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ULTRA-CREPIDARIUS.
(The date of a charming old boy of a Prince)
Since the feather'd god Mercury happen'd to lose
A thing no less precious than one of his shoes:
I say no less precious, because in the mention
The artist has made of this very invention,
(Old Homer, who furnish'd the gods with such things)
He says, 'twas immortal, of gold, and had wings.
The latter indeed are as famous as Love's,
And they rivall'd in hue even Venus's doves;
For at every fresh turn, and least touch into light,
Which the clear God of Eloquence took in his flight,
They varied their colours in fifty directions,
And perfectly dazzled with brilliant reflections.
One rosy-fac'd morning from Venus's bed,—
What can have become of that rogue of a shoe.
I've search'd every corner to make myself certain,
And lifted, I'm sure, ev'ry possible curtain,
And how I'm to manage, by Jove, I don't know,
For manage I must, and to earth I must go.
'Tis now a whole week since I lost it; and here,
Like a dove whom your urchin has crippled, my dear,
Have I loiter'd, and flutter'd, and look'd in those eyes,
While Juno keeps venting her crabbed surprise;
And Apollo, with all that fine faith in his air,
Asks me daily accounts of Rousseau and Voltaire,
And Jove (whom it's aukward to risk such a thing with)
Has not enough thunder to frighten a king with.
So—there then—now don't look so kind, I beseech you,
Or else I shall stay a week longer, you witch you—
I can't ask the gods; but I'll search once again
For this fugitive shoe, and if still it's in vain,
I must try to make something a while of sheer leather,
And match with a mortal my fair widow'd feather.”
And summon'd his winged cap on to his head;
And the widow in question flew smack round his foot,
And up he was getting to end his pursuit,
When Venus said softly (so softly, that he
Turn'd about on his elbow)—“What! go without me?”
Fine wit, had been reading the New Eloisa,
And having prodigiously felt and admired it,
Couldn't but say so to him who inspired it.
Therefore, to take the due steps for expressing
Her sense of such very well-worded caressing,
I must add, from the recollection I have of the Eloisa, that this merit was more conspicuous on the side of St. Preux than of Julia; even though he said something, if I remember, in a moment of delirium, which the lady thought proper to recollect and rate him for the next day. Real delicacy of spirit seemed always to me to be on his side. It is a long time, however, since I read the work; and my memory may deceive me.
She had sent down to earth this same Shoe with an errand
To get a new pair at Ashburton for her, and
Not think of returning without what it went for,
Unless by it's master especially sent for.
The Shoe made a scrape; and concluding the thing
Had been settled 'twixt her and his master, took wing;
And never ceas'd beating through sunshine and rain,
Now clasp'd in a cloud, and now loosen'd again,
Till it came to Ashburton, where something so odd
Seem'd to strike it, it could not help saying, “My God!”
Was mention'd, when Mercury sparkled round at her;
But Venus propos'd, that as one Shoe was fled,
Her good easy virtue should help him instead.
“You know, love,” said she, “'tis as light as a feather;
And so I'll be guide, and we'll go down together.”
They chalk'd out their journey, got up, took their nectar;
And then, with his arm round her waist, and his eyes
I cannot, I own, say he came much the faster,
How earnest soever he look'd and embrac'd her;
But never before, though a God of much grace,
Had he come with such fine overlooking of face;
And as she travell'd seldom herself in this style,
With a lover beside her, and clasp'd all the while,
'Tis said that the earth was remarkably moved:
Even marriers for money imagin'd they loved:
Yes, inanimate things fell exchanging caresses,
Till Princes embrac'd their own legal Princesses:
Not one pair of birds or respectable brutes,
Nay, not one of gloves, but, they say, follow'd suits,
And the bishops but walk'd in the steps of their boots.
Who descended that day with your wit and your love,
Assist now my theme, which grows dark at the touch,
That I neither may honour nor hate it too much!
