The Works of John Hall-Stevenson :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Works of John Hall-Stevenson

... Corrected and Enlarged. With Several Original Poems, Now First Printed, and Explanatory Notes. In Three Volumes

Hall-Stevenson, John (1718-1785)

VOLUME I

HYMN TO MISS LAURENCE IN THE PUMP-ROOM, BATH. 1753.

VACATION.

TO A LADY, VERY HANDSOME, BUT TOO FOND OF DRESS.

ANACREON.

TO MY COUSIN SHANDY, ON HIS COMING TO TOWN.

An EPISTLE to the grown GENTLEWOMEN the MISSES of ****.

A NOSEGAY and a SIMILE for the REVIEWERS.

FABLES FOR GROWN GENTLEMEN:

TWO LYRIC EPISTLES:

A PASTORAL CORDIAL,

QUERIES TO THE CRITICAL REVIEWERS.

A PASTORAL PUKE.

MAKARONY FABLES; WITH THE NEW FABLE OF THE BEES.

II.

VOLUME II

III.

VOLUME III

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I. VOLUME I

HYMN TO MISS LAURENCE IN THE PUMP-ROOM, BATH. 1753.

Naiad of this healthful stream,
Fair Laurentia, if I deem
Rightly of thy office here,
If the theme may please thine ear,

Listen gracious to my lays,
While the springs of Health I praise:
Nor will less thy glory shine,
If their praise I blend with thine.
For of their renown of old
Stories many Fame hath told:
Antient bards their name have sung
Heroes, kings, and gods among,
And with various titles grac'd,
While their fountain-head they trac'd.

Whether Bladud, king of yore,
Skill'd in philosophic lore,
Mingling various kinds of earth,
Metallic, gave the waters birth,
King's-Bath nam'd, beneath thy feet
Boiling ay with mineral heat:
Or, whether from his car on high
Phœbus saw with amorous eye
The fountain-nymph, with humid train,
Light of foot, trip o'er the plain;
Strait the god, inflam'd with love,
Swift descending from above,
All in fervors bright array'd
Press'd her bosom; and the maid
Gladly to his warm embrace
Yielded; whence the happy place,
Where the nymph he woo'd and won,
Was call'd the WATERS OF THE SUN.

FAME that title widely spred;
Yet, ere Roman legions fled
The wrath of sturdy British knights,
Pallas claim'd religious rights;
British PALLADOUR then rose,
From the goddess nam'd, who chose
Near her favourite streams to dwell,
Guardian of the sacred well.

But long since HYGEIA fair
Under her peculiar care
Receiv'd the springs; for well she knows
Each salubrious rill that flows
Forth from subterranean vaults,
Stor'd by NATURE's hand with salts,
Steel, or sulphur: for her use
NATURE opens every sluice,
Which HYGEIA gives in charge
To sev'ral nymphs: Herself at large

Roams o'er hill, and dale, and plain,
Lacky'd by a duteous train;
Oreads, Naiads, Dryads, pay
Service glad: Some smooth her way,
Or mists disperse, or brush the trees;
Others waft the morning-breeze
From mountain-tops; adown the hills
Others pour refreshing rills,
Or bathe her limbs in fountain neat,
Aiding, all, her influence sweet.
She with smiling eye surveys
Rustic labours, and conveys
Strength to the active thresher's arm,
To village-maidens Beauty's charm.

Happy are the sons of earth
Whom the goddess at their birth
Shin'd on. Yet, her heavenly ray
Numbers, not respecting, stray
From her presence, and pursue
Luxury's paths, whose sordid crew,
Lust inordinate, and Sloth,
And Gluttony's unwieldy growth,

Lead them on to Shame, and Pain,
And Maladies, an endless train.
Oft with pangs distracting torn
Thy Hygeia's absence mourn;
Bitter change! their languid eyes
Feel not joy in sunny skies;
Nor doth Night, with slumber blest,
Close them at the hour of rest.
And oft with sighs, and tears, and prayer
Half-suppress'd by sad despair,
They the queen of health implore
Her wish'd presence to restore.

Nor unmindful of their woes
Is the goddess; for she chose
Thee, Laurentia, loveliest maid
Among thy sister nymphs, who play'd
On the banks of Avon, Thee,
Bright-ey'd nymph, she chose to be
Her substitute, and pow'r she gave
Sov'reign o'er the healing wave

Which Thou rul'st with gentle sway.
Thee the smoking tides obey,
Joyous; and at thy command
Wash thy rosy-finger'd hand;
Thence in crystal cups convey'd
Yield their salutary aid
To all, whom thou with look benign
Smil'st on round Hygeia's shrine;
All of appetite deprav'd,
Those whom pale-ey'd Spleen enslav'd,
Cripples bent with gouty pain,
Whom Jaundice ting'd with muddy stain,
Or whose frame of nerves, with stroke
Benumning, tremulous Palsy broke.
These the balmy, cordial stream
Quaff, rejoicing; thee, their theme
Of praise, extol; thy tender care,
Thy soft address, and courteous air:
And while Harmony, the friend
Of Health, delights to recommend

Thy ministry, thy charms inspire
Love, and joy, and gay desire:
For, the Goddess, when she gave
Rule imperial o'er the wave,
To adorn the gift, and grace thy state,
On thee bade Youth and Beauty wait.

Nor dost Thou not taste delight
Where thou sitt'st in duteous plight;
For, the joy, thy hand bestows,
Back to thee redounding flows,
When the cheek of faded hue,
Thou seest displaying roses new.
Thee suspended crutches please,
Signal trophies from disease
Won to Health victorious. Hail,
Comfort and support of frail
Human state! Hail, blooming maid!
Nymph belov'd, without thy aid,

He, who, greeting thee, his lays
Now attunes to notes of praise,
Mute had been, oppress'd with pain
Of spasm rheumatic. Hail again,
Priestess of Hygeia's shrine!
Still dispense her gift divine,
Still her vot'ries lead to Health;
Else what profits Marlborough's wealth,
Eliza's form, and Stanhope's wit,
And all the eloquence of Pitt .

See Mr. Selden's notes on the third song of Drayton's Polyolbion, where, in an antient fragment of rimes, are enumerated all the ingredients which Bladud imployed in making the baths.

Aquæ solis. Bath. Sol in hàc urbe templum habuit, et nomen quod exhibet Antoninus, loco dedit. Antonini lter XIV, published by Gale.

Pallas etiam, teste Solino, fontibus hisce fuit præful, suamque habuit ædem, ubi et perpetuos ignes. Ab eâ, appellabatur Britannis, Caer Palladour: Urbs aquæ Palladiæ. Ibid.

The goddess of health.

The river which runs by Bath.

The effects of the hot water.

The musick in the Pump-room.

Over Bladud's image in the king's bath hang many crutches.

Lady Betty Spencer, daughter of the duke of Marlborough, married March 13, 1756, to Henry Earl of Pembroke. ΥΓΙΑΙΝΕΙΝ ΜΕΝ ΑΡΙΣΤΟΝ ΤΟ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΝ ΚΑΛΟΝ ΓΕΝΕΣΘΑΙ ΤΡΙΤΟΝ ΔΕ ΠΛΟΥΤΕΙΝ. Lucian.

Earl of Chesterfield.

Afterwards Earl of Chatham.

VACATION.

1758.

Hence, sage, mysterious Law,
That sitt'st with rugged brow and crabbed look
O'er thy black-letter'd book,
And the night-watching student strik'st with awe;
Away with thy dull train,
Slow-pac'd Advice, Surmise, and squint-ey'd Doubt;
Dwell with the noisy rout
Of busy men, 'mid cities and throng'd halls,
Where Clamour ceaseless bawls,
And Enmity and Strife thy state sustain.
But on me thy blessings pour,
Sweet Vacation. Thee, of yore,
In all her youth and beauty's prime,
Summer bore to aged Time,
As he one sunny morn beheld her
Tending a field of corn: the elder
There 'mid poppies red and blue,
Unsuspected nearer drew,

And, with softly-sliding pace
Hast'ning to a stol'n embrace,
Fill'd her with thee; and joy and mirth
Hung on thy auspicious birth.
Come, sweet goddess; full of play,
Ever unconfin'd and gay,
Bring the leisure Hours with thee
Leading on the Graces three
Dancing; nor let aught detain
The Holidays, a smiling train:
Whose fair brows let Peace serene
Crown with olive-branches green.
Bring too Health with ruddy cheek,
Lively air, and count'nance sleek,
Attended, as she's wont to be,
With all her jolly company
Of exercises, chace, and flight,
Active strength, and cunning sleight,
Nimble feats, and playful bouts,
Leaps of joy, and cheerful shouts,
Tricks and pranks, and sports and games,
Such as youthful Fancy frames.

And, O kind goddess, add to these
Cheerful Content, and placid Ease;
Not her who fondly sitteth near,
Dull Indolence in elbow'd chair;
But Ease who aids th' harmonious Nine,
Tuning their instruments divine,
And without whom, in lofty strain,
Phœbus' client tries in vain
To raise the feeble voice above
The crowd, and catch the ear of Jove.
And do thou, Vacation, deign
To let me pass among thy train:
So may I, thy vot'ry true,
All thy flow'ry paths pursue,
Pleased still with thee to meet
In some friendly rural seat;
Where I gladsome oft survey
Nature in her best array,
Woods and lawns and lakes between,
Fields of corn and hedges green,
Fallow grounds of tawny hue,
Distant hills, and mountains blue;

On whose ridge far off appears
A wood (the growth of many years)
Of awful oak, or gloomy pine,
Above th' horizon's level line
Rising black: such those of old
Where British Druids wont to hold
Solemn assemblies, and to keep
Their rites, unfolding myst'ries deep,
Such that fam'd Dodona's grove,
Sacred to prophetic Jove.
Oft I admire the verdant steep,
Spotted white with many a sheep,
While, in pastures rich below
Among the grazing cattle, slow
Moves the bull with heavy tread
Hanging down his lumpish head,
And the proud steed neigheth oft'
Shaking his wanton mane aloft.
Or, traversing the wood about,
The jingling packhorse-bells remote
I hear, amid the noontide stillness,
Sing through the air with brassy shrillness;

What time the waggon's cumbrous load
Grates along the grav'lly road:
There onward, dress'd in homely guise,
Some unregarded maiden hies.
Unless by chance a trav'lling 'squire,
Of base intent and foul desire,
Stops to insnare, with speech beguiling,
Sweet innocence and beauty smiling.
Nor fail I joyful to partake
The lively sports of country wake,
Where many a lad and many a lass
Foot it on the close-trod grass.
There nimble Marian of the green
Matchless in the jig is seen,
Allow'd beyond compare by all
The beauty of the rustic ball:
While, the tripping damsels near,
Stands a lout with waggish leer;
He, if Marian chance to shew
Her taper leg and stocking blue,
Winks and nods and laughs aloud,
Among the merry-making crowd,

Utt'ring forth in aukward jeer,
Words unmeet for virgin's ear.
Soon as ev'ning clouds have shed
Their wat'ry store on earth's soft bed,
And, through their flowing mantles thin,
Clear azure spots of sky are seen,
I quit some oak's close-cover'd bow'r,
To taste the boon of new-fall'n show'r,
To pace the corn-field's grassy edge
Close by a fresh-blown sweet-brier hedge;
While at every green leaf's end
Pearly drops of rain depend,
And an earthy fragrance 'round
Rises from the moisten'd ground.
Sudden a sun-beam, darting out,
Brightens the landskip all about,
With yellow light the grove o'erspreads,
And tips with gold the haycocks' heads:
Then, as mine eye is eastward led,
Some fair castle rears its head,
Whose height the country round commands,
Well known mark to distant lands,

There the windows glowing bright
Blaze from afar with ruddy light,
Borrow'd from clouds of scarlet dye,
Just as the sun hath left the sky.
But, if chill Eurus cut the air
With keener wing, I then repair
To park or woodland, shelter meet,
Near some noble's ancient seat,
Where long winding walks are seen
Stately oaks and elms between,
Whose arms promiscuous form above
High over-arch'd a green alcove;
While the hoarse-voic'd hungry rook
Near her stick-built nest doth croak,
Waving on the topmast bough;
And the master stag below
Bellows loud with savage roar,
Stalking all his hinds before.
Thus musing, night with even pace
Steals on, o'ershad'wing nature's face;
While the bat with dusky wings
Flutters round in giddy rings,

And the buzzing chaffers come
Close by mine ear with solemn hum.
Homeward now my steps I guide
Some rising grassy bank beside,
Studded thick with sparks of light,
Issuing from many a glow-worm bright;
While village-cur with minute bark
Alarms the pilf'rer in the dark,
Save what light the stars convey,
Cluster'd in the milky way,
Or scatter'd numberless on high
Twinkling all o'er the boundless sky.
Then within doors let me meet
The viol touch'd by finger neat;
Or, soft symphonies among,
Wrap me in the sacred song,
Attun'd by Handel's matchless skill,
While Attention, mute and still,
Fixes all my soul to hear
The voice harmonious, sweet and clear.
Nor let smooth-tongu'd Converse fail,
With many a well-devised tale,

And stories link'd, to twist a chain
That may awhile old Time detain,
And make him rest upon his scythe
Pleas'd to see the hours so blithe:
While, with sweet attractive grace,
The beauteous housewife of the place
Wins the heart of every guest
By courteous deeds, and all contest
Which shall readiest homage shew
To such sov'reign sweetness due.
These delights, Vacation, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

TO A LADY, VERY HANDSOME, BUT TOO FOND OF DRESS.

Prythee why so fantastic and vain?
What charms can the toilet supply?
Why so studious, admirers to gain?
Need Beauty lay traps for the eye?
Because that thy breast is so fair,
Must thy tucker be still setting right?
And canst thou not laughing forbear,
Because that thy teeth are so white?

Shall sovereign beauty descend
To act so ignoble a part?
Whole hours at the looking-glass spend,
A slave to the dictates of art?
And cannot thy heart be at rest,
Unless thou excellest each fair,
In trinkets and trumpery dress'd?
Is not that a superfluous care?

Vain, idle attempt! to pretend
The lily with whiteness to deck!
Does the rich solitaire recommend
The delicate turn of thy neck?
The glossy bright hue of thy hair
Can powder or jewels adorn?
Can perfumes or vermillions compare
With the breath or the blush of the morn?

When, embarrass'd with baubles and toys,
Thou'rt set out so enormously fine,
Over-doing thy purpose destroys,
And to please thou hast too much design:
Little know'st thou, how beauty beguiles,
How alluring the innocent eye;
What sweetness in natural smiles,
And what charms in simplicity lie.

Thee Nature with beauty has clad,
With genuine ornaments dress'd;
Nor can Art an embellishment add,
To set off what already is best:
Be it thine, self-accomplish'd to reign:
Bid the toilet be far set apart,
And dismiss with an honest disdain
That impertinent Abigail, Art.

ANACREON.

ODE III.

In the dead of the night, when with labour oppress'd
All mortals enjoy the calm blessing of rest,
Cupid knock'd at my door; I awoke with the noise,
And “who is it (I call'd) that my sleep thus destroys?”

“You need not be frighten'd, he answered mild,
“Let me in; I'm a little unfortunate child;
“'Tis a dark rainy night; and I'm wet to the skin;
“And my way I have lost; and do, pray, let me in”

I was mov'd with compassion; and, striking a light,
I open'd the door; when a boy stood in sight,
Who had wings on his shoulders; the rain from him dripp'd;
With a bow and with arrows too he was equipp'd.

I stirr'd up my fire, and close by its side
I set him down by me: with napkins I dried,
I chaf'd him all over, kept out the cold air,
And I wrung with my hands the wet out of his hair.

He from wet and from cold was no sooner at ease,
But taking his bow up, he said, “If you please
“We will try it; I would by experiment know
“If the wet hath not damag'd the string of my bow.”

Forthwith from his quiver an arrow he drew,
To the string he apply'd it, and twang went the yew;
The arrow was gone; in my bosom it center'd:
No sting of a hornet more sharp ever enter'd.

Away skipp'd the urchin, as brisk as a bee,
And laughing, “I wish you much joy, friend, quoth he:
“My bow is undamag'd, for true went the dart;
“But you will have trouble enough with your heart.”

TO MY COUSIN SHANDY, ON HIS COMING TO TOWN.

DEAR SHANDY,

You know there goes a tale,
How Jonas went aboard a whale,
Once for a frolic,
And the whale set sail
With a fair gale,
And got the cholic;
And after a great splutter
Spew'd him up, upon the coast,
Just like a woodcock on a toast,
With trail and butter.
I should have thought him much to blame,
Had he gone back the way he came.
So when you're over head and ears in debt,
You'll fume and fret;
When once you're wip'd clean, if you presume
To plunge yourself again, fret on and fume.
So when a man has lost his wife,
He makes a pother:

But he deserves to lose his life,
If he will ever venture on another.
So when a miss just enters in her teens,
She makes a coil,
Because she knows not what she means;
—You lose your labour and your oil.
But by and by,
After you have taken your degrees,
If you will try,
You'll be install'd with ease,
And you may take a flight
Upright,
Like me,
And drop like Icarus into a vacant sea.
And so, because comparisons are odious,
Pray tell me plain,
Whether the theatre in Drury-lane,
Or that of York, is most commodious;
And, to oblige you,
I'll tell you a story of Elisha:—
As he was walking by a wood in sober sadness,

Close by a mob of children stood,
Commenting on his sober mood,
And taking it for madness;
In their opinions
They hung together just like onions,
And back'd them, like such sort of folks,
With a few stones, and a few jokes;
Till, weary of their pelting and their prattle,
He order'd out his bears to battle;
It was delightful fun
To see them run
And eat up the young cattle.
Now, had Elisha chang'd the scene,
From thinking and walking
To drinking and talking,
Or any pleasant situation,
It would have cur'd the spleen,
And sav'd a lapidation.
Your affectionate cousin
Antony Shandy.

