University of Virginia Library

Hail Kew! thou darling of the tuneful nine,
Thou eating-house of verse, where poets dine;
The temple of the idol of the great,
Sacred to council-mysteries of state;
Sir Gilbert oft, in dangerous trials known,
To make the shame and felony his own,
Burns incense on thy altars, and presents
The grateful sound of clamorous discontents:
In the bold favour of thy goddess vain,
He brandishes his sword and shakes his chain.
He knows her secret workings and desires,
Her hidden attributes and vestal fires;
Like an old oak has seen her godhead fall
Beneath the wild descendant of Fingal,
And happy in the view of promised store
Forgot his dignity and held the door.
--- happy genius, comes along,
Humming the music of a Highland song:
Rough and unpolished in the tricks of state,
He plots by instinct, is by nature great.
Who, not a mantled herald, can dispute
The native grandeur of the house of Bute?
Who, not a Caledonian, can deny
By instinct all its noble branches lie?
'Tis an entailed estate upon the name,
To plunder, plot, and pillage into fame,
To live in splendour, infamy, and pride,
The guiders of the tools who seem to guide;
Or starve on honesty, in state their own,
And marshal sheep unnoticed and unknown.
--- versed in juntos and intrigues,
The fool and statesman in close union leagues;
Sits at the council's head; esteemed at most
An useful kind of circulating post,
Through whose short stage each future measure's laid,
And all the orders of the Thane conveyed.
He gives the written text by fortune wrote,
Sir Gilbert adds his necessary note.
Dyson, a plodding animal of state,
Who's classically little, to be great;
An instrument, made use of to record
The future witty speeches of his lord:
To write epistles to his powerful dame,
And in the dark supply his loss of flame;
To sell preferment; grovel in the dust,
The slave of interest and the slave of lust;
To lick his lordship's shoes, and find a flaw
In every statute that opposed his law;
To carry orders to the guiding tool,
To flatter --- with the hopes of rule;
To send congratulations to the man,
Who stands so well affected to the clan—
(To --- whose conscientious mind
Does universal service to mankind,
When, red with justice and the royal cause,
His bloody musket shook with court-applause:
When monarchs, representatives of God,
Honoured the rascal with a gracious nod,
Three ghosts in George's sanguine field were seen,
And two struck horror into Bethnal Green;
Soft Pity's voice, unnoticed by the Crown,
Stole in a murmur through the weeping town;
And Freedom, wandering restless and alone,
Saw no redress expected from the throne,
Then bade remonstrance wear a bolder dress,
And loudly supplicate, and force success:
--- heard, and, resting on his mace,
“The usual fees, my lord, and state the case.”
“Three thousand, and reversion to your son:”
“The seals, my lord, are mine, the matter's done.”
“This house of foolish cits, and drunken boys,
Offends my ears, like Broderip's horrid noise:
'Tis a flat riot by the statute made,
Destructive to our happiness and trade.”
“Thy action, --- is just in law,
In the defence of ministry I'll draw;
Nor doubt I, when in solemn pomp arrayed,
To act as bravely, be as richly paid.”
So --- spoke, and in his usual way
When giving out his syllables for pay,
With happy fluency he scattered round
His nicely culled varieties of sound,
Unmeaning, unconnected, false, unfair:
All he can boast is modulated air)—
To bribe the common council to protest;
To learn a witless alderman to jest;
The father of the city to deprave,
And add the hummed apostate to the knave,
Who wisely disinherits his first-born,
And doats upon the blossom of his horn;
To fill up places by preferment void,
Is Dyson by the quadruples employed;
He bears the message of the gartered Fate,
The running footman to the favoured great:
When spent with labour, overgrown with spoil,
Some barony or earldom pays his toil.

Whilst two chief actors wisely keep away,
And two before the mystic curtain play;
The goddess, mourning for her absent god,
Approves the flying measures with a nod.
Her approbation, with her power combined,
Exalts her tools above the common kind.
She turns the movements of the dark machine,
Nor is her management of state unseen;
Regardless of the world, she still turns round,
And tumbles --- to his native ground.
Great in possession of a mystic ring,
She leads the Lords and Commons in a string.
Where is the modest Muse of Jones retired,
So bashful, so impatiently admired?
Ah! is that noble emulation dead,
Which bade the laurels blossom on his head,
When Kew's enchanting heap of stones was sung
In strains superior to a mortal tongue,
And kitchen-gardens most luxurious glowed
With flowers which ne'er in Mayor's window blowed;
Where cabbages, exotic'ly divine,
Were tagged in feet, and measured with a line?
Ah! what invention graced the happy strain;
Well might the laureate bard of Kew be vain!
Thy Clifton too! how justly is the theme
As much the poet's as his jingling dream.
Who but a Muse inventive, great, like thine,
Could honour Bristol with a nervous line?
What generous, honest genius would have sold
To knaves and catamites his praise for gold?
To leave alone the notions which disgrace
This hawking, peddling, catamitish place,
Did not thy iron conscience blush to write
This Tophet of the gentle arts polite?
Lost to all learning, elegance, and sense,
Long had the famous city told her pence;
Avarice sat brooding in her white-washed cell,
And pleasure had a hut at Jacob's Well.
Poor Hickey, ruined by his fine survey,
Perpetuates Elton in the saving lay.
A mean assembly-room, absurdly built,
Boasted one gorgeous lamp of copper gilt;
With farthing candles, chandeliers of tin,
And services of water, rum, and gin.
There, in the dull solemnity of wigs,
The dancing bears of commerce murder jigs;
Here dance the dowdy belles of crooked trunk,
And often, very often, reel home drunk;
Here dance the bucks with infinite delight,
And club to pay the fiddlers for the night,
While Broderip's hum-drum symphonies of flats
Rival the harmony of midnight cats.
What charms has music, when great Broderip sweats
To torture sound to what his brother sets!
With scraps of ballad tunes, and gude Scotch sangs,
Which god-like Ramsay to his bagpipe twangs,
With tattered fragments of forgotten plays,
With Playford's melody to Sternhold's lays,
This pipe of science, mighty Broderip, comes,
And a strange, unconnected jumble thrums.
Roused to devotion in a sprightly air,
Danced into piety, and jigged to prayer;
A modern hornpipe's murder greets our ears,
The heavenly music of domestic spheres;
The flying band in swift transition hops
Through all the tortured, vile burlesque of stops.
Sacred to sleep, in superstitious key
Dull, doleful diapasons die away;
Sleep spreads his silken wings, and lulled by sound,
The vicar slumbers, and the snore goes round;
Whilst Broderip at his passive organ groans
Through all his slow variety of tones.
How unlike Allen! Allen is divine!
His touch is sentimental, tender, fine;
No little affectations e'er disgraced
His more refined, his sentimental taste:
He keeps the passions with the sound in play,
And the soul trembles with the trembling key.

