Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 102

Why do we grieve that friends should die?

No loss more easy to supply.

One year is past; a different scene!

No further mention of the Dean, Who now, alas! no more is missed, Than if he never did exist.

Where's now the favourite of Apollo?

Departed:--and his works must follow; Must undergo the common fate; His kind of wit is out of date.

Some country squire to Lintot goes, Inquires for Swift in verse and prose.

Says Lintot, 'I have heard the name; He died a year ago.'--'The same.'

He searches all the shop in vain.

'Sir, you may find them in Duck Lane: I sent them, with a load of books, Last Monday, to the pastry-cook's.

To fancy they could live a year!

I find you're but a stranger here.

The Dean was famous in his time, And had a kind of knack at rhyme.

His way of writing now is past: The town has got a better taste.

I keep no antiquated stuff; But spick and span I have enough.

Pray, do but give me leave to show 'em: Here's Colley Cibber's birthday poem.

This ode you never yet have seen, By Stephen Duck, upon the queen.

Then here's a letter finely penned Against the Craftsman and his friend: It clearly shows that all reflection On ministers is disaffection.

Next, here's Sir Robert's vindication, And Mr Henley's last oration.

The hawkers have not got them yet; Your honour please to buy a set?

'Here's Wolston's tracts, the twelfth edition; 'Tis read by every politician: The country-members, when in town, To all their boroughs send them down: You never met a thing so smart; The courtiers have them all by heart: Those maids of honour who can read, Are taught to use them for their creed.

The reverend author's good intention Hath been rewarded with a pension: He doth an honour to his gown, By bravely running priestcraft down: He shows, as sure as G.o.d's in Gloucester, That Moses was a grand impostor; That all his miracles were cheats, Performed as jugglers do their feats: The church had never such a writer; A shame he hath not got a mitre!'

Suppose me dead; and then suppose A club a.s.sembled at the Rose; Where, from discourse of this and that, I grow the subject of their chat.

And while they toss my name about, With favour some, and some without; One, quite indifferent in the cause, My character impartial draws:

'The Dean, if we believe report, Was never ill received at court, Although, ironically grave, He shamed the fool, and lashed the knave; To steal a hint was never known, But what he writ was all his own.'

'Sir, I have heard another story; He was a most confounded Tory, And grew, or he is much belied, Extremely dull, before he died.'

'Can we the Drapier then forget?

Is not our nation in his debt?

'Twas he that writ the Drapier's letters!'--

'He should have left them for his betters; We had a hundred abler men, Nor need depend upon his pen.-- Say what you will about his reading, You never can defend his breeding; Who, in his satires running riot, Could never leave the world in quiet; Attacking, when he took the whim, Court, city, camp,--all one to him.-- But why would he, except he s...o...b..red, Offend our patriot, great Sir Robert, Whose counsels aid the sovereign power To save the nation every hour!

What scenes of evil he unravels In satires, libels, lying travels, Not sparing his own clergy cloth, But eats into it, like a moth!'

'Perhaps I may allow the Dean Had too much satire in his vein, And seemed determined not to starve it, Because no age could more deserve it.

Yet malice never was his aim; He lashed the vice, but spared the name.

No individual could resent, Where thousands equally were meant: His satire points at no defect, But what all mortals may correct; For he abhorred the senseless tribe Who call it humour when they gibe: He spared a hump or crooked nose, Whose owners set not up for beaux.

True genuine dulness moved his pity, Unless it offered to be witty.

Those who their ignorance confessed He ne'er offended with a jest; But laughed to hear an idiot quote A verse from Horace learned by rote.

Vice, if it e'er can be abashed, Must be or ridiculed, or lashed.

If you resent it, who's to blame?

He neither knows you, nor your name.

Should vice expect to 'scape rebuke, Because its owner is a dukel?

His friendships, still to few confined, Were always of the middling kind; No fools of rank, or mongrel breed, Who fain would pa.s.s for lords indeed: Where t.i.tles give no right or power, And peerage is a withered flower; He would have deemed it a disgrace, If such a wretch had known his face.

On rural squires, that kingdom's bane, He vented oft his wrath in vain: * * * * * * * squires to market brought, Who sell their souls and * * * * for nought.

The * * * * * * * * go joyful back, To rob the church, their tenants rack; Go snacks with * * * * * justices, And keep the peace to pick up fees; In every job to have a share, A gaol or turnpike to repair; And turn * * * * * * * to public roads Commodious to their own abodes.

'He never thought an honour done him, Because a peer was proud to own him; Would rather slip aside, and choose To talk with wits in dirty shoes; And scorn the tools with stars and garters, So often seen caressing Chartres.

He never courted men in station, Nor persons held in admiration; Of no man's greatness was afraid, Because he sought for no man's aid.

