Chapter 18

Or hail at once the patron and the pile Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle! [98] Where yon proud palace, Fashion's hallow'd fane, 640 Spreads wide her portals for the motley train, Behold the new Petronius [99] of the day, [xlviii] Our arbiter of pleasure and of play! There the hired eunuch, the Hesperian choir, The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre, The song from Italy, the step from France, The midnight orgy, and the mazy dance, The smile of beauty, and the flush of wine, For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and Lords combine: Each to his humour--Comus all allows; 650 Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's spouse. Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade! Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made; In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask, Nor think of Poverty, except "en masque," [100] When for the night some lately titled ass Appears the beggar which his grandsire was, The curtain dropped, the gay Burletta o'er, The audience take their turn upon the floor: Now round the room the circling dow'gers sweep, 660 Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap; The first in lengthened line majestic swim, The last display the free unfettered limb! Those for Hibernia's lusty sons repair With art the charms which Nature could not spare; These after husbands wing their eager flight, Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night.

Oh! blest retreats of infamy and ease, Where, all forgotten but the power to please, Each maid may give a loose to genial thought, 670 Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught: There the blithe youngster, just returned from Spain, Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main; The jovial Caster's set, and seven's the Nick, Or--done!--a thousand on the coming trick! If, mad with loss, existence 'gins to tire, And all your hope or wish is to expire, Here's POWELL'S [101] pistol ready for your life, And, kinder still, two PAGETS for your wife: [xlix] Fit consummation of an earthly race 680 Begun in folly, ended in disgrace, While none but menials o'er the bed of death, Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath; Traduced by liars, and forgot by all, The mangled victim of a drunken brawl, To live like CLODIUS, [102] and like FALKLAND fall.[103]

Truth! rouse some genuine Bard, and guide his hand To drive this pestilence from out the land. E'en I--least thinking of a thoughtless throng, Just skilled to know the right and choose the wrong, 690 Freed at that age when Reason's shield is lost, To fight my course through Passion's countless host, [104] Whom every path of Pleasure's flow'ry way Has lured in turn, and all have led astray-- E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel Such scenes, such men, destroy the public weal: Altho' some kind, censorious friend will say, "What art thou better, meddling fool, [105] than they?" And every Brother Rake will smile to see That miracle, a Moralist in me. 700 No matter--when some Bard in virtue strong, Gifford perchance, shall raise the chastening song, Then sleep my pen for ever! and my voice Be only heard to hail him, and rejoice, Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise, though I May feel the lash that Virtue must apply.

As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals From silly HAFIZ up to simple BOWLES, [106] Why should we call them from their dark abode, In Broad St. Giles's or Tottenham-Road? 710 Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or the Square? [l] If things of Ton their harmless lays indite, Most wisely doomed to shun the public sight, What harm? in spite of every critic elf, Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself; MILES ANDREWS [107] still his strength in couplets try, And live in prologues, though his dramas die. Lords too are Bards: such things at times befall, And 'tis some praise in Peers to write at all. 720 Yet, did or Taste or Reason sway the times, Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes? [108] ROSCOMMON! [109] SHEFFIELD! [110] with your spirits fled, [111] No future laurels deck a noble head; No Muse will cheer, with renovating smile, The paralytic puling of CARLISLE. [li] [112] The puny schoolboy and his early lay Men pardon, if his follies pass away; But who forgives the Senior's ceaseless verse, Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse? 730 What heterogeneous honours deck the Peer! Lord, rhymester, petit-maître, pamphleteer! [113] So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age, His scenes alone had damned our sinking stage; But Managers for once cried, "Hold, enough!" Nor drugged their audience with the tragic stuff. Yet at their judgment let his Lordship laugh, [lii] And case his volumes in congenial calf; Yes! doff that covering, where Morocco shines, And hang a calf-skin on those recreant lines. [114] 740