The groves of Kew, however misapplied
To serve the purposes of lust and pride,
Were, by the greater monarch's care, designed
A place of conversation for the mind;
Where solitude and silence should remain,
And conscience keep her sessions and arraign.
But ah! how fallen from that better state!
'Tis now a heathen temple of the great,
Where sits the female pilot of the helm,
Who shakes oppression's fetters through the realm.
Her name is Tyranny, and in a string
She leads the shadow of an infant king;
Dispenses favours with a royal hand,
And marks, like destiny, what lord shall stand;
Her four-fold representative displays
How future statesmen may their fortune raise;
While thronging multitudes their offerings bring,
And bards, like Jones, their panegyrics sing.
The loyal aldermen, a troop alone,
Protest their infamy, to serve the throne;
The merchant-tailor minister declares
He'll mutilate objections with his shears.
Sir Robert, in his own importance big,
Settles his potent, magisterial wig;
Having another legacy in view,
Accepts the measure and improves it too.
Before the altar all the suppliants bow,
And would repeat a speech if they knew how;
A gracious nod the speaking image gave,
And scattered honours upon every knave.
The loyal sons of Caledonia came,
And paid their secret homage to the dame,
Then swore, by all their hopes of future reign,
Each measure of the junto to maintain,
The orders of the ministry to take,
And honour --- for his father's sake.
Well pleased, the goddess dignified his grace,
And scattered round the benefits of place;
With other pensions blessed his lordship's post,
And smiled on murdered --- injured ghost.
Through all the happy lovers' numerous clan
The inexhausted tides of favour ran:
---, ---, happy in a name,
Emerged from poverty to wealth and fame;
And English taxes paid (and scarcely too)
The noble generosity of Kew.
Kew! happy subject for a lengthened lay,
Though thousands write, there's something still to say;
Thy garden's elegance, thy owner's state,
The highest in the present list of fate,
Are subjects where the muse may wildly range,
Unsatiate, in variety of change;
But hold, my dedication is forgot;
Now—shall I praise some late-ennobled Scot?
Exalt the motto of a Highland lord,
And prove him great, like Guthrie, by record?
(Though were the truth to all the nobles known,
The vouchers he refers to are his own.)
Shall I trace ---'s powerful pedigree,
Or show him an attorney's clerk, like me?
Or shall I rather give to --- its due,
And to a Burgum recommend my Kew?
Why sneers the sapient Broughton at the man?
Broughton can't boast the merit Burgum can.
How lofty must imagination soar,
To reach absurdities unknown before!
Thanks to thy pinions, Broughton, thou hast brought
From the moon's orb a novelty of thought.

Burgum wants learning—see the lettered throng
Banter his English in a Latin song.
If in his jests a discord should appear,
A dull lampoon is innocently dear:
Ye sage, Broughtonian, self-sufficient fools,
Is this the boasted justice of your schools?
Burgum has parts, parts which will set aside
The laboured acquisitions of your pride;
Uncultivated now his genius lies,
Instruction sees his latent talents rise;
His gold is bullion, yours debased with brass,
Impressed with folly's head to make it pass.
But Burgum swears so loud, so indiscreet,
His thunders echo through the listening street;
Ye rigid Christians, formally severe,
Blind to his charities, his oaths you hear;
Observe his actions—calumny must own
A noble soul is in these actions shown:
Though dark this bright original you paint,
I'd rather be a Burgum than a saint.

