Volume I Part 50 (1/2)
Once on a time, a righteous sage, Grieved with the vices of the age, Applied to Jove with fervent prayer-- ”O Jove, if Virtue be so fair As it was deem'd in former days, By Plato and by Socrates, Whose beauties mortal eyes escape, Only for want of outward shape; Make then its real excellence, For once the theme of human sense; So shall the eye, by form confined, Direct and fix the wandering mind, And long-deluded mortals see, With rapture, what they used to flee!”
Jove grants the prayer, gives Virtue birth, And bids him bless and mend the earth.
Behold him blooming fresh and fair, Now made--ye G.o.ds--a son and heir; An heir: and, stranger yet to hear, An heir, an orphan of a peer;[2]
But prodigies are wrought to prove Nothing impossible to Jove.
Virtue was for this s.e.x design'd, In mild reproof to womankind; In manly form to let them see The loveliness of modesty, The thousand decencies that shone With lessen'd l.u.s.tre in their own; Which few had learn'd enough to prize, And some thought modish to despise.
To make his merit more discern'd, He goes to school--he reads--is learn'd; Raised high above his birth, by knowledge, He s.h.i.+nes distinguish'd in a college; Resolved nor honour, nor estate, Himself alone should make him great.
Here soon for every art renown'd, His influence is diffused around; The inferior youth to learning led, Less to be famed than to be fed, Behold the glory he has won, And blush to see themselves outdone; And now, inflamed with rival rage, In scientific strife engage, Engage; and, in the glorious strife The arts new kindle into life.
Here would our hero ever dwell, Fix'd in a lonely learned cell: Contented to be truly great, In Virtue's best beloved retreat; Contented he--but Fate ordains, He now shall s.h.i.+ne in n.o.bler scenes, Raised high, like some celestial fire, To s.h.i.+ne the more, still rising higher; Completely form'd in every part, To win the soul, and glad the heart.
The powerful voice, the graceful mien, Lovely alike, or heard, or seen; The outward form and inward vie, His soul bright beaming from his eye, Enn.o.bling every act and air, With just, and generous, and sincere.
Accomplish'd thus, his next resort Is to the council and the court, Where Virtue is in least repute, And interest the one pursuit; Where right and wrong are bought and sold, Barter'd for beauty, and for gold; Here Manly Virtue, even here, Pleased in the person of a peer, A peer; a scarcely bearded youth, Who talk'd of justice and of truth, Of innocence the surest guard, Tales here forgot, or yet unheard; That he alone deserved esteem, Who was the man he wish'd to seem; Call'd it unmanly and unwise, To lurk behind a mean disguise; (Give fraudful Vice the mask and screen, 'Tis Virtue's interest to be seen;) Call'd want of shame a want of sense, And found, in blushes, eloquence.
Thus acting what he taught so well, He drew dumb merit from her cell, Led with amazing art along The bashful dame, and loosed her tongue; And, while he made her value known, Yet more display'd and raised his own.
Thus young, thus proof to all temptations, He rises to the highest stations; For where high honour is the prize, True Virtue has a right to rise: Let courtly slaves low bend the knee To Wealth and Vice in high degree: Exalted Worth disdains to owe Its grandeur to its greatest foe.
Now raised on high, see Virtue shows The G.o.dlike ends for which he rose; For him, let proud Ambition know The height of glory here below, Grandeur, by goodness made complete!
To bless, is truly to be great!
He taught how men to honour rise, Like gilded vapours to the skies, Which, howsoever they display Their glory from the G.o.d of day, Their n.o.blest use is to abate His dangerous excess of heat, To s.h.i.+eld the infant fruits and flowers, And bless the earth with genial showers.
Now change the scene; a n.o.bler care Demands him in a higher sphere:[3]
Distress of nations calls him hence, Permitted so by Providence; For models, made to mend our kind, To no one clime should be confined; And Manly Virtue, like the sun, His course of glorious toils should run: Alike diffusing in his flight Congenial joy, and life, and light.