An EPISTLE to the grown GENTLEWOMEN the MISSES of ****.

Ladies, I love you dearly,
And for a proof I send this letter;
To deal with you sincerely,
I dare not offer any better.
Many of your mammas
Would look upon it as a sin,
Because
They and their daughters are so near akin,
It would be wading both through thick and thin.
Time, the best tutor of all others,
Has open'd my deluded eyes;
I have made fools enow amongst your mothers,
I wish it was as easy to make you wise.
This, says Miss Notable, is positive grimace,
He thinks to rub the mould off an old face,
By being smart and sly;
Just as a housewife thinks you'll eat
Her fusty meat
When it is season'd in a pie.

Miss Notable, you are a Cynick,
And though in Greek it means a bitch,
I only mean you are a mimick,
When you set up to be a witch.
Can you imagine me so queer
An engineer
To think of making my advances
By fancies?
I know that an approach is made
Sideways and by insinuation;
I know my trade,
But not by a rhetorical
Or metaphorical
Or verbal disputation,
But by a real zig-zag operation.
I would as soon attempt to take a City
With sugar-plumbs
Instead of bombs,
As take a miss by being witty;
Or to take you,
When you're in cue

To romp and grapple,
Like Eve,
Taking you only by the sleeve,
And pulling out an apple.

A miss that's brought up in a boarding-school,
Or in a cloister,
Is like a stool,
And like an oister.
For though a bungler can't get at her,
An oister-monger who has thought on't well,
And understands the matter,
Contrives a way into the shell,
Like any Eel
Into a wheel,
Of wicker,
Gobbling the oister and the liquor.

The reason why she is like a stool, methinks
Is this;
(I do not mean a stool that stinks)
That never can be like a miss;

I mean a stool,
Not in the nature of a chair,
But a mere tool,
Placed in a corner here and there
With an intent,
Not to be useful—but for ornament;
Just like the image of a Chinese lubbard,
Sitting upon a chimney-piece or cupboard;
A joss
Sitting with its legs across.
Yet when a drawing room is full,
Or when a company draws near
That blessed sphere,
Where all are happy that are dull,
And they are taken up with some debater,
You clap you down slipping aside,
And so your stool is occupy'd
Sooner or later.
And so a miss that's thrown aside like lumber,
Although they watch her,
Will find occasions without number,
If any one's inclin'd to catch her.

When a man's saying all he has to say,
And something comes across the way,
Without a provocation,
I do not call it a digression,
But a temptation
Which requires discretion.
And therefore I petition
For leave to give a definition
Of the word Reputation;
'Tis an impression or a seal
Engrav'd, not upon steel,
On a transparent education,
Which, held up to the light,
Discovers all the strokes and touches
That mark the lady of a knight,
A mantua-maker, or a duchess.

A miss brought up in Fairy Courts,
Practis'd in sublunary sports,
And contemplations in the dark,
Is apt to be surprised
By a superior power disguised

Like an attorney's Clerk.
Oft in the darkest night, when every head
Is wrapp'd in sleep,
And free from cares,
He sallies from the deep,
Stealing up the back stairs,
And without dread
He'll creep
Upon you unawares
Into your bed.
A fairy is a cunning elf,
And seldom meditates a rape
In any shape
That you suspect yourself.
Sometimes in front he will appear,
Just like a barber's block;
And sometimes hang upon your rear,
Dress'd in your footman's frock.
When once you are enchanted,
You are commonly possess'd all night,
Like any house that's haunted,
And, like a haunted house, a priest must set you right.

And then, by reason of your tender age,
You are in no less danger
From Hamlet and Ranger,
The enchanters of the stage.
You are not open to so many snares,
From dancers, singers,
And fiddle-stringers,
As from players.
Players make love by letters patent,
All other artists are excluded,
But now and then it has so happen'd,
The Law has been eluded;
And by a trick of a logician,
No lawyer's whim,
For instance, if the artist's a musician,
You must convert the proposition;
That is, you must make love to him.
I do not mean, my dears,
To alarm you with my fears,
Though I could bring examples recent,
And make reflections,

To shew that such amours are neither decent,
Nor good for your complexions.
Let but a single spark of fire fall
Into a powder-magazine,
It blows up all,
Quite and clean.
So when you have finished a neat billet-doux,
All but the stopping,
And you're in raptures leaning,
A drop of ink, you know not how,
Comes dropping,
And blots out all the meaning.
If you delight in slops,
And will be always tasting and touching,
You may meet slops where a few drops
Will blot your scutcheon:
Your face breaks out in spots, or you're inflated
To a degree,
So as to be
Homunculated.
I quite forgot I was in such a trance

To give a hint,
Asquint,
About a country dance.
Dancing contributes greatly, 'tis confess'd,
To open and dilate your chest,
And is exceeding good
To purify the blood
And humours.
But if you sit too long, and cool too quick,
Your hand is seiz'd and you fall sick.
It feels as if it felt—all over—tumours,
Shaking, as if you shook a stick,
Tingling and numb,
Finger and thumb,
Paralitick.
If people would but stick to their professions,
You would be dancing,
Not sitting and romancing,
Like an old justice at a sessions.
Supposing now you have escaped all rocks,
Not without many shocks
Amongst the shoals of Calumny and Rancour,

Thank Heaven, you are not stranded;
Throw out your anchor,
And then do what you please when you are landed.
Sure I speak plain enough, you understand
That I would have you marry out of hand;
Whether you wed a coxcomb or a sloven,
By fair means or by covin.
Marriage resembles a perpetual oven.
Your chief expence and trouble's in the making,
Which need not be repeated,
Unless you are cheated,
From the first time you put a cake in.
For after that, without being heated,
It will continue fit for baking;
Constantly ready, night and day,
If you don't bake at home, your neighbour may.
Do but contemplate a pudding's end,
There is a string goes round about
Her snout.
The string is very much the pudding's friend,
He keeps her within bounds, or else she would be spoil'd,
And by his means she gets well boil'd.

Look at that spit again,
What is it keeps your meat from burning;
It is a chain
That humours it in turning;
And by that means, as you have often boasted,
Your meat is always nicely roasted.

Just such another tye is marriage;
I take the marriage-noose or wedding-ring,
If you are prudent in your carriage,
To be a pudding-string.
And for the marriage-chain, 'tis prov'd as clear as glass
To be but a jack-chain—a chain for a jack-ass.
'Tis all made out as fine as silk:
And now attend, my lovely lasses,
And I'll provide you all with asses.
—You shall not want for asses milk.

I wish a miss was like a leek,
Whose head is long
And strong,

Although the tail
Be frail
And weak.
Then would I tell you all I have to speak:
Conceal your feelings, and dissemble
Whether you resemble
The proud or meek.

Meekness and pride alike inflame desire,
A truth well known amongst the wenchers;
So oil or brandy, thrown into the fire,
Are neither of them quenchers.
Take that which suits you best, my gentle dames,
Either will do, to set a house in flames.
'Tis not sufficient to inflame;
You must provoke, but you must tame.
Observe the anglers,
They don't take every fish that comes;
So many of your danglers
Are but bull-heads and millers'-thumbs.

A captain, or some pretty fellow,
May dangle with you at a rout;
Just as they fish for salmon with a menow,
Or a red clout.
But when you walk with Strephon arm in arm,
And feel all over new-milk warm,
Whilst he complains of penalties and pains;
You'll seem
Like an iced cream
If you have any brains.

Adam was weary of a single life,
And seeing Eve bashful and nice,
He thought her fitter for a wife,
Than any beast in Paradise.

So when a 'squire sees a maiden coy,
He makes a jointure;
And in a fit of joy,
Prefers her to a pointer.

Milton's Delay , it is no word of my inventing,
Lies in a point,
If you can hit the joint,
Between forbidding and consenting.
Just like the cream of which you have been told,
Delicious, when 'tis not too cold.
All small delays are right,
They make folks keen,
Whether they mean
To play or fight.
So at a battle and a cocking,
The combatants, before they let them go,
Stand a little while and crow.
And when you throw the stocking,
After the bride and bridegroom's bedded;
The bride, encouraged by that pause,
Yields to the laws,
And is beheaded.

“And sweet reluctant amorous delay.”
Paradise Lost. B. IV. L. 311.

A NOSEGAY and a SIMILE for the REVIEWERS.

1760.

Ye Overseers and Reviewers
Of all the Muses, Sinks, and Sewers,
Who dwell on high
Enthron'd amongst your peers
The Garetteers,
That border on the sky;
Who hear the music of the spheres,
You have such ears,
And live so nigh!
I thank you for your criticism,
Which you have usher'd in
With a delightful witticism,
That tastes like rotten fruit preserv'd in gin;
And therefore marvel not that my two ballads,
Which are but like two sallads,

By no means suit,
Like your fruit,
With your palates.
I do admire your dealings,
To speak according to your feelings;
And do believe, if you had wherewithall
You would drop honey,
And that you overflow with gall,
Because you do not overflow with money:
Hence all your spite
Against a poor conundrummite,
Whose only business is to watch
Where the conundrums lie,
And be upon the catch
As they go by;
To make a simile in no one feature
Resembling the creature,
That he has in his eye;
Just as a fisher shoots an owl
Or a sea-fowl,
To make the likeness of a fly;

Just as you look into a fire,
To look for any likeness you desire.
Simile-making
Is an undertaking,
In which the undertaker
Resembles a match-maker,
A poor industrious man,
Who means no ill,
And does the best he can
With a quill;
In short, he does according to his skill.
If matters can be brought to bear
So as to tie the knot,
He does not care
Whether they are a happy pair,
Or not;
Though one may differ very wide,
And though another be deficient,
Provided he can get them ty'd
And lay them side by side,
It is sufficient;
And as I said at first,

Nothing could make you all so keen,
And curs'd,
But that which makes you all so lean,
Hunger and thirst.
So now and then a judge
Consigns a wretch
To master Ketch,
Having no grudge,
No reason that can be assigned,
Only, like you, he has not dined.
So far from wishing your allowance shorter,
I wish, for all our sakes,
That you may never want beef-stakes
And porter;
And, for your merits,
A dram of British spirits.
And so I leave you with a fable,
Designed, without a sneer,
To exhilarate your table,
And give a flavour to your beer.

Hark!
And if you please take warning:
My fable is concerning
A Cuckow and a Lark.
If I had said a nightingale,
You would have cry'd,
You could not fail,
That it was pride,
And nought beside,
That made me think of such a tale.
Upon a tree as they were sitting,
They fell into a warm dispute,
Warmer than was sitting,
Which of them was the better flute;
After much prating and debating,
Not worth relating,
Things came to such a pass,
They both agree
To take an Ass
For referee.
The ass was studying botany and grass,
Under the tree.

What do you think was his decree?
Why, says the ass, the question is not hard,
And so he made an excellent award,
As you shall see.
The Lark, says he,
Has got a wild fantastic pipe,
But no more music than a snipe;
It gives one pain, and turns one's brain,
One can't keep time to such a strain;
Whereas the Cuckow's note
Is measur'd, and compos'd with thought.
His method is distinct and clear,
And dwells,
Like bells,
Upon the ear.
Which is the finest music one can hear.
I can distinguish, I'll lay a wager,
His manner and expression,
From every forester and cager
Of the profession.
This ended the dispute, the Cuckow was quite mute
With admiration:

The Lark stood laughing at the brute
Affecting so much penetration.
The Ass was so intoxicated,
And shallow-pated,
That, ever since,
He has got a fancy in his skull
That he has a commission from his prince,
Dated when the moon's at full,
To summon every soul,
Every Ass and Ass's foal,
To try the quick and dull,
Trumpeting through the fields and streets,
Stopping and judging all he meets.
All that he knows,
That I can find,
Is from the information of his nose
Apply'd unto the parts behind;
And by the smell,
'Tis wonderful how he will tell,
Whether their parts are to his mind;
Pronouncing with an air
Of one pronouncing from the chair,

Here is a beauty! This is new!
And that's a blemish,
For which I have no relish;
Just like the Critical Review!

FABLES FOR GROWN GENTLEMEN:

OR, A FABLE FOR EVERY DAY IN THE WEEK.

1761.

FABLE I. THE RIVER WITH A PETITION.

According to the Romish creed,
I speak of Rome two thousand years ago,
The life that they suppos'd the Gods to lead,
You would not chuse to undergo.
Jupiter's business, day and night,
Was to attend with open ears and eyes,
And to write down as fast as he could write
All the impertinence that men devise

Besides men's fopperies and ravings,
The women had so great a share,
That their absurdities and cravings
Omnipotence alone could bear.
And furthermore, to try his patience,
He heard the prayers and fanciful distresses
Of all his children and relations,
And of his wife and his mis-tresses.
Once on a time, if you'll believe tradition,
A river in great tribulation,
To Juplter presented a petition,
With an expostulating exhortation;
Whereby, if the petitioner's refus'd,
He has a right to think himself ill-us'd;
A form of prayer contriv'd for execution,
Exactly like a double-barrell'd gun,
Which if you fire with resolution,
You have another chance when one is done:
So far from killing two birds with one stone,
An art that's very little known;
All the petitioner desir'd to do,
Was to kill one with two.

Now this petition shew'd how the petitioner
For his attachment and devotion,
Had been appointed a commissioner
Of the revenues of the Ocean,
Which he collected with great pains,
And sent in good and current cash,
But for his trouble and clear gains,
The Sea return'd adulterated trash:
Wherefore he pray'd,
Exhorted and submitted,
That all the sums the Ocean pay'd
Shall for the future be remitted,
And issued fair,
Without debasement or impair.
Ungrateful Thames! the God reply'd
Without that mixture and alloy,
Which the Sea pours into thee every tide,
Thy beauty and thy strength would wear away.
Without his aid thou wouldst remain
Like Tiber, or the poor pretending Seine,
Led through parterres or roll'd down a cascade,
Confin'd to vanity, and lost to trade.

'Tis thus the Highlander complains,
'Tis thus the Union they abuse
For binding their back-sides in chains,
And shackling their free feet in shoes:
For giving them our food and fewel,
And comfortable cloaths;
Instead of cruel oat-meal gruel;
Instead of rags and heretable blows.
Luxury every day grows stronger;
The Highland fair,
Beholds her lover now no longer;
Trotting with his buttocks bare.
Thus Doctor Brown was taken with the spleen,
And fancied we were all undone,
Raving about a carpet and a screen,
And out of temper with the sun:
Because it is a crime,
As he supposes,
For men to run in winter time
Into the sun to warm their noses.
'Tis an egregious want of sense,
A want of taste and want of shame,

When universal affluence
And luxury are deem'd the same.
Good Doctor, spite of your discerning,
The term of Universal will agree
With your benevolence and learning,
Just as it suits with luxury.
You may perceive, if you be so inclin'd,
Like your discernment, luxury's confin'd.
For as the gout torments the hands and feet,
To ease the nobler stomach and the head,
So luxury, to gratify the great,
Insults and robs the labourer of his bread.
Luxury in a state is a disease,
Because 'tis partial and obstructed wealth,
But universal affluence and ease
Is universal happiness and health.

FABLE II. The PHENIX and her Lovers.

That every female's a Coquette,
I could as safely swear upon a book,
As I cou'd safely bet,
That ev'ry Frenchman is a cook.
A Phenix, daughter of the Sun,
Chaste as a Vestal, modest as a Nun,
Added such merit to her birth,
That not a bird, though of the highest fashion,
No feather'd Coxcomb of the earth
Ventur'd to declare his passion.
They all agreed,
No earthly bird was worthy of her love;
None but a bird of the celestial breed,
An angel from above.
The Phenix liv'd so long a maid;
Till all her gaiety and bloom
Began to fade;
And savour of the tomb.

She mop'd, grew splenetic, and tir'd
Of so much awe and so much state;
She long'd like other birds to be admir'd,
Like other birds she long'd to find a mate.
At last she issued out a proclamation
To summon the male birds of every nation;
Perhaps this summons and this longing
Was a political machine,
Just like the lovers that came thronging,
Summon'd by our virgin Queen.
Now, from all quarters,
The birds appear'd in their best cloaths;
Nobles in stars and garters,
Curl'd and embroider'd beaux.
Some stately; others light and gay;
One coo'd, another sang and flatter'd,
Some like the Magpie and the Jay
For ever chatter'd.
About the inner ring,
Where all the Birds of figure press,
A bat whirl'd round with leathern wing,
To shew his shape and his address,

Offering his heart, his eyes and wings to boot,
At which there rose a universal hoot.
The Phenix answer'd in the tone,
And in the self-same manner languish'd,
As good Queen Bess when she was shewn,
A taylor by her beauty vanquish'd;
Take courage man, says she,
For if I needs must have a taylor,
I promise without failure
To marry none but thee.
And as the Queen coquetted at an age
When other Queens are tame,
Till she went off the stage;
The Phenix did the same.
She died a great coquette, and, what is more,
Rose from the grave a greater than before.
The Phenix and self-love are the same beast,
Within the human breast,
Which poets feign the spicy East,
She builds her solitary nest;
From whence with every gale of wind,
The traveller may smell the mind.

