Poems and Plays by Mr. Jerningham. In Four Volumes ... The Ninth Edition |
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LINES ON “THE BAVIAD:”
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 | Poems and Plays |  |
LINES ON “THE BAVIAD:”
AND “THE PURSUITS OF LITERATURE.”
With spreading sails approach'd the Cambrian coast,
An ardent Welchman—at the sight impress'd—
Swore, stamp'd, and fum'd; by rage and fear possess'd:
As nearer still advanc'd the hostile train,
Resistless fury fir'd the Welchman's brain;
The self-appointed guardian of the land:
Does any vessel his wild vision meet,
The maniac loud exclaims “The fleet! The fleet!”
Who, with fell rage, the Cruscan Tribe pursues;
Yet to degrade all other Bards he pants,
Frets, bounces, bullies, rages, rhymes, and rants!
Does any Poet wound his jealous eyes,
The maniac “Crusca, Della Crusca!” cries.
Oft have I seen, light-tossing on the main,
A small bark, steering to Apollo's fane;
Whose pilot rear'd no meretricious sail,
To play and wanton with the flutt'ring gale:
No gold-wing'd Cupids hover'd o'er the prow,
To welcome Venus rising from below:
This undeck'd galley, innocent of pride,
Pursu'd her voyage thro' the swelling tide:
To Nature trusting for a happy course!
Yet then, impatient of this humble prize,
The rhyming maniac “Della Crusca!” cries.
Presume to fling his Vetos o'er the land?
Did Nature call him to her holy fane?
Or Genius, with infusing hand, ordain?
Say,—does th' inspiring spirit of the sky,
Vaticination, swell his pregnant eye?
No prophet's mantle, flutt'ring thro' the air,
Fell on our Cynic as th' appointed heir:
But he inherits, from some kindred mind,
A short rough jerkin of the drugget kind.
Prudish and coy to meet the public view;
With soft refusal, and with modest pride;
And sweet reluctant amorous delay
Prettily shrinking from the garish day:
Now the fond witling, eager for applause,
Tears with intrepid hand th' injurious gauze;
Bursts on the town, and bids the world admire
The matchless works of Billy Giffard, 'Squire.
The little tyrant of his little land;
May not the Muse, with equal right, maintain
The long-earn'd honours of her small domain?
Ye great departed shades! who, when on earth,
Hail'd, with benign applause, the Muse's birth;
O Chesterfield! O Chatham's sacred sire!
O Gray! thou lord of the enchanting lyre!
Beneath your fost'ring praise, a lowly muse
Smil'd, like the flow'ret fed with heav'nly dews;
Beneath the dull-ey'd peasant's clouted shoon?
With thunder clothing his loud-crushing car;
Tho' party-zeal inflam'd his iron heart,
And prejudice sharp pointed ev'ry dart;
With glowing thoughts, his mind profusely teem'd;
And, on his burnish'd armour, Genius beam'd:
Meanwhile, th' illumin'd spirit, from her throne
Beheld his course, and “mark'd him for her own.”
The low-bred snarler of the mongrel race!
Ah! may no muse, whom Nature bids aspire,
Shrink, when this cens'rer boils with jaundic'd ire.
This vaticide! whom Truth and Taste discard:
This growling Zoilus! this male Poissarde!
By Envy's pang distorted to a hoop!
Her hymns prepare in Virtue's choir install'd;
With honest pride her rightful claim assert,
And rise aloft, disdaining critic dirt.
—Thus the fair Lote-tree, in Egyptian clime,
Lifts her gay head above th' unhallow'd slime;
While, hovering o'er her form, th' inspiring pow'r
Breathes on her leaves, and wakens every flow'r!
And to the other Bard direct our lay:
Who, like Guy Faux, conceal'd within his cell,
Arm'd with a sulph'rous torch allum'd in hell;
Ardent to blow, with his destructive aim,
To airy nothing, many a splendid name;
And now exulting views, thro' Fancy's eye,
Cowls, Scarfs, Lawn-sleeves, and Mitres tost on high;
Critics and Playwrights, Poetesses fair,
Divines and Lawyers, sprawling in the air!
This gaudy vision that adorns his theme,
Is but the stuff that forms a turbid dream:
He wakes, but to lament his poor device;
And is himself the fool of Paradise.
Grasps, with profaning hand, Faith's hallow'd shield.
Who forge malignant Persecution's chains;
The principle of Toleration, that brilliant in the diadem of our ecclesiastical polity, this Protestant Capuchin would sully with his contaminating breath. This philosopher, at the close of the eighteenth century, wakes the old cracked trumpet of religious alarm. The man who has the folly to assert, that the existence of some unendowed nunneries among us will endanger the established church, may as well imagine a strong wall can be thrown down by a handful of flowers.