With you, ye Druids! rich in native lead, Who daily scribble for your daily bread: With you I war not: GIFFORD'S heavy hand Has crushed, without remorse, your numerous band. On "All the Talents" vent your venal spleen; [115] Want is your plea, let Pity be your screen. Let Monodies on Fox regale your crew, And Melville's Mantle [116] prove a Blanket too! One common Lethe waits each hapless Bard, And, peace be with you! 'tis your best reward. 750 Such damning fame; as Dunciads only give [liii] Could bid your lines beyond a morning live; But now at once your fleeting labours close, With names of greater note in blest repose. Far be't from me unkindly to upbraid The lovely ROSA'S prose in masquerade, Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind, Leave wondering comprehension far behind. [117] Though Crusca's bards no more our journals fill, [118] Some stragglers skirmish round the columns still; 760 Last of the howling host which once was Bell's, [liv] Matilda snivels yet, and Hafiz yells; And Merry's [119] metaphors appear anew, Chained to the signature of O. P. Q. [120] When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall, Employs a pen less pointed than his awl, Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes, St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the Muse, Heavens! how the vulgar stare! how crowds applaud! How ladies read, and Literati laud! [121] 770 If chance some wicked wag should pass his jest, 'Tis sheer ill-nature--don't the world know best? Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme, And CAPEL LOFFT [122] declares 'tis quite sublime. Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade! Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless spade! Lo! BURNS and BLOOMFIELD, nay, a greater far, GIFFORD was born beneath an adverse star, Forsook the labours of a servile state, Stemmed the rude storm, and triumphed over Fate: 780 Then why no more? if Phoebus smiled on you, BLOOMFIELD! why not on brother Nathan too? [123] Him too the Mania, not the Muse, has seized; Not inspiration, but a mind diseased: And now no Boor can seek his last abode, No common be inclosed without an ode. Oh! since increased refinement deigns to smile On Britain's sons, and bless our genial Isle, Let Poesy go forth, pervade the whole, Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul! 790 Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong, Compose at once a slipper and a song; So shall the fair your handywork peruse, Your sonnets sure shall please--perhaps your shoes. May Moorland weavers [124] boast Pindaric skill, And tailors' lays be longer than their bill! While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes, And pay for poems--when they pay for coats.

To the famed throng now paid the tribute due, [lv] Neglected Genius! let me turn to you. 800 Come forth, oh CAMPBELL! give thy talents scope; Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope? And thou, melodious ROGERS! rise at last, Recall the pleasing memory of the past; [125] Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire, And strike to wonted tones thy hallowed lyre; Restore Apollo to his vacant throne, Assert thy country's honour and thine own. What! must deserted Poesy still weep Where her last hopes with pious COWPER sleep? 810 Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns, To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, BURNS! No! though contempt hath marked the spurious brood, The race who rhyme from folly, or for food, Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to boast, Who, least affecting, still affect the most: [lvi] Feel as they write, and write but as they feel-- Bear witness GIFFORD, [126] SOTHEBY, [127] MACNEIL. [128] "Why slumbers GIFFORD?" once was asked in vain; Why slumbers GIFFORD? let us ask again. [129] 820 Are there no follies for his pen to purge? Are there no fools whose backs demand the scourge? Are there no sins for Satire's Bard to greet? Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street? Shall Peers or Princes tread pollution's path, And 'scape alike the Laws and Muse's wrath? Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time, Eternal beacons of consummate crime? Arouse thee, GIFFORD! be thy promise claimed, Make bad men better, or at least ashamed. 830

Unhappy WHITE! [130] while life was in its spring, And thy young Muse just waved her joyous wing, The Spoiler swept that soaring Lyre away, [lvii] [131] Which else had sounded an immortal lay. Oh! what a noble heart was here undone, When Science' self destroyed her favourite son! Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit, She sowed the seeds, but Death has reaped the fruit. 'Twas thine own Genius gave the final blow, And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low: 840 So the struck Eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart; Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel; While the same plumage that had warmed his nest Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

There be who say, in these enlightened days, That splendid lies are all the poet's praise; 850 That strained Invention, ever on the wing, Alone impels the modern Bard to sing: Tis true, that all who rhyme--nay, all who write, Shrink from that fatal word to Genius--Trite; Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires, And decorate the verse herself inspires: This fact in Virtue's name let CRABBE [132] attest; Though Nature's sternest Painter, yet the best.

And here let SHEE [133] and Genius find a place, Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace; 860 To guide whose hand the sister Arts combine, And trace the Poet's or the Painter's line; Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow, Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow; While honours, doubly merited, attend [lviii] The Poet's rival, but the Painter's friend.

Blest is the man who dares approach the bower Where dwelt the Muses at their natal hour; Whose steps have pressed, whose eye has marked afar, The clime that nursed the sons of song and war, 870 The scenes which Glory still must hover o'er, Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore. But doubly blest is he whose heart expands With hallowed feelings for those classic lands; Who rends the veil of ages long gone by, And views their remnants with a poet's eye! WRIGHT! [134] 'twas thy happy lot at once to view Those shores of glory, and to sing them too; And sure no common Muse inspired thy pen To hail the land of Gods and Godlike men. 880