Hail, Inspiration! whose Cimmerian night
Gleams into day with every flying light:
If Moses caught thee at the parted flood;
If David found thee in a sea of blood;
If Mahomet with slaughter drenched thy soil,
On loaded asses bearing off the spoil;
If thou hast favoured Pagan, Turk, or Jew,
Say, had not Broughton inspiration too?
Such rank absurdities debase his line,
I almost could have sworn he copied thine.
Hail, Inspiration! whose auspicious ray
Immortalized great Armstrong in a day:
Armstrong, whose Caledonian genius flies
Above the reach of humble judgment's ties;
Whose lines prosaic regularly creep,
Sacred to dulness and congenial sleep.
Hail, Inspiration! whose mysterious wings
Are strangers to what rigid [Johnson] sings;
By him thy airy voyages are curbed,
Nor moping wisdom's by thy flight disturbed;
To ancient lore and musty precepts bound,
Thou art forbid the range of fairy ground.
Irene creeps so classical and dry,
None but a Greek philosopher can cry;
Through five long acts unlettered heroes sleep,
And critics by the square of learning weep.
Hark! what's the horrid bellowing from the stage?
Oh! 'tis the ancient chorus of the age;
Grown wise, the judgment of the town refines,
And in a philosophic habit shines;
Models each pleasure in scholastic taste,
And heavenly Greece is copied and disgraced.
The False Alarm, in style and subject great,
The mighty Atlas of a falling state,
Which makes us happy, insolent, and free,
O god-like Inspiration! came from thee.
--- whose brazen countenance, like mine,
Scorns in the polish of a blush to shine,
Scrupled to vindicate his fallen Grace,
Or hint he acted right—till out of place.
Why will the lovers of the truth deplore
That miracles and wonders are no more?
Why will the deists, impudently free,
Assert what cannot now, could never be?
Why will religion suffer the reproach,
Since --- dresses well and keeps a coach?
Bristol and --- have bestowed their pence,
And --- after --- echoed sense.
Since --- once by providence, or chance,
Tumbled his lengthening quavers in a dance:
Since Catcott seemed to reason, and display
The meaning of the words he meant to say:
Since Warburton, his native pride forgot,
Bowed to the garment of the ruling Scot;
And offered --- ghost (a welcome gift)
And hoped, in gratitude, to have a lift;
An universal primacy, at least,
A fit reward for such a stirring priest:
Since Horne imprudently displayed his zeal,
And made his foe the powerful reasons feel:
Since --- has meaning in his last discourse:
Since --- borrowed honesty by force,
And trembled at the measures of the friend
His infant conscience shuddered to defend:
Since --- in his race of vice outrun,
Scrupled to do what --- since hath done.
Hail, Inspiration! Catcott learns to preach,
And classic Lee attempts by thee to teach;
By inspiration North directs his tools,
And [Bute] above by inspiration rules,
Distils the thistles of the gartered crew,
And drains the sacred reservoirs of Kew.
Inspired with hopes of rising in the kirk,
Here --- whines his Sunday's journey-work;
Soft --- undeniably a saint,
Whimpers in accent so extremely faint,
You see the substance of his empty prayer,
His nothing to the purpose in his air;
His sermons have no arguments, 'tis true,
Would you have sense and pretty figures too?
With what a swimming elegance and ease
He scatters out distorted similes!
It matters not how wretchedly applied,
Saints are permitted to set sense aside:
This oratorial novelty in town
Dies into fame, and ogles to renown;
The dowdy damsels of his chosen tribe
Are fee'd to heaven, his person is the bribe;
All who can superficial talk admire,
His vanity, not beauty, sets on fire:
Enough of --- let him ogle still,
Convince with nonsense, and with foppery kill,
Pray for the secret measures of the great,
And hope the Lord will regulate the state:
Florid as Klopstock, and as quick as me
At double epithet or simile;
His despicable talents cannot harm
Those who defy a Johnson's “False Alarm.”
Hail, Inspiration! piously I kneel,
And call upon thy sacred name with zeal;
Come, spread thy sooty pinions o'er my pen,
Teach me the secrets of the lords of men;
In visionary prospects let me see
How [Bute] employs his sense, derived from thee;
Display the mystic Sibyl of the isle,
And dress her wrinkled features in a smile;
Of past and secret measures let me tell,
How [Grafton] pilfered power, and Chatham fell:
Chatham, whose patriotic actions wear
One single brand of infamy—the peer;
Whose popularity again thinks fit
To lose the coronet, revive the Pitt;
And in the upper house (where leading peers
Practise a minuet step, or scratch their ears)
He warmly undertakes to plead the cause
Of injured liberty, and broken laws.
Hail, Inspiration! from whose fountain flow
The strains which circulate through all the Row,
With humblest reverence thy aid I ask,
For this laborious and herculean task.
How difficult to make a piece go down
With booksellers, reviewers, and the town;
None with a Christian, charitable love,
A kind and fixed intention to approve,
The wild excursions of the Muse will read.
Alas! I was not born beyond the Tweed!
To public favour I have no pretence,
If public favour is the child of sense:
To paraphrase on Home in Armstrong's rhymes,
To decorate Fingal in sounding chimes,
The self-sufficient Muse was never known,
But shines in trifling dulness all her own.
Where, rich with painted bricks and lifeless white,
Four dirty alleys in a cross unite,
Where avaricious sons of commerce meet
To do their public business in the street;
There stands a dome to dulness ever dear,
Where --- models justice by the square;
Where bulky aldermen display their sense,
And Bristol patriots wager out their pence:
Here, in the malice of my stars confin'd,
I call the Muses to divert my mind;
Come, Inspiration! mysticly instil
The spirit of a --- in my quill,
An equal terror to the small and great,
To lash an alderman or knave of state.

Here --- thundering through the spacious court,
Grounds equity on Jeffries's report;
And oft, explaining to the lords of trade,
Proves himself right by statutes never made;
In --- able politicians see
Another --- in epitome.
If good Sir --- did not bawl so loud,
What has he else superior to the crowd?
His peruke boasts solemnity of law:
E'en there might counsellors detect a flaw.
But Providence is just, as doctors tell,
That triple mystery's a good sentinel;
Was --- not so noisy, and more wise,
The body corporate would close its eyes.
Useless the satire, stoically wise,
Bristol can literary rubs despise;
You'll wonder whence the wisdom may proceed,
'Tis doubtful if her aldermen can read;
This as a certainty the Muse may tell,
None of her common-councilmen can spell:
Why, busy --- wilt thou trouble ---
Their worships hear, and understand like thee.

