Must ever mark the noblest game:
Here, if they feel they’ve no pretence,
To urge their prey with solid sense,
They’ll find a shelter in the cool
Sarcastic smile of Ridicule:
For while a Bard seems half in joke,
A deal of nonsense may be spoke;
Nor will the Critics heed a trip,
Where Irony exerts the whip;
And now and then a serious dash
Will show like knots upon the lash.
But chiefly mind, whoe’er thou art,
Who boast the Patriot Censor’s part,
With unremitting hand to strike
The slavish party all alike:
No private virtues should abate
The rigour of thy free-born hate;
While every private vice may show
How well the wretch deserves the blow.
All petty rogues, to prove your strength, —
You may attack with names at length;
But when you mean to maul your betters,
Choose Dashes, —— — and Initial Letters.
Thus when of Scottish Home you speak,
You name him plump, without a break;
But a more cautious style assume
When you attack great D* *dH*e:
Thus slurring on poor Mallet’s fame,
First boldly change, then write the name;
But when your satire C * s would vex,
Best note him with an F and X.
— We treat the first, as cooks are thought
To dress small grigs, entire as caught;
But as large eels first lose their bowels,
We gut our great names of their vowels;
Then, roamed well on Satire’s bars,
We serve them up with forc’d-meat stars.
A Poem with such helps as these,
While it is new, will always please:
The side that does not feel its malice,
Will gladly quote its lively sallies:
And if, thro’ envy’s current passion,
It chance to gain the stamp of fashion,
All ranks shall own ’tis shrewdly writ,
And ev’ry line shall pass for wit.
— All ranks shall own— ‘except the few
Who give to reason, reason’s due;
Who are not slaves to Passion’s reign,
But in the volume of the brain,
Reserve to Taste one candid page
Immaculate from party rage.
— They know what springs supply the verse
Whose only aim is to asperse:
How little wit, how little sense,
Will furnish weapons for offence.
They know how much true genius scorns.
To gain from Fear a crown of thorns:
They know how rare the lib’ral muse
Will stoop to personal abuse,
Or make the scandal of a day
The burthen of the factious lay.
She hates to build a single verse on
Contingencies of things or person;
Or meanly catch a partial grace
From accident of time or place.
— Her province is on Fancy’s pinion,
To range thro’ Nature’s wide dominion;
To draw her beauties forth to view,
And add a lustre to their hue:
To catch the pencil from her hand,
Pausing where Fate hath bade her stand,
And, with a bold, creative line,
Deserve the title of divine.
— For the first Muse was Nature’s child,
And to a mother’s weakness mild,
With filial awe she did o’erlook
Each trifling error of her book,
Transcrib’d her works with partial lays,
Concealing, where she could not praise.
ENOUGH of Prologue! — For ’tis time
To check our vague, digressing rhyme,
Nor scribling on, as thoughts increase,
Neglect the Hero of
our Piece.
To thee, whatever name you choose,
Great bantling of a nursing muse!
Whose dubious rhymes by turns compel us
To call thee Sancho and Marcellus;
To thee I turn, and mean to try
The terror of thy eagle’s eye.
If, in the search, thy muse shall prove
A daughter of the thund’ring Jove,
Fit to direct the fire of youth,
And wield the stubborn bolts of truth;
If such she prove — thou surely wilt,
— Confirm’d on thy heroic stilt,
Deserve both Aimons glitt’ring pelf,
And all the praise — thou’st giv’n thyself.
But, when she should endure the test,
If, like a jade, she fall her crest;
Appear no pow’r of sacred birth,
But cloud-begot ‘tween heav’n and earth,
— If this appear, do thou disown
Her sway, and quit thy vengeful throne.
In humble style, with notes annext,
Proceed we now to treat our text.
To show we mean no hard attack,
We wave our licence to look back:
Your first-got laurels shall escape
The terrors of a critic rape;
And let your POSTSCRIPT only be
The touch-stone of your currency.
O Sancho, you may well regret
The time when Justice had not set
Her cruel balance, thus to check
The hope of knaves to risque their neck;
When things obtain’d a worth ideal,
And seemings pass’d for what was real.
Your verses then — smooth, dipt and trite,
False-dated, — gilt, yet still too light,
Cry’d-up by those you meant to please,
Might pass on crowds with current ease:
But place them where no spleen prevails,
Hung on the beam of Candour’s scales,
In one, your Poem be the freight,
And let its purchase be the weight:
— I fear, in spite of all your vaunting,
There will be found a shilling wanting.
The mob assumes such impious sway,
All weigh their Monarch, now, you say:
— Here, Sancho, you mistake the thing:
— ‘They weigh his image, not their King;
And, maugre, all your trope’s confusion,
I draw a different conclusion:
As copies must for ever fall
Beneath a good original,
If we, without a wish to flatter,
Possess th’ idea of the latter,
Then place an image in the scale,
No wonder that we find it fail.
