English Satires Part 12

Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same, All full of thee, and diff'ring but in name.

But let no alien Sedley interpose, To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.

And when false flowers of rhetorick thou would'st cull, Trust Nature, do not labour to be dull; But write thy best, and top; and, in each line, Sir Formal's oratory will be thine: Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill, And does thy Northern Dedications fill.

Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame, By arrogating Jonson's hostile name.

Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise, And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.

Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part: What share have we in Nature or in Art?

Where did his wit on learning fix a brand, And rail at arts he did not understand?

Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein, Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain?

Where sold he bargains, whip-st.i.tch, kiss my a.r.s.e, Promis'd a play, and dwindled to a farce?

When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin, As thou whole Eth'ridge dost transfuse to thine?

But so transfus'd, as oil and waters flow, His always floats above, thine sinks below.

This is thy province, this thy wondrous way, New humours to invent for each new play: This is that boasted bias of thy mind, By which, one way, to dulness 'tis inclin'd: Which makes thy writings lean on one side still, And, in all changes, that way bends thy will.

Nor let thy mountain-belly make pretence Of likeness; thine's a tympany of sense.

A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ, But sure thou'rt but a kilderkin of wit.

Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep; Thy tragic muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep.

With whate'er gall thou set'st thyself to write, Thy inoffensive satires never bite.

In thy felonious heart though venom lies, It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.

Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame In keen Iambics, but mild Anagram.

Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command Some peaceful province in acrostic land, There thou may'st wings display and altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.

Or if thou would'st thy different talents suit, Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute."

He said: But his last words were scarcely heard: For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepar'd, And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.

Sinking he left his drugget robe behind, Borne upwards by a subterranean wind.

The mantle fell to the young prophet's part, With double portion of his father's art.

XX. EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS.

This excellent specimen of Dryden's prose satire was prefixed to his satiric poem "The Medal", published in March, 1682. It was inspired by the striking of a medal to commemorate the rejection by the London Grand Jury, on November 24, 1681, of a Bill of High Treason presented against Lord Shaftesbury. This event had been a great victory for the Whigs and a discomfiture for the Court.

For to whom can I dedicate this poem, with so much justice, as to you?

'Tis the representation of your own hero: 'Tis the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of the tower, nor the rising sun; nor the Anno Domini of your new sovereign's coronation.

This must needs be a grateful undertaking to your whole party; especially to those who have not been so happy as to purchase the original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it: all his Kings are bought up already; or the value of the remainder so enhanced, that many a poor Polander, who would be glad to wors.h.i.+p the image, is not able to go to the cost of him; but must be content to see him here. I must confess, I am no great artist; but sign-post-painting will serve the turn to remember a friend by, especially when better is not to be had. Yet, for your comfort, the lineaments are true: and though he sat not five times to me, as he did to B. yet I have consulted history; as the Italian painters do, when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula; though they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus.

Truth is, you might have spared one side of your medal: the head would be seen to more advantage, if it were placed on a spike of the tower; a little nearer to the sun; which would then break out to better purpose.

You tell us, in your preface to the _No-Protestant Plot_, that you shall be forced hereafter to leave off your modesty. I suppose you mean that little, which is left you: for it was worn to rags when you put out this medal. Never was there practised such a piece of notorious impudence in the face of an established Government. I believe, when he is dead, you will wear him in thumb-rings, as the Turks did Scanderbeg; as if there were virtue in his bones to preserve you against monarchy.