Her Lovers are our passions; these she meets,
Either by appointment or by chance,
Which, if she can't indulge, she treats
With smiles and complaisance.
And, as the Phenix from her ashes rais'd,
Returns as blooming as a bride,
So when we think it dies, the Lord be prais'd,
Self-love springs up again with double pride.
'Tis a determin'd case,
None but ourselves can occupy our place.
For this same reason, physical and clear,
Each individual of us all
Is that same Phenix, without any peer,
On this terrestrial ball.
Lovers are mad-men and a miser
Not one jot wiser.
Let any try, except a Lover,
Or one devoted to his pelf,
Whether in all the world thcy can discover
Another Self.

FABLE III. The DUCKLINGS and the wise birds.

A hen one evening, to enjoy the cool,
Was walking with a brood of Ducklings callow,
Just like a mistress of a boarding-school,
With misses green and yellow.
As she was tutoring and schooling
This bird for loitering, and that for fooling,
Behold a fish-pond so alluring,
That, spite of her remonstrances and cackle,
They ventur'd their whole stock without ensuring,
Trusting to their oars and tackle.
The Hen kept scolding like a drab,
Cursing her rebellious race;
We are not thy children, cried a pert young Squab,
If we were Chickens we shou'd have more grace;
On nature we depend,
Our course she steers,
Nature's a safer guide, and better friend
Than any Dotard's fears.

Close by the pond an ancient tower
Lifted its venerable head,
A college and sequester'd bower,
Where Owls for ages had been bred;
An old professor, a great clerk,
Taught them their talents to display,
To keep their eyes wide open in the dark,
And shut them in the face of day.
To think abstractedly, to reason deep,
And to declaim, till all the world's asleep.
These students from the tower saw our young folks,
Our bold Adventurers, under sail;
They heard their clamorous mirth and jokes,
And heard their nurse's fruitless wail.
Observe, say's one more learned than the rest,
These birds by instinct know the season,
To sail, to eat, to go to rest,
Just as we know by argument and reason.
We know from reason and experience both,
We see it every hour;
That Governors are loth
To part with power

Yon Hen which you all hear,
In such a fright,
Undoubtedly affects that fear,
To keep her pupils always in her sight.
From the same principle, for the same end,
Our Tutor keeps us all thus penn'd:
Preaching that we must not pretend to fly,
We are too weak; it is too soon;
This I'll demonstrate is a lie,
As clear as the sun at noon.
Feet, said the subtle Owl,
Are not the things
That constitute the essence of a fowl,
So much as wings.
Whatever is essential to our make
We soonest learn, and seldomest mistake.
Hence that pathetic prayer, that tender call,
By which we get our wants dispatch'd,
Is so essential above all,
That we all speak the moment we are hatch'd.
Nature, benevolent and wise,
Opens our mouths much sooner than our eyes.

By parity of reason meet,
Our wings and pinions should be ready
Long time before our heads and feet
Are firm and steady.
Therefore 'twill follow like a chain,
That as we walk, you must confess,
With little giddiness and pain,
If we attempt it, we must fly with less.
This reasoning philosophic wight
Convinc'd his brethren one and all:
With one accord they took their flight,
And fatal and untimely was their fall.
None of them reason'd any more,
The young logicians lay like wrecks,
Drown'd in the pond or scatter'd on the shore,
With mangled limbs and broken necks.
Bred in a court or some gay city,
The Ducklings are those thoughtless spritely fools.
O Cambridge, is it not a pity,
Strangers to thee, and to thy schools!

FABLE IV. LA NOBLESSE DE FRANCE.

The fighting COCK and the CRAVEN.

A cock, an officer of foot,
In France retir'd into a village,
Where he did nought but crow and strut,
And live by pillage.
Whene'er he had a mind
To take his pastime with the fair,
He was not to one wife confin'd,
Nor to a pair;
But, like a lord,
Had half a dozen both at bed and board.
He spied a barn-door fowl one day,
Cram'd from the rump up to the gullet,
In amorous dalliance and play
With a young pullet.
His robes and train, his senatorial cap,
His size, almost the size of geese,
Shew'd that he had been nurtur'd in the lap
Of peace.

Bred for the bench and presidental chair,
He judg'd, he roosted, and digested there.
The military cock took as much pleasure
As an unlucky page,
To see the magistrate employ his leisure
So much below his dignity and age.
He that should set a good example!
Be virtuous and discreet!
To tread on modesty, and trample
Chastity beneath his feet!
Fine times, says he, when judges run
Seducing maidens in the open sun!
This wanton fit
Comes of intemperance and over-eating,
Which, as it soon will bring you to the spit,
Shall save your reverence from a beating
To this reproof,
With a sly sneer the judge reply'd aloof:
'Tis true that I and all my brood,
When we have run the race assign'd
Shall have the honour to become the food
And comfort of mankind.

An unexpected death
Shall gently steal, not force away our breath.
Good Colonel, you are mightily mistaken,
It is not owing to respect, indeed,
That you are neither boil'd, like us, with bacon,
Roasted nor fricasséed.
But tho' your flesh be men's aversion,
Yet it contributes much to their diversion;
They give you barley, bread, and oats,
Because they take great pleasure and delight
To see you fight;
To see you cutting one another's throats.
If you escape and are not slain in war,
You are in a worse plight by far.
Amongst the hogs,
Wounded and lame upon a dunghill cast,
By wanton boys and puppy dogs,
Worried or teaz'd to death at last.
In France the land-tax is not as 'tis here,
A tax where you appeal and squabble;
There the nobility go free and clear,
Like the rascality and rabble.

The same exemption pards and tigers own;
And the base polecat caught in gins:
Their flesh and bone we let alone,
We ask them nothing but their skins.

FABLE V. The DOG and the CAT.

Interest fascinates both age and youth,
And, with a glance of her bewitching eye,
Can make a Minister speak truth,
Or make a mighty Monarch tell a lie.
She can set brothers by the ears,
And, what you'll scarce believe, perhaps,
Make sisters as harmonious as the spheres,
And live together without pulling caps.
'Tis she gives every one her place,
Oft, like a blundering marshal at a feast,
Joining a scoundrel to his grace,
An atheist to a priest.
Interest, well understood,
Made Solomon, makes Melcomb now declare
That life is only good
To eat and drink, and laugh, and banish care.

Close by a kitchen fire, a dog and cat,
Each a famous politician,
Were meditating as they sat,
Plans and projects of ambition.
By the same fire were set to warm,
Fragments of their master's dinner;
Temptations to alarm,
The frailty of a sinner.
Clear prurient water stream'd from Pompey's jaws,
And Tabby look'd demure, and lick'd her paws;
And as two plenipos,
For fear of a surprise,
When both have something to propose,
Examine one another's eyes;
Or like two Maids, tho' smit by different swains,
In jealous conference o'er a dish of tea,
Pompey and Tabby both, cudgell'd their brains,
Studying each other's physiognomy.
Pompey, endow'd with finer sense,
Discover'd in a cast of Tabby's face
A symptom of concupiscence,
Which made it a clear case.

When straight applying to the dawning passion,
Pompey address'd her in this fashion;
Both you and I, with vigilance and zeal,
Becoming faithful dogs, and pious cats,
Have guarded day and night this common-weal
From robbery and rats;
All that we get for this, Heaven knows,
Is a few bones and many blows.
Let us no longer fawn and whine,
Since we have talents and are able;
Let us impose an equitable fine
Upon our master's table;
And, to be brief,
Let us each chuse a single dish,
I'll be contented with roast beef,
Take you that turbot—you love fish.
Thus every dog and cat agrees,
When they can settle their own fees.
Thus two contending chiefs are seen
To agree at last in every measure;
One takes the management of the marine,
The other of the nation's treasure.

FABLE VI. The SPIDER and the FLY

With malice fell,
A spider watch'd within his cell,
Ready to sally,
Th' unwary traveller to souse,
Like a Jew broker in the alley,
Or a Dutch merchant in his counting-house,
Like them he corresponded far and near,
And, tho' his trade was intricate and dark,
He manag'd his affairs and kept all clear,
Without a partner or a clerk.
A petit maître, a gaudy fly,
Thinking to scamper unmolested,
With airy equipage as he pass'd by,
By cruel Cacus was arrested.
Furnish'd with that undaunted sense,
Which only courts and camps can teach,

Having no weapon or defence,
Except his instrument of speech,
The fly with flattering soporific strains,
Tried to benumb the spider's brains:
Hearing such daily praise bestow'd,
Upon your elegance in weaving,
I came to visit your abode,
Which is magnificent beyond believing.
And now I am convinc'd, if you will drop.
The linen trade,
And take to weaving velvets and brocade,
The sallad-eaters soon must shut up shop,
Change but your diet, and, like their's, your taste
Will grow refin'd, correct and chaste.
As I have study'd every herb and leaf,
That's either noxious or good to eat,
Make me your caterer in chief,
And pourveyor of all your meat.
Send me this instant in a trice,
I'll bring you something savoury and nice.

Seeing the spider smile and grin,
He found his plot would not succeed,
It was too thin,
For one of that sagacious breed;
On which he fell a vapouring and buzzing,
Swearing the drones would take the alarm,
And come to the assistance of their cousin
With an enormous swarm.
The drones and I are no such strangers,
We know, said Cacus, what we both can do,
They are too wise to run their heads in dangers,
For such a busy meddling fool as you;
But, since you come to spoil our manufacture,
And poison honest traders,
I'll hang you like a malefactor,
To terrify invaders.
No sooner said than done,
He knock'd him down, and hung him in the sun.
The spider, like Mynheer, goes on:
Is watchful, subtle, and alert,
The fly is either proud, like Don;
Or like a Frenchman vain and pert.

When you are plagu'd with any flies,
Spanish or French, small flies or great,
Maintain your high spider allies,
In order to preserve your meat.

FABLE VII. The wild DUCKS and the water SPANIEL.

After a tedious flight,
Of many a stormy day and night;
A flock of wild ducks sailing up and down,
Upon a lake were making merry;
Like sailors in a sea-port town
Just arriv'd from Pondicherry.
A swan too stately far for sport,
To shew herself was all her view,
Had undertaken to escort
The jovial crew.
Swelling and bridling
With all the airs of a fine dame at court;
Turning about and sidling,
Advancing and then stopping short,
Displaying in her features
Contempt and insolent dejection,
To signify that those strange creatures
Were forc'd upon her for protection.
I must confess, amongst mankind
I have seen swans as foolishly inclin'd.

At Paris on the Seine,
I have seen a French marquee conduct a pair
Of German barons to the fair
Of Saint Germaine,
Strutting before them, tossing up his head,
Then looking back, and lowering his crest,
The barons were so awkward, so ill-bred,
And so ill-dress'd.
Have you not seen a new-made peer
With equal pride, but greater trepidations,
Observing in his rear
A troop of country relations
Run up Saint James's-street, and at two leaps,
Take Arthur's steps?
Those steps as terrible as the Tarpeian,
From whence with one black ball you are hurl'd
Into another world
Amongst the damn'd Plebeian.
Perhaps this grave and solemn swan
Dislik'd the company of those wild-ducks;
Just as a prude, or a sober man,
Dislikes the company of bucks.

For whilst they made more noise and riot
Than twenty justices of peace,
The swan was serious and quiet
As col'nel Gander marching with his geese,
Marching to the field,
With gorget and a wooden shield.
About the middle of the lake,
Upon the banks a water-spaniel lay,
Looking out for duck or drake
Or any lawful prey;
And as the captain of a privateer
Lies by,
Nor offers to bear down, nor gives a cheer
'Till his expected prize begins to fly,
Close to the shore the spaniel let them sail,
And rush'd into the lake when they turn'd tail,
Snorting and snoring;
Pursuing them with all his force,
Swearing and roaring,
Till he was hoarse;
He turn'd and veer'd,

Now made a stretch, and then a tack;
Now snapp'd, and now they disappear'd,
And rose again a long way back;
Till the poor spiritless exhausted brute
Was forc'd to give up the pursuit.
And as the French to Toulon ran,
And left the Spaniards in a scrape,
The moment that the fray began,
The swan made her escape.
Quite out of reach,
A roan duck upon the beach.
Under a shed,
Consider'd the whole scene with wonder,
Just like Caligula under the bed,
Studying the cause of lightning and thunder.
As the victorious crew pass'd by in order,
He made them an oration;
The roan duck being the recorder,
Or burgomaster of the corporation.
Leave your abandon'd lives,
Roving like pirates and Jews,
Come hither with your children and your wives,

And settle peaceably in our mews.
We'll take you without any fuss,
Here we have neither law nor code,
You are only tied to copy us,
And go by custom and the mode;
You shall be fashionably dress'd,
Protected, treated, and caress'd;
A friseur, with an instrument of steel,
Shall shape your wings and your toupee,
Make them sit perfectly genteel,
Easy and free.
As to the rest, you may gather from my looks
Whether the air is good,
And whether we have wholesome food,
Or tolerable cooks.
Peace, wretch, the chieftain of the ducks reply'd,
Nor with thy venal breath offend the brave;
Freedom is as much our pride,
As it is thine to be a slave.
We neither injure nor provoke;
We neither fear great nor small,
Because we scorn to yield to any yoke,

We are hated by them all.
From pole to pole pursu'd,
From pole to pole,
Our enemies have every soul
Been baffled and subdu'd.
Lords of three elements, we can maintain
Our rights, our freedom and possessions,
With the same ease that we disdain,
Thy offers and insidious professions.
In our own virtue we confide,
On others how can we rely,
When fear or hope, envy or pride
May turn a friend into a false ally?
Those who depend on others;
Whether on males or females they depend,
Will find the swan has many brothers,
And sisters without end.

FABLE VIII. The Advice of an Old SPANIEL.

A certain dog of middling birth,
Frolicksome and full of play:
Even in the height of all his mirth,
Delicate as well as gay:
With far more feeling for his friend,
Than they could either taste or comprehend.—
Being thrown into the world betimes,
Betimes discover'd it was all a cheat,
Yet not so dangerous for odious crimes,
As odious for malice and deceit,
Oft when he meant to have amus'd
His friends with a conceit, or harmless jest,
By many he was snarl'd at and abus'd,
And slighted even by the best.
Oft, when half-starv'd, he found a bone,
Or something hid,
Instead of eating it alone,
As others did,
He ran to share his daily bread,
Unsought

With those that were much better fed
Than taught,
His daily bread they seiz'd,
And drove him from their mess,
More disappointed and displeas'd
With their ingratitude than his distress
It is a maxim amongst dogs,—
When they have the address and skill,—
To slip their collars and their clogs,
And leave their friends that use them ill.
To avoid anxiety and strife,
Tray was resolv'd to try a country life.
A country dog, I think,
Is exactly like a country squire,
They both are only fit to sleep and stink
By their own fire;
And when awake are only good
To yelp and hollow in a wood.
Their joys,
And conversation are the same,
'Tis all a clamour and a noise,
And all the noise and clamour about game.

Three words compose their whole vocabulary,
A fox, a hare, and a fine scenting day;
Whether they are serious or merry,
'Tis all they have to say:
In short, they never are so entertaining,
As when they're fast asleep or feigning.
To quit such friends as these,
One would not grieve:
Tray parted from them with great ease,
Without so much as taking leave,
Consults his grandsire, by profession,
A spaniel;
For judgement and discretion,
A perfect Daniel.
Benign and mild,
He heard his grandson's grievances, and smil'd.
Grandson, said he, I do conceive,
If you had known the world, and how things go,
But half as much as you believe,
Or twice as much as I believe you know,
You would not have complain'd,

That dogs behave to one another
When they are unchain'd,
Like every creature to his brother.
Say, dupe of a rash confidence and trust,
If you lie open and unguarded,
Is it not just,
That vigilance should be rewarded?
'Twas neither nature's call,
Nor my instruction,
To trust your friends at all;
Much less, to trust them to your own destruction.
A painful and severe attention
Is but a necessary fence,
To every dog of sense,
Against deceit and circumvention,
A task from which you hop'd to be reliev'd
By trusting to your friends:
You are deceiv'd,
Acting as much as they for your own ends.
All the world knows,
That friendship's a mere sound;
A sound that hardly can impose

Upon a puppy hound.
Nature is not to blame,
Flatter'd by cunning, indolence invented
That foolish name,
By which so many fools are circumvented.
Happiness you'll seldom find,
Unless you learn
To have no weighty interest or concern
With those of your own kind;
Unless you learn (if it is not too late)
That they are neither worth your love nor hate.

TWO LYRIC EPISTLES:

OR, MARGERY THE COOK-MAID TO THE CRITICAL REVIEWERS.

I write a sad hand; but my Sister Margery, she writes better.

1762.

MARGERY TO THE REVIEWERS.

By the backside! good lack, good lack!
Chain'd to the chimney corner like a monkey,
You are as spiteful as a black,
That has been drinking drink for drunky.

I think I see my Master leap and skip,
And whisk about his tail;
Just like a pinnace when she makes a trip,
And whisks about her sail.

So have I seen a Highlander retire,
And turn about to court the wind,
Shot by a cinder leaping from the fire
Amongst his precious parts behind.

Laugh! no, he need not be afraid,
Though 'twould be comical, no doubt,
To see him squatting like a maid;
And making water like a spout.

But I should laugh at you Reviewers,
If I could view your buttocks bare,
Genteelly truss'd and pink'd with skewers,
And nicely larded like a Hare.

Nay, I could wish
To see your backsides sing'd and flead,
Just like your favourite dish,
A singged hede:
To smell them savoury and reeky,
Like Cocky Leaky.

And as your Cook, at a smith's forge,
Gives the fine flavour of the wool
To a sheep's skull,
Which makes you eat till you regorge;

So the communication is so great
Between your brains and your backside,
Between the seat
Of Laziness and seat of Pride,

That tho' the brains of all you jokers
Never struck fire into a single joke,
Yet if your bums were sing'd with pokers,
Your brains perhaps, might yield a little smoke;

Spite of your heavy jokes,
That fall upon the head,
Like apoplectic strokes,
Or pigs of lead.

