The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer Part 25

And darkness and doubt are now flying away; No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn: So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray, The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.

See Truth, Love, and Mercy in triumph descending, And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending, And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

ON

THE REPORT OF A MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, TO THE MEMORY OF A LATE AUTHOR (CHURCHILL).

(WRITTEN IN 1765.)

[PART OF A LETTER TO A PERSON OF QUALITY.]

Lest your Lordship, who are so well acquainted with everything that relates to true honour, should think hardly of me for attacking the memory of the dead, I beg leave to offer a few words in my own vindication.

If I had composed the following verses, with a view to gratify private resentment, to promote the interest of any faction, or to recommend myself to the patronage of any person whatsoever, I should have been altogether inexcusable. To attack the memory of the dead from selfish considerations, or from mere wantonness of malice, is an enormity which none can hold in greater detestation than I. But I composed them from very different motives; as every intelligent reader, who peruses them with attention, and who is willing to believe me upon my own testimony, will undoubtedly perceive. My motives proceeded from a sincere desire to do some small service to my country, and to the cause of truth and virtue. The promoters of faction I ever did, and ever will, consider as the enemies of mankind: to the memory of such I owe no veneration: to the writings of such I owe no indulgence.

Your Lordship knows that (Churchill) owed the greatest share of his renown to the most incompetent of all judges, the mob: actuated by the most unworthy of all principles, a spirit of insolence, and inflamed by the vilest of all human pa.s.sions, hatred to their fellow-citizens. Those who joined the cry in his favour seemed to me to be swayed rather by fashion than by real sentiment: he therefore might have lived and died unmolested by me, confident as I am, that posterity, when the present unhappy dissensions are forgotten, will do ample justice to his real character. But when I saw the extravagant honours that were paid to his memory, and heard that a monument in Westminster Abbey was intended for one whom even his admirers acknowledge to have been an incendiary and a debauchee; I could not help wishing that my countrymen would reflect a little on what they were doing, before they consecrated, by what posterity would think the public voice, a character, which no friend to virtue or true taste can approve. It was this sentiment, enforced by the earnest request of a friend, which produced the following little poem; in which I have said nothing of (Churchill's) manners that is not warranted by the best authority: nor of his writings, that is not perfectly agreeable to the opinion of many of the most competent judges in Britain.

ABERDEEN, January 1765.

Bufo, begone! with thee may Faction's fire, That hatch'd thy salamander-fame, expire.

Fame, dirty idol of the brainless crowd, What half-made moon-calf can mistake for good!

Since shared by knaves of high and low degree; Cromwell and Cataline: Guido Faux, and thee.

By nature uninspired, untaught by art; With not one thought that breathes the feeling heart, With not one offering vow'd to Virtue's shrine, With not one pure unprost.i.tuted line; 10 Alike debauch'd in body, soul, and lays;-- For pension'd censure, and for pension'd praise, For ribaldry, for libels, lewdness, lies, For blasphemy of all the good and wise: Coa.r.s.e violence in coa.r.s.er doggrel writ, Which bawling blackguards spell'd, and took for wit: For conscience, honour, slighted, spurn'd, o'erthrown:-- Lo! Bufo shines the minion of renown.

Is this the land that boasts a Milton's fire, And magic Spenser's wildly warbling lyre? 20 The land that owns the omnipotence of song, When Shakspeare whirls the throbbing heart along?

The land, where Pope, with energy divine, In one strong blaze bade wit and fancy shine: Whose verse, by truth in virtue's triumph born, Gave knaves to infamy, and fools to scorn; Yet pure in manners, and in thought refined, Whose life and lays adorn'd and bless'd mankind?

Is this the land, where Gray's unlabour'd art Soothes, melts, alarms, and ravishes the heart: 30 While the lone wanderer's sweet complainings flow In simple majesty of manly woe: Or while, sublime, on eagle pinion driven, He soars Pindaric heights, and sails the waste of Heaven?