Few beings absolutely boast the man,
Few have the understanding of a Spanne;
Every idea of a city mind
Is to commercial incidents confined:
True! some exceptions to this general rule
Can show the merchant blended with the fool.
--- with magisterial air commits;
--- presides the chief of city wits;
In jigs and country-dances --- shines,
And --- slumbers over Mallet's lines:
His ample visage, oft on nothing bent,
Sleeps in vacuity of sentiment.
When in the venerable gothic hall,
Where fetters rattle, evidences bawl,
Puzzled in thought by equity or law,
Into their inner room his senses draw;
There, as they snore in consultation deep,
The foolish vulgar deem him fast asleep.

If silent --- senatorial pride
Rose into being as his avarice died,
Scattering his hundreds, rattling in his coach,
What mortal wonders at the fair ---
Though royal horners burn in powdered flames,
When fell the pretty nymph of many names?
Still we behold her fiery virtue stand,
As firm as --- regulating band.
--- within whose sacerdotal face,
Add all the honorary signs of grace;
Great in his accent, greater in his size,
But mightier still in turtle and mince-pies:
Whose entertaining flows of eloquence,
In spite of affectation, will be sense.
Why, patriotic [Johnson], art thou still?
What pensioned lethargy has seized thy quill?
Hast thou forgot the murmurs of applause
Which buzzed about the leader of the cause;
When, dressed in metaphors, the fluent ---
Rose from his chair, and slumbering drawled his speech?
When --- fired with loyalty and place,
Forsook his breeding to defend his Grace:
And saving --- from a furious blow,
Insisted on his plan, a double row.
Rise --- bid remonstrance tell the throne,
When freedom suffers, London's not alone:
Take off the load of infamy and shame
Which lies on Bristol's despicable name;
Revive thy ardour for thy country's cause,
And live again in honour and applause.
Alas! the patriot listens to his whore,
And popularity is heard no more;
The dying voice of liberty's forgot,
No more he drinks damnation to the Scot.
--- no longer in his quarrel fights;
No further dulness witty --- writes:
In organs and an organist renowned,
He rises into notice by a sound,
Commemorates his spirit in a tone,
By --- created, rival of a groan:
O be his taste immortal as the lays!
For --- invents and tuneful [Broderip] plays;
And this harmonious jangling of the spheres,
To give the whole connexion, Bristol hears.

Hail, Kew! thy more important powers I sing,
Powers which direct the conscience of a king;
The English number daringly would soar
To thy first power, [the Babylonish whore.]
Come, Newton, and assist me to explain
The hidden meanings of the present reign.
Newton, accept the tribute of a line
From one whose humble genius honours thine;
Mysterious shall the mazy numbers seem,
To give thee matter for a future dream;
Thy happy talent, meanings to untie,
My vacancy of meaning may supply;
And where the Muse is witty in a dash,
Thy explanations may enforce the lash.
How shall the line, grown servile in respect,
To North or Sandwich infamy direct?
Unless a wise ellipsis intervene,
How shall I satirize the sleepy dean?
Perhaps the Muse might fortunately strike
A highly finished picture, very like;
But deans are all so lazy, dull, and fat,
None could be certain worthy Barton sat.
Come then, my Newton, leave the musty lines
Where Revelation's farthing-candle shines;
In search of hidden truths let others go—
Be thou the fiddler to my puppet-show.
What are these hidden truths but secret lies,
Which from diseased imaginations rise?
What if our politicians should succeed
In fixing up the ministerial creed,
Who could such golden arguments refuse,
Which melts and proselytes the hardened Jews?
When universal reformation bribes
With words and wealthy metaphors, the tribes,
To empty pews the brawny chaplain swears,
Whilst none but trembling superstition hears.
When ministers, with sacerdotal hands,
Baptize the flock in streams of golden sands,
Through every town conversion wings her way,
And conscience is a prostitute for pay.

Faith removes mountains; like a modern dean,
Faith can see virtues which were never seen:
Our pious ministry this sentence quote,
To prove their instrument's superior vote;
Whilst Luttrell, happy in his lordship's voice,
Bids faith persuade us 'tis the people's choice.
This mountain of objections to remove,
This knotty, rotten argument to prove,
Faith insufficient, Newton caught the pen,
And proved by demonstration, one was ten:
What boots it if he reasoned right or no?
'Twas orthodox—the Thane would have it so.
Whoe'er shall doubts and false conclusions draw
Against the inquisition of the law,
With gaolers, chains, and pillories must plead,
And Mansfield's conscience settle right his creed.
“Is Mansfield's conscience then,” will Freedom cry,
“A standard-block to dress our notions by?
Why, what a blunder has the fool let fall!
That Mansfield has no conscience, none at all!”
Pardon me, Freedom, this and something more
The knowing writer might have known before;
But, bred in Bristol's mercenary cell,
Compelled in scenes of avarice to dwell,
What generous passion can my dross refine?
What besides interest can direct the line?
And should a galling truth, like this, be told
By me, instructed here to slave for gold,
My prudent neighbours (who can read) would see
Another Savage to be starved in me.
Faith is a powerful virtue everywhere;
By this once Bristol dressed, for Cato, Clare;
But now the blockheads grumble, Nugent's made
Lord of this idol, being lord of trade.
They bawled for Clare, when little in their eyes,
But cannot to the titled villain rise.
This state-credulity, a bait for fools,
Employs his lordship's literary tools;
Murphy, a bishop of the chosen sect,
A ruling pastor of the Lord's elect,
Keeps journals, posts, and magazines in awe,
And parcels out his daily statute-law.
Would you the bard's veracity dispute?
He borrows persecution's scourge of Bute,
An excommunication-satire writes,
And the slow mischief trifles till it bites.
This faith, the subject of a late divine,
Is not as unsubstantial as his line;
Though, blind and dubious to behold the right,
Its optics mourn a fixed Egyptian night,
Yet things unseen are seen so very clear,
She knew fresh muster would begin the year;
She knows that North, by Bute and conscience led,
Will hold his honours till his favour's dead,
She knows that Martin, ere he can be great,
Must practise at the target of the state:
If then his erring pistol should not kill,
Why Martin must remain a traitor still.
His gracious mistress, generous to the brave,
Will not neglect the necessary knave;
Since pious Chudleigh is become her Grace,
Martin turns pimp, to occupy her place.
Say, Rigby, in the honours of the door,
How properly a rogue succeeds a whore!
She knows (the subject almost slipt my quill
Lost in that pistol of a woman's will)—
She knows that Bute will exercise his rod,
The worthiest of the worthy sons of God.

