An epistle to Dr. Shebbeare to which is added an ode to Sir Fletcher Norton, in imitation of Horace, ode VIII. Book IV. By Malcolm Macgreggor [i.e. William Mason] |
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 | An epistle to Dr. Shebbeare |  |
AN EPISTLE TO DR. SHEBBEARE.
Like Johnson's, arm'd with words of six feet long,
In multitudinous vociferation
To panegyricize this glorious nation,
Whose liberty results from her taxation.
That by its prostitution proves its merit!
That rests on right divine, all regal claims,
And gives to George, whate'er it gave to James:
Then should my Tory numbers, old Shebbeare,
Tickle the tatter'd fragment of thy ear!
Then all that once was virtuous, wise, or brave,
That quell'd a tyrant, that abhorr'd a slave,
Then Sydney's, Russel's patriot fame should fall,
Besmear'd with mire, like black Dalrymple's gall,
Then, like thy prose, should my felonious verse
Tear each immortal plume from Nassau's hearse,
That modern monarchs, in that plumage gay,
Might stare and strut, the peacocks of a day.
But I, like Ansty, feel myself unfit
To run, with hollow speed, two heats of wit.
The betts ran high on Bladud's Cicerone;
Since distanc'd quite, like a gall'd jade he winces,
And lashes unknown priests , and praises well-known princes.
So I, when first I tun'd th'heroic lay,
Gain'd Pownall's praise, as well as Almon's pay.
In me the nation plac'd its tuneful hope,
Its second Churchill, or at least its Pope:
Proudly I prick'd along, Sir William's squire,
Bade kings recite my strains and queens admire;
Chaste maids of honour prais'd my stout endeavour,
Sir Thomas swore “The fellow was damn'd clever.”
And flits as soon from poets as from kings.
My pompous Postscript found itself disdain'd
As much as Milton's Paradise regain'd—
And when I dar'd the Patent Snuffers handle,
To trim, with Pinchy's aid, Old England's candle,
The lyric muse, so lame was her condition,
Could hardly hop beyond a third edition.
Yes, 'tis a general truth, and strange as true,
(Kenrick shall prove it in his next Review)
That no one bard, in these degenerate days,
Can write two works deserving equal praise.
Whether the matter of which minds are made
Be grown of late mephitic and decay'd,
Or wants phlogiston, I forbear to say,
The problem's more in Doctor Priestley's way.
He knows of spirit the material whole,
For Priestley has the cure of Sh*lb---e's soul .
Shebbeare! to pay a compliment to thine:
Which forg'd, of old, of strong Hibernian brass,
Shines through the Paris plaister of thy face,
And bronzes it, secure from shame, or sense,
To the flat glare of finish'd impudence.
Wretch! that from Slander's filth art ever gleaning,
Spite without spirit, malice without meaning:
The same abusive, base, abandon'd thing,
When pilloried, or pension'd by a King.
Old as thou art, methinks, 'twere sage advice,
That N---th should call thee off from hunting Price
Some younger blood-hound of his bawling pack
Might sorer gall his presbyterian back.
Thy toothless jaws should free thee from the fight;
Thou canst but mumble, when thou mean'st to bite.
Say, then, to give a requiem to thy toils,
What if my muse array'd her in thy spoils?
And took the field for thee, thro' pure good-nature;
Courts prais'd by thee, are curs'd beyond her satire.
Exempli gratia, hear her fluent lays
Extol the present, the propitious hour,
When Europe, trembling at Britannia's power,
Bids all her princes, with pacific care,
Keep neutral distance, while she wings the war
Cross the Atlantic vast; in dread array,
Herself to vanquish in America.
Where soon, we trust, the brother chiefs shall see
The Congress pledge them in a cup of tea,
Toast peace and plenty to their mother nation,
Give three huzzas to George and to taxation,
And beg, to make their loyal hearts the lighter,
He'd send them o'er Dean T---k*r, with a mitre.
