University of Virginia Library

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638

TO THE HON. BRIGADIER-GENERAL JONES, AT BLETCHINGTON.

Dear Sir,

Permit me thus accounts in part to clear
With Jones, the hospitable brigadier.
Such paymasters are rhymers mostly found,
Receiving substance and returning sound:
Though well you know, where nought is to be seen
The king must lose a debt,—nay, more, the queen.
Though fond of verse, all falsehood I defy,
Convinced that truth is truest poesy.
Old, musty whimsies are disdain'd by me,
Parnassus and Apollo's trumpery!
Let Pagans or let school-boys trifle thus:
I like Scot's horse far more than Pegasus;
And Bletchington to me more pleasure yields
Than Virgil's prospect of Elysian fields,—
Dreams of the ivory gate:—That's right, say I,
He fairly tells us that he tells a lie.
Wherefore sincere my thanks you may suppose:
My verse is quite as hearty as my prose.
All fiction utterly renounced you see,
And incense of poetic flattery:
And as for truth, why should I spend an hour
Merely to tell you what you knew before?
Your meals how plenteous, and how good your wine,
How sound the beer was, and the rack how fine;

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639

How fair the garden smiled, not large, but neat;
The turf how verdant, and the bean how sweet!
Books too I found by your indulgent care:
The wild, diverting story of Voltaire;
Whose match in writing we but seldom find,
In life the vilest scoundrel of mankind!
With better title far may Berkeley please:
His writings and his life are of a piece;
Secure in truth, though Mandeville should rise,
Bold to defend the usefulness of vice;
Or impious Gordon show unpriestly wrath,
Of reason “independent” as of faith.

Nor yet must Anglesea unmention'd go,
Though my plain lines are uncorrect and low.
I own, acknowledgments are justly due;
But leave all speeches, brigadier, to you:
To you, who with address are fitly stored
To please the courtly and uncourtly lord.
Improper I: his herds I went not near;
I shunn'd his horses, but admired his deer.
As for his converse,—hold; I'll not entreat
You'll bear in memory what you can't forget,

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640

O how I grieve the gout his limbs has laid,
Unnerved, inglorious, in a rustic shade!
While meaner peers their house and rank defile:—
The courtier's friend and bishop's foe, Argyle;
Isla, who plies for every purpose there;
While he, infirm, desists from public care,
When the loud tempest wants the pilot's art,
And much requires his head, but more his heart.