The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] :: :: University of Virginia Library

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!

443

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.

444

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.

445

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.

This poor little wretch, whose pamphlet misnomered Pursuits of Literature, but whose true appellation should have been Pursuits of Rancour, dared not acknowledge his own work.—The enormity of its falshood and impudence was quite a novelty, and in spite of its contemptible imbecility, gained the attention of the public.—This, Mathias mistook for fame: still he denied any connexion with the pamphlet—every paltry subterfuge was made use of, to escape detection. At length a few literary hounds seriously pursued him, hunted him fairly to his hole, and put the vermin to death.