Yet all this while, you pretend not only zeal for the public good, but a due veneration for the person of the king. But all men, who can see an inch before them, may easily detect those gross fallacies. That it is necessary for men in your circ.u.mstances to pretend both, is granted you; for without them there could be no ground to raise a faction. But I would ask you one civil question: What right has any man among you, or any a.s.sociation of men (to come nearer to you) who, out of Parliament cannot be consider'd in a public capacity, to meet, as you daily do, in factious clubs, to vilify the Government in your discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal for the public welfare, to promote sedition? Does your definition of _loyal_, which is to serve the King according to the laws, allow you the licence of traducing the executive power, with which you own he is invested? You complain, that his Majesty has lost the love and confidence of his people; and, by your very urging it, you endeavour, what in you lies, to make him lose them. All good subjects abhor the thought of arbitrary power, whether it be in one or many; if you were the patriots you would seem, you would not at this rate incense the mult.i.tude to a.s.sume it; for no sober man can fear it, either from the King's disposition or his practice; or even, where you would odiously lay it, from his ministers. Give us leave to enjoy the Government, and the benefit of laws, under which we were born, and which we desire to transmit to our posterity. You are not the trustees of the public liberty; and if you have not right to pet.i.tion in a crowd, much less have you to intermeddle in the management of affairs, or to arraign what you do not like; which in effect is everything that is done by the King and Council. Can you imagine, that any reasonable man will believe you respect the person of his Majesty, when 'tis apparent that your seditious pamphlets are stuffed with particular reflections on him? If you have the confidence to deny this, 'tis easy to be evinced from a thousand pa.s.sages, which I only forbear to quote because I desire they should die and be forgotten. I have perused many of your papers; and to show you that I have, the third part of your _No-Protestant Plot_ is much of it stolen from your dead author's pamphlet called the _Growth of Popery_; as manifestly as Milton's defence of the English people is from Buchanan, _de jure regni apud Scotos_; or your first covenant, and new a.s.sociation, from the holy league of the French Guisards. Anyone, who reads Davila, may trace your practices all along. There were the same pretences for reformation and loyalty, the same aspersions of the King, and the same grounds of a rebellion. I know not whether you will take the historian's word, who says, it was reported, that Poltrot a Huguenot murder'd Francis Duke of Guise, by the instigations of Theodore Beza; or that it was a Huguenot minister, otherwise called a Presbyterian (for our Church abhors so devilish a tenet) who first writ a treatise of the lawfulness of deposing and murdering Kings, of a different persuasion in religion. But I am able to prove from the doctrine of Calvin, and principles of Buchanan, that they set the people above the magistrate; which, if I mistake not, is your own fundamental; and which carries your loyalty no farther than your liking. When a vote of the House of Commons goes on your side, you are as ready to observe it, as if it were pa.s.sed into a law: but when you are pinch'd with any former, and yet unrepealed, Act of Parliament, you declare that in some cases you will not be obliged by it. The pa.s.sage is in the same third part of the _No-Protestant Plot_; and is too plain to be denied. The late copy of your intended a.s.sociation you neither wholly justify nor condemn: but as the Papists, when they are unoppos'd, fly out into all the pageantries of wors.h.i.+p, but, in times of war, when they are hard pressed by arguments, lie close intrenched behind the Council of Trent; so, now, when your affairs are in a low condition, you dare not pretend that to be a legal combination; but whensover you are afloat, I doubt not but it will be maintained and justified to purpose. For indeed there is nothing to defend it but the sword: 'Tis the proper time to say anything, when men have all things in their power.

In the meantime, you would fain be nibbling at a parallel betwixt this a.s.sociation, and that in the time of Queen Elizabeth. But there is this small difference betwixt them, that the ends of the one are directly opposite to the other: one with the Queen's approbation and conjunction, as head of it; the other, without either the consent or knowledge of the King, against whose authority it is manifestly design'd. Therefore you do well to have recourse to your last evasion, that it was contriv'd by your enemies, and shuffled into the papers that were seized; which yet you see the nation is not so easy to believe, as your own jury. But the matter is not difficult, to find twelve men in Newgate, who would acquit a malefactor.

I have one only favour to desire of you at parting; that, when you think of answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who have combated with so much success against Absalom and Achitophel: for then you may a.s.sure yourselves of a clear victory, without the least reply. Rail at me abundantly; and, not to break a custom, do it without wit. By this method you will gain a considerable point, which is, wholly to waive the answer of my argument. Never own the bottom of your principles, for fear they should be treason. Fall severely on the miscarriages of Government; for if scandal be not allowed, you are no free-born subjects. If G.o.d has not blessed you with the talent of rhyming, make use of my poor stock and welcome; let your verses run upon my feet: and for the utmost refuge of notorious blockheads, reduced to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines upon me, and, in utter despair of your own satire, make me satirize myself. Some of you have been driven to this bay already; but above all the rest, commend me to the Non-conformist parson, who writ _The Whip and Key_. I am afraid it is not read so much as the piece deserves, because the bookseller is every week crying Help, at the end of his Gazette, to get it off. You see I am charitable enough to do him a kindness, that it may be published as well as printed; and that so much skill in Hebrew derivations may not lie for waste-paper in the shop.

Yet I half suspect he went no farther for his learning, than the index of Hebrew names and etymologies, which is printed at the end of some English bibles. If Achitophel signify the brother of a fool, the author of that poem will pa.s.s with his readers for the next of kin. And, perhaps, 'tis the relation that makes the kindness. Whatever the verses are, buy them up, I beseech you, out of pity; for I hear the conventicle is shut up, and the brother of Achitophel out of service.

