Pulteney deep, accomplish'd St Johns,
Scourge the villains with a vengeance:
Let me, though the smell be noisome,
Strip their bums; let Caleb hoise 'em;
Then apply Alecto's whip,
Till they wriggle, howl, and skip.
Deuce is in you, Mr Dean:
What can all this passion mean;
Mention courts! you'll ne'er be quiet
On corruptions running riot.
End as it befits your station:
Come to use and application:
Nor with senates keep a fuss.
I submit; and answer thus:
If the machinations brewing,
To complete the public ruin,
Never once could have the power
To affect me half an hour;
Sooner would I write in buskins,
Mournful elegies on Blueskins. †
If I laugh at whig and tory;
I conclude à fortiori,
All your eloquence will scarce
Drive me from my favourite farce.
This I must insist on: for, as
It is well observ'd by Horace, ‡
Ridicule has greater power
To reform the world than sour.
* Caleb d'Anvers was the name assumed by Amhurst, the ostensible writer of the Craftsman. This unfortunate man was ne glected by his noble patrons, and died in want and obscurity.— ANDERSON.
+ The famous thief, who, while on his trial at the Old Bailey, stabbed Jonathan Wild.-See Vol. XIII. p. 365.
Horses thus, let jockies judge else,
Switches better guide than cudgels.
Bastings heavy, dry, obtuse,
Only dulness can produce;
While a little gentle jerking
Sets the spirits all a-working.
Thus, I find it by experiment,
Scolding moves you less than merriment.
I may storm and rage in vain;
It but stupifies your brain.
But with raillery to nettle,
Sets your thoughts upon their mettle
Gives imagination scope;
Never lets your mind elope;
Drives out brangling and contention,
Brings in reason and invention.,
For your sake, as well as mine,
I the lofty style decline.
I should make a figure scurvy,
And your head turn topsy-turvy.
I, who love to have a fling
Both at senate-house and king:
That they might some better way tread, To avoid the public hatred;
Thought no method more commodious,
Than to show their vices odious ;
Which I chose to make appear,
Not by anger, but by sneer.
As my method of reforming,
Is by laughing, not by storming,
(For my friends have always thought
Tenderness my greatest fault)
*This couplet is wanting in some editions.-N.
Would you have me change my style?
On your faults no longer smile;
But, to patch up all our quarrels,
Quote you texts from Plutarch's Morals:
Or from Solomon produce
Maxims teaching Wisdom's use?
If I treat you like a crown'd head,
You have cheap enough compounded;
Can you put in higher claims,
Than the owners of St James?
You are not so great a grievance,
As the hirelings of St Stephen's.
You are of a lower class
Than my friend Sir Robert Brass.
None of these have mercy found:
I have laugh'd, and lash'd them round.
Have you seen a rocket fly?
You would swear it pierc'd the sky:
It but reach'd the middle air,
Bursting into pieces there;
Thousand sparkles falling down
Light on many a coxcomb's crown.
See what mirth the sport creates !
Singes hair, but breaks no pates.
Thus, should I attempt to climb,
Treat you in a style sublime,
Such a rocket is my Muse:
Should I lofty numbers choose,
Ere I reach'd Parnassus' top,
I should burst, and bursting drop;
All fire would fall in scraps,
Give your head some gentle raps;
Only make it smart a while;
Then could I forbear to smile,
When I found the tingling pain
Entering warm your frigid brain;
Make you able upon sight
To decide of wrong and right;
Talk with sense whate'er you please on;
Learn to relish truth and reason!
Thus we both shall gain our prize;
I to laugh, and you grow wise,
WITH honour thus by Carolina plac'd,
How are these venerable bustoes grac'd!
O queen, with more than regal title crown'd,
For love of arts and piety renown'd!
How do the friends of virtue joy to see
Her darling sons exalted thus by thee!
Nought to their fame can now be added more,
Rever'd by her whom all mankind adore †.
* Newton, Locke, Clarke, and Woolaston.-H.
+ Queen Caroline's regard for learned men was chiefly directed to those who had signalized themselves by philosophical research. Walpole alludes to this her peculiar taste, in his fable called the Funeral of the Lioness, where the royal shade is made to say,
Where Elysian waters glide,
With Clarke and Newton by her side,
She pores o'er metaphysic page.
LEWIS the living learned fed,
And rais'd the scientific head:
Our frugal queen, to save her meat,
Exalts the heads that cannot eat.
A CONCLUSION DRAWN FROM THE ABOVE EPIGRAMS,
AND SENT TO THE DRAPIER.
SINCE Anna, whose bounty thy merits had fed,
Ere her own was laid low, had exalted thy head:
And since our good queen to the wise is so just,
To raise heads for such as are humbled in dust,
I wonder, good man, that you are not envaulted;
Prithee go, and be dead, and be doubly exalted.
HER majesty never shall be my exalter; And yet she would raise me, I know, by a halter !
|