Yes, all but one Shoe: not the shoe that was missing,
For that one, as much as lay in it, lov'd kissing;
But one, which as Venus and Mercury put up
Somewhere at Ashburton, nigh tripp'd her sweet foot up.
'Tis, at a small thing, to reckon how small it is)
Laugh'd, and said, “Well, who'd have thought this of you,
Here, come kiss my foot, as a proof we agree:”
But the Shoe huff'd,—as who should say, “Don't talk to me.”
“It wants comprehension,” said Mercury, “surely,
And yet there seems life in it, though it looks poorly.
Int'rest, I dare say, will make something of it:
My strange little friend, don't you know your own profit?”
“Aye, aye, well enough,” said the Shoe in a tone
Of uneasy contempt, 'twixt a creak and a groan;
I was made for a Squire; and my instinct has told me,
That if through the dirt with discretion I hold me,
My service, some day, will be under an Earl,
Which I think's something higher than you and your girl.
Which made all the neighbours leap up and look out:
For they thought 'twas the players with music at least,
Or that London, or Heaven, was come from the east.
But the Shoe, deaf and blind to all beautiful things,
Scarce showed more emotion than if 'twere a king's:
It did, indeed, slightly perk up it's two straps,
Like the ears of an ass, when he's sulky, and snaps.
Or 'twould no more have spurned 'em than kick'd at the bank.
'Twas this that amused 'em. “But pray, Sir,” said they,
“What induced your high Heel-tap to get in our way?”
“To look at your shoe there, tricked out in such feathers.
Why need any shoe be more gifted than I?
There was just such another”—(here Venus looked sly,
And Hermes guessed all she'd omitted to say)—
“Here was just such another came mincing this way,
And would fain have come in for some shoes for a lady;
But no, no; I trod on his toes with a “Hey-day!”
On which the fop gave me a cuff with his quill,
And whisk'd away laughing; but I'll pay him still.”
Such as yours, can no more wage war with his cuff
Than the monster with Perseus, who fell on him, plumed.”
“I know,” said the Shoe, as it fretted and fumed.
“You do?” said the God; “then with such an example
How monsters should treat the fair sex, would you trample
Or offer to do it (for so it now seems)
On a foot which surpasses a lover's best dreams?”
Cried the Shoe, screaming weak like a leather-toed bat;
“And since you will have it, I tell you, you fop,
That I'd kick the best shoe ever stepp'd into shop.”
A terrible sense of who stood there together,
Denounced it in words, that shall die on no shelf:—
Had honoured the good man that made thee at college,
And walked through the world, if with not many graces,
At least in good steps and calm classical places,
My very stray slipper that passed thee, and hit,
Might have done thee some good, for it brushed thee with wit;
But every thing, even Adversity fails,
To refine the grain in thee: the calf-skin prevails.
Attend then my curse, while thou shrinkest into thee,
And let the ambition thou spoilest, undo thee.
Not a man, for thou canst not, but human to see:
Thy appearance at least shall be taken for human,
However perplexing to painter or woman.
In ev'ry thing else, thou shalt be as thou art,
A thing made for dirty ways, hollow at heart.
Serve an Earl, as thou say'st; and, in playing the shoe,
Let the stories told of thee, malicious or true,
Only lead thee hereafter to scandalize too.
During our hero's residence with the late Lord Grosvenor, in capacity of tutor to his son, Peter Pindar accused him of performing offices for the Noble Earl, such as Pipes discharged for Perigrine Pickle in the affair with the Gypsy. I believe, for my part, that the stories were false; though why I should believe so, after the foul offices which he can discharge for the state, and the readiness he exhibits to scandalize and believe ill of others, I can hardly say. His answers to Peter were as loathsome as the accusations.
But let not an Earl stop thy progress; go higher,
And at every new step show addition of mire,
Like one, who, in climbing a loose-moulded hill,
Finds his foot growing heavier and dirtier still,
But all who are falling, assist to kick down:
Then getting at top, gape with sycophant joy,
And poking about for becoming employ,
Make signs thou art ready, with pliable span,
To clasp any foot, that would trample on man.
