a production of the pamphlet class, and, like its confraternity,
destined at longest to the life ephemeral. But, to say truth, I found
all that sort of thing done so much better, spicier, cleverer, in
numberless newspaper articles, than my lack of the particular knowledge
requisite, and my little practice in controversy, could have managed,
that I wisely drew in my horns, sheathed my toasting-iron, and decided
upon not proceeding political pamphleteer, till, on awaking some fine
morning, I find myself returned to parliament for an immaculate
constituency.
Patient reader, of whatever creed, do not hate me for my politics, nor
despise the foolish candour of confession. Henceforth, I will not
trouble you, but abjure the subject; except, indeed, my sturdy friend
"the Squire," soon to be introduced to you, insists upon his
after-dinner topic: but we will cut him short; for, in fact, nothing can
be more provoking, tedious, useless, and causative of ill-blood, than
this perpetual intermeddling of private ignoramuses, like him and me,
with matters they do not understand, nor can possibly ameliorate.
* * * * *
A poet is born a poet, as all the world is well aware; and your
thorough-paced lawyer is not less born a lawyer; while the junction of
these two most militant incompatibles clearly bears out the hackneyed
quotation as above, with the final misfit, that is, "_non fit_." Your
poetaster at the bar is that grotesque ideal, which Flaccus thought so
funny that his friends _must_ laugh; (although really, Romans, it _is_
possible to contemplate a sort of sphinx figure, "a human head to a
horse's neck," and so on, varied plumes and all, without much chance of
a guffaw;) and yonder sickly-looking clerk, perched upon his high stool,
penning "stanzas while he should engross," is the lugubrious caricature
of Apollo on his Pegassus, with Helicon for inkstand.
It may be nothing extraordinary that, jostled in so wide a theatre as
ours of the world, chance-comers should not, at once or at all,
comfortably find their proper places; but that wise-looking chaperons,
having with prospective caution duly taken a box, should by malice
prepense thrust all the big people in front, and all the little folks
behind, is rather hard upon the latter, and not a little foolish in
itself. Even so in life: who does not wish a thousand times he could
help some people to change places? Look at this long fellow, fit for
Frederick of Prussia's regiment of giants: his parents and guardians
have bent him double, broken his spirit, and spoiled his paces, by
cramming him, a giraffe in the stable, between that frigate's gun-decks
as a middy: while yonder martial little bantam, by dint of exaggerated
heels, and exalted bear-skin, peeps about among his grenadiers, much as
Brutus and Cassius did with their collossal Caesar. So also of minds:
look at brilliant Burns, the exciseman; and quaintly versatile Lamb, the
common city clerk: Look at--had you only patience, you should have
examples by the gross; but, to make a shorter tale of it, (I presume
this shows the etymology of cur-tail,) just think over the pack of your
acquaintance, and see if you could not shuffle those kings, queens--yes,
and knaves too--more to your satisfaction, and their own advantage: at
least, so most folks imagine, silly meddlers as they are; for, after
all, what with human versatility, and the fact of a probationary state,
and the influence of habit, and the drudging example set by others,
things work so kindly as they are, that, notwithstanding misfits, the
wiser few must be of Pope's mind, "whatever is, is right;"--ay, that it
is.
A year or two ago--if your author is little better than one of the
foolish now, what in charity must he have been then?--I took it upon me
to indite an innocent, stingless satire, whereof for samples take the
following. Skip them one and all; you will, if you are wise, for they
bear the ban of rhyme, are peevish, dull, ill-reasoned; but if you are
not wise, (and, strange to say, malicious people tell me there are many
such,) you may wish to see in print a metred inconclusive grumble. Take
it, then, if you will, as I do, merely for a change; at any rate, your
manciple has furnished this buttery of yours with ample choice of
viands; and omnivoracious as man may be--gormandizing, with gusto, fat
moths in Australia, cockchafers at Florence, frogs in France, and snails
in Switzerland, equally as all less objectionable meats, drinks, fruits,
roots, composites, and simples--still, in reason, no one can be expected
or expect himself to like every thing: have charity, for what suits not
one man's taste may please the palate of another; so hear me
complacently turn
"KING'S EVIDENCE,"
and give heed to certain confessions, extorted under the _peine forte et
dure_ of a whilom state legal. Yet, when I come to consider of this,
(_mihi cogitanti_, as school themes invariably commenced,) it strikes my
memory that all confessions, short of the last dying one, are weak and
foolish impertinence; whether Jean Jacques or Mr. Adams thought so, or
caused others to think so, are separate topics beside the question: for
myself, I will spare you a satire dotted with as many I's as an Argus
pheasant; and, without exacting upon good-nature by troublesome
contributions, will hazard a few couplets concerning Blackstone's
cast-off mistress, the Law. One word more though: undoubting of thine
amiability, friend that hast walked with me hitherto in peace, I will be
tame as a purring cat, and sheathe my talons; therefore are you still
unteased by divers sly speeches and sarcastic hints, of and concerning
innumerable black sheep that crowd about a woolsack; especially of
certain "highly respectables," whom the omnipotence of parliament (no
less power presumably being competent) commands to be accounted
"gentlemen." Should then my meagre sketches seem but little spiteful,
accord me credit for tolerance at the expense of wit, (yea, in mine own
garbled satire, hear it Juvenal!) and view them kindly in the same light
as you would sundry emasculated extracts from a discreet Family
Shakspeare. Indignation ever speaks in short sharp queries; and it is
well for the printer's pocket that the self-experience hereof was
considered inadmissible, for a new fount of notes of interrogation must
have been procured: as it is, we are sailing quietly on the Didactic
Ocean, and have, I fear, been engaged some time upon topics actionable
on a charge of _scandalum magnatum_. Hereof then just a little sample:
let us call it '_A Judgment in the Rolls Court_;' or in any other; I
care not.