We'll laugh, to see your Highland sparks,
Your Highland breeding, and good manners,
To see them strut about the parks,
With shirts display'd behind, like banners;

Shewing our maids, and modest wives,
Such modest sights,
As make their husbands weary of their lives:
They make them pass such restless nights,

Our Lovers sicken and despair,
Dejection preys upon our beaux;

The expectations of our fair
Are rais'd so highly, by such shows.

The Indians, I'm told, are more polite,
They don't produce their brawny powers,
They only shew their powers by candle-light,
Amongst their favourite squaws at certain hours.

Good Sirs, if I aright can read,
You are design'd for books,
Just as your friends, beyond the Tweed,
For gardeners and cooks.

Your pride and laziness, I guess,
Disorder and torment your minds,
And bring your country to distress,
For want of labourers and hinds.

I think, like you, it is a shame,
That its best blood should now be bleeding;
And blame
The Government for such proceeding:

I would have sent the very worst,
I would have sent you all a packing;
You should have gone the very first,
You're good enough for a good thwacking.

But I am weary of inditing
Such letters;
And so I take my leave of writing;
And leave you to my betters.

EPISTLE THE SECOND.

You who assemble in disguise,
And take your stands in secret places,
Spitting into our mouths and eyes,
With a pretence to wash our faces!

But, when you 'spy a Scotchman walking,
His air and manner is so pleasing,
That you immediately leave hawking,
And offer him a pickle of your sneesing.

I do not want to rob you of your snuff,
Give it your countrymen, it likes me well
But do not fright us, like Macduff,
Calling aloud, to ring the alarum bell;
Suspend your purulence, swallow your spittle,
And listen to an Englishman a little.

You know you spit at us, and hawk and cough,
As if you had a charter;
And also know we wipe it meekly off,
Like Charles the blessed Martyr.

Whilst you go on, abuse, and rail,
As if we were not fellow-creatures;
Laying about you like a flail,
And bruising all our English features;

If we poor Englishmen but smile,
It is high treason,
Tho' we are smiling all the while
Both with good nature and good reason;

Not throwing dirt at a whole nation ,
But laughing at the folly of a few,
Whose prejudice and affectation
Become them just as they do you;

As if they were a chosen race,
Clear and exempted, by their birth
From all the vices that disgrace
All other children of the earth.

I very readily excuse
Your want of complaisance
To my strange Muse,
Dress'd in the careless dress of France,
A la Fontaine,
A slattern, but quite plain.

According to your notions,
You must dislike the flimsy wench.
Her dress and all her motions
Are so intolerably French;
A graceless copy of a graceless hobbler,
Just like a gouty shoe made by a cobler.

You think the bagpipe's notes are sweeter
Than any pipe or any string;
The Ass preferr'd the Cuckow's song and metre
To all the Warblers of the Spring:
Either the organs or the soul
Of you and Asses are so droll .

Your ignorance and want of Sense,
Your want of Ears, I do forgive;
But unprovok'd Malevolence
I'll never pardon whilst I live;
Such your attempt to prove me to the North
A foe to its acknowledg'd worth.

In every country I despise
A heart that's arrogant and narrow,
As much as I esteem and prize
David Hume and David's marrow.
Now to conclude,
I am yours Reviewing or Review'd.

But as my Fables are not to your liking,
Witness the Fable of last year ,
I send you something that's more striking,
Concise and clear:
I think you call it in your brogue
An apologue.

According to the Reviewers the greatest pleasure that the whole English nation enjoys, is to see their brethren of North Britain in their theatres represented as a parcel of scoundrels.

The Reviewers say that the Verses in the Fables for Grown Gentlemen hobble strangely, from fourteen to two syllables: that may partly be owing to their want of ears; they must have the same objection to Fontaine.

Lyric Epistles to the Reviewers.

See p. 41.

THE APOLOGUE.

Some folks get no more by their reading
And meditations;
Than Apes and Monkeys by their breeding
And observations:
This, I agree,
May be applied either to you or me.

The Fable that comes after
Can only be applied to you;
If it excites a little laughter,
It answers all my view.

An Ape, by trade an imitator,
Had spent the best part of his days;
Like a Reviewer or Translator
Of Farces, Interludes, and Plays;
For ever copying, and itching
To shew his talents in the kitchen.

He would divert you, if you were not nice
And difficult to please,
By cracking lice,
And catching fleas;
Which he would chaw,
And cram into a kitten's maw.

In short,
Jacko had studied many a trick,
Which tricks, instead of making sport,
Would oft'ner make you sick:
Yet he would make you, now and then,
Laugh like the foolishest of men.

The Cook-maid by the fire was fast asleep,
No kind of harm suspecting,
Jacko, the Ape, was playing at bopeep,
Reviewing and reflecting,
Whether from liquor or from whim,
The Cook-maid laid in a strange trim.
Hard-by a razor left upon a chair
By Jackanapes was quickly seiz'd.

The Cook-maid's beard, expos'd and bare,
The grinning villain rubb'd and greas'd;
Then snapp'd his fingers and look'd grave;
Flourish'd his razor, and began to shave.

Jacko proceeded without dread,
Chatter'd, and did not care a fig:
Poor Margery was hack'd and bled,
Like an assassinated Pig.

Rous'd by her pains, like frantic sleepers,
She snatch'd a pan of boiling broth,
Bubbling and running o'er with froth,
And threw it into Jacko's peepers;
Which blinded him, and spoil'd him past all cure,
Both for a Shaver and Reviewer.

101

A PASTORAL CORDIAL,

OR, AN ANODYNE SERMON:

PREACHED BEFORE Their Graces Newcastle and Devonshire, In the Country. by an independent Teacher of the Truth.

Τουσδε δε μοιρ' εδαμασσε θεων και σχετλια εργα.
Homer.

1763.

103

THIS ANODYNE METRE IS DEDICATED, WITH PROFOUND RESPECT, BY THE INDEPENDENT PREACHER, TO THE MOST INGENIOUS ACADEMY OF BELLES LETTRES.

105

The battle is not to the strong;
Nor to the swift of foot the race:
But time and chance to all belong,
Whether they're in or out of place.

I shall so handle, by God's blessing,
The subject-matter of my text,
That you will soon grow tired of guessing
What I propose to offer next;
An art, if studied with some care,
Which in its object seldom fails,
And, though first practis'd on the Fair,
Succeeds as often with the males.
By means of this sublime invention,
Many an Orator and Clerk,
Eluding the most strict attention,
Has woo'd and won you in the dark.

106

The head and heart are often ta'en,
Like other fortresses, by storm;
Some cannot stand a coup de main,
That would hold out a siege in form.
Inspired Cromwell and Sir Harry ,
Like eagles mounting in their flight,
Would never stoop to strike their quarry,
Till both were lost and out of sight:
Despising rules above all plan,
Borne on the wings of prayer and praise,
Bursting into the inward man,
They set the spirit in a blaze;
Which, by the outward man's assistance,
Serv'd for a beacon to the godly,
And kept the Devil at a distance,
He look'd so fierce, and talk'd so oddly.

I hate to wander very wide;
A skilful orator proceeds,
Like modest folks that step aside
Only when forc'd to do their needs.

107

So Senators by antient use,
When they no longer can contain,
Just step aside to spirt abuse,
And to their text return again.

The battle is not to the strong,
The race is sometimes to the lame;
'Tis neither strength, nor right nor wrong,
Nor skill; 'tis Chance that wins the game.
We see you're worsted in the battle;
There yet arises a dispute,
Which may be difficult to settle,
Who is the weaker, you or Bute?
Taking it either way for granted,
If you are out, and he is in,
There's still a point to be descanted;
Whether it signifies a pin:
Then for your Graces and each Whig,
Another point requires some thought,
Whether you both are worth a fig;
Or all your party worth a groat.

108

These points discuss'd, and fairly tried,
The rest in order will succeed;
Drawn out, display'd, and ramify'd,
Like pedigrees, or like a creed.

First, then, I'll shew that you are weaker;
So weak and washy that you may be,
By any weak and washy speaker,
Prov'd to be weaker than a baby.

Weakness is of a two-fold kind,
And is of different degrees,
Either of body or of mind;
Explain'd by acts that flow from these;
That from the mind and body flow
Like torrents, oft with ostentation;
But those that know them also know,
How soon they're dry, ev'n to privation.
How soon the Bully's race is run!
How soon his impotence descry'd!
How soon the simple Maid's undone
That trusts her Virtue to her Pride!

109

How soon that eloquence so rapid,
Whipt to verbosity and froth,
Subsides, and grows tasteless and vapid,
And innocent as chicken broth!

Like a young Puppy forc'd to clamber,
Slipping and struggling up a stile,
I once got to a levee chamber,
And was embarrass'd for a while;
The dog finds footing at the top,
He wags his tail, and cocks his eye,
Before he leaps, he makes a stop,
And makes remarks; and so did I.
I shou'd have wept, but by good luck,
Instead of being melancholy,
I laugh'd to see so many struck
With imbecillity and folly;
To see so many as one finds;
So many, with the greatest names,
Entangled in the weakest minds,
And the most despicable frames.
I pitch'd on one, whom I affirm
To be a perfect scale or model,

110

To try a body that's infirm,
Or mark the weakness of a noddle.
I saw the phantom enter in;
He look'd as if he came to fright us;
Dancing with a palsied grin,
The dance according to St. Vitus.
A ring was form'd; with starts and catches,
He scuttled round and round within it,
Just like the pointers of some watches,
That point the seconds of a minute.
His eyes were void of speculation,
His nerves, entirely void of feeling,
His tongue was made for hesitation,
His legs were only made for reeling.
How should an Olive Chaplet twine
Round so ridiculous a Wig?
How should such shoulders, such a chine,
Produce one single Olive Twig ?

111

Do but apply, 'twill save much trouble,
This model, for your own diversion;
If Bute's not stronger more than double,
Mine was an impudent assertion.

Though one of you, in his first stage,
Made an athletic mobbish figure,
When did he shew, at any age,
Any other kind of vigour?
Your rival's vigour and address,
At such an age, such strength and fire,
Such a continuance of success
Many folks envy; I admire.
Not to insist upon this longer,
For it can only teaze and vex,
He is allow'd to be the stronger
By the best judges in each sex.
I see you'll wave this point at length,
Perhaps such glory you despise;
Perhaps you place your greatest strength
Upon the strength of your allies.

112

Ye sons of Vice and vain designs,
What heat, what force, can you impart,
Tied by the bonds of dice and quinze,
And the loose follies of the heart?
A union deriv'd from pelf,
Where each contributes his whole labour,
Each only working for himself,
Leaves his engagements to his neighbour;
Like those machines, absurd and puzzling,
Where no one spring controuls the rest,
All independent and all bustling,
As if they acted for the best;
Like an alliance with the Tartars,
They hurt your friends more than your foes;
To keep them out of one's own quarters,
Is all the good one can propose.
Such troops must fly from you and ruin,
Driven by an instinctive force,
Like Wild Geese, when a storm is brewing,
Flying o'er Newmarket Course.

113

Your happy rival's powers behold,
United like the Theban band,
By Love, but not the love of gold,
Nor any Love I understand.
The men of Cocoa take the lead,
Not for their enmity to Pit,
Nor for the love they bear the Tweed,
Nor for their Valour, nor their Wit;
Nor for their Loyalty, in brief,
Which they have very lately slipt on;
But for their faith, and firm belief
In second sight , and mother Shipton.
Inflam'd with wine they scour the fields,
Than any Bacchanalians madder,
With quaint devices on their shields,
Jacob's staff, and Jacob's ladder.

114

Obedient, inur'd to toils,
Their Northern brethren next appear,
Big with the prospect of your spoils,
His exil'd forces close the rear.
Pride is hateful in Heaven's sight,
But vanity it must forgive;
Without it, none would ever write;
And many would not bear to live.
Vanity soon begins to droop,
Snubb'd by the slightest opposition;
But stubborn pride will neither stoop
To Heaven, nor the Inquisition.
If any pride be lurking here,
Of which I harbour no belief,
Whether a Commoner or Peer,
I give him up to endless grief.
Such imputation on your Graces
Admits no shadow of pretence;
You both have acted in all cases,
Divested of that sinful sense.
To such as you I mean to speak,
My preaching has no other scope,

115

To the poor-spirited and meek,
They shall find comfort and sure hope.
Lest vanity upon the road
Should draw you in to a relapse,
I must still urge you with my goad,
And give you mortifying raps.

Of mental strength next I shall treat,
The vulgar claim so great a share,
'Tis of less value with the great,
Though not less worthy of their care:
For, by the help of thy firm stuff,
The vulgar, now and then, no doubt,
Contrive to do things well enough;
Almost as well as you without.

Some minds are active, fiery, bold;
Some to neutrality inclin'd;
Others are timorous and cold,
Totally passive and resign'd.
The first is like a zealot preaching;
The neutral like a rosy Dean;

116

The passive like a curate teaching,
Hungry and weary, poor and lean:
Or like a cuckold doom'd by fate
To rise when his lieutenant knocks,
And give up both his bed and mate,
As if he kept a play-house box:
Or like some governments we know,
The first, a monarch to a tittle;
The neutral serves to make a shew;
The passive serves for very little.
Lastly, the first in many senses
Is like his Lordship with his hounds,
Breaking down every body's fences,
Riding in every body's grounds;
All things obey his Lordship's beck;
All yield to his superior skill,
His poor toad-eater breaks his neck,
Compell'd to leap against his will.
As for these three which we have reckon'd,
Your Graces evermore possess'd
Less of the first than of the second;
More of the third than all the rest.

117

The active principle within
Produces sometimes on the brain
A rage and violence like gin,
Sometimes a spirit, like Champaigne.

O Hollis, once, but seldom since,
You felt that flame when you withstood,
And sent a challenge to a Prince,
To fight for an old Lady's Hood ;
Spite of that Prince's opposition,
The hood was won, in triumph led,
And from that time your chief ambition
Has been to wear it on your head.
In short, the mental powers of late
You've by degrees so melted down,
They only serv'd like your gold plate,
To do the honours of the crown.
The powers in which you are most able,
In which you both have always shone,
Have small weight at a council table,
Or any tables but your own.

118

One may be forc'd to use their aid;
But these, indeed, are times of need,
Just as one's forc'd to ride a Jade,
Though she has neither wind nor speed:
If you bait oft, if you rise soon,
If when she's staling you'll attend,
And nap not in the afternoon,
She'll bring you to your journey's end.

Your Graces should have been inclin'd
To move like planets in your places;
To plodding, one have been confin'd;
One to the circle of grimaces.
I mean oblig'd only to plod,
To plod and not to understand;
No more oblig'd than a white rod
Is bound to be a Conjuror's wand.
A thing design'd to catch the eye,
That knows no other end or trick;
All that is signify'd thereby
Is nothing more than a white stick.

119

'Tis borne by Chamberlains and Shrieves,
But why, I can no more explain,
Than why a Bishop wears lawn sleeves,
Or why a page must bear his train;
Or why Archbishops should not rather
Give up to God with one accord,
The title of Most Reverend Father ,
And be content with that of Lord.
Why Kings, that are such precious things,
Are made, like us, of flesh and bones;
Instead of making them like rings,
Nothing but gold and precious stones.
Or why it is esteem'd so hard
To fall into some lady's clutches,
That a red ribbon's the reward
For venturing to wed a Duchess.

120

Your rival's parts I will not mention;
And yet, to give him but his due,
There's no occasion for invention
To prove that he has more than you.
Great parts are oft expos'd to laughter;
To wickedness are oft ally'd,
Those are best off here and hereafter,
That have no more than they can guide.
You are the foremost of the latter,
Be satisfied, no more contend,
And I foresee; I do not flatter,
You'll make a sweeter latter end.
Your rival having made his push,
And kick'd you out without remorse,
Whether it signifies a rush,
Is the next part of my discourse.

If you are treated ill and put on,
'Tis natural to make a fuss;
To see it and not care a button,
Is just as natural for us.

121

Perhaps from men of greater Fashion
Greater professions you may draw,
You may extract all their compassion,
The extract is not worth a straw.
Like people viewing at a distance
Two persons thrown out of a casement,
All we can do for your assistance
Is to afford you our amazement.
We see men thrown from a high story,
And never think the sight's so odd,
Whether the patient's Whig or Tory,
But take things as it pleases God.
For an impartial looker on,
In such disasters never chuses;
'Tis neither Tom, nor Will, nor John;
'Tis the phænomenon amuses.
In Holland thus, Peter the Great,
Wanting to see a live dissection,
Bid them take any of his suite,
To be cut up for his inspection.

122

He car'd not where the choice might fall,
Of persons he was no respecter,
He would have parted with them all
For such an edifying lecture.
In characters like his complete,
No partial preferences strike,
Like him great monarchs ought to treat
Their loving subjects all alike.
Whilst such an enmity endures,
Bones must be broken, heads must ake,
We had as lief they should be yours,
As any others for your sake.

Sermons, especially of late,
Like most Narcoticks, are too heady;
They sink you with a deadly weight,
Unless you have sharp acids ready.
If this should be too sharp and biting,
I do protest 'tis my mistake;
I have no thoughts at all of spiteing;
I only want to keep you awake.

123

I must entreat you not to doze,
Keep a good watch over your heads;
At night you'll find that your repose
Will be more pleasant in your beds.

