The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings: Poems and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)
Page 29
The first was Hervey’s, Fox’s next, and then
The Senate’s, and then Hervey’s once again.
O come! that easy Ciceronian style,
So Latin, yet so English all the while,
As, though the pride of Middleton and Bland,
All boys may read, and girls may understand!
Then might I sing without the least offence,
And all I sung should be the nation’s sense;
Or teach the melancholy muse to mourn,
80 Hang the sad verse on Carolina’s urn,
And hail her passage to the realms of rest,
All parts performed, and all her children blest!
So – satire is no more – I feel it die –
No gazetteer more innocent than I –
And let, a God’s name, ev’ry fool and knave
Be graced through life, and flattered in his grave.
Fr. Why so? if satire knows its time and place,
You still may lash the greatest – in disgrace:
For merit will by turns forsake them all.
90 Would you know when? exactly when they fall.
But let all satire in all changes spare
Immortal Selkirk, and grave De la Ware!
Silent and soft, as saints remove to Heav’n,
All ties dissolved and ev’ry sin forgiv’n,
These may some gentle, ministerial wing
Receive, and place for ever near a king!
There, where no passion, pride, or shame transport,
Lulled with the sweet nepenthe of a court:
There where no father’s, brother’s, friend’s disgrace
100 Once break their rest, or stir them from their place;
But past the sense of human miseries,
All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes;
No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb,
Save when they lose a question, or a job.
P. Good heav’n forbid, that I should blast their glory,
Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory,
And when three sov’reigns died could scarce be vexed,
Consid’ring what a gracious prince was next.
Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things
110 As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings?
And at a peer or peeress shall I fret,
Who starves a sister, or forswears a debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the dignity of vice be lost?
Ye gods! shall Cibber’s son, without rebuke,
Swear like a lord, or Rich out-whore a duke?
A fav’rite’s porter with his master vie,
Be bribed as often, and as often lie?
Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman’s skill?
120 Or Japhet pocket, like his Grace, a will?
Is it for Bond or Peter (paltry things)
To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings?
If Blount dispatched himself, he played the man,
And so mayst thou, illustrious Passeran!
But shall a printer, weary of his life,
Learn from their books to hang himself and wife?
This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear;
Vice thus abused, demands a nation’s care;
This calls the Church to deprecate our sin,
130 And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin.
Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten metropolitans in preaching well;
A simple Quaker, or a Quaker’s wife,
Outdo Landaff in doctrine – yea, in life:
Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
’Tis just alike to Virtue, and to me;
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
140 She’s still the same belov’d, contented thing.
Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth,
And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth:
But ’tis the fall degrades her to a whore;
Let greatness own her, and she’s mean no more.
Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,
Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless;
In golden chains the willing world she draws,
And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws;
Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
150 And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.
Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,
Old England’s genius, rough with many a scar,
Dragged in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
His flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our youth, all liv’ried o’er with foreign gold,
Before her dance; behind her crawl the old!
See thronging millions to the pagod run,
And offer country, parent, wife, or son! Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim
160 That ‘not to be corrupted is the shame’.
In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in pow’r,
’Tis av’rice all, ambition is no more!
See all our nobles begging to be slaves!
See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up, with reverential awe,
At crimes that ’scape, or triumph o’er the law.
While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry –
170 ‘Nothing is sacred now but villainy.’
Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)
Show there was one who held it in disdain.
Dialogue II
Fr. ’Tis all a libel – Paxton, sir, will say.
P. Not yet, my friend! tomorrow ’faith it may;
And for that very cause I print today.
How should I fret to mangle every line
In rev’rence to the sins of Thirty-nine!
Vice with such giant strides comes on amain,
Invention strives to be before in vain;
Feign what I will, and paint it e’er so strong,
Some rising genius sins up to my song.
10 Fr. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash;
Ev’n Guthrie saves half Newgate by a dash.
Spare then the person, and expose the vice.
P. How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?
Come on then, satire! gen’ral, unconfined,
Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.
Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!
Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall!
Ye rev’rend atheists! Fr. Scandal! name them, who?
P. Why that’s the thing you bid me not to do.
20 Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt,
I never named; the town’s inquiring yet.