And you, associate Bards! [135] who snatched to light [lvix] Those gems too long withheld from modern sight; Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath While Attic flowers Aonian odours breathe, And all their renovated fragrance flung, To grace the beauties of your native tongue; Now let those minds, that nobly could transfuse The glorious Spirit of the Grecian Muse, Though soft the echo, scorn a borrowed tone: [lx] Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own. 890

Let these, or such as these, with just applause, [lxi] Restore the Muse's violated laws; But not in flimsy DARWIN'S [136] pompous chime, [lxii] That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme, Whose gilded cymbals, more adorned than clear, The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear, In show the simple lyre could once surpass, But now, worn down, appear in native brass; While all his train of hovering sylphs around Evaporate in similes and sound: 900 Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die: False glare attracts, but more offends the eye. [137]

Yet let them not to vulgar WORDSWORTH [138] stoop, The meanest object of the lowly group, Whose verse, of all but childish prattle void, Seems blessed harmony to LAMB and LLOYD: [139] Let them--but hold, my Muse, nor dare to teach A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach: The native genius with their being given Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven. 910

And thou, too, SCOTT! [140] resign to minstrels rude The wilder Slogan of a Border feud: Let others spin their meagre lines for hire; Enough for Genius, if itself inspire! Let SOUTHEY sing, altho' his teeming muse, [lxiii] Prolific every spring, be too profuse; Let simple WORDSWORTH [141] chime his childish verse, And brother COLERIDGE lull the babe at nurse [lxiv] Let Spectre-mongering LEWIS aim, at most, [lxv] To rouse the Galleries, or to raise a ghost; 920 Let MOORE still sigh; let STRANGFORD steal from MOORE, [lxvi] And swear that CAMOËNS sang such notes of yore; Let HAYLEY hobble on, MONTGOMERY rave, And godly GRAHAME chant a stupid stave; Let sonneteering BOWLES [142] his strains refine, And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line; Let STOTT, CARLISLE, [143] MATILDA, and the rest Of Grub Street, and of Grosvenor Place the best, Scrawl on, 'till death release us from the strain, Or Common Sense assert her rights again; 930 But Thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise, Should'st leave to humbler Bards ignoble lays: Thy country's voice, the voice of all the Nine, Demand a hallowed harp--that harp is thine. Say! will not Caledonia's annals yield The glorious record of some nobler field, Than the vile foray of a plundering clan, Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man? Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food For SHERWOOD'S outlaw tales of ROBIN HOOD? [lxvii] 940 Scotland! still proudly claim thy native Bard, And be thy praise his first, his best reward! Yet not with thee alone his name should live, But own the vast renown a world can give; Be known, perchance, when Albion is no more, And tell the tale of what she was before; To future times her faded fame recall, And save her glory, though his country fall.

Yet what avails the sanguine Poet's hope, To conquer ages, and with time to cope? 950 New eras spread their wings, new nations rise, And other Victors fill th' applauding skies; [144] A few brief generations fleet along, Whose sons forget the Poet and his song: E'en now, what once-loved Minstrels scarce may claim The transient mention of a dubious name! When Fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast, Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last; And glory, like the Phoenix [145] midst her fires, Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires. 960

Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons, Expert in science, more expert at puns? Shall these approach the Muse? ah, no! she flies, Even from the tempting ore of Seaton's prize; [lxviii] Though Printers condescend the press to soil With rhyme by HOARE, [146] and epic blank by HOYLE: [lxix] [147] Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist, Requires no sacred theme to bid us list. [148] Ye! who in Granta's honours would surpass, Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass; 970 A foal well worthy of her ancient Dam, Whose Helicon [149] is duller than her Cam. [lxx]

There CLARKE, [150] still striving piteously "to please," [lxxi] Forgetting doggerel leads not to degrees, A would-be satirist, a hired Buffoon, A monthly scribbler of some low Lampoon, [151] Condemned to drudge, the meanest of the mean, And furbish falsehoods for a magazine, Devotes to scandal his congenial mind; Himself a living libel on mankind. 980

Oh! dark asylum of a Vandal race! [152] At once the boast of learning, and disgrace! So lost to Phoebus, that nor Hodgson's [153] verse Can make thee better, nor poor Hewson's [154] worse. [lxxii] But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave, The partial Muse delighted loves to lave; On her green banks a greener wreath she wove, [lxxiii] To crown the Bards that haunt her classic grove; Where RICHARDS wakes a genuine poet's fires, And modern Britons glory in their Sires. [155] [lxxiv] 990

