Volume Ii Part 59 (1/2)

To give you a short translation of these two lines from Horace's Art of Poetry, which I have chosen for my neck-verse, before I proceed to my speech, you will find they fall naturally into this sense:

For poets who can't tell [high] rocks from stones, The rope, the hangman, and the gallows groans.

I was born in a fen near the foot of Mount Parna.s.sus, commonly called the Logwood Bog. My mother, whose name was Stanza, conceived me in a dream, and was delivered of me in her sleep. Her dream was, that Apollo, in the shape of a gander, with a prodigious long bill, had embraced her; upon which she consulted the Oracle of Delphos, and the following answer was made:

You'll have a gosling, call it Dan, And do not make your goose a swan.

'Tis true, because the G.o.d of Wit To get him in that shape thought fit, He'll have some glowworm sparks of it.

Venture you may to turn him loose, But let it be to another goose.

The time will come, the fatal time, When he shall dare a swan to rhyme; The tow'ring swan comes sousing down, And breaks his pinions, cracks his crown.

From that sad time, and sad disaster, He'll be a lame, crack'd poetaster.

At length for stealing rhymes and triplets, He'll be content to hang in giblets.

You see now, Gentlemen, this is fatally and literally come to pa.s.s; for it was my misfortune to engage with that Pindar of the times, Tom Sheridan, who did so confound me by sousing on my crown, and did so batter my pinions, that I was forced to make use of borrowed wings, though my false accusers have deposed that I stole my feathers from Hopkins, Sternhold, Silvester, Ogilby, Durfey, etc., for which I now forgive them and all the world. I die a poet; and this ladder shall be my Gradus ad Parna.s.sum; and I hope the critics will have mercy on my works.

Then lo, I mount as slowly as I sung, And then I'll make a line for every rung;[2]

There's nine, I see,--the Muses, too, are nine.

Who would refuse to die a death like mine!

1. Thou first rung, Clio, celebrate my name; 2. Euterp, in tragic numbers do the same.

3. This rung, I see, Terpsich.o.r.e's thy flute; 4. Erato, sing me to the G.o.ds; ah, do't: 5. Thalia, don't make me a comedy; 6. Urania, raise me tow'rds the starry sky: 7. Calliope, to ballad-strains descend, 8. And Polyhymnia, tune them for your friend; 9. So shall Melpomene mourn my fatal end.

POOR DAN JACKSON.

[Footnote 1: A variation from: ”mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae.”

_Epist. ad Pisones.--W. E. B._]

[Footnote 2: The Yorks.h.i.+re term for the rounds or steps of a ladder; still used in every part of Ireland.--_Scott_.]

TO THE REV. DANIEL JACKSON TO BE HUMBLY PRESENTED BY MR. SHERIDAN IN PERSON, WITH RESPECT, CARE, AND SPEED.

TO BE DELIVERED BY AND WITH MR. SHERIDAN

DEAR DAN,

Here I return my trust, nor ask One penny for remittance; If I have well perform'd my task, Pray send me an acquittance.

Too long I bore this weighty pack, As Hercules the sky; Now take him you, Dan Atlas, back, Let me be stander-by.

Not all the witty things you speak In compa.s.s of a day, Not half the puns you make a-week, Should bribe his longer stay.

With me you left him out at nurse, Yet are you not my debtor; For, as he hardly can be worse, I ne'er could make him better.

He rhymes and puns, and puns and rhymes, Just as he did before; And, when he's lash'd a hundred times, He rhymes and puns the more.

When rods are laid on school-boys' b.u.ms, The more they frisk and skip: The school-boys' top but louder hums The more they use the whip.