Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Indiff'rent still, I hear the loud acclaim,
Nor court that noisy strumpet, Common Fame.
Yes, I can bear that envy, hate, and spite,
And cold contempt attend on all I write ;
That Cottle's idiot, Thurlow's splay-foot line,
And Barrett's doggerel be preferr'd to mine;
No threats can sway me, no opinions bend,
I care not;-let them censure or commend.
Yet would I speak, but coward fear restrains
The rebel blood just rising in my veins;
Puts my imagination to a stand,

And makes my pen drop harmless from my hand. F. Why Truth, that arms the Stoic, ne'er can fail

P. Then fear for once give way, and Truth prevail. When I behold in this weak driv❜ling age, Poole, Dibdin, Pocock, Hook possess the stage; Charm gallery, box, and pit, a judging throng! With melodrame, and pantomime, and song:

*Mr. Joseph Cottle, a good citizen, but a bad poet.

+ Mr. Eaton Stannard Barrett, student of the Inner Temple, is the author of a poem called "Woman," from which might be extracted many passages that would illustrate the Bathos; and "The Heroine," a novel, superior in wit (according to his own statement!) to Tristram Shandy, and in spirit and contrivance to Don Quixote. He has also obliged the town with a Bartholomew-Fair comedy, entitled, "My Wife, What Wife!"

See boxing* Yarmouth in the lists appear,
And Hawke drive forth a flaming charioteer;
See Coutts ape all that Queensb'ry was before,
A palsied, am'rous Strephon of fourscore!
Yes! when I hear frail Misses, grey in years,
Scream their lascivious odes, and rhyming Peers
In little sonnets, tender, dull, and soft,
Outwhine the mawkish frippery of Lofft; †
Then, then I boldly rise, and dare the worst-
F. Forbear this railing:

P.

I must speak, or burst.

* If a dustman or drayman have a cruel appetite to blacken his wife's eyes upon scientific principles, he may be initiated without offering much violence to the dignity of his order, and hammer away at his vocation as if he was paid regular wages for his exertions; but if a noble lord aspire to boxing honors, he must receive instructions in his favorite art from, and exercise it, not on his peers, but the veriest ruffians of society. Lord Byron's passion for pugilism is an exception that proves the rule; yet I may just remark, that a more decorous manifestation of filial grief, and a higher consolation for a mother's death, might have been derived and sought than through the medium of a game at fisty-cuffs, at which his lordship had a sorrowful set-to while the funeral procession of his only remaining parent was slowly moving from his ancestral domain. I question if even the venerated mothers of Belasco and Dutch Sam were mourned with similar obsequies.

+ Mr. Capel Lofft, a sonnet-writer in the " Monthly Mirror."

There was a time when Churchill, bold and coarse,
Gave wit its point, and satire all its force;
When Pope, immortal Sat'rist! made his prey
The Herveys and the Gildons of the day;
Dragg'd into light th' abandon'd scribbling crew,
And boldly scourg'd them in the public view :
But now, so cheap is praise, there scarce remains
One fool to flatter in our courtly strains.

Had they but liv'd to witness present times,

What sins, what dulness had provok'd their rhymes;
Satire unaw'd would then have dar'd to speak,
Till deep conviction glow'd on H--df--t's cheek;
And Manners, brainless blockhead! stood confest
The public nuisance, and the public jest.

F. Once more forbear-thy proper medium
know:-

Degraded names! can Satire stoop so low?
When H--df--t ambles in a courtier's guise,
All know the hoary pimp, and all despise.
Does credence wait on each prepost'rous tale?
Who cares a jot when Agg,* and Manners + rail?

* Mr. Thomas Agg, a sometime Bristol bookseller, and now an auctioneer, has long been the hired scribe of a deceased publication, called "Town Talk." He writes under the assumed names of Humphrey Hedgehog, and Jeremiah Juvenal; and has recently adopted that of Peter Pindar, hoping to confound his spurious trash with the

They dare vexatious suits, as well they may,
Who have nor shame, nor wherewithal to pay.
Let them enjoy in secret, dirty souls,

Their miserable bread, and peck of coals;

'Twere cowardice to drag them from their holes. What can provoke thy Muse? scarce thrice a year

productions of Dr. Walcott. The original Peter is too often profane, but never dull. One of Mr. Agg's latest productions is a poem called "Waterloo," which he modestly informs us, is "full of blunders ;" in consideration of which he charges only the trifling sum of twenty-five shillings; being twenty for the paper, and five for the poetry. The following stanza is moderately intelligible:

66

"Bold is the bard that grasps the thong of war,
Drives his wing'd steeds, and guides his thund'ring car,
Where havoc stalks, a hydra multiform,

That, while the whirlwind of the field is high,
And rival lightnings redden to the sky,

Surveys the horrors with poetic eye,

And models there the echo of the storm!!!

Dauntless the glance that skims the blasted heath,

And marks with steady orb the gluttony of death."

Hissing hot, Master Brooke!"-" Thus bad begins, but worse remains behind!"

+ Mr. Manners, late editor of the " Satirist," was renowned for throwing as much dirt as any of his contemporary libellers. In person he resembles the "Phantom Moore,"

"Of such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,

Twelve starveling bards of these degenerate days."

Matilda's woeful madrigals appear;

Lewis no more the tender maid affrights
With incantations, ravishments, and sprites :
Crusca, (to Gifford thanks!) is fairly fled,
And heavy Wharton + sleeps among the dead;
E'en Walcott's impious blasphemies are o'er,
And Andrews' Prologues are the vogue no more.

What can provoke thy Muse?—the blinded school, Whose greatest boast was that it err'd by rule, That philosophic horde of fools and knaves Has fall'n-nor Paine blasphemes, nor Priestley

raves.

Repentant bigots bow and kiss the rod,

And prostrate nations own the name of God.
Reason, that dang'rous pride of human kind,
For ever soaring, and for ever blind;
Prone to distrust when tardy to discern,

Too weak to compass, yet too proud to learn;
With shame reviews each ill-digested plan,
And turns with horror from "The Rights of Man."

* Rosa Matilda, as she poetically styles herself, is the daughter of the notorious Jew King; and the writer of innumerable Odes, Elegies, Sonnets, and sundry volumes of "Horrors;" very terrible and meritorious productions.

+ Mr. Wharton has presented the public with an Epic, known by the name of " Roncesvalles."

« ZurückWeiter »