I find your Graces hope for favour,
And dream of popular applause;
For a most regular behaviour,
A strict conformity to laws.
And you insinuate, your rival
Has tenets hurtful to the state;
That all his aim is the revival
Of every tenet that we hate.
But if his interest's the same,
As it's the same with yours in fact,
When he's pursuing the same game,
You need not tell us how he'll act.
Like you, entrusted with his purse,
Why should he, when he knows his trim,
Exchange his master for a worse?
I only mean a worse for him.

124

Like you he may grow so refin'd,
When all his intellects are purg'd,
To think that Princes were design'd,
Not for a scourge, but to be scourg'd:
If he has been a friend to learning,
And early plighted her his troth,
Like you he may grow more discerning,
Like you he may become a Goth.

Pray, where's the mighty obligation,
For leaving matters as you found them?
Is it because of the temptation,
When they're well settled, to confound them?

You are no Jacobite I ween;
You have despis'd them from a boy;
Just as a Chinese Mandarine,
Despises a poor Talapoi

125

Your lives, your wealth, for which I'm troubled,
In the Court's service have been spent:
The more fools you, both to be bubbled,
And damn'd, unless you well repent.
What's that to us? must we the rabble
All fall together by the ears
For an uninteresting squabble,
Amongst you interested Peers!
Why should we run and heat our blood,
And be stirr'd up to an alarm,
For men that cannot do us good
And dare not do us any harm?
You've heard the words of an old song,
A wiser than the song of songs,
That certain folks can do no wrong;
Others must answer for their wrongs.
Were I to answer for another,
Both drunk and sober, sad and gay,
Even if 'twas for my own brother,
I'd think on't often in a day.

126

If this has sometimes made you pale,
And made the sweat run down your phiz,
Why should we think that it can fail
To have the same effect on his?

Your Graces are deceiv'd no less,
In our opinion of the skill
Requir'd for charges, which we guess
Any one of us could fill.
Though some may rate your science high,
'Tis all pretension and parade,
To a judicious stander-by
Your skill and science is a trade.

But not to mention your fine measures,
When was such folly ever known,
To trust one with the nation's treasures,
That can't be trusted with his own?
Must it not always be in straits,
For ever growing worse and worse;
For ever pledg'd like your estates,
Like them for ever sent to nurse?

127

From such opinions you'll conclude,
That, far from wond'ring at your parts,
We all conceive ourselves endu'd
With as much skill, and as good hearts.

My thoughts of Government, though vain,
Are singular and entertaining:
How many parts it may contain,
And what they're like, is worth explaining.
They're three, and each like a wild beast:
The first to a lion I compare;
The next a tiger from the East;
The third is like an Alpine bear.
The former with sheeps heads are fed,
Flesh is best suited to their maws;
The bear will live upon rye bread,
And on the suckings of his paws;
Bruin's not nice about his food,
But very fond of fun and play,
He's neither covetous of blood,
Nor sullen like those beasts of prey.

128

Suppose them thrust into one den,
Carefully manag'd and observ'd
By any of those vulgar men
By whom such animals are serv'd;
To keep their union entire,
They must be brought up all together;
And, if they're fed as they require,
They may be govern'd by a feather.
But, should their keeper without scruple,
Let out his Lion in a crowd,
Neither th' excuses of the pupil
Or governor will be allow'd.
They'll send the Tutor for his frolick
(Shooting his Pupil in their rage),
To lie like Quixote in the cholick,
Stinking in an enchanted cage.
'Tis all the same, Tiger or Lion,
It would have been as bad a job;
The Bear was safer to rely on,
The Bear's a favourite of the mob.

129

I hope your Graces at last see,
That we, who never taste your feasts,
Care little whether you or he
Have the direction of the beasts.

Your value has been fairly stated;
Nothing remains but to enquire,
Whether your party can be rated,
With any reason, any higher.

Like the physicians of the college,
Or the physicians of the soul,
The Whigs, with greater zeal than knowledge
Would fain prescribe without controul.
Princes must bow to their decrees,
None of their fancies be neglected,
Their dreams, like Saxe's reveries,
Must both be study'd and respected.

If dreamers must reform the state,
If dreamers are to be the strongest,

130

Those ought to have the greatest weight,
That have continued to dream longest.
Yours are the latest and the newest,
And therefore I infer with truth,
Those are the strongest and the truest
That have been dreamers from their youth.
'Twill also follow from this view,
That all your schemes must come to nought;
That neither you, nor your whole crew,
Are all together worth a groat.
Say then, who are the strongest dreamers?
They who for ever have been croaking;
Whose dreams occasion sweats and tremors,
Convulsions, strangling, and choaking?

Those dreamers, Cocoa, are thy sons,
Entranc'd in visions half an age;
That come at last in swarms like Huns,
And drive the Whigs quite off the stage,
Oblig'd to seek, like routed bees,
A shelter for their wretched lives,

131

In dreary vales and hollow trees,
Far from St. James's honey'd hives.

Here I'll give you a resting place,
The only place in my disposal;
People in your neglected case
Ought to be glad of the proposal.
It is a Sinecure complete,
Which for your lives I'll let you keep;
Nothing to do but drink and eat,
To shave, repent, and go to sleep.

All your miscarriages arise,
In spite of all that you advance,
From your pretending to be wise,
And not depending upon Chance.
When did Chance fail you at a pinch?
How many times, you know full well,
When you durst hardly ask an inch,
Has not she given you an ell?
How many years, to our surprize,
When foes oppos'd you without number,

132

Subsidies, Armies, Fleets, Supplies,
Kept rolling on in one smooth slumber?
By Time and Chance at first you rose,
By Time and Chance at last you fall;
They humble you, and raise your foes,
For Time and Chance happen to all.
Be therefore patient and resign'd,
To Time and Chance alone attend;
Trust not yourselves in any kind;
You cannot trust a weaker friend.
The battle is not to the strong,
Nor have the weak always prevail'd;
If they succeeded all along,
Your Graces never could have fail'd.
You're us'd to Sermons better dress'd,
But exercise, and country air,
Will help your Graces to digest
My coarse, but not unwholesome, fare.
And may the peace of God enlighten,
And set your hearts and minds at rest!
And may you evermore delight in
A snug and comfortable nest!

133

And that which you could have no hand in,
The peace of Bute, upon you shine;
A peace above your understanding,
As much as yours was above mine.

Sir Harry Vane.

It is an observation founded upon experience, that the same qualifications that enable a man to go through the office of a domestic peace-maker will frequently, especially in some of our Northern courts, make an able and a successful negotiator.

Some Refiners pretend, that by Second Sight is meant that pertinacity with which the Cocobites, like the Jews, are constantly looking for a second Redeemer or Messiah; and that their faith in mother Shipton means their zealous attachment to the church, that is, to the old infallible church, whose infallibility is founded upon anility; a term used by schoolmen for the most perfect kind of tradition; for tradition derived from the most remote age, which is dotage.

Chancellorship of Cambridge, which he carried against the late Prince of Wales.

The title of Most Reverend Father is impious. Surely God the Father is the Father the most worthy of Reverence. As to the title of a Spiritual Lord, I see no inconvenience in their assuming it; at least, like your Grace or your Worship, it implies no impiety; it only implies nonsense. Where is the sense of a Spiritual Lord, or a Heavenly Lord? All the lords that we know are either British lords or Irish lords: carnal, substantial, and Terra Firma Lords.

The Talapois are a sect of Indian Philosophers, whose system of happiness runs upon four wheels: Idleness, Ignorance, Obstinacy, and Beggary.

134

QUERIES TO THE CRITICAL REVIEWERS.

Ye judging Caledonian Pedlars,
That to a scribbling world give law
Laid up engarretted, like Medlars,
Ripening asperity in straw!
Ye Guardians of the Tree of Folly,
The Cocoa-Tree , whose leaves are clad
In green eternal, like the Holly,
Variegated like a plaid,
On which a flower perennial grows,
Worn at the Cocobittick Games,
Between a Lilly and a Rose,
Inscrib'd with silly royal names !

135

I come, with no felonious hand,
To steal one blossom from your tree;
Right well I know, and understand,
It was not planted there for me.
I come to ask you a few questions:
Why should a hodge-podge make you queasy,
You who for crowdys have digestions,
On whom e'en haggesses sit easy?
I come to ask why the sublime
Delights to dwell under Scotch bonnets?
Why Humour, Wit, Poetic Rhyme,
Are only found in Scottish sonnets?
And if in Scotland they are found,
And any one pleases to shew them,
Either above, or under ground,
To lay you odds you will not know them.
Also to ask you one word more:
What makes the Tories, your good masters,
As restless, feverish, and sore,
As people wrapt in blistering plasters?
Whether 'tis true that they're so tender,
And apt of late to take things ill,

136

Because their friend, the old Pretender,
Has struck them out of his last will?
Whether 'tis true, or a Whig fiction,
That shoals of exiles now at Calais,
Will fill up the Whig dereliction,
And fill up all St. James's palace?
If you will tell us this sincerely,
The cordial preacher and adviser
Will make you understand him clearly,
And, though no better, make you wiser.

POSTSCRIPT.

My compliments to Doctor S .
To whom this Postscript I address.
Physician, Critic, and Reformer,
Expounder both of dream and riddle,
Historian and chief performer
Upon the Caledonian fiddle!
Master of dedication sweet,
Renown'd Translator of Translations,

137

That, like old clothes in Monmouth-street,
Display their glittering temptations—
You are so us'd to a Northern trammel
You cannot enter into Lyric Fable;
One might as well expect to see a camel
Pass through a needle's eye into a stable:
And therefore I am forc'd to study
To find out something you can understand,
Pleasant and fresh, though somewhat muddy;
Just like the mug of porter in your hand.
And yet, when all is said and done,
This something's nothing but a Pun.

A PUN.

You are so very good at smelling;
For we have often heard you tell it;
I wonder you don't change your spelling,
And write yourself Professor Smellit.

Rabelais speaks with great respect of this tree, Book iii. Chap. li. Page 351. translated by Ozell, “If the worth and Virtue thereof, says he, had been known, when those trees, by the relation of the prophet, made election of a wooden king to rule and govern over them, it without all doubt would have carried away from all the rest, the plurality of votes and suffrages.”

Nascantur flores, et Phyllida solus habeto!

Dr. Smollet, then Conductor of the Critical Review.

139

A PASTORAL PUKE.

A SECOND SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE PEOPLE CALLED WHIGS. BY AN INDEPENDENT.

Δειδιμεν, εν δοιη δε σαωσεμεν, η απολεσθαι..
Hom. We fear, in as much as we are in doubt, whether we shall be saved or perish.

Affatim est hominum, in dies qui singulas Escas edunt,
Quibus negotii nihil est, qui esum neque vocantur neque vocari,
Eos oportet concioni dare operam.
Plautus Menechmi.

1764.

Author.

[_]

Text, Rev. chap. III. ver. 15, 16, 17.

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

“So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth:

“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”

143

I know full well your works of old,
That you are neither cold nor hot;
Would you were either hot or cold,
Your works of old should be forgot.

You're lukewarm all, you have no worth;
Your ways are crooked and uncouth,
And therefore I will cast you forth,
And spew you all out of my mouth;

144

Because you say, that you are priz'd,
Are powerful, and in Plenty roll;
And know not, that you are despis'd,
Naked, and blinder than a Mole.

One need not be a deep divine,
Nor many mystic books inspect,
To shew, these words plainly design
The trimming Tepidarean Sect;

Neither of Zeno's rigid school,
Nor Pleasure's school of non-resistance;
But of the school of an old fool,
That doubts even his own existence;

A wav'ring quibbling sect contriv'd,
To free the Mind from all precision,
Indoctrinated, and reviv'd,
By Hollis the Academician.

145

A sect that creeps into most states,
That ev'ry man of spirit damns;
And ev'ry honest woman hates,
For their unsteadiness and shams.

By whom all Princes are betray'd,
All noble projects are defeated,
And ev'ry widow, wife, and maid,
Are tantaliz'd, abus'd and cheated.

Like Hussars they seem always ready;
But, when the danger's within reach,
They neither in the field stand steady,
Nor in the trenches, nor the breach.

As Folly's not their greatest fault,
Thro' dirtier paths than hers they've trudg'd,
You may observe, if you will halt,
How mercifully they are judg'd.

146

No Fines, no Prison—Tribulation,
No Loss of Members, to afflict them,
Only for qualms which they occasion,
Spew'd out like Vinum Benedictum.

Or, to come nearer to the matter,
When acid crudities rebuke,
Taken and swallow'd like warm water
On purpose to provoke a puke.

So some of you were for a season,
When your sour brethren caus'd great pain,
Swallow'd, for no other reason
Than to disgorge you both again.

Better discharge the peccant acid,
For, tho' their mixture should create
A Neutral, innocent and placid;
A Neutral's always a dead weight.

147

Better to clear them both away,
Than leave them wambling in the guts,
Windy and flatulent as whey,
And indigestible as nuts.

I've run the metaphor quite through,
And taken as much pains as ten men,
To shew how beautifully true
The figures are of sacred penmen.

148

And now the Trimmer shall be try'd,
If guilty, by St. John's decision,
Let an emetick be apply'd,
Let him be spew'd out with derision.

First then I'll search, nay, never wince,
The Trimmer's conduct quite thro' life
To God, his Country, and his Prince,
His Neighbour, Family, and Wife.

Then by my text, in all these cases,
You'll see their condemnation seal'd;
And see, they ought to lose their places,
Although it had not been reveal'd.

Concerning Heaven, and Heaven's Vicegerent,
I'll touch upon the first but slightly;
Yet they are subjects so coherent,
One cannot separate them rightly.

149

G*d and the K---g, we're told, are jealous,
Tho' none can do them any harm;
Which must make pious people zealous,
And loyal people very warm.

We see enough in a dim light
To love and honour these high powers,
With all our hearts and all our might,
Both for their own sakes and for ours.

We can do them no good, we know;
But, they can punish us, you own,
Therefore our thanks at least we owe,
Ev'n for letting us alone.

Instead of seasonable weather,
If we had always snow and hail;
Or wooden shoes instead of leather;
Or vinegar instead of ale;

150

If we were worn to skin and bone,
Driven and beaten like an Ass,
For Bread presented with a Stone,
And for roast Beef a little Grass;

As Fortune's not in our disposal,
We ought, instead of taking pet,
To make the best of the proposal,
If 'tis the best that we can get.

Things take this course in many a land;
In many more may be appointed,
They come like earthquakes out of hand,
If it please G*d and G*d's anointed.

What could we either do or say?
Why should we pout, and shew our malice?
Rather why should not we be gay,
Like Frenchmen dancing in the gallies?

151

This is the argument in France,
“'Tis not the worst that cou'd arrive;
“We have sufficient cause to dance,
“Because we are not flea'd alive.”

Reasons as fine as head can spin,
I from the Stoick school could quote,
To prove that pulling off your skin
Is just like pulling off your coat.

But as the Cynick left his stool,
To confute those that deny'd motion,
These of the Gally-Gallick school,
Dance to confute the Stoick's Notion.

How diff'rent is your fate from theirs!
For you are fill'd with all good things;
Without petitioning or prayers,
Either to Heaven or your kings:

152

That they confide in your intentions,
From their forbearance you may draw,
Heav'n leaves you to your own inventions,
And the K---g leaves you to the law.

In holy zeal and loyal duty,
The Whigs fall short, I own with grief,
Of holiness the greatest beauty;
The Church's toast's a Tory Chief.

Whilst like a Highland Chief intrepid,
He sticks at nought for the good cause;
The Trimmer moves on dull and tepid,
Like muggy weather when it thaws.

All his devotion's faint and flat,
He looks at court, ev'n in the ring,
Just as indiff'rent as a cat,
When a cat's looking at a King

153

St. John of Patmos tells a story ,
When he was there on his devotions:
I do believe he was a Tory,
He is so warm in all his notions.

An angel, that was standing by,
And heard the zeal that John profess'd,
Conceiving doubts, resolv'd to try,
And put his mettle to the test

He had been watching there incog,
And could not think he was sincere,
John was so ill-a-looking dog,
With so insidious a leer.

The angel suddenly display'd
His plumage, bright with heav'nly lights,
John seem'd not in the least dismay'd,
He was accustom'd to such sights.

154

John, said the angel, by your mien
I know your wants, before you speak,
You look as hungry and as lean,
As if you fasted for a week.

Why crawl upon your knees, and flatter,
Sing Psalms and Hymns, and pray and watch?
A Psalm, by way of growing fatter,
Has no more virtue than a catch.

Behold, I bring you a great treat,
Why don't you say so, when you're needy?
Restorative and juicy meat,
So take your time, and be not greedy.

Eat, said the angel, never spare,
And tell me how you like the cook:
Would you believe? the angel's fare
Was nothing but a little book.

155

There's one that's better taught then fed;
That trimming rogue will in a trice
Eat it all up, I'll lay my head,
Just like a sandwich, slice by slice.

Well hast thou done, the angel cry'd,
Of thee there is no farther question;
For thy obedience has been try'd,
And yields to nought but thy digestion.

This is a type, and a true symbol,
Of unconditional submission,
To rouse you like a brazen tymbal,
From a lethargic opposition;

To arm yourselves with faith completely,
On shuffling doubts boldly to trample,
In every point submitting meetly,
And following St. John's example.

156

What had he gain'd by unbelief?
Could not an angel, if he would,
Change a book either into beef,
Or into any kind of food?

If John had doubted but in thought,
The angel might have been provok'd;
He might have cramm'd it down his throat,
And John perhaps might have been choak'd

Whereas by taking it for granted,
And by his dutiful behaviour,
John fill'd his belly, which he wanted,
And eat himself into great favour

I should be glad, in such a case,
To see a Whig, how he'd behave;
And to behold a Trimmer's face,
How he would set about to shave

157

The Whig would view the book with rage,
To see him would divert the Trimmer,
He would not eat a single page,
Tho' 'twas no bigger than a primer.

