 | Heroic epistle from Serjeant Bradshaw |  |
HEROIC EPISTLE FROM Serjeant BRADSHAW, in the Shades, TO JOHN DUNNING, Esq.
Can guide the judgment, or mislead the heart;
Prince of Chicane! deep versed in every wile,
To circumvent a Judge, and Mobs beguile;
—Whom crowded Senates fondly list'ning hear,
While Kings themselves thy declamation fear;
Thee Bradshaw hails; his truest, dearest Son,
And bids thee snatch the palm which once he won.
To rack thy brain, and waste thy midnight oil;
To store thy mind with learning's dull parade,
And all the tasteless jargon of the Trade,
If not some object thou aspir'st to gain,
To crown thy labors, and reward thy pain?
Various the points to which Ambition tends,
And hard the struggle which in Greatness ends;
But when Success has crown'd our bold essay,
When Fortune leads us on, and points the way,
Labor grows pleasant, Disappointment flies,
And Exultation joys to snatch the prize.
Sought by each client, dreaded by each dunce:
Nursed in the lumber of the legal school,
I learn'd the art to make mankind my tool;
Shifted the scale of Justice as I chose,
'Till last, disdaining meaner paths, I turn'd
To politics, and as a patriot burn'd:
Slave to dominion, tyrant in my soul,
I felt my meanness, yet despised controul;
Too proud my rightful Sovereign's power to own,
With savage hand I pluck'd him from his throne;
As a foul felon, dared my King to try,
And judged anointed Majesty to die.
Pants to behold her flag again display'd,
And marks in Thee another Bradshaw rise,
With royal sacrifice to feast her eyes.
Hail the glad moment, Dunning! spread the sail,
And catch, while yet it blows, the fav'ring gale:
And hand to endless ages thy renown.
Charles gave pretence to justify the deed:
Illegal taxes drain'd the murmuring land,
Indignant Senates heard his harsh command;
Prerogative advanced with dangerous stride,
And grasp'd dominion which the laws denied.
Resistance then was just.—But when the throne
Has fix'd the legal power like it's own,
Or rose despotic o'er a falling State;
How greater far thine art! how worthier praise!
With fostering breath the fainting flame to raise,
To govern crowds obedient to thy call,
And shake St. James's, as I shook Whitehall!
The iron is red hot, strike boldly now,
And tear the circle from the regal brow;
Pluck up each fence which guards the sacred tree,
And nip the bud of blooming Majesty:
Let no remorse invade thy purposed mind,
But to one standard level all mankind.
Fix'd in assurance, and with faction loud,
Inculcate maxims on the gaping crowd
'Till boding terrors rack the hearer's soul.
Swear, you alone your country can redeem,
And clothe with quaint device the glorious theme:
New-fangled modes of eloquence invent,
Where words supply the place of argument.
If wrong your premises, increase the cry
In just proportion to the falsity:
Let abstract propositions stun the ear,
Which strike at once, and free discussion fear;
And truths, self-evident, which stand aloof,
Abhor debate, and dread the touch of proof:
Then argue stoutly, every doubt remove,
And facts unproveable from Pamphlets prove.
Methinks I see Thee, rising in thy place,
Great Demagogue! Epitome of Grace!
Display thy stores of elegance and ease,
Till thrice three hems thy captive voice release:
Made vocal now, it sounds the fearful tale,
And runs thro' every note of faction's scale.
Bellowed orations to the gathering storm,
Thy voice grows stronger from opposing sound,
While Order! Hear him! thro' the House resound:
There Gordon reprobates a Popish Court;
Here Luttrell weeps the loss of Milbourne Port;
Burke's Fury blows her horn, shakes Snowdon's base,
And moves old Cader Edris from his place;
Barre and Pitt to swell the concert join,
And Bamber loudly calls his troops to dine;
Thy obligato voice surmounts them all!
Who in superior vice has fix'd his fame?
