He would an elegy compose
On maggots squeezed out of his nose;
In lyric numbers write an ode on,
His mistress eating a black pudden;
And when imprisoned air escaped her,
It puffed him with poetic rapture.
A carman's horse could not pass by,
But stood tied up to poesy:
No porter's burthen passed along
But served for burthen to his song.--HUDIBRASS.
_Qui capit, ille facit._
Repress your fury, sage Divine!
Perdition breathes in every line.
Dagger and staff in hand you fight,
Like Falstaff, Shakespeare's valiant knight,
How like him though in form and dress
I leave your Reverence to guess:--
How far like his your maxims too
Of honour, Sir, I leave to you.
You would attempt in canting strain.
My short effusion to explain;
And wielding your tremendous birch,
To say I stigmatize the Church.
That, Sir, _in toto_, I deny:--
In your own style, Sir, 'tis a lie.
The Church I honour:--I admire
The holy roof, the lofty spire,
The pealing song, the hope sincere,
The pray'r of virtue I revere,
The Church, with an affection true,
I love,--[31]I stigmatize but you.
Yes! give the Church a lofty spire,
Like your tall self, Sir, I desire:
And like your _ci-devant chapeau_,
Give it a weathercock also:--
But make it fast, dear Sir, because
It may be lost as Gilpin's was[32]
"In judgment,"--('tis an ancient line,)
"Remember mercy,"--O Divine!
And, when your enemy lies low,
Desist,--strike not another blow.
But, since you deign to wield your pen,
Achilles-like, and fight again:--
But since you deign, O sage divine!
Again to court the tuneful Nine;
And since, in acrimonious style,
You dare my verses to revile,
And raise a laugh at my expense,
Dear Doctor! take the consequence.
"Brave knights are bound to feel no blows
From paltry and unequal foes."
The pages of all history shine
With poets, heathen and divine;
Whose numbers are so highly priz'd,
Their memories are immortaliz'd.
The first, whose poems still are saved,
Was he who wrote the Psalms, King David.
Homer and Virgil, and a score
Of Greek and Latin poets more,
Have sung in such melodious measure,
That verses still are read with pleasure.
The moderns too have sung their share,
Voltaire, Racine, and Molière;
And many on Italia's shore;
In Germany a thousand more.
In Britain, too, are poets found,
For Britain is poetic ground,
Milton and Shakespeare are her pride,
And Pope and hundreds more beside.
E'en now we've Southeys, Scots and Byrons,
And Moore, whose songs are sweet as syrens'!
Another poet, too, have we;
The Great L-ke B--k--r, LL. D.!!!
When all the rest shall be forgotten;
Their poems, like their bodies, rotten;
When spills are made of leaves of Pope,
And Lalla Rookh shall wrap up soap;
When even David's sacred rhyme
Shall be destroyed by ruthless time;
Thy name, O! B--k--r! still shall be
Lauded to all eternity!
Yes! Dudley's Vicar shall survive,
And like a plant perennial thrive!
What melody pervades each line!
How rich, harmonious and divine!
Read where you will, you're sure to find
Some scintillation of his mind:
The finest style, the sweetest words
The Doctor's mother tongue affords!
Already, in reality,
He's purchas'd immortality.
With sermons pious, heavenly, holy,
He drives the heart to melancholy:
With magic powers he charms the soul,
And bids it into madness roll:
With charity dilates the breast,
And sinks each sordid view to rest.
Or, on a sudden can inspire
The soul with never-quenching fire:
In short, the mind with joy can fill,
Or with despair,--just which he will.
But more,--his pow'r o'er human woes
Not only shines in nervous prose;
In strains delightful and sublime,
He speaks in prose, and writes in rhyme;
"And when he writes in rhyme will make
The one verse for the other's sake.
The one for sense, and one for rhyme,
He thinks sufficient at a time."
Yet though his rhymes may be baptiz'd,
Nothing but prosing poetiz'd,
There's still some difference between 'em,
Which all can tell who've ever seen 'em.
For prose he gets with conscience clear,
Full twice five hundred pounds a year;
Yet should his rhymes a folio fill,
They'd never pay his printer's bill;
But on his shelf in peace recline,
And, but to light his candles, shine.
Claudite jam rivos, pueri: sat prata biberunt. VIR.
* * * * *
_To "No snake in the grass," on his not replying to the lines
lately address'd to him._
Contremuit remus.
VIR. LIB.
The pallid scurvy rogue yet tingling stands,
And holds his breeches close with both his hands.
POPE.
The Doctor trembling and dismay'd,
To write another word afraid:
In vain implores, with language civil,
The aid of "Lincoln" and the "Devil."
He hides, from stroke of "scurvy rogues,"
His seat of honour with his "brogues:"
The "tuneful nine," to see him lash'd,
Hung down their heads and fled abash'd.
"_Je suis ce que je suis._"
* * * * *