For me, who, thus unasked, have dared to tell My country, what her sons should know too well, [lxxv] Zeal for her honour bade me here engage [lxxvi] The host of idiots that infest her age; No just applause her honoured name shall lose, As first in freedom, dearest to the Muse. Oh! would thy bards but emulate thy fame, And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name! What Athens was in science, Rome in power, What Tyre appeared in her meridian hour, 1000 'Tis thine at once, fair Albion! to have been-- Earth's chief Dictatress, Ocean's lovely Queen: [lxxvii] But Rome decayed, and Athens strewed the plain, And Tyre's proud piers lie shattered in the main; Like these, thy strength may sink, in ruin hurled, [lxxviii] And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world. But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate, With warning ever scoffed at, till too late; To themes less lofty still my lay confine, And urge thy Bards to gain a name like thine. [156] 1010

Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest, The senate's oracles, the people's jest! Still hear thy motley orators dispense The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense, While CANNING'S colleagues hate him for his wit, And old dame PORTLAND [157] fills the place of PITT.

Yet once again, adieu! ere this the sail That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale; And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse height, [158] And Stamboul's minarets must greet my sight: 1020 Thence shall I stray through Beauty's native clime, [159] Where Kaff [160] is clad in rocks, and crowned with snows sublime. But should I back return, no tempting press [lxxix] Shall drag my Journal from the desk's recess; Let coxcombs, printing as they come from far, Snatch his own wreath of Ridicule from Carr; Let ABERDEEN and ELGIN [161] still pursue The shade of fame through regions of Virtù; Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks, Misshapen monuments and maimed antiques; 1030 And make their grand saloons a general mart For all the mutilated blocks of art: Of Dardan tours let Dilettanti tell, I leave topography to rapid [162] GELL; [163] And, quite content, no more shall interpose To stun the public ear--at least with Prose. [lxxx]

Thus far I've held my undisturbed career, Prepared for rancour, steeled 'gainst selfish fear; This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdained to own-- Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown: 1040 My voice was heard again, though not so loud, My page, though nameless, never disavowed; And now at once I tear the veil away:-- Cheer on the pack! the Quarry stands at bay, Unscared by all the din of MELBOURNE house, [164] By LAMB'S resentment, or by HOLLAND'S spouse, By JEFFREY'S harmless pistol, HALLAM'S rage, Edina's brawny sons and brimstone page. Our men in buckram shall have blows enough, And feel they too are "penetrable stuff:" 1050 And though I hope not hence unscathed to go, Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe. The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall From lips that now may seem imbued with gall; Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise The meanest thing that crawled beneath my eyes: But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth, I've learned to think, and sternly speak the truth; Learned to deride the critic's starch decree, And break him on the wheel he meant for me; 1060 To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss, Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss: Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown, I too can hunt a Poetaster down; And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce. Thus much I've dared; if my incondite lay [lxxx] Hath wronged these righteous times, let others say: This, let the world, which knows not how to spare, Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare. [165] 1070

[Footnote 1: "The 'binding' of this volume is considerably too valuable for the contents. Nothing but the consideration of its being the property of another, prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames."--B., 1816.]

[Footnote 2: IMITATION.

"Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam, Vexatus toties, rauci Theseide Codri?"

JUVENAL, 'Satire I'.l. 1.]

[Footnote 3: "'Hoarse Fitzgerald'.--"Right enough; but why notice such a mountebank?"--B., 1816.

Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the "Small Beer Poet," inflicts his annual tribute of verse on the Literary Fund: not content with writing, he spouts in person, after the company have imbibed a reasonable quantity of bad port, to enable them to sustain the operation.

[William Thomas Fitzgerald (circ. 1759-1829) played the part of unofficial poet laureate. His loyal recitations were reported by the newspapers. He published, 'inter alia', 'Nelson's Triumph' (1798), 'Tears of Hibernia, dispelled by the Union' (1802), and 'Nelson's Tomb' (1806). He owes his fame to the first line of 'English Bards', and the famous parody in 'Rejected Addresses'. The following 'jeux désprits' were transcribed by R. C. Dallas on a blank leaf of a copy of the Fifth Edition:--

"Written on a copy of 'English Bards' at the 'Alfred' by W. T. Fitzgerald, Esq.--

I find Lord Byron scorns my Muse, Our Fates are ill agreed; The Verse is safe, I can't abuse Those lines, I never read.

Signed W. T. F."

Answer written on the same page by Lord Byron--

"What's writ on me," cries Fitz, "I never read"! What's writ by thee, dear Fitz, none will, indeed. The case stands simply thus, then, honest Fitz, Thou and thine enemies are fairly quits; Or rather would be, if for time to come, They luckily were 'deaf', or thou wert dumb; But to their pens while scribblers add their tongues. The Waiter only can escape their lungs. [A]]