In Fancy's eye, I ken them from afar
Circled with feather wreaths, unstain'd by tar:
In place of laurels, these shall bind their brow,
Fame, honour, virtue, all are feathers now.
Ev'n beauty's self, unfeather'd, if we spy,
Is hideous to our Macaroni eye.
Would load with satire or with sense his rhymes:
As careless as the silken Gossimer.
Or should I, playful, lift the muse's scourge,
Thy cocks should lend their tails, my Cocking G---
To make the rod. So fear not thou the song;
To whip a post, I ne'er will waste a thong.
Were I inclin'd to punish courtly tools,
I'd lash the knaves before I flapt the fools.
Gigantic vice should on my ordeal burn,
Long ere it came to thy poor pigmy turn.
To sleep within a whole skin, while one may;
For Whigs are mighty prone to run stark mad,
If credence in A---hb---ps may be had.
Therefore I'll keep within discretion's rule,
And turn true Tory of the M---d school.
So shall I 'scape that creature's tyger paw,
Which some call Liberty , and some call Law:
Whene'er his long-rob'd shewman bids him gape,
With tusks so strong, with grinders so tremendous,
And such a length of gullet, Heaven defend us!
That should you peep into the red-raw track,
'Twould make your cold flesh creep upon you back.
A maw like that, what mortal may withstand?
'Twould swallow all the poets in the land.
Unpaid-for praises to thy pension-giver.
Hear me, like T---k*r, swear , “so help me, muse!”
I write not for preferment's golden views.
But hold—'tis on thy province to intrude:
I would be loyal, but would not be rude.
To thee, my veteran, I his fame consign;
Take thou St. James's, be St. Stephen's mine.
So well repays all North's perennial toil,
A crop of votes, as plentiful as pines.
Wet-nurse of tavern-waiters and Nabobs,
That empties first, and after fills their fobs:
(As Pringle, to procure a sane secretion,
Purges the primæe viæ of repletion.)
What scale of metaphor shall Fancy raise,
To climb the heights of thy stupendous praise?
Since full of years and praise, thy mother died.
'Twas then I saw thee, with exulting eyes,
A second phœnix, from her ashes rise;
Mark'd all the graces of thy loyal crest,
Sweet with the perfume of its parent nest.
Rare chick! How worthy of all court caresses,
How soft, how echo-like, it chirp'd addresses.
Proceed, I cry'd, thy full-fledg'd plumes unfold,
Each true-blue feather shall be tipt with gold;
Ordain'd thy race of future fame to run,
To do, whate'er thy mother left undone.
In all her smooth, obsequious paths proceed,
For, know, poor Opposition wants a head.
And for a fox-chace quit St. Stephen's dome,
Forgetful of their grandsire Nimrod's plan,
“A mighty hunter , but his prey was man.”
The rest, at crouded Almacks, nightly bett,
To stretch their own beyond the nation's debt.
Vote then secure; the needful millions raise,
That fill the privy-purse with means and ways.
And do it quickly too, to shew your breeding,
The weazel Scots are hungry, and want feeding.
Nor need ye wait for that more plenteous season,
When mad America is brought to reason.
Obsequious Ireland, at her sister's claim,
(Sister or step-dame, call her either name)
Shall pour profusely her Pactolian tide,
Nor leave her native patriots unsupply'd.
That wretched Ireland had no gold to spare.
How couldst thou, simple Clare! that isle abuse,
Which prompts and pays thy linsey-woolsey muse?
Mistaken peer! Her treasures near can cease,
Did she not long pay Viry for our peace?
Say, did she not, till rang the royal knell,
Irradiate vestal Majesty at Zell?
One golden tumbler, for Queen Charlotte's drinking.
I care not , if her hinds on fens and rocks,
Ne'er roast one shoulder of their fatted flocks,
Shall Irish hinds to mutton make pretensions?
Be theirs potatoes, and be ours their pensions.
If they refuse, great North, by me advis'd,
Enact, that each potatoe be excis'd.