Precedent's slave, this mountebank decides
As great Authority, not Reason, guides.
"'Tis not for him, degenerate wight, to say
Faults can be mended at this time of day,
For Coke himself declared--no matter what--
Can Justice suffer what Lord Coke would not?
And if 1 Siderfin, p. 10, you scan,
Lord Hoax has fixed the rule, that learned man:
I cannot, dare not, if I would, be just,
My hands are tied, and follow Hoax I must;
That _very_ learned Lord could not be wrong.
Besides, in fact, it has been settled long,
For the great case of Hitchcock versus Bundy
Decided--(Cro. Eliz. per Justice Grundy),
That [black was white];--and so, what can I say?
Landmarks are things must not be moved away:
I cannot put the clock of Wisdom back,
And solemnly pronounce that black _is_ black.
Though plaintiff has the right, I grant it clear,
I must be ruled by Hoax and Hitchcock here:
Equity follows, does not mend the laws:
Therefore declare, defendant gains the cause."
Then, as virtuously bound, Indignation interrogates sundry
ejaculations; or, if you like it better, ejaculates sundry
interrogations: as thus, take a brace:
If right and reason both combine in one,
Why, in God's name, should justice not be done?
If law be not a lie, and judgments jokes,
Why not _be just_, and cut adrift Lord Hoax?
After a vast deal more in this vein of literature--for you perceive my
present purpose is dissection in part of this ancient rhyme--we arrive
at a magnanimous--
No! Right shall have his own, put off no longer
By rule of Former, or by whim of Stronger;
Nor, because Jack goes tumbling down the hill,
Shall precedent create a tumbling Jill.
Public opinion soon shall change the scene,
And wash the Law's Augaean stable clean;
Sweep out the Temple, drive the sellers thence,
And lead, in novel triumph, Common Sense.
Verily, this is of the dullest, but it is brief: endure it, and pray you
consider the deadliness of the topic, and the barbarous cruelty
wherewith courtesy has clipped the wings of my poor spite. Let us turn
to other title-pages; assuring all the world that no specific mountebank
has been here intended, and that nothing more is meant than a nerveless
blow against legal cant, quainter than Quarles's, and against that
well-known species of Equity, which must have been so titled from like
antiquated reasons with those that induced Numa and his company to call
a dark grove, lucus.
* * * * *
How many foes, in this utilitarian era, has that very unwarrantable
vice, called Poetry! All who despise love and love-making, all who
prefer billiards to meditation, all who value hard cash above mental
riches, feel privileged to hate it; while really, typographers, the
illegible diamond print in which you generally set it up, whether in
book, or newspaper, or handbill, or magazine, induces many an
indifferent peruser to skip the poem for the sake of his eye-sight. I
presume that the monosyllable, rhyme, comprehends pretty nearly all that
the world at large intends by poetry; and, in the same manner as certain
critics have sneered at Livy--no, it was Tacitus--for commencing his
work with a bad hexameter, so many a reader will now-a-days condemn a
whole book, because it is somewhere found guilty of harbouring a
distich. But poetry, friend World, means far other than rhyme; its
etymology would yield "creation," or "fabrication," of sense as well as
sound, and of melody for the eye as well as melody for the ear. So did
[_epoiese_] Milton; and so did not---- Well, I myself, if you will. Yet,
in fact, there are fifty other kinds of poetries, beside the poetry of
words: as the poetry of life--affection, honour, and hope, and
generosity; the poetry of beauty--never mind what features decorate the
Dulcinea, for this species of poetry is felt and seen almost only in
first love; the poetry of motion, as first-rates majestically sailing,
furiously scudding waves, bending corn-fields, and, briefly, all things
moveable but railway-trains; the poetry of rest, as pyramids, a tropical
calm, an arctic winter, and generally all things quiescent but a
slumbering alderman; the poetry of music, heard oftener in a country
milkmaid's evening song, than in many a concert-room; the poetry of
elegance, more natural to weeping willows, unbroken colts, flames,
swans, ivy-clad arches, greyhounds, yea, to young donkeys, than to those
_pirouette_-ing and _very_ active _danseuses_ of the opera; the poetry
of nature, as mountains, waterfalls, storms, summer evenings, and all
manner of landscapes, except Holland and Siberia; the poetry of art,
acqueducts, minarets, Raphael's colouring, and Poussin's intricate
designs; the poetry of ugliness, well seen in monkeys and Skye terriers;
and the poetry of awkwardness, whereof the brightest example is Mr.