When the Hugonots fled for refuge to this Country after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, several pamphleteers, instigated by the same spirit which inflames this Gentleman, endeavoured to disturb the reception they met with from Government. Those advocates for persecution contended, that the Hugonots entertained principles hostile to monarchy; that their dismission from France was to be imputed equally to their political as to their religious opinions: but the wisdom of Government was as deaf to their remonstrances then, as the reigning Administration is now to the clamours of such short-sighted scribblers.
Within whose bosom, cold as Alpine snow,
No heav'n is kindled, and no seraphs glow!
Soft rays of mercy beaming from her eye!
With cautious steps she shuns the bruised reed,
And sooths the heart Misfortune dooms to bleed!
Our ruffian zealot stains her heav'nly face;
Blurs ev'ry feature, cancels ev'ry grace;
Rends from the brow of the immortal Fair
Her white-rose wreath, and stamps a blister there.
Crowd to our coast, and breathe our milder day:
An injur'd, firm, disinterested band,
Whose hallow'd footsteps sanctify our land;
(Tho' haply rul'd by less enlighten'd laws)
Our holy Vandal, with resistless pow'r,
Wou'd the full storm of fierce Destruction show'r;
Yes, he would rouse Intol'rance from her sleep,
And from the saving breast of England sweep
The noblest images of God below;
Men plung'd, for Virtue's sake, in deepest woe:
But Britain scorns the persecutor's pray'r,
And his wild war-whoop scatters into air.
Whose awful Wisdom in each path we trace,
Some soft prevailing antidote bestows
On ev'ry weed and noxious herb that grows!
So of infuriate men to check the force
Of their mad schemes, to stay th' intemperate course,
He in his mercy gave a King, whose breast
Glows and expands to innocence distress'd;
Friends of the weak, and lovers of mankind:
And gave fam'd Oxford, whose religious hand
Extends her tribute to the suffering band.
The University of Oxford, with a liberality and an expansion of sentiment that cannot be sufficiently applauded, presented to each of the French Clergy a New Testament in Latin. The book was printed in conformity to the text approved of by Urban the Eighth. This is a circumstance peculiarly delicate: it enhances the donation, and breathes, as it were, the perfume of mental charity.
Profane the shrine of our departed Sage:
The same hypocritical veil I mentioned before is made use of, with regard to Mr. Burke: under the appearance of commendation, this writer insinuates the odium he wishes to cast on that eminent personage. He approves, in a note, of the pension that was given him; which he condemns, in the Poem, as offered with a view to a bribe—
“Who calm'd the terror of Burke's claws in gold!”A little before this country had the misfortune to lose that great man, this critic expressed a wish that Mr. Burke would put an end to his literary labours, though it was universally acknowledged that the same vivid genius flamed on his later effusions which glowed in his earlier productions.
That shrine, where Memory her vigil keeps!
Where Patience murmurs, and Affection weeps!
Where Friendship with an heart-felt homage bends!
Where Grief (the nation's delegate) attends!
—“Endow'd with all that Nature's pow'rs dispense,
(She cries aloud) “Thou Jove of Eloquence!
“Whose arm omnipotent, by Virtue strung,
“The daring thunderbolts of Genius flung:
“Thou Day-spring, from whence flow'd a radiant gleam,
“While democratic darkness curs'd the beam!
“Thy warning voice diffus'd around the land:
“On thee my fond regret shall ever dwell;
“O Guardian!—Champion!—Friend!—farewell, farewell!”
Accurs'd and void of ev'ry honest claim?
Tho' weak to reach the awful depth on high,
And with th' undaunted eagle cleave the sky:
On the bright God of Day unblenching gaze,
Kindling his vision at the noon-tide blaze!
Yet, would he but observe (intent to please)
How Nature marries Elegance and Ease:
(For oft along his path, devoid of grace,
The splay-foot of Vulgarity we trace:)
Would he apply, ere he prepares to hit,
The patient chisel to his cumb'rous wit:
The film of prejudice that clouds his verse!
Himself subdue! his own familiar thwart,
And tear the foul fiend Rancour from his heart:
He might become a heav'n-commission'd sage,
To mark our errors and instruct the age.
Beneath the swelling of the ocean storm;
When Time, that sways the world, shall interfere,
And bid the waves pursue a new career;
—That baneful rock his lurking mansion leaves,
Full to the view a pond'rous mountain heaves:
And now, no more the mariner's dismay,
Befriends his course, and points the safer way.
No allusion has been made in the preceding Lines to the Translation of Juvenal, by the Author of the Baviad, because I have not read the Translation, and was deterred from the perusal of it, by the very learned, ingenious, and keen strictures inserted in the Critical Review; to which strictures the Author attempted a reply, and in a long, tedious, prolix pamphlet, laboriously endeavoured to vindicate his Translation,
“And wrote about it Goddess, and about it.”The Dunciad.
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