And scorn'd to tax each British serving-man,
Thy friend Macgreggor, when he came to town,
(As poets should do) in his chaise and one,
Had seen his foot-boy Sawney, once his pride,
On stunt Scotch poney trotting by his side,
With frock of fustian, and with cape of red,
Nor grudg'd the guinea tax'd upon his head.
But tush, I heed not—for my country's good
I'll pay it—it will purchase Yankee blood—
Almon will give me wherewithal to pay.
No matter, if with ignorance or skill.
Be ours to pay, and that's an easy task,
In these blest times to have is but to ask.
Ye know, whate'er is from the public prest,
Will sevenfold sink into your private chest.
For he, the nursing father, that receives,
Full freely tho' he takes, as freely gives.
So when great Cox, at his mechanic call,
Bids orient pearls from golden dragons fall,
Each little dragonet, with brazen grin,
Gapes for the precious prize, and gulps it in.
Yet when we peep behind the magic scene,
One master-wheel directs the whole machine:
The self-same pearls, in nice gradation, all
Around one common centre , rise and fall.
And what is sunk by votes in bribes arise;
Till mock'd and jaded with the puppet-play,
Old England's genius turns with scorn away,
Ascends his sacred bark, the sails unfurl'd,
And steers his state to the wide western world:
High on the helm majestic Freedom stands,
In act of cold contempt she waves her hands.
Take, slaves, she cries, the realms that I disown,
Renounce your birth-right, and destroy my throne.
Churchill, in alluding to this capital anecdote in our Doctor's life, says, in his poem called The Author,
The whole intentOf that parade, was fame, not punishment.
Intimating that his ears received no detriment in the pillory. My line intimates, that they did. However, if my intimation be false, it is easily refuted: the Doctor has only to expose his ears again to the public, and the real fact will be flagrant.
Without a note posterity will never understand this line. Two or three years ago this gentleman found himself libelled in a newspaper; and on suspecting a certain clergyman to be the author, he wrote a first canto of a poem, called The Priest Dissected, in which he prepared all chirurgical matters previous to the operation. In the mean time the parson proved an alibi, and saved his bacon. To this first and unique canto the author prefixed a something in which he exculpated himself from being the author of the Heroic Epistle, which it seems had been laid to his charge during the time the clan of Macgreggors continued without a name, and which, as the world well knows, was the only reason which prevented me from claiming the merit of that production. It is to this something, that the latter part of the line alludes. For in it he had told the public, that his Majesty had ten children, which it knew very well before. Hence the epithet well-known.
The Petronius of the present age needs not the addition of a sirname to make the world certain who is meant by this appellative.
It is not here insinuated, that the soul in question wants curing. The word cure is here put for care, in the sense in which ecclesiastical lawyers use cura animarum.
A great cock-fighter, and little senator, who, in the last Parliament, called the Heroic Postscript a libel.
A line of Mr. Pope's. If our younger senators would take the hint, and now and then hunt a minister instead of a fox, they might perhaps find some fun in it.
It is not I, but Shakespeare, that gives my countrymen this epithet. See Hen. V. act 1. scene 2.
To her unguarded nest the weazel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs, &c.
The intellect not only of posterity, but of the present reader, must here again be enlightened by a note: for this song was sung above two years ago, and is consequently forgotten. Yet if the reader will please to recollect how easily I brought to life Sir William Chambers's prose dissertation which had been dead half that time, he will, I hope, give me credit for being able to recover this dead poem from oblivion also. It was sent to her Majesty on her birth-day, with a present of Irish grogram; and the newspaper of the day said (but I know not how truly) that the Queen was graciously pleased to thank the noble author for both his pieces of stuff. The poet's exordium seemed to have been taken from that very Ode in Horace which I have also attempted to imitate in this pamphlet. It began by assuring her Majesty, that Ireland was too poor to present her with a piece of gold plate.
Could poor Iërne gifts afford,Worthy the consort of her lord,
Of purest gold a sculpter'd frame
Just emblem of her zeal should flame.