trans-Atlantic Rice. And, verily, many other poetries there be, as of
impudence (for which consult the experience of swindlers); of prose,
(for which see Addison); of energy, of sleep, of battle and of peace:
for it is an easy-seeming artfulness, the most fascinating manner of
doing as of saying, complication simplified, and every thing effected to
its bravest advantage. Poetry wants a champion in these days, who will
save her from her friends: O, namby-pamby "lovers of the Nine!" your
innumerous dull lyrics--ay, and mine--your unnatural heroics--I too have
sinned thus--your up-hill sonnets--that labour of folly have I known as
well--in brief, your misnamed poetry, hath done grievous damage to the
cause you toil for. Yet I would avow thus much, for I believe it: as an
average, we have beaten our ancestors; seldom can we take up a paper or
a periodical which does not show us verses worthy of great names; the
age is full of highly respectable, if not superlative poetry; and truly
may we consider that the very abundance of good versification has
lowered the price of poets, and therefore, in this marketing world, has
robbed them of proper estimation. Doubtless, there have been mighty men
of song higher in rank, as earlier in time, than any now who dare to try
a chirrup: but there are also many of our anonymous minstrels, with whom
the greater number of the so-called old English poets could not with
advantage to the ancients justly be compared. Look at '_Johnson's
Lives_.' Who can read the book, and the specimens it glorifies, without
rejoicing in his prose, and thoroughly despising their poetry?--With a
few brilliant exceptions, of course, (for ill-used Milton, Pope--and
shall we in the same sentence put Dryden?--are there,) a more wretched
set of halfpenny-a-liners never stormed mob-trodden Parnassus. The
poetry of Queen Anne's time and thereabouts, I judge to have been at the
lowest bathos of badness; all satyrs, and swains, fulsome flattery of
titles, and foolish adoration of painted shepherdesses: poor weak
hobbling lines, eked out by 'eds and expletives, often terminated by
false rhymes, and made lamer by triplets and dreary Alexandrines;
ill-selected subjects, laboured, indelicate, or impossible similes,
passions frigid as Diana, wit's weapons dull as lead. Yet these (many
exceptions doubtless there were, and many redeeming _morceaux_ even in
the worst, charitable reader, but as of the rule we speak not falsely),
these are the poets of England, the men our great grandfathers delighted
to honour, the feared, the praised, the pensioned, and those whom we
their children still denominate--the poets! Praise, praise your stars,
ye lucky imps of Fame! who could tolerate you now-a-days?--You lived in
golden times, when Dorset, Harley, Bolingbroke, Halifax, and Company,
gave away places of a thousand a-year, as but justly due to any man who
could pen a roaring song, fabricate a fulsome sonnet, or bewail in
meagre elegiacs the still-resisting virtue of some persecuted Stella!
Happy fellows, easy conquisitors of wealth and fame, autocrats of
coffee-houses, feted and favoured by town-bred dames! In those good old
times for the fashionable Nine, an epic was sure to lead to a
Ministry-of-State, and even an epigram produced its pension: to be a
poet, or reputed so, was to be--eligible for all things; and the
fortunate possessor of a rhyming dictionary might have governed Europe
with his metrical protocols. But these halcyon times are of the
past--and so, verily, are their heroes. Farewell, a long farewell,
children of oblivion! farewell, Spratt, Smith, Duke, Hughes, King,
Pomfret, Phillips, and Blackmore: ye who, in that day of very small
things, just rose, as your Leviathan biographer so often testifies, "to
a degree of merit above mediocrity:" ye who--but (Candor and good
Charity, I thank you for the hint,) limited indeed is my knowledge of
your writings, ye long-departed poets, whom I thus am base enough to
pilfer of your bays; and therefore, if any man among you penned aught of
equal praise with "_My Mind to me a Kingdom is_," or "_No Glory I covet,
no Riches I want_," humbly do I cry that good man's pardon. Believe that
I have only seen the chateau of your fame, but never the rock on which
it rested; and therefore candidly consider, if I might not with reason
have accounted it a castle in the air?
Now, after this wholesale species of poetical massacre, this rifling of
old Etruscan tombs of their honourable spoil, a very pleasant ninny
would that poetaster stand forth, whose inanely conceited daring
exhibited specimens from his own mint, as medals in fit contrast with
those slandered "things of base alloy." No, as with politics, so with
poetry; in public I abjure and do renounce the minx: and although
privately my author's mind is so silly as to doat right lovingly on such
an ancient mistress, and has wasted much time and paper in her praise or
service, still that mind is sufficiently self-possessed in worldly
prudence, as to set seemingly little store on the worth of an
acquaintance so little in the fashion. Therefore I disown and disclaim