Is this the land, o'er Shenstone's recent urn, Where all the Loves and gentler Graces mourn?

And where, to crown the h.o.a.ry bard of night, [1]

The Muses and the Virtues all unite?

Is this the land where Akenside displays The bold yet temperate flame of ancient days? 40 Like the rapt sage, [2] in genius as in theme, Whose hallow'd strain renown'd Illyssus' stream: Or him, the indignant bard, [3] whose patriot ire, Sublime in vengeance, smote the dreadful lyre: For truth, for liberty, for virtue warm, Whose mighty song unnerved a tyrant's arm, Hush'd the rude roar of discord, rage, and l.u.s.t, And spurn'd licentious demagogues to dust.

Is this the queen of realms? the glorious isle, Britannia, blest in Heaven's indulgent smile? 50 Guardian of truth, and patroness of art, Nurse of the undaunted soul, and generous heart!

Where, from a base unthankful world exiled, Freedom exults to roam the careless wild: Where taste to science every charm supplies, And genius soars unbounded to the skies?

And shall a Bufo's most polluted name Stain her bright tablet of untainted fame?

Shall his disgraceful name with theirs be join'd, Who wish'd and wrought the welfare of their kind? 60 His name, accurst, who, leagued with----[4] and h.e.l.l, Labour'd to rouse, with rude and murderous yell, Discord the fiend, to toss rebellion's brand, To whelm in rage and woe a guiltless land: To frustrate wisdom's, virtue's n.o.blest plan, And triumph in the miseries of man.

Drivelling and dull, when crawls the reptile Muse, Swoln from the sty, and rankling from the stews, With envy, spleen, and pestilence replete, And gorged with dust she lick'd from Treason's feet: 70 Who once, like Satan, raised to Heaven her sight, But turn'd abhorrent from the hated light:-- O'er such a Muse shall wreaths of glory bloom?

No--shame and execration be her doom.

Hard-fated Bufo, could not dulness save Thy soul from sin, from infamy thy grave?

Blackmore and Quarles, those blockheads of renown, Lavish'd their ink, but never harm'd the town.

Though this, thy brother in discordant song, Hara.s.s'd the ear, and cramp'd the labouring tongue: 80 And that, like thee, taught staggering prose to stand, And limp on stilts of rhyme around the land.

Harmless they dozed a scribbling life away, And yawning nations own'd the innoxious lay, But from thy graceless, rude, and beastly brain, What fury breathed the incendiary strain?

Did hate to vice exasperate thy style?

No--Bufo match'd the vilest of the vile.

Yet blazon'd was his verse with Virtue's name-- Thus prudes look down to hide their want of shame: 90 Thus hypocrites to truth, and fools to sense, And fops to taste, have sometimes made pretence: Thus thieves and gamesters swear by honour's laws: Thus pension-hunters bawl "their country's cause:"

Thus furious Teague for moderation raved, And own'd his soul to liberty enslaved.

Nor yet, though thousand cits admire thy rage, Though less of fool than felon marks thy page: Nor yet, though here and there one lonely spark Of wit half brightens through the involving dark, 100 To show the gloom more hideous for the foil, But not repay the drudging reader's toil; (For who for one poor pearl of clouded ray Through Alpine dunghills delves his desperate way?

Did genius to thy verse such bane impart?

No. 'Twas the demon of thy venom'd heart, (Thy heart with rancour's quintessence endued).

And the blind zeal of a misjudging crowd.

Thus from rank soil a poison'd mushroom sprung, Nursling obscene of mildew and of dung: 110 By Heaven design'd on its own native spot Harmless to enlarge its bloated bulk, and rot.

But gluttony the abortive nuisance saw; It roused his ravenous, undiscerning maw: Gulp'd down the tasteless throat, the mess abhorr'd Shot fiery influence round the maddening board.