Now footmen, you know, have the generosity to make a purse, for a member of their society, who has had his livery pulled over his ears: and even Protestant flocks are brought up among you, out of veneration to the name. A dissenter in poetry from sense and English, will make as good a Protestant rhymer, as a dissenter from the Church of England a Protestant parson. Besides, if you encourage a young beginner, who knows but he may elevate his style a little, above the vulgar epithets of profane and saucy Jack, and atheistic scribbler, with which he treats me, when the fit of enthusiasm is strong upon him? By which well-manner'd and charitable expressions, I was certain of his sect, before I knew his name. What would you have more of a man? He has d.a.m.ned me in your cause from Genesis to the Revelations; and has half the texts of both the Testaments against me, if you will be so civil to yourselves as to take him for your interpreter, and not to take them for Irish witnesses. After all, perhaps, you will tell me, that you retained him only for the opening of your cause, and that your main lawyer is yet behind. Now, if it so happen he meet with no more reply than his predecessors, you may either conclude, that I trust to the goodness of my cause, or fear my adversary, or disdain him, or what you please; for the short on it is, it is indifferent to your humble servant, whatever your party says or thinks of him.

DANIEL DEFOE.

(1661-1734)

XXI. INTRODUCTION TO THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN.

"The True-born Englishman" was a metrical satire designed to defend the king, William III., against the attacks made upon him over the admission of foreigners into public offices and posts of responsibility.

Speak, satire; for there's none can tell like thee Whether 'tis folly, pride, or knavery That makes this discontented land appear Less happy now in times of peace than war?

Why civil feuds disturb the nation more Than all our b.l.o.o.d.y wars have done before?

Fools out of favour grudge at knaves in place, And men are always honest in disgrace; The court preferments make men knaves in course, But they which would be in them would be worse.

'Tis not at foreigners that we repine, Would foreigners their perquisites resign: The grand contention's plainly to be seen, To get some men put out, and some put in.

For this our senators make long harangues, And florid members whet their polished tongues.

Statesmen are always sick of one disease, And a good pension gives them present ease: That's the specific makes them all content With any king and any government.

Good patriots at court abuses rail, And all the nation's grievances bewail; But when the sovereign's balsam's once applied, The zealot never fails to change his side; And when he must the golden key resign, The railing spirit comes about again.

Who shall this bubbled nation disabuse, While they their own felicities refuse, Who the wars have made such mighty pother, And now are falling out with one another: With needless fears the jealous nation fill, And always have been saved against their will: Who fifty millions sterling have disbursed, To be with peace and too much plenty cursed: Who their old monarch eagerly undo, And yet uneasily obey the new?

Search, satire, search; a deep incision make; The poison's strong, the antidote's too weak.

'Tis pointed truth must manage this dispute, And downright English, Englishmen confute.

Whet thy just anger at the nation's pride, And with keen phrase repel the vicious tide; To Englishmen their own beginnings show, And ask them why they slight their neighbours so.

Go back to elder times and ages past, And nations into long oblivion cast; To old Britannia's youthful days retire, And there for true-born Englishmen inquire.

Britannia freely will disown the name, And hardly knows herself from whence they came: Wonders that they of all men should pretend To birth and blood, and for a name contend.

Go back to causes where our follies dwell, And fetch the dark original from h.e.l.l: Speak, satire, for there's none like thee can tell.

THE EARL OF DORSET.

(1637-1705.)

XXII. SATIRE ON A CONCEITED PLAYWRIGHT.

The person against whom this attack was directed was Edward Howard, author of _The British Princess_.

Thou d.a.m.n'd antipodes to common-sense, Thou foil to Flecknoe, pr'ythee tell from whence Does all this mighty stock of dulness spring?

Is it thy own, or hast it from Snow-hill, a.s.sisted by some ballad-making quill?

No, they fly higher yet, thy plays are such, I'd swear they were translated out of Dutch.

Fain would I know what diet thou dost keep, If thou dost always, or dost never sleep?

Sure hasty-pudding is thy chiefest dish, With bullock's liver, or some stinking fish: Garbage, ox-cheeks, and tripes, do feast thy brain, Which n.o.bly pays this tribute back again.

With daisy-roots thy dwarfish Muse is fed, A giant's body with a pigmy's head.

Canst thou not find, among thy numerous race Of kindred, one to tell thee that thy plays Are laught at by the pit, box, galleries, nay, stage?

Think on't a while, and thou wilt quickly find Thy body made for labour, not thy mind.

No other use of paper thou shouldst make Than carrying loads and reams upon thy back.

Carry vast burdens till thy shoulders shrink, But curst be he that gives thee pen and ink: Such dangerous weapons should be kept from fools, As nurses from their children keep edg'd tools: For thy dull fancy a muckinder is fit To wipe the s...o...b..rings of thy snotty wit: And though 'tis late, if justice could be found, Thy plays like blind-born puppies should be drown'd.

For were it not that we respect afford Unto the son of an heroic lord, Thine in the ducking-stool should take her seat, Drest like herself in a great chair of state; Where like a Muse of quality she'd die, And thou thyself shalt make her elegy, In the same strain thou writ'st thy comedy.