The pois’ning dame – Fr. You mean – P. I don’t.
Fr. You do.
P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you!
The bribing statesman – Fr. Hold! too high you go.
P. The bribed elector – Fr. There you stoop too low.
P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what;
Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not?
Must great offenders, once escaped the crown,
Like royal harts, be never more run down?
30 Admit your law to spare the knight requires,
As beasts of nature may we hunt the squires?
Suppose I censure – you know what I mean –
To save a bishop, may I name a dean?
Fr. A dean, sir? no: his fortune is not made;
You hurt a man that’s rising in the trade.
P. If not the tradesman who set up today,
Much less the ’prentice who tomorrow may.
Dow
n, down, proud satire! though a realm be spoiled,
Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild;
40 Or, if a court or country’s made a job,
Go drench a pickpocket, and join the mob.
But sir, I beg you (for the love of vice!)
The matter’s weighty, pray consider twice:
Have you less pity for the needy cheat,
The poor and friendless villain, than the great?
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.
Then better sure it charity becomes
To tax directors, who (thank God) have plums;
50 Still better, ministers; or if the thing
May pinch ev’n there – why, lay it on a king.
Fr. Stop! stop!
P. Must satire, then, nor rise nor fall?
Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all.
Fr. Yes, strike that Wild, I’ll justify the blow.
P. Strike? why the man was hanged ten years ago:
Who now that obsolete example fears?
Ev’n Peter trembles only for his ears.
Fr. What, always Peter? Peter thinks you mad;
You make men desp’rate, if they once are bad
60 Else might he take to virtue some years hence –
P. As Selkirk, if he lives, will love the prince.
Fr. Strange spleen to Selkirk!
P. Do I wrong the man?
God knows, I praise a courtier where I can.
When I confess, there is who feels for fame,
And melts to goodness, need I Scarb’rough name?
Pleased let me own, in Esher’s peaceful grove
(Where Kent and Nature vie for Pelham’s love)
The scene, the master, op’ning to my view,
I sit and dream I see my Craggs anew!
70 Ev’n in a bishop I can spy desert;
Secker is decent, Rundle has a heart;
Manners with candour are to Benson giv’n,
To Berkeley, every virtue under Heav’n.
But does the court a worthy man remove?
That instant, I declare, he has my love:
I shun his zenith, court his mild decline;
Thus Somers once and Halifax were mine.
Oft in the clear, still mirror of retreat
I studied Shrewsbury, the wise and great;
80 Carleton’s calm sense and Stanhope’s noble flame
Compared, and knew their gen’rous end the same.
How pleasing Atterbury’s softer hour!
How shined the soul, unconquered in the Tow’r!
How can I Pult’ney, Chesterfield forget,
While Roman spirit charms, and Attic wit?
Argyle, the state’s whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field,
Or Wyndham, just to freedom and the throne,
The master of our passions, and his own.
90 Names which I long have loved, nor loved in vain,
Ranked with their friends, not numbered with their train;
And if yet higher the proud list should end,
Still let me say, ‘No follower, but a friend.’
Yet think not friendship only prompts my lays;
I follow Virtue; where she shines, I praise:
Point she to priest or elder, Whig or Tory,
Or round a Quaker’s beaver cast a glory.
I never (to my sorrow I declare)
Dined with the Man of Ross, or my Lord May’r.
100 Some, in their choice of friends (nay, look not grave)
Have still a secret bias to a knave;
To find an honest man, I beat about,
And love him, court him, praise him, in or out.
Fr. Then why so few commended?
P. Not so fierce;
Find you the virtue, and I’ll find the verse.
But random praise – the task can ne’er be done;
Each mother asks it for her booby son,
Each widow asks it for the best of men,
For him she weeps, for him she weds again.
110 Praise cannot stoop, like satire, to the ground;
The number may be hanged, but not be crowned.
Enough for half the greatest of these days
To ’scape my censure, not expect my praise.
Are they not rich? what more can they pretend?
Dare they to hope a poet for their friend?
What Richelieu wanted, Louis scarce could gain,
And what young Ammon wished, but wished in vain.
