Come, harmless characters, that no one hit;Come, Henley's oratory, Osborne's wit!
The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue, The flowers of Bubo, and the flow of Y--ng!
The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence, And all the well-whipped cream of courtly sense, That first was H--vy's, F---'s next, and then The S---te's, and then H--vy's once again.
O, come, that easy Ciceronian style, So Latin, yet so English all the while, As, though the pride of Middleton and Bland, All boys may read, and girls may understand!
Then might I sing, without the least offence, And all I sung should be the nation's sense;Or teach the melancholy muse to mourn, Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn, And hail her passage to the realms of rest, All parts performed, and all her children blessed!
So--satire is no more--I feel it die--
No Gazetteer more innocent than I--
And let, a' God's name, every fool and knave Be graced through life, and flattered in his grave.
F. Why so? if satire knows its time and place You still may lash the greatest--in disgrace:
For merit will by turns forsake them all;Would you know when? exactly when they fall.
But let all satire in all changes spare Immortal S--k, and grave De--re.
Silent and soft, as saints remove to heaven, All ties dissolved and every sin forgiven, These may some gentle ministerial wing Receive, and place for ever near a king!
There, where no passion, pride, or shame transport, Lulled with the sweet nepenthe of a Court;There, where no father's, brother's, friend's disgrace Once break their rest, or stir them from their place:
But past the sense of human miseries, All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes;No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb, Save when they lose a question, or a job.
P. Good Heaven forbid, that I should blast their glory, Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory, And, when three sovereigns died, could scarce be vexed, Considering what a gracious prince was next.
Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings;And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret, Who starves a sister, or forswears a debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the dignity of vice be lost?
Ye gods! shall Cibber's son, without rebuke, Swear like a lord, or rich out-rake a duke?
A favourite's porter with his master vie, Be bribed as often, and as often lie?
Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman's skill?
Or Japhet pocket, like his grace, a will?
Is it for Bond or Peter (paltry things)
To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings?
If Blount despatched himself, he played the man, And so may'st thou, illustrious Passeran!
But shall a printer, weary of his life, Learn, from their books, to hang himself and wife?
This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear;Vice thus abused, demands a nation's care;This calls the Church to deprecate our sin, And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin.
Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten Metropolitans in preaching well;A ****** Quaker, or a Quaker's wife, Outdo Llandaff in doctrine--yea in life:
Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree, 'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me;Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king, She's still the same, beloved, contented thing.
Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth, And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth:
But 'tis the Fall degrades her to a w***e;Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more;Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess;Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless;In golden chains the willing world she draws, And hers the Gospel is, and hers the laws, Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head, And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead.
Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car Old England's genius, rough with many a scar, Dragged in the dust! his arms hang idly round, His flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold, Before her dance: behind her crawl the old!
See thronging millions to the Pagod run, And offer country, parent, wife, or son;Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim That not to be corrupted is the shame.
In soldier, Churchman, patriot, man in power, 'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!
See, all our nobles begging to be slaves!
See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
The wit of cheats, the courage of a w***e, Are what ten thousand envy and adore;All, all look up, with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law;While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry--"Nothing is sacred now but villainy."
Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)Show there was one who held it in disdain.
DIALOGUE II.
Fr. 'Tis all a libel--Paxton (sir) will say.)P. Not yet, my friend! to-morrow 'faith it may )And for that very cause I print to-day.)How should I fret to mangle every line, In reverence to the sins of thirty-nine!
Vice with such giant strides comes on amain, Invention strives to be before in vain;Feign what I will, and paint it e'er so strong, Some rising genius sins up to my song.
F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash;Even Guthry saves half Newgate by a dash.
Spare, then, the person, and expose the vice.
P. How, sir? not damn the sharper, but the dice?
Come on, then, satire! general, unconfined, Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.
Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!
Ye tradesmen vile, in army, court, or hall, Ye reverend atheists--F. Scandal! name them! who?
P. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do.
Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt, I never named; the town's inquiring yet.
The poisoning dame---
F. You mean--
P. I don't.
F. You do!
P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you!
The bribing statesman--
F. Hold, too high you go.
P. The bribed elector--
F. There you stoop too low.
P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what;Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not?
Must great offenders, once escaped the Crown, Like royal harts, be never more run down?