A little book! and what of that?
I will not swallow it I swear,
'Tis against Magna Charta flat,
As Glynn and Pratt will both declare.

Eat it! by all that's good not I,
Be it no bigger than a pill;
I'll tell you how far I'll comply,
My breech may eat it, if it will.

The Trimmer would appear reserv'd,
And beg to be allow'd to speak;
That every one must have observ'd
His stomach was but very weak;

158

His Faith was strong as heart could wish,
And he believ'd the book inspir'd;
That he would vote it Flesh or Fish,
Or vote it both, if 'twas requir'd.

Like Dutchmen, positive and bold,
The Whigs are a rude, churlish faction;
Tho' naturally slow and cold,
They may be work'd up into action.

Like Mules, not apt to lose their feet,
Oe'r precipices safe and able;
A Trimmer is that made-up cheat,
A horse out of a dealer's stable.

The first their views confin'd by blinds,
By bells amus'd, and kept from sleeping,
May be made serviceable Hinds;
The latter will not pay their keeping.

159

O for a Tory generation!
Generous hunters, true-bred Racers!
Even a mulish congregation
Is better than these trimming pacers.

We'll now examine other facts,
And try, whether we can deduce
From any of the Trimmer's acts,
That he's of any kind of use.

But to proceed by that strict plan
To which both you and I are ty'd,
His country's the next point to scan,
And how he serves it, you'll decide.

Before folks talk of being firm,
And dying for their Country's good,
It would be proper that the term,
Our Country, should be understood.

160

Country's a general term; like Wine,
Implying various kinds of drink;
'Tis not so easy to define,
As some unthinking people think.

Wine with the Chaplain stands for Port;
French Wines the Patriots veins replenish;
Tokay, perhaps, means Wine at Court;
Perhaps Wine there means nought but Rhenish.

Give us our daily Bread, we pray;
For this we pray, and we pray right:
But, though we say all the same way,
Some mean brown bread, and some mean white.

Others extend it beyond bounds,
Terms are so difficult to fix;
The Squire takes in his pack of hounds,
His Wife includes her coach and six.

161

So Country in different climes
Has many various acceptations;
The sense oft varies with the times,
And oftener with situations.

The Swiss, that sell their blood and bones,
By Country mean all states, not poor;
In Rome a land of monks and drones,
The paramours of the scarlet whore.

In Portugal 'tis fire and faggot,
In France a Salique constitution;
In England quite an English maggot,
Country means there the Revolution.

If every Englishman on earth
Be for a Revolution hearty,
Must not the Whigs excite one's mirth,
When they confine it to their party?

162

Whilst theirs seems to be plann'd in spite,
Exclusive, like the Irish pale,
The Revolution Cocobite
Plans his upon the largest scale.

Try then the Trimmer by some plan,
By either of the Revolutions,
The Trimmer's still the lukewarm man,
Always for tepid constitutions.

The Country that some Tories mention,
For which they combat tooth and nail,
Is but a country of invention,
Like Plato's or a Fairy Tale.

“When righteous Magi fill the throne,
“Say they, and yet they're not in jest,
“That, which depends on one alone,
“Of all Countries is the best.”

163

Grant the first step, 'tis all they need,
The schools will prove by rules of art
That Caco-Magus, and his seed,
Where monarchs after G---d's own heart.

Naturalists will undertake
To shew by arguments of force,
That, from the nature of his make,
An unicorn excels a horse.

Besides the advantages of strength,
Of swiftness and acuter sense,
He has a horn of mighty length,
Both for attacking and defence.

164

This point you'll probably dispute,
Not give up readily at least,
A generous and useful brute,
For an unprofitable beast.

If you keep wrangling, I can't tell
How long such a dispute may last;
But at the last I know full well,
You and your horse will both stick fast.

Keep to one point, or by and by
You'll give up all, if he persists,
Your only way is to deny
That such an animal exists.

So in that proposition quoted,
“When just and righteous Magi reign,”
You'll be out-talk'd, and far out-voted,
If you will talk in their own strain

165

One weighty word, when they're most stiff,
Knocks down absurd and noisy men,
The Spartans silenced them with if,
And you may silence them with when.

My Tory is not such a sot,
As he'll convince you more and more,
That is, when you are gone to pot,
When you're spew'd out, but not before.

Don't you remember Lady Anne,
How he ador'd her for a time,
And how his love at first began
Long after she was past her prime?

Did not he now protest and swear,
And call'd to witness Gods and men?
Then was not Anna all his care?
What country did he care for then?

166

Yet when he got his wicked will,
How often did he wish her dead!
How often try'd his utmost skill
To get another in her stead!

From this you cannot well infer,
That my good friend was false or knavish;
For to be always ty'd to her,
And always courting, was too slavish.

It is high time to view the Trimmer
In his relation to his neighbour,
Where in one sense he's like a swimmer,
That swims with constant fear and labour.

In limpid shallow pools he keeps,
But, if by chance he be mistaken,
And plunge sometimes into the deeps,
His skill sometimes may save his bacon.

167

Suppose his friend, by following him,
Plunges into the same mistake,
Although he knows his friend can't swim
He'll hazard nothing for his sake.

Nay, though arriv'd just to the brink,
Deaf to remorse, pity, and pride,
He'll see him struggle till he sink,
And see him perish by his side.

Who in this picture can't behold,
If he has feeling, and attends,
Poor Wilkes, too credulous and bold,
Deserted by his trimming friends?

Suppose a Tory leads a brother
Into much such another scrape;
I only mean much such another,
As to the suffocating shape.

168

Let any of you for a while
Fancy himself this leading Tory,
Practis'd in every Tory wile,
Up to the ears in love with glory;

You shall face death with as much ease
As Philip's son that's dead and gone,
So chuse what Tory friend you please,
Or, for the pun's sake, chuse Sir John.

Would you leave Sir John Phillips so,
Dangling for carrion birds to batten?
No, though to heaven you would not go
With Wilkes, you'd go with him to Satan.

Even the Whigs, that do disclaim,
And look on Friendship as a sin,
Have always felt a little shame
For leaving those, that they draw in.

169

Insensible they are and dry,
Yet I don't doubt but it would shock,
And wring a tear from a Whig's eye,
To see Pratt's head upon a block.

You'll say, I know, what do you prove?
Nothing at all, as yet we hope,
But that, like you, we're not in love
Either with drowning or a rope.

Ah! wriggling rogues, I'll hold you fast,
Spite of your twists and slippery tails;
Wriggling is out of date and past,
Now nought but downright strength prevails.

But for this once my hold I'll loose,
I'll grant, you're not oblig'd to dive,
Nor run your necks into a noose
For any friend dead or alive.

170

But will it follow, or be granted,
That you are active, warm, or brisk,
Ready, whenever you are wanted,
When there is neither harm nor risque?

This is the least that ought to follow,
Yet those that try'd you, have confest,
That for the most part you are hollow,
Lukewarm and languid at the best.

How often have you caught the Whigs
Too cold to bite, like many others!
How often have the city-prigs
Taken, ye Whigs, and you for brothers!

By you was artless Holland bubbled,
And the Three Virtues basely trick'd,

171

Jure Divino sorely troubled,
And all the Tories fairly nick'd.

Relying on your treacherous aid,
Their certain ruin we foresaw,
Happ'ly your malice was delay'd
By Fabius, and his Fabian law.

And after this can you suppose,
That all your lukewarm tribe remaining
Will not be forc'd with the next dose
To come away without much straining?

172

It makes the tears run down my cheeks,
When I contemplate or but mention,
And contrast with a Trimmer's freaks,
A Tory's friendship and attention.

There is not one but does comply
With Horace's kind invitation
To view his friend, not like a spy,
But with a lover's fascination;

That does not, like th' enamour'd swain,
Hang on each blemish a love-knot,
Believe and fervently maintain
A wen to be a beauty spot.

Be his friend heavier than lead,
His thoughts are deep, tho' not quite clear,
He has a calculating head,
Trade or the Treasury's his sphere.

173

If he's absurd, loud, and loquacious,
Let him but speak, he'll be in vogue,
His eloquence, far from ungracious,
Is but a kind of mental brogue;

An eloquence, that wants a name,
But may have some affinity;
For what we know may be the same
With Livy's Patavinity.

If he's a sneaking, servile wight,
His gentle nature wins their hearts,
If he can neither read nor write,
He trusts with justice to his parts.

Accordingly when you're disgrac'd,
When they enjoy what you enjoy'd,
Every Tory will be plac'd
Just as he ought to be employ'd.

174

The secretaries, you are sure,
Active and drudging like two diggers,
And for the Treasury, they'll procure
Men that shall make prodigious figures.

From owl-light, led through dubious ways,
Worse than in utter darkness cast,
We shall emerge into bright days,
And go on swimmingly at last.

But not to lengthen out the sessions,
His wife and family come next,
For whom his tenderest impressions
Are still, according to my text.

Children, he thinks no more in fact,
Than debts of nature's imposition;
Wives are those debts that we contract,
In spite of nature's admonition.

175

Therefore he'd grieve no more to see
All of them in their coffins laid,
Than you to see your mortgagee
Give up your deeds, with all debts paid.

What must needs follow you'll conceive,
That neither would his wife grow thinner,
His son complain, or daughter grieve,
To see him give the crows a dinner.

Two rosy cheeks do not make health,
Nor gold and silver make folks wealthy;
Some without either have great wealth,
And with unhealthful looks are healthy.

Dine with the Trimmer at his villa,
And after sup with him in town,
You cannot well suppose his pillow
Is stuff'd with any thing but down:

176

Especially if you consider
His Wife's not there to make it harder;
'Twould avail little to forbid her,
Therefore the Trimmer shall discard her.

Tully , the greatest Trimmer known,
And Quintus too, both trimm'd with horns,
Declare, that till they lay alone,
They envy'd those that lay on thorns.

Unmarry'd, in a truckle bed,
Lay me, says Quintus, with one blanket,
In peace I will lay down my head,
And every night say, G---d be thanked.

The Trimmer, farther to secure him,
Shall have his miss under the rose;
Alas, what bliss can she procure him
Half so good for him as repose!

177

He can perform with moderation
The highest pitch of high enjoyment;
Just like a game of meditation.
That's half a pleasure, half employment.

So, notwithstanding this prevention,
Be you assured, instead of rest,
He's torturing his poor invention,
And discomposing all his nest.

All his affairs are gone astray,
His lands engag'd, his forests groan,
His credit taken wings, they say,
And with his cash to Bath are flown.

His son is running him at Arthur's,
His servants robbing him below;

178

His wife and daughter catching Tartars,
And both intriguing at Soho.

But let us shift these scenes of vice,
And leave the Trimmer to his fate;
Lo, I will shew you Paradise,
A Tory on his own estate.

See those vast monuments of yew!
Superb remains of Tory reigns!
Wonders like those the Arabs view,
Scow'ring Palmyra's sandy plains.

Behind, down in that bottom look,
Attended by tall pines in files,
Close by the willow-wedded brook,
See the old mansion, how it smiles!

179

Enter the lofty hall, quite lin'd
With helmets, halberts, pikes, and guns,
Where James the First by chance once din'd,
And left a brace of Latin puns.

Open, ye everlasting doors!
Yon folding doors at once disclose,
Black oaken wainscot, black oak floors,
And roofs with many an antique rose.

See birds and beasts play round the pannels,
Such as the Gothic chissel breeds,
Those windows are the only annals
Of all his great Forefather' deeds!

Without pursuing mouldy pages,
You've nothing farther to discuss,
But to observe how many stages
He has pass'd through to come to us:

180

There you may see where he sets out
Blazon'd by heraldry profound;
And how, continuing his route,
Here he is landed safe and sound.

In the great dining-room, behold,
Hanging distinguish'd from the rest,
In gaudy frames of burnish'd gold,
Three portraits fashionably drest.

That in the middle, an old Beau ,
Who seems to be worn out with sin;
I know not; but, I think, I know
Sir John, and Watkin Williams Wynne,

Mark the old Butler on this head:
His son, says he, with accent sad,
Hangs above stairs by Miss's bed,
A sweet young gentleman in plaid.

181

Step to the buttery, there review
His houshold troops, a faithful corps,
In regimentals of true blue,
Their heads with service silver'd o'er.

Then to the kitchen we'll repair,
But drink his health first in strong beer,
Heavens, what an hospitable air!
What a profusion of good chear!

What looks of happiness and ease!
What joy appears, when he seems gay!
And yet, excepting casual fees,
Long have they serv'd him without pay.

All earthly blessings here abound,
And multiply Jure divino,
Just as in Paradise they're found,
Without a sous of Ready Rino.

182

In his meek spouse supremely happy,
His heir the loveliest of swains,
With punch detersive, and smooth nappy,
He washes out his daughter's stains.

Rachel, his wife, with savoury meat
Regales her patriarchal Lord;
Young Jacob, with unweary'd feet,
Covers with game old Jacob's board.

Here I could wander for a week,
So much old Jacob I admire,
Did not your frequent yawns bespeak
Your inclination to retire.

I shall add very little more,
Just shew you how St. John enlarges,
How, to inflame the Trimmer's score,
He throws in two or three more charges.

183

“You cry, we've all that man can crave,
“No, you are wretched, weak, and poor,
“As naked as a Negro Slave,
“As much neglected as a Boor.

“Whilst for wise Serpents you would pass,
“'Tis by that wisdom you're undone;
“Like blind Worms trod by Ox and Ass,
“As they lie basking in the sun.”

These words, or words to this effect,
Are in my text, for 'tis no merit,
Or rather 'tis a great defect,
To stick to words and lose their spirit.

And thus, beyond all contradiction,
Your guilt is manifest and glaring;
And, to my sorrow and affliction,
Your trimming now is grown past bearing.

184

Expect no favour, no remission,
Hear me, ye Trimmers, great and small,
By virtue of St. John's commission,
I do condemn you one and all.

Prepare yourselves for execution,
When the evacuation's o'er,
Like Jonas, take a resolution,
Resolve to be spew'd out no more.

The date of 1764 shews the occasion: upon the dismission of the Whigs, after trying all kinds of trimming tricks to make themselves acceptable to no purpose.

Chancellor of Cambridge.

Rapin tells us, that the Scotch first of all called them Whigs, from Whig, a liquor in that country, which he translates Lait Aigre, Sour Milk or Butter Milk. But he is mistaken, as Mr. Johnson judiciously observes in his distinction of the word Whig into its simple and figurative sense.

1. Whig—Whey.

2. A Faction. See Johnson's Dictionary in Whig.

I cannot forbear in this place acknowledging the obligation we are under to Mr. Johnson, for extending the benefits of the Union to the two languages. I hope in the next edition he will be able to lay aside invidious distinctions, and make a complete British Dictionary.

See Revelations, chap.x. Lord S---h, a pretended Whig in the former reign, and suspected in this, could not give a more effectual proof of his conversion and unconditional submission than accepting the task of persecuting and betraying the champion of the Whigs in his famous accusation of Wilkes for blasphemy and profaneness.

Serjeant Glynn and Lord Camden.

Caco-Magus, so called, some people fancy from Κακος. I wish it had been so, this passage of my sermon would have been more brilliant on that account, by the opposition of an evil Magus to a righteous one; but I will not hunt for glory at the expence of truth, whatever (encouraged by the example of my betters) I may do for profit. I am therefore obliged to confess, that he was called Caco-Magus, a Cacando, a habit of body, that he contracted by the terrors incident to those kinds of studies in which he was engaged his whole life. Caco-Magus was a successor of Simon Magus, whose tenets he maintained in a book that he wrote, called Dæmonology. —The manuscript of which book is still extant amongst the invaluable curiosities of the Bodleian Collection.

Formerly there were more Virtues; but it has been thought proper of late to reduce them to the number of the Graces. The Three Virtues now established are Oeconomy, Temperance, and Chastity. They are believed to be sufficient for all wise purposes, and certainly are as many as we can well manage. I have seen a medal, upon the reverse of which are these Three Virtues in a Bas-relief placed over the gate-way of a Gothic building: they are dancing, and linked hand in hand; but not naked like the Graces; for Virtue should not be ostentatious. There is also this difference between them, that the figures of the Virtues are bold and masculine, it being as necessary to represent Virtue in the character of Vigour and Activity, as to represent Grace in the Character of elegance and softness. Over their heads are these three letters H. S. G. which I am told signify, Hic Sitæ Gaudent, a legend, that seems to be borrowed from the inscription over her Majesty's house, Hic Siti Lætantur Lares. Though the board of works has thought proper to pull down that inscription, yet we see no reason why the Lares may not be as merry now as in the late possessor's time.

A ducendâ uxore sic abhorret, ut libero Lectulo neget esse quidquam jucundius—Speaking of his brother, after he had parted with his wife, sister to the famous Trimmer Atticus. Ep. ad Att. L. 14. Ep. 13.

A new sport discovered by the gentlemen of that university. It is made up of a pleasant combination of horse races and cock-fights. As Cæsar said to a man that was haranguing him, “If you mean to sing, you are only declaiming; but if you intend to declaim, you are undoubtedly singing:” so you may say of this diversion, that if they call it Running, it is as like Fighting; but if they will have it to be Fighting, then it is more like Running.—The method is this: They run or fight a Whig or a Trimmer against a Cocobite or a Tory; or they make a subscription match, every subscriber producing his cock-horse, and this may be called a Sweep-stakes battle.

The Old Pretender.

185

MAKARONY FABLES; WITH THE NEW FABLE OF THE BEES.