Ah! (exclaims Catcott) this is saying much;
The Scripture tells us peace-makers are such.
Who can dispute his title? Who deny
What taxes and oppressions testify?
Who of the Thane's beatitude can doubt?
Oh! was but North as sure of being out!
And (as I end whatever I begin)
Was Chatham but as sure of being in!
Bute, foster-child of fate, dear to a dame
Whom satire freely would, but dare not, name—
(Ye plodding barristers, who hunt a flaw,
What treason would you from the sentence draw?
Tremble, and stand attentive as a dean,
Know, Royal Favour is the dame I mean.
To sport with royalty my Muse forbears,
And kindly takes compassion on my ears.
When once Shibbeare in glorious triumph stood
Upon a rostrum of distinguished wood,
Who then withheld his guinea or his praise,
Or envied him his crown of English bays?
But now Modestus, truant to the cause,
Assists the pioneers who sap the laws,
Wreaths infamy around a sinking pen,
Who could withhold the pillory again?)—
Bute, lifted into notice by the eyes
Of one whose optics always set to rise—
Forgive a pun, ye rationals, forgive
A flighty youth, as yet unlearnt to live;
When I have conned each sage's musty rule,
I may with greater reason play the fool;
Burgum and I, in ancient lore untaught,
Are always with our natures in a fault;
Though Camplin would instruct us in the part,
Our stubborn morals will not err by art.
Having in various starts from order strayed,
We'll call imagination to our aid—
See Bute astride upon a wrinkled hag,
His hand replenished with an opened bag,
Whence fly the ghosts of taxes and supplies,
The sales of places, and the last excise!
Upon the ground, in seemly order laid,
The Stuarts stretched the majesty of plaid;
Rich with the peer, dependants bowed the head,
And saw their hopes arising from the dead.
His countrymen were mustered into place,
And a Scotch piper rose above his Grace.
But say, astrologers, could this be strange?
The lord of the ascendant ruled the change;
And music, whether bagpipes, fiddles, drums,
All that has sense or meaning overcomes.
See now this universal favourite Scot,
His former native poverty forgot,
The highest member of the car of state,
Where well he plays at blindman's buff with fate;
If fortune condescends to bless his play,
And drop a rich Havannah in his way,
He keeps it, with intention to release
All conquests at the general day of peace:
When first and foremost to divide the spoil,
Some millions down might satisfy his toil;
To guide the car of war he fancied not,
Where honour and no money could be got.
The Scots have tender honours to a man:
Honour's the tie that bundles up the clan:
They want one requisite to be divine,
One requisite in which all others shine;
They're very poor; then who can blame the hand
Which polishes by wealth its native land?
And to complete the worth possessed before,
Gives every Scotchman one perfection more;
Nobly bestows the infamy of place,
And Campbell struts about in doubled lace?
Who says Bute bartered peace, and wisely sold
His king, his unioned countrymen, for gold?
When ministerial hirelings proofs deny,
If Musgrave could not prove it, how can I?
No facts unwarranted shall soil my quill,
Suffice it there's a strong suspicion still.
When Bute his iron rod of favour shook,
And bore his haughty temper in his look;
Not yet contented with his boundless sway,
Which all perforce must outwardly obey,
He thought to throw his chain upon the mind;
Nor would he leave conjecture unconfined.
We saw his measures wrong, and yet, in spite
Of reason, we must think those measures right;
Whilst curbed and checked by his imperious reign,
We must be satisfied, and not complain.
Complaints are libels, as the present age
Are all instructed by a law-wise sage,
Who, happy in his eloquence and fees,
Advances to preferment by degrees:
Trembles to think of such a daring step
As from a tool to Chancellor to leap;
But, lest his prudence should the law disgrace,
He keeps a longing eye upon the mace.
Whilst Bute was suffered to pursue his plan,
And ruin freedom as he raised the clan;
Could not his pride, his universal pride,
With working undisturbed be satisfied?
But when we saw the villany and fraud,
What conscience but a Scotchman's could applaud?
But yet 'twas nothing—cheating in our sight,
We should have hummed ourselves, and thought him right!
This faith, established by the mighty Thane,
Will long outlive the system of the Dane;
This faith—but now the number must be brief,
All human things are centred in belief;
And (or the philosophic sages dream)
All our most true ideas only seem:
Faith is a glass to rectify our sight,
And teach us to distinguish wrong from right.
By this corrected, Bute appears a Pitt,
And candour marks the lines which Murphy writ;
Then let this faith support our ruined cause,
And give us back our liberties and laws:
No more complain of favourites made by lust,
No more think Chatham's patriot reasons just,
But let the Babylonish harlot see
We to her Baal bow the humble knee.
Lost in the praises of that favourite Scot,
My better theme, my Newton, was forgot:
Blessed with a pregnant wit, and never known
To boast of one impertinence his own,
He warped his vanity to serve his God,
And in the paths of pious Fathers trod.
Though genius might have started something new,
He honoured lawn, and proved his scripture true;
No literary worth presumed upon,
He wrote, the understrapper of St. John;
Unravelled every mystic simile,
Rich in the faith, and fanciful as me;
Pulled Revelation's sacred robes aside,
And saw what priestly modesty would hide;
Then seized the pen, and with a good intent
Discovered hidden meanings never meant.
The reader who, in carnal notions bred,
Has Athanasius without reverence read,
Will make a scurvy kind of Lenten feast
Upon the tortured offals of The Beast:
But if, in happy superstition taught,
He never once presumed to doubt in thought;
Like Catcott, lost in prejudice and pride,
He takes the literal meaning for his guide;
Let him read Newton, and his bill of fare:—
What prophecies unprophesied are there!
In explanations he's so justly skilled,
The pseudo-prophet's mysteries are fulfilled;
No superficial reasons have disgraced
The worthy prelate's sacerdotal taste;
No flimsy arguments he holds to view,
Like Camplin, he affirms it, and 'tis true.
Faith, Newton, is the tottering churchman's crutch,
On which our blest religion builds so much;
Thy fame would feel the loss of this support,
As much as Sawney's instruments at court;
For secret services without a name,
And mysteries in religion, are the same.
But to return to state, from whence the Muse
In wild digression smaller themes pursues;
And rambling from his Grace's magic rod,
Descends to lash the ministers of God.
Both are adventures perilous and hard,
And often bring destruction on the bard;
For priests, and hireling ministers of state,
Are priests in love, infernals in their hate:
The church, no theme for satire, scorns the lash,
And will not suffer scandal in a dash:
Not Bute so tender in his spotless fame,
Not Bute so careful of his lady's name.