Or who, with empty purse, has passions yet,
Pants for the stew, or stakes the darling bet?
These are thy tools; these, moved with dextrous skill,
Can raise a storm obedient to thy will:
Poor servile Puppets, fit for every use,
For treasons, riots, votes, or foul abuse:
Most harmless in themselves; but well applied,
May shake the basis of Old England's pride;
With savage joy impel her headlong fate,
And, more than Catilines, destroy a state.
With purer thoughts and more refined desires,
With temper'd warmth, and manly spirit bold,
Whose honest palm ne'er itch'd for sordid gold;
Whom titled Honor stamps with justice great;
Whom Fortune marks for influence in the State;
Whose nicer feelings make him shun a Court,
The mart of principle, and knave's resort;
But which alike restrain his cautious tread
From those mad schools where Patriot boys are bred?
If such there be, invite not him to join;
Deem him unfit for purposes like thine.
He ne'er, to aid a Democratic cause,
Will stoop to falsehood, or pervert the laws;
He nobly firm will stem the boist'rous flood,
And with Carmarthen plan his Country's good.
Has stamp'd on every venal front its price:
Some pant for honors, some for riches cry,
And some for indolence and pensions sigh.
Strike but with plastic hand the proper note,
True to the touch, the nice-tuned Patriots vote;
Pursue the charm, the mighty work is done,
And madness ends what headstrong zeal begun.
F---x, whose drain'd coffers no resource afford,
Who lost his all at Brookes's magic board,
Frantic beholds the fleeting moments fly,
And dreads the prospect of futurity.
Judgments, annuities, and bonds compose
A terrible sum total of his woes;
Christians and Jews, a long expecting band,
In double file to seize the moment stand:
A dissolution must complete his fate,
And shift his lodging to the King's Bench-grate:
For Patriots, steady in the smallest things,
Hate the King's Bench because it is the King's.
Ring every change, so oft by Patriots rung.
End how it will, he still must be a winner,
Secure election, and procure a dinner.
Great Poverty! 'tis thou compell'st the deed;
'Tis fit the hungry Senator should feed,
Pick up enough to pay the Tavern's score,
And purchase Freedom for seven winters more.
Not less recorded in Rebellion's story:
He quits his flock, his duty, and his God,
And rules Associations with his nod:
A second Horne, he grasps the wreath of Fame;
A second Horne, admiring crowds proclaim!
May the same fate attend the virtuous pair!
The same reward their wondrous worth declare!
Faction now gives a second Saviour birth;
Repeat the strain, let all her Sons rejoice,
And hail great Wyvill with exulting voice!
Son of a Pensioner, whose hoary head
Bows to the Minister for daily bread;
A Footman's grandson now directs the State,
While truckling Peers his high behests await.
Some lasting monument to Norton's praise:
But ah! too arduous and sublime I deem
So great, so good, so virtuous a theme:
Let him be herald of his own applause,
And boast himself the Hero of the laws.
What tho' Patrician riches he enjoys,
Places for life, and pensions for his boys,
And bites that generous hand he lick'd before.
Proceed, great Speaker! stop the warm debate,
Thy modest worth and high pretensions state;
Produce thy witness to inforce thy tale,
And swear 'tis true, when gentler methods fail.
E'en I, grown grey in insolence, cry hush!
And my cheek reddens, which ne'er knew a blush;
While Satan smiles triumphantly to see
His own ingratitude revived in thee.
Tho' worth like thine on earth be ill-repaid,
Here, be assured, a difference will be made;
Here shalt thou flourish, here direct the helm,
The Lord Chief Justice of th'infernal Realm.
To sweep the billows, while thou rulest the storm:
Like winds broke loose, all obstacles they brave,
Rush o'er the plain, or swell the angry wave;
And with one ruin mark their direful trace;
Their mighty Ruler Thou, with potent sway,
To urge their fury, and direct their way.