O had thy verse been impotent as dull, Nor spoke the rancorous heart, but lumpish scull; Had mobs distinguish'd, they who howl'd thy fame, The icicle from the pure diamond's flame, 120 From fancy's soul thy gross imbruted sense, From dauntless truth thy shameless insolence, From elegance confusion's monstrous ma.s.s, And from the lion's spoils the skulking a.s.s, From rapture's strain the drawling doggrel line, From warbling seraphim the grunting swine; With gluttons, dunces, rakes, thy name had slept, Nor o'er her sullied fame Britannia wept: Nor had the Muse, with honest zeal possess'd, To avenge her country, by thy name disgraced, 130 Raised this bold strain for virtue, truth, mankind, And thy fell shade to infamy resign'd.

When frailty leads astray the soul sincere, Let mercy shed the soft and manly tear.

When to the grave descends the sensual sot, Unnamed, unnoticed, let his carrion rot.

When paltry rogues, by stealth, deceit, or force, Hazard their necks, ambitious of your purse: For such the hangman wreaths his trusty gin, And let the gallows expiate their sin. 140 But when a ruffian, whose portentous crimes, Like plagues and earthquakes terrify the times, Triumphs through life, from legal judgment free, For h.e.l.l may hatch what law could ne'er foresee: Sacred from vengeance shall his memory rest?-- Judas, though dead, though d.a.m.n'd, we still detest.

[Footnote 1: 'h.o.a.ry bard of night:' Dr Young.]

[Footnote 2: 'Rapt sage:' Pluto.]

[Footnote 3: 'Indignant bard:' Alceus; see Akenside's 'Ode on Lyric Poetry.']

[Footnote 4: Wilkes.]

THE BATTLE OF THE PIGMIES AND CRANES.

(FROM THE "PYGMaeO-GERANO-MACHIA" OF ADDISON.)

1762.

The Pigmy people, and the feather'd train, Mingling in mortal combat on the plain, I sing. Ye Muses, favour my designs, Lead on my squadrons and arrange the lines; The flashing swords and fluttering wings display, And long bills nibbling in the b.l.o.o.d.y fray; Cranes darting with disdain on tiny foes, Conflicting birds and men, and war's unnumber'd woes!

The wars and woes of heroes six feet long Have oft resounded in Pierian song. 10 Who has not heard of Colchos' golden fleece, And Argo mann'd with all the flower of Greece?

Of Thebes' fell brethren; Theseus stern of face; And Peleus' son, unrivall'd in the race; Eneas, founder of the Roman line, And William, glorious on the banks of Boyne?

Who has not learn'd to weep at Pompey's woes, And over Blackmore's epic page to doze?

'Tis I, who dare attempt unusual strains, Of hosts unsung, and unfrequented plains; 20 The small shrill trump, and chiefs of little size, And armies rushing down the darken'd skies.

Where India reddens to the early dawn, Winds a deep vale from vulgar eye withdrawn: Bosom'd in groves the lowly region lies, And rocky mountains round the border rise.

Here, till the doom of fate its fall decreed, The empire flourish'd of the pigmy breed; Here Industry perform'd, and Genius plann'd, And busy mult.i.tudes o'erspread the land. 30 But now to these lone bounds if pilgrim stray, Tempting through craggy cliffs the desperate way, He finds the puny mansion fallen to earth, Its G.o.dlings mouldering on the abandon'd hearth; And starts where small white bones are spread around, "Or little [1] footsteps lightly print the ground;"

While the proud crane her nest securely builds, Chattering amid the desolated fields.

But different fates befell her hostile rage, While reign'd invincible through many an age 40 The dreaded pigmy: roused by war's alarms, Forth rush'd the madding manikin to arms.

Fierce to the field of death the hero flies; The faint crane fluttering flaps the ground and dies; And by the victor borne (o'erwhelming load!) With b.l.o.o.d.y bill loose-dangling marks the road.