But despair of those nobler ascents, which thou'lt see
Stretching far overhead with the Delphian tree,—
Holy ground, to climb up to whose least laurell'd shelf
Thou would'st have to change natures, and put off thyself.
Stop, and strain at the base; yet, to ease thy despair,
Do thy best to obstruct all the feet that come there,
Especially younger ones, winged like mine,
Till bright, up above thee, they soar and they shine.
Should even the graves, such as lie near the spot,
Of critics and note-makers, help thee a jot,
Be sure to pretend that the heap's of no use,
And repay those who gave thee a lift with abuse.
Mr. Gifford is particularly furious and triumphant at the mistakes or little wit of his predecessors in annotation. He is angry that a pioneer is not a general; forgetting that he himself, at his best, is but one of the company. His own mistakes in criticism, if not in the commoner tasks of annotation, are numerous, and betray a feebleness of observation and sentiment, always compelled to stop short of any thing deep or elevated. His footing is only fit for beaten paths; and his eye cannot discern the best things that adorn even those. Sir Andrew can as soon give an “exquisite reason.”
Dig into their errors, their merits conceal,
And then shudder to think that the dead can not feel.
All things, in short, petty and fit, say and do,
Becoming a man with the soul of a shoe.
Boast thy origin once, because good common-place
Has pronounc'd such behaviour a merit and grace;
But after that once, be consistent, and show
A great horror of lowness, because it is low:
Pick out for thy path, through the region of letters,
Like boys, who to get a sensation and splutter,
Prefer, to the pavement, a kick through the gutter:
Thus, edit no authors but such as unite
With their talents a good deal of dirt or of spite;
Ben Jonson, because he was beastly and bluff;
And Massinger,—mince through his loathsomer stuff;
And Persius,—“let him be writ down” Imitated,
And say to poor Juvenal, “Thou art translated.”
These Latins will help too thy fondest of penchants,
And swell thy large hate with the hates of the ancients.
But as for such writers as Shakespear and others,—
Low fellows, who treated all men as their brothers,
Base panders, whose heads ran on love and a wood,
Blasphemers, who thought the great Jupiter good,
Who had right to be naked, and yet not asham'd,—
Be sure to inform us, that they may be damn'd.
Mr. Tibbald, the old original hero of the Dunciad, is said to have declared in print, that Shakespear “deserved to be whipt;”—“an insolence,” saith the commentator on that poem, “which nothing sure can parallel but that of Dennis, who can be proved to have declared before company, that Shakespear was a rascal.” Our modern Critic somewhere expresses his fear (I think in the preface to Ben Jonson's Works) that all may not go quite well with Shakespear in the other world.
To make a third, she join'd the former two.
I hear some one say, “Murrain take him, the ape!”
And so Murrain shall, in a bookseller's shape;
An evil-eyed elf, in a down-looking flurry,
Who'd fain be a coxcomb, and calls himself Murray.
Adorn thou his door, like the sign of the Shoe,
For court-understrappers to congregate to;
For Southey to come, in his dearth of invention,
And eat his own words for mock-praise and a pension;
For Croker to lurk with his spider-like limb in,
And stock his lean bag with way-laying the women;
To shelter their envy and dust-licking pride,
And feed on corruption, like bats, who at nights
In the dark take their shuffles, which they call their flights.
Be these the Court-critics, and vamp a Review;
And by a poor figure, and therefore a true,
For it suits with thy nature, both shoe-like and slaughterly
Be it's hue leathern, and title the Quarterly.
Much misconduct it; and see that the others
Misdeem, and misconstrue, like miscreant brothers;
Misquote, and misplace, and mislead, and misstate,
Misapply, misinterpret, misreckon, misdate,
Misinform, misconjecture, misargue; in short,
Miss all that is good, that ye miss not the Court.
Count the worth of a mind, not from what it produces,
But what it will take to fall in with abuses.