Nor ought you to arraign the art
Of those who play Cadogan’s part; —
Your aim is one— ‘their rebel tool
You join with shears of ridicule;
And, tho’ you work with blunter nippers,
We all confess you first of clippers.
What pity, then — since one your aim —
We cannot say your end’s the same!
The royal Person this may stripe,
While t’other’s hang’d, who hurts his type!
This gets the bays, and that a cord —
— O Justice, send the same reward!
Fannius, you add, with frowning eye,
Call’d thy Heroics blasphemy: —
Believe me, Sancho, that in this
The old youth judg’d not much amiss:
For, — still our figure to pursue —
Upon most glitt’ring orbs we view,
Beside the monarch of the hour,
An emblem of a greater power;
And he who proves so lost of grace,
The royal image to deface,
W
ould never check his ranc’rous pride
To spare the cross on t’other side.
But now, behold, our Hero own,
That all his glitt’ring orbs are gone: —
— All, Sancho! No — if we may guess,
By bashful hints, what you possess,
There still remains — which few surpass —
One glitt’ring orb of — modest brass.
— But why this interjection here
For orbs defunct that pious fear!
Their manes, Sancho, cannot feel
A Scotchman’s unrelenting steel:
There may be found some ‘prentic’d ninny
Deprav’d enough to sweat a guinea,
But what advantage can he boast
Who grasps his steel to rob its ghost?
Observe! — was ever Bard so fickle? —
He leaves his scales, and takes a sickle.
Like pictur’d Time, with scythe in hand,
Behold him take his fatal stand;
Then, with a mower’s practis’d swing,
He’ll cut down fools, where’er they spring;
Collect them in poetic sheaf,
—— O pretty phrase for quarto leaf! —
And fairly stack the full-ear’d crop,
—— Good Heav’ns, how quaint! — in Almon’s shop.
(Thus Phœbus, in Admetus’ walks,
Would reap the corn, and bind the stalks.)
Who would not think, from such a boast,
Our Bard would stoutly keep his post
Would strain each nerve with vigour double,
‘Till Dunces field lay all in stubble.
How wond’rous, then, to see him quit,
Without a stroke, this scythe of wit!
Desert his critic muse’s cause,
To feed his pride with self-applause!
And, while he quaffs that precious slop,
Forget at once the promis’d crop!
— Thus Shenken Floyd or Patrick Bourke,
— Two lazy dogs — will quit their work,
Upon the broken gate to bask,
When Dolly brings the noon-day cask;
There cram and swill ‘till mem’ry fail
And all they reap, is cheese and ale.
But O, ye knaves, whom Sancho hates,
’Tis now the crisis of your fates!
And O, ye fools, how he will plague you;
Each line shall work you like an ague:
While moaning, groaning, pale, and trembling,
Ye both shall own them too resembling:
Nor will your fits e’er know remission;
— Such is his muse’s expedition! —
One wond’rous letter comes in spring!
Twelve toiling moons a Postscript bring!
An hundred lines the last contains —
The plenteous harvest of his brains! —
And if he writes as heretofore,
Next spring may yield — an hundred more!
Sure, honest Sancho, here you choose
A wrong allusion for your muse,
Her eagle wings!— ‘pray what disaster
Has kept the drab from flying faster?
Alas! I fear, were matters known,
And were the bird to have her own,
These wings some more ignoble fowl
Would claim; — what think you of an Owl?
Yet hold— ‘the Lady’s fame is fixt! —
O Vanity, with Folly mixt!
And can you hold a serious thought,
That with such trifles you have bought
One sprig of laurel, that shall bloom,
Instead of bramble, on thy tomb?
Believe me, Bard, as gen’rous Fate
Has fixt mortality on hate,
The Verse, tho’ grac’d with Fashion’s prize,
On Party built, with Party dies:
Thus your unfinish’d, feeble rhymes,
Form’d, as you own, to catch the times
If foster’d by the transient rays
Of Fashion, and of public Praise,
Like insects in an early spring,
Shall just have life to buz and sting;
Then proving their ignoble birth,
By dirty channels pass to earth.
Not all the truths by Horace writ,
(And his E p i s T L E s all had wit,
And what might best deserve the throne,
The wit they had was all his own)
So firm had rank’d the well-known name,
First in the page of classic fame,
As the most trifling Ode that fell
Impassion’d from his sprightly shell:
Those strains he caught as Phoebus sent ’em,
Then cried, “exegi monumentum!”