Make Premiers tremble, and their Masters fear:
For thee shall Fame her noblest wreaths entwine,
In Faction's temple foremost shalt thou shine,
And future Humes shall dignify thy pains,
And hang thee up in strong historic chains.
Bradshaw, a Lawyer, was chosen President of the High Court of Justice. Even according to the principles which, in such a situation, he was perhaps obliged to adopt, his behaviour in general will appear not a little harsh and barbarous; but when we consider him as a subject, and one too of no high character, addressing himself to his unfortunate Sovereign, his style will be esteemed to the last degree audacious and insolent. Hume's History.
King Charles I. was impeached as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public and implacable enemy to the Commonwealth. Hume's History.
The Publisher is sensible it may appear inconsistent for Bradshaw to advise his pupil to tread in his steps, when the exigencies of the times differ so widely. But he trusts the Reader will consider, that consistency is by no means the characteristic of Patriots, either in their apprenticeship, or when they have set up for themselves: and that they will not scruple to acknowledge Don Quixote to have been a more thorough and redoubtable Knight Errant, than any of those whose examples he followed; as they were contented to love the mistress, or engage the giant, which fortune threw in their way; while he, who might have lived comfortably at home, chose to go out of his way, create a mistress for himself, and turn a windmill into a giant, that he might enjoy the satisfaction of knocking him on the head. It might not be improper for our modern Don Quixotes and their Squires to recollect, that he sometimes met with a cudgelling, and that Sancho was not the only Squire who may be tossed in a blanket.
Maxims are a kind of propositions, which have passed for principles of science; and which, being self-evident, have been by some supposed innate. Mr. Locke ventured to expel them from his philosophy, asserting, that disquisition and proof were the test of truth; and that whatever would not stand their touch, must be considered as base metal. Mr. Dunning reprobates this doctrine, and roundly asserts in his late famous speech, “That the facts he advanced were incontestible propositions of an abstract nature, which could not be discussed, truths self-evident, which it would be absurd to attempt to prove.”
The Publisher is conscious that the Serjeant's poetry is by no means so poetical as the Orator's prose. He wishes to do the latter all imaginable justice, and therefore takes the liberty of transplanting the beautiful flowers from the Orator's hot-bed into his own garden.—“Since the invasion of King Edward, and the massacre of the Bards, there never was such a tumult, and alarm, and uproar through the region of Prestatyn. Snowdon shook to its base; Cader Edris was loosened from its foundations. The fury of litigious war blew her horn on the mountains. The rocks poured down their goatherds, and the deep caverns vomited out their miners. Every thing above ground, and every thing under ground, was in arms.”
Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton!Some of the young Gentlemen of the House of Commons, who have had the good fortune to receive an University education, fortunately recollecting that definition of man, that he is animal risibile, have availed themselves of this noble faculty, to prove that they are of the human species, and to confound those arguments by laughter, which they could not confound by reason, to the very great edification of the lobby and galleries, and to the honour and satisfaction of their constituents.
Our phlegmatic forefathers were satisfied with enjoying the gifts of nature in their proper season; and accounted a length of beard no mean index of the understanding of the wearer. Our gardeners, however, now forestal our markets with forced cucumbers and asparagus, and beardless boys sprout up Patriots and Statesmen.
Should Mr. F---x succeed in his present design upon the Westminster Freeholders, it is much to be apprehended, that he would soon forget in St. Stephen's Chapel what he said in Westminster Hall; and mistaking once more the House of Commons for Brookes's, cry out by a sort of natural impulse, Seven's the main.
The Public feels, therefore can hardly want reminding, that this Right Honourable Gentleman is in possession of many thousands per ann. Perhaps they may not so generally know, that his eldest son, the quondam Minister to the Swiss Cantons, finding his situation disagreeable, thought it expedient to return home; where he has enjoyed for these seven years a pension of 1000l. per ann. “till he can get something better.”
| Heroic epistle from Serjeant Bradshaw | |