannah hath a so-so lyre;
So out of tune, it murders all the Nine:
She really playeth not with taste or fire:
No, Doctor Porteus, no, thou great divine!
Know, Porteus, we have women of renown,
Miss Hannah's equals, or my judgment fail:
Nay, numbers, I aver it! of whose gown
Miss Hannah is not fit to hold the tail.
With smiles her eulogy Miss Hannah hears;
Laughs in her sleeve at all thy pompous praise:
In silence wrapp'd, perceives the ass's ears,
And sits complacent while her Stentor brays.
Had Wisdom crush'd Miss Hannah's forward quill—
Had Silence put a gag on Hannah's tongue—
No crape had mourn'd, upon the Muses' hill,
Nor Phœbus blubber'd for the loss of song.
Hadst thou not fondly dragg'd Miss Hannah forth,
Plac'd her on high, and cried, ‘Behold a wonder!’
No soul had scrutiniz'd the woman's worth;
Safe from the world her weakness and thy blunder.
Thy praise of Hannah is a pillar fair,
A lofty pillar, but supporting what?
Why, on its head, supporting high in air
A mole, a grasshopper, a mouse, a rat.
Calm, but for thee, had Hannah pass'd along:
Oblivion ready, with her shroud and spade,
To sink her with a prose and rhiming throng
In sacred silence, and eternal shade.
But no! the bishop stops her on her way;
Ah! wherefore?—God Almighty only knows!
To gibbet her amid the blaze of day,
A piteous carcass for the critic crows,
People should not run riot with applause;
But, ah! how many praise without pretence?
Bawl for a work with wide-extended jaws;
Of words a deluge, and a drop of sense!
I censure not Miss Hannah for sad prose—
I censure not Miss Hannah for sad rhimes:
God sees my heart! I only censure those
Whose flatteries damn the judgment of the times.
The Bas-bleu Club, grave grey-beards, these old dames
All righteous, cramm'd to mouth with heav'nly manna,
Ambitious of a wit among their names,
Into their magic-lantern clapp'd Miss Hannah:
Then bade the bishop look with wond'ring eyes—
The bishop's wond'ring orbs enjoy'd the sight—
‘A giantess of genius!’ Porteus cries,
Forgetting it a literary mite.
Yet Novelty shall lead the world astray,
And turn ev'n bishops off from Wisdom's bias;
A mouse shall start the lion of the day—
Witness that miserable imp Mathias
.
Behold! this human snake, or human toad,
Sly, 'mid the windings of his murky hole,
Pour'd on the shrinking world his pois'nous load,
And on the sighs of Merit fed his soul.
But lo, of short duration was his date!
Soon stopp'd the torrent of his wounding lust:
Justice stepp'd forth to give the fiend his fate,
And crush'd him 'midst the reptiles of the dust.
Though Hannah's prose present us nothing new,
Though Hannah's verse be lame, insipid stuff;
Some sable critic, in some kind review,
Shall give the little paper-kite a puff.
At length comes Time, with Truth's pervading ray,
To separate the living from the dead;
Clears the dark clouds of Prejudice away,
And roasts the varnish off, by Flatt'ry spread.
And lo, this varnish with thy daubing brush
Smear'd o'er Miss Hannah must by Time be roasted;
The nymph in all her nakedness will blush,
And courtly Porteus, for a flatterer posted.
