*

What can provoke thy Muse ?-in silence deep
Tooke rests-but not in everlasting sleep:
Another scene awaits his trembling sight,
A gloom more awful, or a blaze more bright!
The veil is rent, the Sceptic's hateful name †
Stands justly branded with contempt and shame ;
The Christian Banner is again unfurl'd,

And Truth once more illumes a falling world.
P. All this is true-but still enough remains,

During the French Revolution, a law passed, decreeing the sleep of death to be eternal. To such philosophers I reply in the sublime language of Tully: "Quod si in hoc erro, quod animos hominum immortales esse credam, libenter error; nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector dum vivo, extorqueri volo; sin mortuus, ut quidam minuti philosophi censent, nihil sentiam; non vereor, errorem meum mortui philosophi irideant."

ne hunc

Let me also add a passage from a good old English Dramatist:

"Wits that presum'd

On wit too much, by striving how to prove
There was no God, with foolish grounds of art,
Discover'd first the nearest way to hell,

And fill'd the world with devilish atheism."

+ It has become popular to inveigh against the avarice, pride, and intolerance of the Church; and those have joined loudest in the cry who possessed the largest share of the sacrilegious plunder wrested from her by a sensual and ferocious tyrant, and lavished on his pimps, of whom these ingrate railers are the right honorable (?) representatives and successors. Fanatics of every variety of creed, hating,

Enough in conscience to provoke my strains.
See Thelwall,* void of decency and sense,
Erect, God wot! a school for eloquence;

The newest style of rhetoric to teach,

And full-grown gentlemen their parts of speech:
While from his tub, Gale Jones, sedition's sprite,
Nonsense with sense confounds, and wrong with

right;

Rants, bounces, capers, a fantastic show!

To scare the shilling orators below.
Prolific Pasquin plies th' eternal quill,

Fitzgerald rhymes, and Cobbett proses still;
Hoarse Clio Rickman's + sonnets bay the moon,

persecuting, and reviling each other, have held a temporary truce, and welcomed into their ranks the notoriously profligate and profane to make head against their common enemy. How-itt happens that a mountebank in quaker masquerade should presume to charge any set of men with hypocrisy and fraud, is a question that the impudent imposter who babbles so much about priests and priestcraft can best answer. It is surely enough for this low buffoon to be the scandal of one sect, without craving the additional infamy of lifting his hoof against a faith, that, while it deplores his errors, despises his animosity.

Mr. Thelwall continues "tuning his voice, and balancing his hands,”

"Preacher at once, and zany of the age!"

A citizen of the world! for in this character he has the effrontery to parade the streets, to the no small enter

X

Clio, a poet, patriot, and buffoon.

Godwin pursues his philosophic schemes,
And rapt in trance, Joanna Southcott dreams;
Jeffrey turns critic, but betrays his trust,
And hot-press'd Little breathes the soul of lust;
While chaste Minerva kindly lends her aid
To calm the scruples of each wishful maid.
Lo, mad enthusiasts,* would-be saints, stand forth,
Sworn foes to god-like genius, private worth,
With furious zeal attack e'en Shakespeare's fame,

tainment of the mob; and display his ludicrous figure (rendered still more ridiculous by the affectation of a whimsical costume,) in the print shops. Clio is a contributor of Odes and Sonnets to the Monthly Magazine; an avowed admirer of the new French school of philosophy; and a staunch advocate for "The Rights of Man."

* The following criticism is taken from the third volume of the Eclectic Review, Part 1, p. 76. Art. Twiss's "Verbal Index of Shakespeare." 'He (Shakespeare) has been called, and justly too, the poet of nature; a slight acquaintance with the religion of the Bible will shew, however, that it is of human nature in its worst shape, deformed by the basest passions, and agitated by the most vicious propensities, that the poet became the priest; and the incense offered at the altar of his goddess still continues to spread its poisonous fumes over the hearts of his countrymen, till the memory of his works is extinct. Thousands of unhappy spirits, and thousands yet to increase the number, will everlastingly look back with unutterable anguish on the nights and days in which the plays of Shakespeare ministered to their guilty delights.". . And again, What Christian

66

And hurl their pois'nous darts at Garrick's name;
And while they talk of Truth, of Candour rave,
Insult the dead, and violate the grave.
In Magazines vile anecdotes appear,
And deal out dirty scandal through the year;
For desp'rate libellers, when duns assail,
Dare lawsuits, whips, the pill'ry, and the jail.
This Hewson Clarke* can tell, misguided youth,
What demon lur'd him from the path of truth,
With low ambition fill'd his canker'd mind,

can pass through the most venerable pile of sacred architecture which our metropolis can boast, without having his best feelings insulted by observing within a few yards of the spot from which prayers and praises are daily offered to the Most High, the absurd and impious epitaph upon the tablet raised to one of the miserable retailers of his impurities! Our readers who are acquainted with London, will discover that it is the inscription upon David Garrick, in Westminster Abbey, to which we refer."

* "Now stop your noses, readers all, and some, For here's a tun of midnight work to come!"

The "pertinacious, and never-enough quoted" Mr. Hewson Clarke, according to his own statement, (for Mr. Clarke has favoured the public with his autobiography in the third number of the " Scourge," written, it would seem, by a third person, but in reality penned by himself;) is the author of numerous and successful writings, chiefly anonymous. But of what these numerous and successful writings consist, it were impossible to say, except I name

To entertain the basest of mankind?

O! may he late for all his sins atone,

And while he gains their ears, preserve his own!*

Behold yon gorgeous Sign that swings in air, (A well-known refuge for the sons of Care,) There meet a piebald race, who cautious creep From garrets high, or in night cellars sleep; The courtier bland, the opposition churl, To taste the sweets of politics and purl.

a lamentable production in rhyme, called "The art of Pleasing," and the principal part of the scurrility that has appeared in the Satirist, Scourge, and Theatrical Inquisitor. Every one of his (Mr. Clarke's) productions has been composed in haste, and sent to the press without revision; his sonnets have not been ushered into the world after undergoing the ordeal of private criticism, nor his Essays assisted in their circulation by the officiousness of honourable friends, and the puffs of dependant critics." Let Mr. Clarke remember that the trade of a libeller is a dangerous

one:

"What street, what lane, but knows His purgings, pumpings, blankettings, and blows?" and take the advice of honest Stephano,-" While thou liv'st, keep a good tongue in thy head."

* Warburton says, "Scribblers have not the common sense of other vermin, who commonly abstain from mischief when they see any of their kind gibbeted, or nailed up as terrible examples."