Has sable lost its virtue? Will the bell
No longer scare a straying sprite to hell?
Since souls, when animating flesh, are sold
For benefices, bishoprics, and gold;
Since mitres, nightly laid upon the breast,
Can charm the night-mare conscience into rest;
And learn'd exorcists very lately made
Greater improvements in the living trade;
Since Warburton (of whom in future rhymes)
Has settled reformation on the times;
Whilst from the teeming press his numbers fly,
And, like his reasons, just exist and die;
Since, in the steps of clerical degree,
All through the telescope of fancy see;
(Though Fancy under Reason's lash may fall,
Yet Fancy in Religion's all in all):
Amongst these cassocked worthies, is there one
Who has the conscience to be Freedom's son?
Horne, patriotic Horne, will join the cause,
And tread on mitres to procure applause.
Prepare thy book and sacerdotal dress
To lay a walking spirit of the press,
Who knocks at midnight at his lordship's door,
And roars in hollow voice—“a hundred more!”
“A hundred more!” his rising greatness cries,
Astonishment and terror in his eyes;
“A hundred more! by G*d, I won't comply!”
“Give,” quoth the voice, “I'll raise a hue and cry;
On a wrong scent the leading beagle's gone,
Your interrupted measures may go on;
Grant what I ask, I'll witness to the Thane,
I'm not another Fanny of Cock Lane.”
“Enough,” says Mungo, “re-assume the quill;
And what we can afford to give, we will.”

When Bute, the ministry and people's head,
With royal favour pensioned Johnson dead;
His works, in undeserved oblivion sunk,
Were read no longer, and the man was drunk.
Some blockhead, ever envious of his fame,
Massacred Shakespeare in the doctor's name:
The public saw the cheat, and wondered not—
Death is of all mortality the lot.
Kenrick has wrote his elegy, and penned
A piece of decent praise for such a friend;
And universal cat-calls testified
How mourned the critics when the genius died.
But now, though strange the fact to deists seem,
His ghost is risen in a venal theme,
And emulation maddened all the Row
To catch the strains which from a spectre flow,
And print the reasons of a bard deceased,
Who once gave all the town a weekly feast.
As beer, to every drinking purpose dead,
Is to a wondrous metamorphose led,
And opened to the actions of the winds,
In vinegar a resurrection finds;
His genius dead, and decently interred,
The clamorous noise of duns sonorous heard,
Soured into life, assumed the heavy pen,
And saw existence for an hour again;
Scattered his thoughts spontaneous from his brain,
And proved we had no reason to complain;
Whilst from his fancy figures budded out,
As hair on humid carcases will sprout.
Horne! set this restless, shallow spirit still,
And from his venal fingers snatch the quill.
If, in defiance of the priestly word,
He still will scribble floridly absurd,
North is superior in a potent charm
To lay the terrors of a “False Alarm:”
Another hundred added to his five,
No longer is the stumbling-block alive;
Fixed in his chair, contented and at home,
The busy “Rambler” will no longer roam.
Released from servitude (such 'tis to think)
He'll prove it perfect happiness to drink:
Once (let the lovers of Irene weep)
He thought it perfect happiness to sleep.
Irene, wondrous composition, came,
To give the audience rest, the author fame;
A snore was much more grateful than a clap,
And pit, box, gallery, proved it in a nap.
Hail Johnson! chief of bards, thy rigid laws
Bestowed due praise, and critics snored applause.