Is any one ardent, sincere, independent?
What distancing virtue! Pray try make an end on't.
Does any discover what you never could?
Pretend it's a trifle no gentleman would.
Does a true taste appear for the authors you edit?
Take pains, by your scorn, to show you never had it.
In short, be the true Representative Tool
Of a whole “Court of Coblers” got up into rule.
Alas for the country of Harley and Prior!
But office shall then be a shop so entire
For any dull fellow to keep that can serve,
That a whole set of dunces,—yes, Pope, thine own band,
Thy Dunciad itself, shall rule over the land!
As gutters dive down to re-issue in ditches,
Thy divers for pay shall emerge with new riches.
Then quality's fools, long be-libell'd in vain,
In the Stuarts, the Georges, and “Jenkies” shall reign:
Then Cymons (not Greek, nor yet mended by Cupid)
Shall lord it with faces triumphant as stupid:
Happy Page shall be Best, well aware of his fury,
Concanen be Croker,
“Matthew Concanen, an Irishman, bred to the law. He was author of several dull and dead scurrilities in the British and London Journals, and in a paper called the Speculatist. He was since a hired scribbler in the Daily Courant” (now Courier) “where he poured forth much Billingsgate against the Lord Bolingbroke and others; after which this man was surprisingly promoted to administer law and justice in Jamaica.” —Notes to the Dunciad.
This prize is mine; who tempt it are my foes:
With me began this genius, and shall end.
He spoke: and who with Lintot shall contend!
—Dunciad, Book II.
Who would not suppose, that this, instead of being the past and anterior Murray, was not the present living one, talking of a certain Noble Bard, whom he used to boast of as his peculiar pride and dulce decus, though he had an unaccountable trick of adding, that he lost by him! Another bookseller, smitten with admiration at a loftiness even in a brother tradesman to which he could not hope to attain, has been heard to affirm as much himself, ejaculating, that “the Noble Lord owed more to Mr. Murray than Mr. Murray to the Noble Lord!” The next thing, doubtless, that we shall hear, is, that Mr. Murray is the Noble Lord; and that the supposed Lord Byron, now travelling in Greece, is only a tradesman in disguise.
In Southey poor Blackmore, beginning to doat,
Shall not only turn a new stave, but his coat:
The Wards and the Welsteds shall pamper their spleens,
And club in Scotch papers and Scotch Magazines:
“John Ward, of Hackney, Esq. Member of Parliament, being convicted of forgery, was first expelled the House, and then sentenced to the pillory, on the 17th of February, 1727.”—Notes to the Dunciad.—It is a pity that Mr. Ward did not live now, to be wiser and more gentlemanly in his vagaries. He might have been a respectable member, not only of the House, but of society, and a patron of the Beacon, John Bull, and Blackwood's Magazine.
Leonard Welsted is described as having been fond of scattering dirt about him like a mole.
And finally, thou, my old soul of the tritical,
Noting, translating, high slavish, hot critical,
Quarterly-scutcheon'd, great heir to each dunce,
Be Tibbald, Cook, Arnall, and Dennis at once.
In one thing alone display nothing in common
With dunce any more than with genius,—hate woman.”
(Here Venus entreated, and fain would have gone,
But the God only clasp'd her the more, and went on:)
“Hate woman, thou block in the path of fair feet;
If Fate want a hand to distress them, thine be it;
When the Great, and their flourishing vices, are mention'd,
Say people “impute” 'em, and show thou art pension'd;
And then let the world see how vice is rewarded.”
Gave a groan, and began struggling up into man.
First the straps, falling stiffly, and thrusting the ground,
Became arms, by whose help it arose, turning round;
Then the toe split in two, and increasing in size,
Undertook to support him as legs and as thighs;
And lastly from out of the quartering there look'd
A face at once lachrymose, rude, and rebuk'd.
Such a face! Such a spirit! For what is a face,
But what the soul makes it, for worth or disgrace?
It slunk out of doors, and men call'd the thing Gifford.
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