Though trusted long in great affairs, He gave himself no haughty airs: Without regarding private ends, Spent all his credit for his friends; And only chose the wise and good; No flatterers; no allies in blood: But succoured virtue in distress, And seldom failed of good success; As numbers in their hearts must own, Who, but for him, had been unknown.

'He kept with princes due decorum; Yet never stood in awe before 'em.

He followed David's lesson just, In princes never put his trust: And, would you make him truly sour, Provoke him with a slave in power.

The Irish senate if you named, With what impatience he declaimed!

Fair LIBERTY was all his cry; For her he stood prepared to die; For her he boldly stood alone; For her he oft exposed his own.

Two kingdoms, just as faction led, Had set a price upon his head; But not a traitor could be found, To sell him for six hundred pound.

'Had he but spared his tongue and pen, He might have rose like other men: But power was never in his thought, And wealth he valued not a groat: Ingrat.i.tude he often found, And pitied those who meant to wound; But kept the tenor of his mind, To merit well of human-kind; Nor made a sacrifice of those Who still were true, to please his foes.

He laboured many a fruitless hour, To reconcile his friends in power; Saw mischief by a faction brewing, While they pursued each other's ruin.

But, finding vain was all his care, He left the court in mere despair.

'And, oh! how short are human schemes!

Here ended all our golden dreams.

What St John's skill in state affairs, What Ormond's valour, Oxford's cares, To save their sinking country lent, Was all destroyed by one event.

Too soon that precious life was ended, On which alone our weal depended.

When up a dangerous faction starts, With wrath and vengeance in their hearts; By solemn league and covenant bound, To ruin, slaughter, and confound; To turn religion to a fable, And make the government a Babel; Pervert the laws, disgrace the gown, Corrupt the senate, rob the crown; To sacrifice old England's glory, And make her infamous in story: When such a tempest shook the land, How could unguarded virtue stand!

'With horror, grief, despair, the Dean Beheld the dire destructive scene: His friends in exile, or the Tower, Himself within the frown of power; Pursued by base envenomed pens, Far to the land of S---- and fens; A servile race in folly nursed, Who truckle most, when treated worst.

'By innocence and resolution, He bore continual persecution; While numbers to preferment rose, Whose merit was to be his foes; When even his own familiar friends, Intent upon their private ends, Like renegadoes now he feels, Against him lifting up their heels.

'The Dean did, by his pen, defeat An infamous destructive cheat; Taught fools their interest how to know, And gave them arms to ward the blow.

Envy hath owned it was his doing, To save that hapless land from ruin; While they who at the steerage stood, And reaped the profit, sought his blood.

'To save them from their evil fate, In him was held a crime of state.

A wicked monster on the bench, Whose fury blood could never quench; As vile and profligate a villain, As modern Scroggs, or old Tressilian; Who long all justice had discarded, Nor feared he G.o.d, nor man regarded; Vowed on the Dean his rage to vent, And make him of his zeal repent: But Heaven his innocence defends, The grateful people stand his friends; Not strains of law, nor judges' frown, Nor topics brought to please the crown, Nor witness hired, nor jury picked, Prevail to bring him in convict.

'In exile, with a steady heart, He spent his life's declining part; Where folly, pride, and faction sway, Remote from St John, Pope, and Gay.'

'Alas, poor Dean! his only scope Was to be held a misanthrope.

This into general odium drew him, Which if he liked, much good may't do him.

His zeal was not to lash our crimes, But discontent against the times: For, had we made him timely offers To raise his post, or fill his coffers, Perhaps he might have truckled down, Like other brethren of his gown; For party he would scarce have bled:-- I say no more--because he's dead.-- What writings has he left behind?'

'I hear they're of a different kind: A few in verse; but most in prose--'

'Some high-flown pamphlets, I suppose:-- All scribbled in the worst of times, To palliate his friend Oxford's crimes; To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her, As never favouring the Pretender: Or libels yet concealed from sight, Against the court to show his spite: Perhaps his travels, part the third; A lie at every second word-- Offensive to a loyal ear:-- But--not one sermon, you may swear.'

'He knew an hundred pleasing stories, With all the turns of Whigs and Tories: Was cheerful to his dying-day; And friends would let him have his way.

'As for his works in verse or prose, I own myself no judge of those.

Nor can I tell what critics thought them; But this I know, all people bought them, As with a moral view designed, To please and to reform mankind: And, if he often missed his aim, The world must own it to their shame, The praise is his, and theirs the blame.

He gave the little wealth he had To build a house for fools and mad; To show, by one satiric touch, No nation wanted it so much.

That kingdom he hath left his debtor, I wish it soon may have a better.

And, since you dread no further lashes, Methinks you may forgive his ashes.'