The Poetical Works of Percival Stockdale :: :: University of Virginia Library

Monmouth! in print thou art not doomed to shine!
A sculptor vile, a vile historian, thine!
Dexterous, the one, to tumble rocks on houses;
The other wight your just resentment rouses,
While character he injures, or confounds;
His satire lies, even his encomium wounds!
His periods not with silk, but pack-thread strung,
Expose the cobler of his mother-tongue!

Ingenious artist! happy to display
Men, who in arms, or letters, bear the sway!
How faintly Homer's favourite warriour shines,
Compared with him, who decorates thy lines!
His hero was a butcherly French trooper;
Thine is the bright, and peaceful Dr. Hooper!

332

Thy memoirs, faithless to the social scene,
Debase a Griffin, agonize a Green;
Give Lewis no due tribute of the heart;
But only crown him with a ploughman's art:
Praise, for dull botany, his daughter fair;
Formed to excite, and feel, a finer care!
Preposterous times! that give each folly birth!
They, who may chuse their studies, cling to earth;
While o'er them, golden orbs unnumbered roll,
Which press the God upon the reasoning soul!

Yet Griffin better talents recommend
Even to the praise of a pretended friend:
In him, a classick sense, a taste prevails;
Not the cold genealogy of Wales:—
And if, as Williams tells us, Green is vain;
His heart feels little agonizing pain.

Paternal heaven! to me, whose genial power
With mental ardour cheers the lonely hour;
Oh! ever from thy suppliant's mind avert
A frost, impassive to humane desert!
Lewis, perhaps, is not prepared to see
A mite of honest homage payed by me;

333

But still fair Truth commands my verse to flow;
Hence, I have some dear friends, and many a foe.
This man deserves an eulogy more warm
Than Williams gives;—the rustick skill to form:
Priests breathe a blessing on the hungry poor;
They, loaded with his bounty leave his door;
Like Job, he searches their disputed cause;
And saves them from some harpy of the laws.

Had Bethlehem's star, of humble swains the guide;
Of souls, unclouded with pedantick pride;
On thee benighted, beamed, with friendly ray,
With all the light of evangelick day;
Ideas, in thy brain, had held no dance
Of anarchy, thou citizen of France!
The whole creation frets an impious mind;
To enemies, unjust, to friends, unkind.

Not so, the soul, who views our blooming shore;
Our haven fair, when life's rude storms are o'er;
To him a luminous, bold road is shown;
He marches on; and fears his God alone;
Strives to make tyrants, and oppressors, feel;
Though shields of gold protect their hearts of steel:

334

In rags, his best, his noblest friend, can see;
If virtue warms his heart, and keeps him free.—

Oh! Virtue, all-sufficient! at thy school,
My health invigorate; and my passions rule!
Thy pure; thy frugal; yet thy generous plan,
Throws us on God; far from the dread of man!
Thy influence acts a doubly glorious part;
Improves the mind, while it refines the heart:
The Christian simple, yet exalted laws,
Enforce the pictures which Longinus draws.
A hope, defeating all the wrecks of time,
The soul habituates to a strain sublime;
Ensures the man's; promotes the writer's fate;—
What makes us good, conspires to make us great.

Monmouth, Sunday, April 24th, 1796.