I wave to mention Virgil’s song, —
But while our hearts to love belong,
Each youth shall study to inspire
That love from Ovid’s polish’d lyre;
Nor seldom, with the same design,
Hang o’er Tibullus’ kindred line:
While Juvenal, and haughty Perseus,
With keen Lucilius for the tertius;
Mere tasks for boys, or schools for knaves,
Were better voted to their graves.
So shall the chaste and moral lay
Of mildly melancholy Grey; —
So shall the simplest shepherd’s tale
Which Shenstone told the Leasowes’ vale; —
So shall each note of am’rous woe,
Which gentle Hammond taught to flow,
As best might suit the Lover’s part,
Whose muse should be — a feeling heart, —
All, hurtless all, their honours wear,
— The little classics of the fair —
Gracing Fame’s page without a blot,
When Churchill shall be quite forgot.
And what can Sancho hope to gain,
Tho’ Freedom claim his graver strain:
— With toil thou may’ll become at most
A thing resembling Churchill’s ghost:
While wags shall own, nor sink thy merit,
They view his form, tho’ not his spirit.
Then quit, at once, thy vain design,
And court the muse’s smoother line:
— Or, if the fiend of baneful Spite
Alone can teach thee how to write;
If, for some crime, avenging Fate
Hath curs’d thee with a tide of hate,
Whose high spring flow, with noxious force,
Rolls to the moon’s unsteady course,
(So near to Madness is the ire
Which Envy strikes from Party fire!)
If such thy doom, — yet raise thy plan:
— Stand forth the gen’ral rod of man;
Give no distinction to thy scourge;
Thy satire’s bolts impartial urge;
No more at private failures hurl’d,
But ‘gainst the vices of a world.
But hold: — I’m catching Sancho’s style;
Half light, half grave; half frown, half smile:
These vile digressions always force
One from the line of one’s discourse:
Come then, my muse, let’s turn about
To comment, as we first set out.
“Say first, for neither land, or sea,
Or docks, hide any thing from thee,
Say, first, what cause mov’d the grand Lord
Of slumb’ring England’s naval board,
Favour’d of Peace so long, to quit
That sleepy state? Whose prudent wit
First wish’d that flag unfurl’d
Which bears the lordship of the world?
Who first seduc’d our curious isle?
— S A N c H o — He ’twas whose baneful guile.
With malice and revenge inflam’d,
His K — g an Asiatic nam’d:
What time h
is pride, with foul disgrace,
Had cast him out from post and place;
With all his host of printer’s devils,
Who durst conduct his factious evils,
Had cast him out — encreas’d perdition! —
To dwell in endless opposition:
While penal laws, and Tyburn-tree,
Curb’d half his schemes of LIBERTY.”
— Know then, ye loyal num’rous bands,
Who lately glow’d on Portsmouth’s sands,
Proud to behold your navy ride,
The nation’s safety and its pride;
Ye Captains, Boatswains, Tarrs, and all,
Chosen to man the floating wall;
Artificers, who, day and night,
Toil’d to prepare the princely sight;
And ye, bright judges of our arms,
Daughters of Beauty, whose speaking charms
Bade you forsake the favour’d earth,
To view the place of Venus’ birth;
(While ev’ry zephyr of the main
That wanton’d in your nymph-like train,
Demanded, with a sigh of care,
Why Amphitrite was not there)
Know all, — that this imperial shew,
(Peace to our sight, fear to our foe)
With the proud Town’s enlighten’d face,
— Ow’d to a Couplet all its grace:
One single dash of Sancho’s pen,
Produc’d — the Monarch — ships — and men!
Wond’rous! — great England’s naval line
Call’d forth, dread Bard, by one of thine!
S — d — h, and all the Navy-board,
Must own the Poet for their Lord;
Whose song, resistless, wields the State
At will; — whose ev’ry verse is Fate!
— ’Twas well his POSTSCRIPT did not name
The lustre of militia fame!
Or, in two months, with dire alarms,
All Middlesex had been in arms!
Or, had his muse condemn’d the State
Defenceless of a Sov’reign’s gate,
We’d surely seen a plan, next hour,
To arm St. James’s like the Tower!
While T — s — d, instant call’d to Court,
To make the outward porch a fort,
With mortar, cannon, bomb, and shell,
Had fix’d his ordnance in Pall-mall!
Thence G — s — l, with a chosen band,
Well skill’d in cattles to command,
O’er the Horse-guards he might prefer,
To awe the Duns of Westminster;
There might he reign, the Prince of Bilks,
And, ‘stead of bailiffs, shoot at W — s.
If such the pow’r of Sancho’s pen,
— Like magic o’er the minds of men! —
Heav’n grant th’ enchantment of his rhyme
May not extend to brick and lime!
Or, should he quarrel with our towns,
Our houses, next, may grace the Downs!
— What sport to him, to set in motion
Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan Page 57