If from the humblest station, in a place
By writers fixed eternal in disgrace,
Long in the literary world unknown
To all but scribbling blockheads of its own;
Then only introduced, unhappy fate!
The subject of a satire's little hate;
Whilst equally the butt of ridicule,
The town was dirty, and the bard a fool:—
If from this place, where catamites are found
To swarm like Scots on honorary ground,
I may presume to exercise the pen,
And write a greeting to the best of men:
Health to the ruling minister I send,
Nor has that minister a better friend.
Greater, perhaps, in titles, pensions, place,
He inconsiderately prefers his Grace.
Ah, North! a humble bard is better far,
Friendship was never found near Grafton's star;
Bishops are not by office orthodox:
Who'd wear a title, when they've titled Fox?
Nor does the honorary shame stop here,
Have we not Weymouth, Barrington, and Clare?
If noble murders, as in tale we're told,
Made heroes of the ministers of old,
In noble murders Barrington's divine,
His merit claims the laureated line.
Let officers of train-bands wisely try
To save the blood of citizens, and fly
When some bold urchin beats his drum in sport,
Or tragic trumpets entertain the court;
The captain flies through every lane in town,
And safe from danger wears his civic crown:
Our noble Secretary scorned to run,
But with his magic wand discharged the gun.
I leave him to the comforts of his breast,
And midnight ghosts, to howl him into rest.
Health to the minister, of [Bute] the tool,
Who with the little vulgar seems to rule.
But since the wiser maxims of the age
Mark for a noddy Ptolemy the sage;
Since Newton and Copernicus have taught
Our blundering senses ever are in fault;
The wise look further, and the wise can see
The hands of Sawney actuating thee;
The clock-work of thy conscience turns about,
Just as his mandates wind thee in and out.
By this political machine, my rhymes
Conceive an estimation of the times;
And, as the wheels of state in measures move,
See how time passes in the world above:
Whilst tottering on the slippery edge of doubt,
Sir Fletcher sees his train-bands flying out:
Thinks the minority, acquiring state,
Will undergo a change, and soon be great.
North issues out his hundreds to the crew,
Who catch the atoms of the golden dew;
The etiquette of wise Sir Robert takes,
The doubtful stand resolved, and one forsakes;
He shackles every vote in golden chains,
And Johnson in his list of slaves maintains.
Rest, Johnson, hapless spirit, rest and drink,
No more defile thy claret-glass with ink:
In quiet sleep repose thy heavy head,
--- disdains to---upon the dead:
Administration will defend thy fame,
And pensions add importance to thy name.
When sovereign judgment owns thy works divine,
And every writer of reviews is thine,
Let busy Kenrick vent his little spleen,
And spit his venom in a magazine.
Health to the minister! nor will I dare
To pour out flattery in his noble ear;
His virtue, stoically great, disdains
Smooth adulation's entertaining strains,
And, red with virgin modesty, withdraws
From wondering crowds and murmurs of applause.
Here let no disappointed rhymer say,
Because his virtue shuns the glare of day,
And, like the conscience of a Bristol dean,
Is never by the subtlest optic seen,
That virtue is with North a priestish jest,
By which a mere nonentity's expressed.
No, North is strictly virtuous, pious, wise,
As every pensioned Johnson testifies.
But, reader, I had rather you should see
His virtues from another than from me:
Bear witness, Bristol, nobly prove that I
By thee or North was never paid to lie.
Health to the minister! his vices known,
(As every lord has vices of his own,
And all who wear a title think to shine
In forming follies foreign to his line;)
His vices shall employ my ablest pen,
And mark him out a miracle of men.
Then let the Muse the healing strain begin,
And stamp repentance upon every sin.
Why this recoil?—And will the dauntless Muse
To lash a minister of state refuse?
What! is his soul so black, thou canst not find
Aught like a human virtue in his mind?
Then draw him so, and to the public tell
Who owns this representative of hell:
Administration lifts her iron chain,
And truth must abdicate her lawful reign.