This supposed poverty of his native country struck me at the time as a mere gratis-dictum. I have therefore, from verse 180 to verse 186 of this epistle, endeavoured to refute it, for the honour of Ireland.
Alluding to these lines in the same poem:
Where starving hinds from fens and rocks,View pastures rich with herds and flocks.
And only view—forbid to taste, &c.
And in a note on the passage, he tells us that these hinds never eat animal food; but says not one word about potatoes, that most nutritious of all aliments, which is surely very disingenuous.
I was let into this secret by my late patron, Sir William Chambers; who, as Mr. Cox's automata were very much in the Chinese taste, was very curious to discover their mechanism. I must, do the Knight the justice to own that some of my best things are borrowed from him.
ODE TO SIR FLETCHER NORTON, IN IMITATION OF HORACE, ODE VIII. BOOK IV.
We'd send Sir Fletcher a gold box;
Who lately, to the world's surprize,
Advis'd his Sovereign to be wise.
The zeal of cits shou'd ne'er surpass us,
We'd make him speaker of Parnassus.
Or could I boast the mimic eye
Of Townshend, or of Bunbury,
Whose art can catch, in comic guise,
“The manners living as they rise,”
And find it the same easy thing
To hit a Jollux or a king;
I'd hangings weave, in fancy's loom,
For Lady Norton's dressing room.
Nor does Sir Fletcher heed virtù.
Enough for me in these hard times,
When ev'ry thing is tax'd but rhymes,
To tag a few of these together:
Tho' I am quite uncertain, whether
My verse will much rejoice the knight,
As great a store as I set by't.
For verse, (I'd have Sir Fletcher know it)
When written by a genuine poet,
Has more of meaning and intent,
Than modern acts of Parliament.
The nation should a tomb supply;
Yet, not the votes of both the houses,
Without th'assistance of the muses,
Can give that permanence of fame
That heroes from their country claim.
And tell me pray, to our good King,
What fame our present broils can bring,
Ev'n should the Howes (which some folks doubt)
Put Washington to total rout,
Exalt the victor to a god.
Without the muse's intervention?
Yet what are pensions to the praise
Wrapt up in Caledonian lays?
Say, Johnson! where had been Fingal,
But for Macpherson's great assistance?
The chieftain had been nought at all,
A non-existing non-existence.
Mac, like a poet stout and good,
First plung'd, then pluck'd him from oblivion's flood,
And bad him bluster at his ease,
Among the fruitful Hebrides.
A common poet can revive
The man who once has been alive:
But Mac revives, by magic power,
The man who never liv'd before.
Belong to Gallic bards alone.
My muse would think her power enough,
Could she make some folks fever-proof;
Dub them immortal from their birth,
And give them all their heaven on earth,
Then Doctor K---, that broad divine,
With lords and dukes should ever dine;
Post, prate, and preach, for years on years,
And puff himself in Gazetteers.
Sandwich for aye, should shine the star,
Propitious to our naval war;
Caulk all our vessels' leaky sides,
And in the docks work double ties.
While Stormont, grac'd with ribband green,
Keeps France from mixing in the riot,
Till Britain's lion vents his spleen,
And tears his rebel whelps in quiet.
A phrase used by the bon ton for a fat parson. See a set of excellent Caricatures published by Bretherton, in New Bond-Street.
The late promotion of a poet to the treasurership of the houshold, must necessarily give to all true votaries of the muses (as it does to me) great delectation. 'Tis whispered, by some people in the secret, that the very pacific cast of the Laureat's birth-day ode, occasioned the noble bard's exaltation; as it was thought expedient to have another poetical placeman in readiness to celebrate the final overthrow of the American rebels. Nay, it is assured, that a reversionary grant of the office of laureat has in this instance been superadded to the treasurership, yet with the defalcation of the annual butt of sack, which the Lord Steward calculates will be a considerable faving to the nation.
| An epistle to Dr. Shebbeare | |