IN TWO CANTOS.

ADDRESSED TO THE SOCIETY.

BY COSMO, MYTHOGELASTICK, PROFESSOR, AND F.M.S.

Beati non numerant horas,
Ars longa vita brevis.

Written in the year 1767.

191

FABLE I. THE RESIGNATION .

A certain house swarmed with huge Rats,
Traps, poison failed, baits they touched none;
An able chief amongst the Cats
Picked them up slily one by one.
All Libertines that stayed out late,
All vagabonds, shared the same fate;
This rous'd the Hanoverian breed ,
It grew to be a serious case;
If he was suffer'd to proceed,
He would extinguish the whole race.
A vote ensu'd, an order pass'd,
A proclamation for a fast.
Pursuant to their resolution,
They watch'd and pray'd, entrench'd like moles,

192

The Cat, by feline institution,
Studied to draw them from their holes.
He knew 'twas folly to pretend
To act the patriot, or the friend.
What people wish they soon believe,
The Cat fell sick , and took his bed;
He formed his project to deceive,
By lying down and seeming dead;
He shut his eyes, his breath held in,
Stretch'd out and streight,
He lay in state,
Just like a cat, worth nothing but his skin.
He cannot long continue so,
Says an old sage, stir not from hence;
This dying comes too à propos,
To be aught else than a pretence.
The wiser sort maintain'd their ground;
Grimalkin, baffled for this bout,
Rose from the dead, and with a bound
Rais'd the blockade, and let them out.

193

Some younkers only, not worth keeping,
That sally'd forth, paid for their peeping.
Even thus, according to report,
Edward's Grimalkin left his post;
Or, in the language of the court,
Thus Gaveston gave up the ghost.
And though the subtile Gascoon lord
Assur'd the barons he was dead;
The barons would not take his word,
Till they had taken off his head.
The court declar'd him dead in law,
And some weak folks bit at the show;
But found that his contracted paw
Retir'd to strike the surer blow.—
Cats seldom die a natural death,
As seldom favourites resign
Naturally, without design,
Till they resign their forfeit breath.

The resignation of the Earl of Bute, in 1763.

Lord Bute.

The Whigs.

Lord Bute went to Harrowgate when he resigned.

194

FABLE II. The DOCTOR and STUDENT.

A lobster, by a strange mistake,
Scrap'd an acquaintance with a Snake;
To learn his suppleness and arts,
He boarded at the serpent's house;
Lobsters have not the quickest parts,
Arm'd cap-a-pee without much νους.

The Doctor, not the least afraid,
Although he knew, Lob was audacious;
Long'd much to try what could be made
Out of a head-piece so testaceous;
All that a soldier can possess
He oft repeated with a smile,
With strength and courage, is address,
In other words a little guile;
As yet you are but raw, I see,
Though far beyond your A B C;

195

The best advice that I can give,
A sentiment for Kings to drink;
Let every one, not only live
According to his rank, but think.
You have a comprehensive mind,
Lobsters ought not to think like oisters;
They were not made to be confin'd,
And spend their days like them in cloisters;
To stand when they should stir and bustle,
Gaping and studying like a muscle.
Cadmus preferr'd, in all his lectures,
Facts and experience to conjectures;
Lobsters, by an instinctive force,
Act selfishly, without design;
Their feelings commonly are coarse,
Their honour always superfine.
Unfeeling, resolute, and cool,
But tutor'd in the serpent lore,
Lob grew, by taking pains at school,
Ten times more selfish than before;
Serpentine doubts and conscious fear
Were hourly whispering in his ear,

196

“That friend of yours so dark and sly,
“Will sacrifice you in the end;
“Bravely exert yourself and try
“To be before-hand with your friend.”
'Twas what he often try'd, but found,
Instead of gaining, he lost ground;
Perhaps his brain was too much strain'd,
Too weak to hold all it contain'd;
So through some little crack or chink
His plots were smelt, and soon detected;
Like snuffers cramm'd, that, by their stink,
Betray the snuffs they have collected.
But time and fortitude at last
Paid him for all his patience past;
One day he enter'd without rapping,
And caught the wary Cadmus napping:
Lob scarce could credit what he saw,
Finding him coil'd, and fast asleep,
Fatigued with meditations deep,
He choak'd his master with his claw.—
Now ponder well, and be severe,
Look sharp for some smart application;

197

'Twill fit both Commoner and Peer,
If you have any provocation;
Whether a Courtier, Statesman, or a Cit,
Throughout you'll find some famous Biter bit.

198

FABLE III. THE NIGHTINGALE.

A nightingale, in her retreat,
Exerted all her native powers;
Compos'd and sung plaintively sweet,
To charm the silent hours.
A hungry Hawk in ambush lay,
And seiz'd the hapless songster for his prey;
The warbling Victim tried in vain
To melt a cruel tyrant's heart;
Proof against every moving strain,
Of nature or of art.
Charmer, said he, I wait too long,
Hawks require food more solid than a song:
Then with a villain's smile he struck
The loveliest tenant of the wood;
In her poor heart his beak he stuck,
Rioting in her vital blood.
Listen, ye fair ones, to my lay,
Your ways with trembling caution mark!
How many virgins fall a prey,
To some base murderer in the dark.

199

Your youth, your tears, your spotless fame,
Add to the brutal fire fresh fuel;
Deaf to compassion, dead to shame,
Selfishness is always cruel.
Ye candid souls, whose pulses beat
With no distemper'd selfish heat,
View here again a wretch oppress'd,
And heaven and earth in vain implor'd;
Robb'd of his property and rest,
Devour'd by a rapacious Lord.—
When Avarice and Power unblushing meet,
Woe to the humble Neighbour of the Great.

200

FABLE IV. THE BLACK BIRD

In concert with the curfew bell,
An Owl was chaunting vespers in his cell;
Upon the outside of the wall,
A Black Bird, famous in that age,
From a bow-window in the hall,
Hung dangling in a wicker cage;
Instead of psalmody and pray'rs,
Like those good children of St. Francis;
He seculariz'd all his airs,
And took delight in wanton fancies.
Whilst the bell toll'd, and the Owl chaunted,
Every thing was calm and still;
All nature seem'd wrapt and enchanted,
Except the querulous, unthankful rill;
Unaw'd by this imposing scene,
Our Black Bird the enchantment broke;
Flourish'd a sprightly air between,
And whistled the Black Joke.

201

This lively unexpected motion
Set nature in a gayer light;
Quite over-turn'd the Monks devotion,
And scatter'd all the gloom of night.
I have been taught in early youth,
By an expert Metaphysician;
That ridicule's the test of truth,
And only match for superstition.
Imposing rogues, with looks demure,
At Rome keep all the world in awe;
Wit is profane, learning impure,
And reasoning against the law;
Between two tapers and a book,
Upon a dresser clean and neat,
Behold a sacerdatol Cook,
Cooking a dish of heavenly meat!
How fine he curtsies! Make your bow,
Thump your breast soundly, beat your poll;
Lo! he has toss'd up a ragout,
To fill the belly of your soul.
Even here there are some holy men
Would fain lead people by the nose;

202

Did not a Black Bird now and then
Benevolently interpose.
My good Lord Bishop, Mr. Dean,
You shall get nothing by your spite;
Tristram shall whistle at your spleen,
And put Hypocrisy to flight.

The Rev. Mr. Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy, &c.

203

FABLE V. POUR MOI MEME.

Within a Joiner's shop upon a stool,
With countenance serene and grave;
A Cat examin'd every tool,
As nicely as Rousseau's Elève.
A File that understood its trade,
Provok'd her Ladyship past bearing;
Observing the great waste it made,
By clipping artfully and paring.
I'll serve you your own way, you knave,
For that, says Puss, let me alone;
I'll lick you with my tongue, you slave,
Till I have lick'd you to the bone.
She lick'd till her whole tongue was flead,
And laugh'd to see the villain bleed;
With blood he was all over red:
Determining the File to kill,
The Cat lick'd on, believing still
It was the File, and not her tongue, that bled.

204

My Gard'ner, my Coachman John,
My Groom, my Butler, the whole Corps,
Are objects to vent spleen upon,
Whene'er the bileous pot boils o'er;
But I'll grow better when I'm able,
To fume and fret is not worth while.
I am the Cat that bleeds in fable,
My Family—th' unfeeling File.

205

FABLE VI. THE TORTOISE.

Creatures made chiefly for defence
Are seldom overstock'd with sense.
A Tortoise once, a military Beau,
Hardy to give the beast his due,
Walk'd to and fro' solemnly slow,
Like Prussians at a review
Completely arm'd from head to tail,
Proof against either cut or stab;
As full of blubber as a Whale,
With brains no better than a Crab.
Suppose ambition was inclin'd,
To captivate his torpid mind,
What could she do with such a mass?
All that she could propose at most,
Would be to lead him to some pass,
And leave him standing like a post.
But if conceit, instead of her,
Should make a puncture in his breast;

206

Conceit can make a Tortoise stir,
And labour to outdo the best.
And thus accordingly, one day,
Busy and rolling in his way,
Upon his axis like a Porpoise;
I mean contemplating himself;
Conceit came like a fairy elf,
And took possession of my Tortoise.
Under a rock the formal fop,
With reconnoitring air and state,
Observ'd an airy near the top,
And saw an Eagle at the gate.
Eagle, the Coxcomb cries, descend,
I hate both grotto and alcove;
Be it my glory to attend,
And emulate the bird of Jove.
I feel all feathery and light,
Flush'd with warm vigour from fresh springs;
Descend, and mount me out of sight,
Consign me then to my own wings.
The Eagle lighted on the plain,
Arguments of all shapes he try'd;

207

Not one would fit, 'twas all in vain,
Some were too strait, and some too wide.
Hard by, upon a thistly bed,
An aged Ass repos'd, half dead;
'Tis nought but Hypocondriac pride,
The fumes that laziness has bred;
Before you try to fly, he cry'd,
Hop over that old Ass's head.
The fool, like all in that condition,
Always flew out at opposition.
Alas! what pains poor envy takes,
The flimsy cap that she puts on
Is too transparent, says the Don,
To hide her execrable snakes;
Stung to the soul with this reproach,
The Eagle bade the sot approach;
And, mounting him as high as he could soar,
Now ply your wings, said he, 'tis time,
Whether you nobly chuse to climb,
To fall like light'ning, or to sweep the shore.
He spoke, down dropp'd the Tortoise plum,
With an explosion like a bomb;

208

One crash confounding back and belly;
His armour, once as hard as brass,
Lay like a heap of broken glass,
Lying upon a heap of jelly.
Such I have met with in my walk,
Tortoises of distinguish'd air,
Creeping about to ask a talk,
At Bloomsbury or Grosvenor square.
They all are persons of great skill,
They know what's fittest to be done;
Landmen or Seamen, as they will,
And Statesmen every mother's son;
They can compose with their own hands
All civil broils, all foreign jars;
Not one of them but understands
The disciplines of wars.
Let but the Royal Eagle take him,
Take any one, and mount him high;
No arguments on earth can shake him;
They all believe that they can fly.
But, if he drops him, down he goes,
And makes a pudding for the crows.

209

FABLE VII. THE COOK .

Æsop is always a new book,
Æsop in a judicious hand;
But 'tis in vain on it to look,
Without the grace to understand.
Pleasant his fables are indeed,
Profound, ingenious, and sly;
Fables that infancy may read,
Maturity alone apply.
A Cook was busy with his battery;
Two sycophants, two knaves, I mean,
Sat by, and play'd with red hot flattery,
Against the battery Cuisine.
Both engineers by profession,
Their flattery was so well planted,
They soon dismounted his discretion,
Which was the only point they wanted;

210

For having built a famous pie,
Larded his fowls, barded his larks;
As he had other fish to fry,
He left the field to my two sparks;
And, whilst he slash'd and carbonnaded,
Stewed and hash'd, and gasconnaded,
A Fish of a superb appearance
Vanish'd from the kitchen table,
Made a confusion worse than Babel;
One of those fish, miscall'd by some,
In which St. Peter us'd to deal;
Stamp'd for himself, with his own thumb,
The ancient Piscatory Seal.
Therefore let Peter have the glory,
Let us to him ascribe the Dorys;
Call it not John but Peter Dory,
Given Sub Sigillo Piscatoris.
Advancing to the chopping block,
Peace, cry'd the Cook, your clamours cease;
Then with his cleaver gave a knock,
And all the Kitchen was at peace.

211

Says he, 'twas you, Sir, or your brother,
No Cat comes here, I'll take my oath;
Therefore it must be one or t'other;
He quite forgot, it might be both.
I have it not, the Thief reply'd,
I stole it not, cried the Receiver;
Both swore, protested, and deny'd,
And so the Cook laid down his cleaver.
The case seem'd so perplex'd and odd,
And the Cook's thoughts were so divided;
All three referr'd the case to God,
And there it rests till he decide it.—
Now from this Fable it appears,
Or from this Fable I surmise;
Some folks give credit to their ears,
When they should scarce believe their eyes.
This foolish Cook puts me in mind
Of the most dupeable of nations;
Busy and active; but resign'd
To flattery on all occasions:—
And so, because my moral's stale,
I'll close my Fable with a Tale.

Alludes to the supposed union between Lord Chatham and Lord Bute, in the autumn of 1763 and summer of 1766.

212

A TALE.

How many years it was ago,
To ascertain I don't engage;
Nor in what reign; I only know
It happen'd in the Golden Age.
Upon the record thus it stands:—
Two worthy Ministers combin'd,
To play into each other's hands,
To cheat and puzzle all mankind.
The silly people were cajol'd;
And all their tricks went glibly down:
At length one of them grew so bold,
He laid his hands upon the crown;
And, with more bravery than labour,
Handed it to his crafty neighbour.
When you say Crown, you often mean
The owner, whether King or Queen;
In such a case you may believe,
The Priests would pray, the Laymen swear,
A few would laugh, and some would grieve,
And many want to hang this pair.

213

I have him not, by Heaven! says John ;
I steal! cries Will , a likely thing!
Stolen or stray'd, however gone,
It was not I that stole your King.
Thus us'd to puzzle and confound them,
This nation's fury soon was past;
The people left them as they found them,
Forc'd to appeal to Heaven at last.
Fortune was seldom known so cross;
Few disappointments are completer:
To lose their King was a great loss;
Not to recover him a greater.

John earl of Bute.

William earl of Chatham.

214

FABLE VIII .

A Nonpareil, an Apple Tree ,
A Commoner, haughty and proud ,
And a Pome-granate, a Grandee ,
One day disputed hard and loud:
I am the Favourite of the nation,
The Apple said, that's a plain case;
I know your rank and occupation,
And laugh'd in the Pomegranate's face;
My merit's known to all mankind,
I never courted your choice spirits;
Your noble virtues are confin'd,
Few people know your latent merits;
Nor know your Virtues, like the Beaver's,
Lie in your seminal Receivers.
A Bramble , sneaking like a rogue,
Out of a hedge, and out of sight;

215

Cry'd, Breeth'ren, with a Province brogue,
Be Freends, and let us aw Unite.
When the Great quarrel, the small Fry,
Stir, and affect important vigour;
Then Æsop says, the Ciphers try,
But never can make any figure.

Alludes to the conference between the duke of Bedford, Mr. Grenville, and lord Bute, early in the year 1766, at lord Eglintoun's.

The Duke of Bedford.

Mr. Grenville.

Lord Bute

Lord Eglintoun.

217

THE NEW FABLE OF THE BEES:

IN TWO CANTOS.

HIS QUIDAM SIGNIS, ATQUE HÆC EXEMPLA SECUTI, ESSE APIBUS PARTEM DIVINÆ MENTIS, ET HAUSTUS ÆTHEREOS DIXERE: DEUM NAMQUE IRE PER OMNES TERRASQUE, TRACTUSQUE MARIS, CÆLUMQUE PROFUNDUM. Virg. Georg. L. IV.

218

CANTO I.

THE ARGUMENT.

A preliminary discourse—The origin of police—The divine right of kings asserted upon new principles, more suitable to the goodness of God and good sense than the old principles that are taught at Oxford—The nature of courts—The court of Heaven—The court of requests—Angels—Ministers—The bee-piper—A speech—A prayer—A curse, in which all good people are desired to join—The conclusion.