Oh, Prudence! if, by friends or counsel swayed,
I had thy saving institutes obeyed,
And, lost to every love but love of self,
A wretch like Harris, living but in pelf;
Then, happy in a coach or turtle-feast,
I might have been an alderman at least.
Sage are the arguments by which I'm taught
To curb the wild excursive flights of thought:
Let Harris wear his self-sufficient air,
Nor dare remark, for Harris is a mayor;
If Catcott's flimsy system can't be proved,
Let it alone, for Catcott's much beloved;
If Burgum bought a Bacon for a Strange,
The man has credit, and is great on 'change;
If Camplin ungrammatically spoke,
'Tis dangerous on such men to break a joke;
If you from satire could withhold the line,
At every public hall perhaps you'd dine.
“I must confess,” exclaims a prudent sage,
“You're really something clever for your age:
Your lines have sentiment, and now and then
A dash of satire stumbles from your pen:
But ah! that satire is a dangerous thing,
And often wounds the writer with its sting;
Your infant Muse should sport with other toys,
Men will not bear the ridicule of boys.
Some of the aldermen, (for some, indeed,
For want of education cannot read;
And those who can, when they aloud rehearse
What Collins, happy genius! 'titles verse,
So spin the strains sonorous through the nose,
The hearer cannot call it verse or prose,)
Some of the aldermen may take offence
At your maintaining them devoid of sense;
And if you touch their aldermanic pride,
Bid dark reflection tell how Savage died!
Go to --- and copy worthy ---
Ah! what a sharp experienced genius that:
Well he prepares his bottle and his jest,
An alderman is no unwelcome guest;
Adulterate talents and adulterate wine
May make another draw[l]ing rascal shine;
His known integrity outvies a court,
His the dull tale, original the port:
Whilst loud he entertains the sleepy cits,
And rates his wine according to his wits,
Should a trite pun by happy error please,
His worship thunders at the laughing Mease;
And --- inserts this item in his bill,
Five shillings for a jest with every gill.
How commendable this, to turn at once
To good account the vintner and the dunce,
And, by a very hocus-pocus hit,
Dispose of damaged claret and bad wit,
Search through the ragged tribe who drink small beer,
And sweetly echo in his worship's ear,—
“What are the wages of the tuneful nine,
What are their pleasures when compared to mine?
Happy I eat, and tell my numerous pence,
Free from the servitude of rhyme or sense:
The sing-song Whitehead ushers in the year
With joy to Briton's king and sovereign dear,
And, in compliance to an ancient mode,
Measures his syllables into an ode;
Yet such the sorry merit of his Muse,
He bows to deans and licks his lordship's shoes.
Then leave the wicked, barren way of rhyme,
Fly far from poverty—be wise in time—
Regard the office more—Parnassus less—
Put your religion in a decent dress;
Then may your interest in the town advance,
Above the reach of muses or romance.
Besides, the town (a sober, honest town,
Which smiles on virtue, and gives vice a frown)
Bids censure brand with infamy your name,
I, even I, must think you are to blame.
Is there a street within this spacious place
That boasts the happiness of one fair face,
Where conversation does not turn on you,
Blaming your wild amours, your morals too?
Oaths, sacred and tremendous oaths you swear,
Oaths that might shock a Luttrell's soul to hear;
These very oaths, as if a thing of joke,
Made to betray, intended to be broke;
Whilst the too tender and believing maid,
(Remember pretty Fanny) is betrayed;
Then your religion—ah, beware! beware!
Although a deist is no monster here,
Yet hide your tenets—priests are powerful foes,
And priesthood fetters justice by the nose:
Think not the merit of a jingling song
Can countenance the author's acting wrong;
Reform your manners, and with solemn air
Hear Catcott bray, and Robins squeak in prayer.
Robins, a reverend, cully-mully puff,
Who thinks all sermons, but his own, are stuff;
When harping on the dull, unmeaning text,
By disquisitions he's so sore perplexed,
He stammers, instantaneously is drawn
A bordered piece of inspiration-lawn,
Which being thrice unto his nose applied,
Into his pineal gland the vapours glide;
And now we hear the jingling doctor roar
On subjects he dissected thrice before.
Honour the scarlet robe, and let the quill
Be silent when old Isaac eats his fill.
Regard thy interest, ever love thyself,
Rise into notice as you rise in pelf;
The Muses have no credit here, and fame
Confines itself to the mercántile name.
Then clip Imagination's wing, be wise,
And great in wealth, to rëal greatness rise.
Or if you must persist to sing and dream,
Let only panegyric be your theme;
With pulpit adulation tickle Cutts,
And wreathe with ivy Garden's tavern-butts;
Find sentiment in Dampier's empty look,
Genius in Collins, harmony in Rooke;
Swear Broderip's horrid noise the tuneful spheres,
And rescue Pindar from the songs of Shears.
Would you still further raise the fairy ground,
Praise Broughton,—for his eloquence profound,
His generosity, his sentiment,
His active fancy, and his thoughts on Lent:
Make North a Chatham, canonize his Grace,
And beg a pension, or procure a place.”

Damned narrow notions! notions which disgrace
The boasted reason of the human race:
Bristol may keep her prudent maxims still,
I scorn her prudence, and I ever will:
Since all my vices magnified are here,
She cannot paint me worse than I appear;
When raving in the lunacy of ink,
I catch my pen, and publish what I think.

Damned narrow notions! tending to disgrace
The boasted reason of the human race.
Bristol may keep her prudent maxims still,
But know, my saving friends, I never will.
The composition of my soul is made
Too great for servile, avaricious trade;
When raving in the lunacy of ink,
I catch the pen, and publish what I think.
North is a creature, and the king's misled;
Mansfield and Norton came as justice fled;
Few of our ministers are over wise:—
Old Harpagon's a cheat, and Taylor lies.
When cooler judgment actuates my brain,
My cooler judgment still approves the strain;
And if a horrid picture greets your view,
Where it continues still, if copied true.
Though in the double infamy of lawn
The future bishopric of Barton's drawn,
Protect me, fair ones, if I durst engage
To serve ye in this catamitish age,
To exercise a passion banished hence,
And summon satire in to your defence.
Woman, of every happiness the best,
Is all my heaven,—religion is a jest.
Nor shall the Muse in any future book
With awe upon the chains of favour look:
North shall in all his vices be displayed,
And Warburton in lively pride arrayed;
Sandwich shall undergo the healing lash,
And read his character without a dash;
Mansfield, surrounded by his dogs of law,
Shall see his picture drawn in every flaw;
Luttrell (if satire can descend so low)
Shall all his native little vices show;
And Grafton, though prudentially resigned,
Shall view a striking copy of his mind;
Whilst iron Justice, lifting up her scales,
Shall weigh the Princess Dowager of Wales.