No pow’r the Muse’s friendship can command;
No pow’r, when virtue claims it, can withstand.
120 To Cato, Virgil paid one honest line;
O let my country’s friends illumine mine!
– What are you thinking? Fr. Faith, the thought’s no sin;
I think your friends are out, and would be in.
P. If merely to come in, sir, they go out,
The way they take is strangely round about.
Fr. They too may be corrupted, you’ll allow?
P. I only call those knaves who are so now.
Is that too little? come, then, I’ll comply –
Spirit of Arnall! aid me while I lie:
130 Cobham’s a coward, Polwarth is a slave,
And Lyttelton a dark designing knave,
St John has ever been a wealthy fool –
But let me add, Sir Robert’s mighty dull,
Has never made a friend in private life,
And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife.
But pray, when others praise him, do I blame?
Call Verres, Wolsey, any odious name?
Why rail they then, if but a wreath of mine,
Oh, all-accomplished St John! deck thy shrine?
140 What! shall each spur-galled hackney of the day,
When Paxton gives him double pots and pay,
Or each new-pensioned sycophant, pretend
To break my windows if I treat a friend;
Then wisely plead to me they meant no hurt,
But ’twas my guest at whom they threw the dirt?
Sure, if I spare the minister, no rules
Of honour bind me not to maul his tools;
Sure, if they cannot cut, it may be said
His saws are toothless, and his hatchet’s lead.
150 It angered Turenne, once upon a day,
To see a footman kicked that took his pay:
But when he heard th’ affront the fellow gave,
Knew one a man of honour, one a knave,
The prudent gen’ral turned it to a jest,
And begged he’d take the pains to kick the rest;
Which not at present having time to do –
Fr. Hold sir! for God’s sake, where’s th’ affront to you?
Against your worship when had Selkirk writ?
Or Page poured forth the torrent of his wit?
160 Or grant the bard whose distich all commend
(‘In pow’r a servant, out of pow’r a friend’)
To Walpole guilty of some venial sin,
What’s that to you, who ne’er was out nor in?
The priest whose flattery bedropped the crown,
How hurt he you? he only stained the gown.
And how did, pray, the florid youth offend,
Whose speech you took, and gave it to a friend?
P. Faith, it imports not much from whom it came;
Whoever borrowed could not be to blame,
170 Since the whole House did afterwards the same.
Let courtly wits to wits afford supply,
As hog to hog in huts of Westphaly;
If one, through nature’s bounty or his lord’s,
Has what the frugal dirty soil affords,
From him the next receives it, thick or thin,
As pure a mess almost as it came in;
The blessèd b
enefit, not there confined,
Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind;
From tail to mouth, they feed and they carouse;
180 The last full fairly gives it to the House.
Fr. This filthy simile, this beastly line,
Quite turns my stomach – P. So does flatt’ry mine;
And all your courtly civet-cats can vent,
Perfume to you, to me is excrement.
But hear me further – Japhet, ’tis agreed,
Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read,
In all the courts of Pindus guiltless quite;
But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write;
And must no egg in Japhet’s face be thrown,
190 Because the deed he forged was not my own?
Must never patriot then declaim at gin
Unless, good man! he has been fairly in;
No zealous pastor blame a failing spouse
Without a staring reason on his brows?
And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
Because the insult’s not on man, but God?
Ask you what provocation I have had?
The strong antipathy of good to bad.
When truth or virtue an affront endures,
200 Th’ affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours.
Mine, as a foe professed to false pretence,
Who think a coxcomb’s honour like his sense;
Mine, as a friend to ev’ry worthy mind;
And mine as man, who feel for all mankind.
Fr. You’re strangely proud.
P. So proud, I am no slave;
So impudent, I own myself no knave;
So odd, my country’s ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men not afraid of God, afraid of me;
210 Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone.
O sacred weapon! left for truth’s defence,
Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!
To all but Heav’n-directed hands denied,
The Muse may give thee, but the gods must guide.
Rev’rent I touch thee! but with honest zeal,
To rouse the watchmen of the public weal,
To Virtue’s work provoke the tardy Hall,
And goad the prelate, slumb’ring in his stall.