219

I never yet beheld that man,
(With all the temper that you please)
That started fair, and fairly ran
Through the old fable of the bees:
Because the verse the author chose,
If verse, like ours, be verse indeed,
Was made to introduce the prose,
But never meant to take the lead;
Whereas it should be the reverse,
The prose should be the 'squire, or usher,
To grace and wait upon the verse,
Not a competitor or pusher.
Verse ill-conducted or misplac'd,
Meets with cold treatment and distaste;
Much like a sermon, or discourse,
With which you have been tir'd and vex'd;

220

Neither begot in a right course
Upon the body of a text,
Made nor created, but proceeding,
Incomprehensibly from reading.
Through a variety of matter,
And learned dirt, you splash and walk,
Both for impertinence and chatter,
Like his own lady's table-talk:
But a good parson hates to poach;
All his delight is in fair sporting,
No harlot-text will he approach,
But first to scripture goes a courting:
A text by wooing he obtains,
He takes her in a proper trim,
And so begets with proper pains
A sermon sound in wind and limb.
It is a spurious production
Begot in any other shape;
Either the offspring of seduction,
Or lawless issue of a rape.
All kinds of governments that are,
That of an emperor or king,

221

Or of a queen like that of fairies,
Nay, even down to my lord-mayor,
Or, what's exactly the same thing,
Down even to my lady mayoress.
Accordingly the wits of Greece,
And idle poets of all nations,
Have studied bees for the police
Of kingdoms, states, and corporations:
That there are queens that rule the bees,
Has been a point agreed long since:
The learned say e'en lice and fleas
Are govern'd by a sovereign prince;
Through microscopes they plainly trace,
In vermin that escape the sight,
Monarchy and a royal race;
Nature in Kings takes such delight;
A fact that leads by steps direct,
Farther, perhaps, than you suspect;
That monarchs are of right divine
Is evidently prov'd from hence;
For Filmer's patriarchal line
Proves nothing but his want of sense:

222

This proves, to every apprehension,
What none but wicked Whigs condemn,
That monarchy is God's invention,
Far too ingenious for them:
But then 'twill follow full as plain,
That, as they're kings by God appointed,
All kings by the same patent reign;
Sovereigns equally anointed;
For the Creator of all creatures
Is neither fond of shape nor size,
Nor loves queen Bessy's eyes and features
More than a Spider's face and eyes;
Equally Source and God of all,
All kings are equal in his sight,
Whether the monarch's great or small,
Whether a Brunswick or a mite.
When treason spawns and traitors work,
God will weigh both in equal scales,
Whether a desperate Damien lurk
Within a rotten cheese, or at Versailles.
Kings, therefore, by God's charter reign,
Monarchy seems to be a plan,

223

Contriv'd to punish and restrain
Licentious insects and vain man.
Wherever there are kings and queens
There must be plenty of intrigues;
Variety of ways and means,
Enmities, jealousies, and leagues;
Both courts and Heaven, as David sings,
In waiting, place their chief ambition,
To see God's face, the queen's or king's,
Both call the Beatific Vision:
If heaven be a happier place,
There are no sexes thereabout,
No ministers but those of grace;
For all the devils are turn'd out.
Ladies, I own, one must be spiteful,
Bad as a Turk, worse than a Jew,
To think that Heaven could be delightful,
If Heaven had no place for you:
Heaven's harmony, as fools report,
Would be quite drown'd in female noise:
Heaven is not shut, like the Pope's court,
To all but priests, eunuchs and boys.

224

Yes, there are ladies in those bowers,
Ladies that once were made like ours;
But then they level all distinction,
Before they enter into bliss;
Each sex must suffer an extinction,
They neither marry there nor p---ss.
Our courts are the reverse of Heaven's,
In everlasting change delighting;
Always at sixes and at sevens,
Intriguing, catterwauling, fighting:
Here we abound in nought but sin,
Here peace and rest were never known;
Here all the devils are kept in,
All that have any grace are flown.
Within a hive a wand'ring drone,
Of an uncommon size and mien,
Stole by, unnotic'd, near the throne,
And struck the fancy of the queen:
When once a royal fancy's struck,
The striker never leaves it short,
Not only strikes, pushing his luck,
But kicks the proudest of the court:

225

'Tis not a mighty pleasant thing,
Nor much in favour of the many,
Who, though allow'd to wear a sting,
Are kick'd by creatures without any:
He kick'd them up and down by dozens,
But that which cut them to the quick,
He sent for all his dirty cozens,
And gave them liberty to kick.
Gentle or simple 'twas the same,
Once they began, all was fair game.
A humble Bee , once much in vogue,
Who in an instant could inflame;
Or, when enrag'd, the demagogue
Could make an apiary tame:
In an assembly held apart,
Display'd the wonders of his art;
First he deplor'd their present state,
Then he amus'd them with a hum,
Then he grew noisy and elate,
And rais'd their spirits like a drum:

226

Drummers and orators by noise,
By drumming and by elocution,
Often inspire both men and boys
With eagerness and resolution.
When their drum's brac'd, if they have skill,
They move their audience as they will.
Just so, by varying his notes,
And adding action to the tone,
He could have made them cut the throats
Both of the courtiers and the drone.
For Humble Bees to grandeur climb
By oratory humbuzzonic,
Like the great speakers of our time,
By rhetoric stentorophonic;
My dearest countrymen, said he,
Far be it from me to despise
A Drone for being not a Bee,
I hate him for not being wise;
When there's no wisdom in a guide,
When once the guide loses his way,
Whether we walk, or sail, or ride,
'Tis ten to one we go astray.

227

Horrid and desperatious case,
Big with terrificable woe,
If any Bees within this place
Are willingly Bee-wilder'd so,
Such Bees I heartily renounce,
However dignify'd and styled;
Such Bees must be, I do pronounce,
Bee-fooled, Bee-sotted, and Bee-guiled.
What wickedness is left undone?
What folly has not been committed?
You are not only over-run,
By stupid drones you are out-witted:
Our colonies do they not bleed?
Are not our brothers scorn'd and slighted,
Except our brethren from the Tweed,
With us mellifluously united?
Is not the cause of this well known?
You all of you know what I mean,
You know the bagpipe of the drone
Fascinates our gracious queen.
What flesh alive can bear his scheamers,
And their abominable schemes?

228

Or, who can listen to his dreamers,
And his interpreters of dreams?
One of his Tools try'd to be funny,
Talk'd of his savings and his sparings,
Attempted to seize all your honey,
And make you live on apple-parings;
A Drone (perdition catch his soul!)
Full of pretensions and vain-glory;
So very like a certain mole,
I cannot help telling the story :
“With intellects by nature muddy,
A Mole kept moiling under ground,
Liv'd, like Duns Scotus, in his study,
And got the name of the profound:
At last by labouring and boring
Amongst the blind and the Bee-nighted;
And, by continually poring,
He was accounted second-sighted:

229

His mother, a discreet old dame,
Knew well the genius of the youth;
She was not such a dupe to Fame,
To take all her reports for truth;
She left her house, she came, in short,
To judge herself of the report:
Mother, said he, by all that's bright,
I saw you tripping o'er the plain;
What a fine thing is second-sight!
'Tis the perfection of the brain.
I knew you, mother, well enough,
I heard your step an hour ago,
And smelt the fragrance of your ruff,
As I was studying below.
That you, says she, were always blind,
Was not a point that wanted clearing,
But now, alas, I also find,
You've neither feeling, smell, nor hearing,
Therefore, to keep your reputation,
Lock yourself up, my learned son,

230

Avoid all kind of conversation;
If you converse, you are undone.
Such is this Treasurer of yours,
Who should be sent, might I advise,
To banishment, far from our flowers,
And live on excrements with flies:
There let him, without interruption,
As a reward for his invention,
Grow sleek and wanton with corruption;
Let him enjoy a stinking pension.”

Just gods! your kind assistance lend;
Watch and protect the royal comb!
Confound his instrument, and send
The Piper to his native home:
Dismiss his mercenary Drones,
Expose them to contempt and laughter,
And finally break all their bones,
If they attempt to enter after.

231

Whilst he was speaking all was quiet,
But perorating in that fashion,
They rose up like a Polish Diet,
And drew their sabres in a passion.
Had he been there in that confusion,
They were so heated with this actor,
He had not 'scap'd for a contusion,
Nor even for a simple fracture.

Earl of Bute.

The Earl of Chatham.

Mr. Grenville.

This story assumes to be a speech of Lord Chatham's.

Lord Bute.

Mr. Grenville.

Lord Bute.

233

CANTO II.

THE ARGUMENT.

The great Humming Bee delineated-A list of orators—An exceeding fine speech-Tories, why called-Conclusion-Moral.

235

Their stings they brandish'd for a while,
Till growing cooler by degrees,
An Humble Bee , with an arch smile,
Answer'd the speech of Pericles ;
Pericles means, 'tis a Greek name,
A Bee of an exalted fame.
'Twas not a common hackney tit,
No, nor Bambalio with his clangor,
Nor Taratantara , whose wit
Is quite as harmless as his anger;
Nor he whose balmy words run off,
No words run smoother or distincter,
So oily, they would cure a cough,
As soon as Hill's Balsamic Tincture;
Nor the Bee-swain , a Bee as rare,
All cloath'd in sattin and in silk,

236

With speech and face both soft and fair,
Like poultices of bread and milk;
Nor Boreas , like a rumbling car,
Nor Bumbo , who must ever speak ill,
Whose eloquence resembles tar,
Much more than honey or even treacle,
Though he is sometimes called Molosses ,
Which signifies the scum of sugar,
So saith the druggerman Colossus ,
Who sold his master hugger-mugger;
This Humble Bee, far from a ranter,
Could not endure a noise and clatter,
His fort was sly socratic banter,
As to his name 'tis no great matter;
Said he , the honourable Humble
Is plac'd so high in our esteem,

237

That if he chance to slip and tumble,
I shall believe it is a dream.
And yet I wish he would take the trouble,
To shew his conduct in each point;
Right when 'tis simple, better double,
Most natural when out of joint.
I do not mean, I am not so blind,
So ignorant a ninny-hammer,
That Pericles should be confin'd
To rules of conduct or of grammar;
I only wish that he would shew
His right, by purchase or donation,
To all the faith we can bestow,
As well as all our admiration.
'Twould cut at once the Gordian knot,
And reconcile each contradiction,
Tergiversation be forgot,
Duplicity and dereliction.
In the mean time, on all occasions,
Till he complies with these conditions,
I must consider his orations
Only as human compositions.

238

Till he has clear'd this point before him,
Though I admire I can't adore him.
Why are the bagpipes such a sin?
Or why in him alone a crime?
Pericles try'd them out and in,
But he could never play in time;
And try'd, when it was all lost labour,
To rival him with pipe and tabour:
Nay, in the porches of her ear,
Like Hamlet's uncle with a phial,
When he could get the queen to hear,
Pour'd the base notes of his bass-viol.
He said, indeed, that all his playing
Was meant to disenchant the queen ;
But does he say what he is saying,
Like people that say what they mean?
So far from that, there's not a citling,
That makes excursions in the summer;

239

There's not a single shallow witling,
That does not take him for a hummer:
Therefore I earnestly beseech,
In the behalf of this poor nation,
That you will not regard his speech,
More than his life and conversation.
His arguments prove, more or less,
However furbelow'd or dress'd;
'Tis not so much for our distress,
As for himself, that he's distress'd.
His arguments are truly curious,
He hates him not for his ambition,
Nor as a drone, but he is furious,
Because he is the queen's musician:
He hates his tunes, he hates his ways,
And hates the pipe on which he plays:
But if a bagpipe be essential
To every drone both great and small,
If Pericles be consequential,
Then Pericles must hate them all.

240

For 'tis recorded in old stories,
How Drones and Tories got their name;
Pipes were call'd Drones, and Pipers Tories,
Now Drone and Tory mean the same.
His compliment to Drones, I take it,
Is not impenetrably deep,
There are some Tory heads awake yet,
That he would rather lull to sleep.
To dream of honey, milk, and wine,
For Tory dreams are always fine;
As children in their nurses lap,
Or rock'd in cradles sweetly lying,
Are happier dreaming of their pap,
Than when they're 'broad awake and crying.
Now take your balance, and compare
His speeches with his life and dealings,
Or else you may, without such care,
Take fine professions for fine feelings:

241

In early youth he lost his place,
He was a Trumpeter or Cornet ,
For spitting in the fav'rite's face,
And calling him an ugly hornet.
An old coquette amongst the wasps,
Whilst Pericles was fresh and young,
Whose sting and poison, like the asps,
Lay chiefly in her head and tongue,
Long after he was sent down stairs,
Seduc'd him with her harlot airs;
In the wasp cause he appeared hearty,
Assum'd their language and their form,
Vow'd to renounce the whole Bee-party,
And take her majesty by storm:
But when his passion was abated,
He veer'd about without much pain;
When love or avarice were sated,
He turn'd a loyal Bee again:

242

Ador'd the queen, humour'd the people
In all their fancies and requests;
Made the bells ring in every steeple,
And drove their foes from all their nests.
But ah! th' inconstancy of Bees!
Roving and changing every hour!
Wafted about by every breeze,
Allur'd by every specious flower;
For now, because the queen has pitch'd
Upon the Piper to amuse her,
Pericles swears she is bewitch'd ,
And sets his mob on to abuse her:
This sure is jealousy and spleen,
Not like true love and genuine duty;
For if, like me, he lov'd the Queen,
He could not injure such a beauty:
Yet, to do justice to his merits,
He always lov'd the Queen, I know;
It is the fever on his spirits
Makes him forget what subjects owe.

243

As Pericles has shewn the way,
Let me too introduce my tale ;
In a debate, before to-day,
I have known a fable turn the scale.
A Lion with a wand'ring gout,
Upon his couch, or bed, lay roaring;
The courtiers all stood round about,
Every god and aid imploring.
Excruciated like a martyr,
The doctors brought a thousand slops;
To pave the way for his departure,
They pour'd them down the Lion's chops
Of all the courtiers that attended,
Waiting about him in a ring,
The Wolf officiously pretended,
To sympathize most with the King:
Whilst we are all in such a fright,
Sir, said the Wolf, it must appear,

244

Neither convenient nor right,
That your attorney is not here;
My friend, the Fox, is much to blame,
Now that your Majesty's so ill,
To roam about killing your game,
When you may want to make your will.
At his return the Fox was told
How handsomely his friend had serv'd him;
His spite at me is very old,
Says master Fox, I have observ'd him;
Only because I go a fowling,
Am rich, and entertain my friends,
Whilst he, for very hunger howling,
Is fit to eat his fingers ends.
Volpone, that instant ran to court,
Salutes the Wolf quite frank and hearty,
The Monarch cried, had you good sport?
Sir Reynard, who was of your party?
Your Majesty, says the attorney,
Is misinform'd about my journey;

245

That I was hunting, is most true,
Making the strictest perquisitions
Of the most eminent physicians
About a remedy for you.
When your gout's fix'd or quite remov'd,
Then, Sir, my care and pious zeal,
For you, and for the common-weal,
Will be acknowledg'd and approv'd.
In the mean time, I must proceed
To tell my sov'reign of his cure;
His royal heart, I know, will bleed;
I feel myself, what he'll endure:
A Wolf must presently be got,
In such a case it is no sin,
Flay him alive, and piping hot
Wrap the King up in the Wolf's skin.
Thus Sir, if you will be directed,
Your pains will quickly be abated,
The morbid matter be ejected,
And health and vigour re-instated.

246

The Lion rising from his bed,
Proceeding without any heat
With one stroke only on the head,
Laid the Wolf breathless at his feet;
For simple vanity indited,
If the Mole's exile was decreed ,
I think the Wolf, that's so sharp-sighted,
Was with the greatest justice flay'd ,
For to vain-glory and weak pride,
He added perfidy beside.
If any here was flay'd alive,
Drawn in by any tempting snare,
To make the Queen alert and thrive,
'Twas not the Drone's plot you may swear.
But to conclude, let me advise
Pericles to withdraw his motion,
He must at last open his eyes,
'Tis so undutiful a notion;

247

Therefore, I hope, that he will use
His Sovereign better for the future;
And that you'll vote the Queen shall chuse
Whatever instrument may suit her.
As she loves bagpipes out of measure,
As Pericles is her aversion,
Indulge her royal health and pleasure,
It is an innocent diversion:
Let her old piper play his lilts,
Let him go on in his vocation;
Suffer not Pericles on stilts
To take away her consolation.
They all concurred, as you will guess,
And, as you must have pre-conceiv'd,
Drew up, and went with an address,
And were most graciously receiv'd.
The whole was nothing but collusion;
But what makes me, and should make you sick;
Pericles, chief of the confusion,
Was made the chief of the Queen's musick;
And thus these two renown'd debators,
Amus'd the people with sham matches;

248

And, like two honest gladiators ,
They made the fools pay for their scratches.
The Piper pipes, the Drones continue,
The Buzzers only gape and gaze,
Pericles, with a grand retinue,
Is humming somewhere about Hayes.

MORAL.

'Tis Anti-Mandivally true,
True as the Gospel, or St. Paul,
The private vices of a few
Will be the ruin of us all.

Mr. E. Burke.

Lord Chatham.

Mr. Bamber Gascoigne.

Right Hon. Charles Townshend.

General Conway.

Mr. Grenville.

Lord North.

Alderman Beckford.

See Judas Johnson in the word Molosses, and his ingenious conjecture about Hugger-mugger.

Dr. Samuel Johnson.

This speech assumes to be the speech of Mr. Burke; and it contains some features of a speech of that Gentleman's in the House of Commons, soon after the dismission of Lord Rockingham, and the appointment of Lord Chatham to the office of Privy Seal. The Reader will still observe, that Pericles is Lord Chatham, and the Bagpiper Lord Bute.

The Poet does not here mean literally the Queen. In every hive of bees there is one large bee, called the Queen-bee. Under this character he includes the Court; or, more properly speaking, the Closet, and the secret influence that was asserted to prevail there.

By Drones here are meant the Country Gentlemen. But in other places (particularly in the last stanza, before the moral) the word signifies the Lords of the Bedchamber, and other sinecure placemen in the court and household, who are members or peers of parliament.

Alludes to Sir Robert Walpole taking from Mr. Pitt his commission of Cornet of Horse.

When Mr. Pitt accepted the title of Earl of Chatham, his popularity suffered a temporary diminution.

This tale is an allegorical description of Lord Chatham's illness at Bath, in 1767; and of the changes in the ministry, and the coalition with the Bedford party, which took place early in the year following. The Wolf is Lord Shelburne; the Fox (or attorney) Lord Camden.

Alludes to the proscription of Lord Bute in 1763.

Lord Shelburne was removed at the instigation of the Duke of Grafton, who had been appointed minister by Lord Chatham.

Alludes to the supposed coalition between Lord Bute and Lord Chatham, in 1767.

Lord Bute.

The People.

Mandeville wrote the old Fable of the Bees.