Pale Envy sickens, Error flies, And Discord in his presence dies; Oppression hides with guilty dread, And Merit rears her drooping head; The arts revive, the valleys sing, And winter softens into spring: The wondering world, where'er he moves, With new delight looks up, and loves; One s.e.x consenting to admire, Nor less the other to desire; While he, though seated on a throne, Confines his love to one alone; The rest condemn'd with rival voice Repining, do applaud his choice.
Fame now reports, the Western isle Is made his mansion for a while, Whose anxious natives, night and day, (Happy beneath his righteous sway,) Weary the G.o.ds with ceaseless prayer, To bless him, and to keep him there; And claim it as a debt from Fate, Too lately found, to lose him late.
[Footnote 1: See Swift's ”Vindication of Lord Carteret,” ”Prose Works,”
vii, 227; and his character as Lord Granville in my ”Wit and Wisdom of Lord Chesterfield.”--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 2: George, the first Lord Carteret, father of the Lord Lieutenant, died when his son was between four and five years of age.--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 3: Lord Carteret had the honour of mediating peace for Sweden, with Denmark, and with the Czar.--_H._]
ON PADDY'S CHARACTER OF THE ”INTELLIGENCER.”[1] 1729
As a thorn bush, or oaken bough, Stuck in an Irish cabin's brow, Above the door, at country fair, Betokens entertainment there; So bays on poets' brows have been Set, for a sign of wit within.
And as ill neighbours in the night Pull down an alehouse bush for spite; The laurel so, by poets worn, Is by the teeth of Envy torn; Envy, a canker-worm, which tears Those sacred leaves that lightning spares.
And now, t'exemplify this moral: Tom having earn'd a twig of laurel, (Which, measured on his head, was found Not long enough to reach half round, But, like a girl's c.o.c.kade, was tied, A trophy, on his temple-side,) Paddy repined to see him wear This badge of honour in his hair; And, thinking this c.o.c.kade of wit Would his own temples better fit, Forming his Muse by Smedley's model, Lets drive at Tom's devoted noddle, Pelts him by turns with verse and prose Hums like a hornet at his nose.
At length presumes to vent his satire on The Dean, Tom's honour'd friend and patron.
The eagle in the tale, ye know, Teazed by a buzzing wasp below, Took wing to Jove, and hoped to rest Securely in the thunderer's breast: In vain; even there, to spoil his nod, The spiteful insect stung the G.o.d.
[Footnote 1: For particulars of this publication, the work of two only, Swift and Sheridan, see ”Prose Works,” vol. ix, p. 311. The satire seems To have provoked retaliation from Tighe, Prendergast, Smedley, and even from Delany. Hence this poem.--_W. E. B._]
AN EPISTLE TO HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN, LORD CARTERET BY DR. DELANY. 1729[1]
Credis ob haec me, Pastor, opes forta.s.se rogare, Propter quae vulgus cra.s.saque turba rogat.
MART., _Epig._, lib. ix, 22.
Thou wise and learned ruler of our isle, Whose guardian care can all her griefs beguile; When next your generous soul shall condescend T' instruct or entertain your humble friend; Whether, retiring from your weighty charge, On some high theme you learnedly enlarge; Of all the ways of wisdom reason well, How Richelieu rose, and how Seja.n.u.s fell: Or, when your brow less thoughtfully unbends, Circled with Swift and some delighted friends; When, mixing mirth and wisdom with your wine, Like that your wit shall flow, your genius s.h.i.+ne: Nor with less praise the conversation guide, Than in the public councils you decide: Or when the Dean, long privileged to rail, a.s.serts his friend with more impetuous zeal; You hear (whilst I sit by abash'd and mute) With soft concessions shortening the dispute; Then close with kind inquiries of my state, ”How are your t.i.thes, and have they rose of late?
Why, Christ-Church is a pretty situation, There are not many better in the nation!
This, with your other things, must yield you clear Some six--at least five hundred pounds a-year.”