Sublime in vengeance, smote the dreadful lyre ;
For truth, for liberty, for virtue warm,
Whose mighty song unnerved a tyrant's arm,
Hush'd the rude roar of discord, rage, and lust,
And spurn'd licentious demagogues to dust.
Is this the queen of realms! the glorious isle,
Britannia! blest in Heaven's indulgent smile!
Guardian of truth, and patroness of art,
Nurse of th' undaunted soul and generous heart!
Where, from a base unthankful world exiled,
Freedom exults to roam the careless wild;
Where taste to science every charm supplies,
And genius soars unbounded to the skies!
And shall a Bufo's most polluted name
Stain her bright tablet of untainted fame!
Shall his disgraceful name with theirs be join'd,
Who wish'd and wrought the welfare of their kind!
His name accursed, who, leagued with. . . . and hell,
Labour'd to rouse with rude and murderous yell,
Discord the fiend, to toss rebellion's brand,
To whelm in rage and woe a guiltless land;
To frustrate wisdom's, virtue's noblest plan,
And triumph in the miseries of man.
Drivelling and dull, when crawls the reptile Muse, Swoln from the sty, and rankling from the stews, With envy, spleen, and pestilence replete,
And gorged with dust she lick'd from treason's feet;
Who once, like Satan, raised to heaven her sight,
But turn'd abhorrent from the hated light :-
O'er such a Muse shall wreaths of glory bloom?
No-shame and execration be her doom.
Hard-fated Bufo! could not dulness save
Thy soul from sin, from infamy thy grave!
Blackmore and Quarles, those blockheads of renown,
Lavish'd their ink, but never harm'd the town:
Though this, thy brother in discordant song,
Harass'd the ear, and cramp'd the labouring tongue;
And that, like thee, taught staggering prose to stand,
And limp on stilts of rhyme around the land.
Harmless they dosed a scribbling life away,
And yawning nations own'd th' innoxious lay:
But from thy graceless, rude, and beastly brain
What fury breathed th' incendiary strain ?
Did hate to vice exasperate thy style?
No-Bufo match'd the vilest of the vile.
Yet blazon'd was his verse with virtue's nameThus prudes look down to hide their want of shame:
Thus hypocrites to truth, and fools to sense,
And fops to taste, have sometimes made pretence :
Thus thieves and gamesters swear by honour's laws:
Thus pension-hunters bawl their country's cause :
Thus furious Teague for moderation raved,
And own'd his soul to liberty enslaved.
Nor yet, though thousand cits admire thy rage,
Though less of fool than felon marks thy page;
Nor yet, though here and there one lonely spark
Of wit half brightens through th' involving dark,
To shew the gloom more hideous for the foil,
But not repay the drudging reader's toil;
(For who for one poor pearl of clouded ray
Through alpine dunghills delves his desperate way?)
Did genius to thy verse such bane impart ?
No. 'Twas the demon of thy venom❜d heart,
(Thy heart with rancour's quintessence endued,)
And the blind zeal of a misjudging crowd.
Thus from rank soil a poison'd mushroom sprung, Nursling obscene of mildew and of dung; By Heaven design'd on its own native spot Harmless t' enlarge its bloated bulk, and rot. But gluttony th' abortive nuisance saw; It roused his ravenous undiscerning maw :
Gulp'd down the tasteless throat, the mess abhorr❜d
Shot fiery influence round the maddening board.
Oh, had thy verse been impotent as dull,
Nor spoke thy rancorous heart, but lumpish skull;
Had mobs distinguish'd, they who howl'd thy fame,
The icicle from the pure diamond's flame,
From fancy's soul thy gross imbruted sense,
From dauntless truth thy shameless insolence,
From elegance confusion's monstrous mass,
And from the lion's spoils the skulking ass,
From rapture's strain the drawling doggerel line,
From warbling seraphim the grunting swine ;—
With gluttons, dunces, rakes, thy name had slept,
Nor o'er her sullied fame Britannia wept;
Nor had the Muse, with honest zeal possess'd,
T'avenge her country by thy name disgraced,
Raised this bold strain for virtue, truth, mankind,
And thy fell shade to infamy resign'd.
When Frailty leads astray the soul sincere,
Let Mercy shed the soft and manly tear.
When to the grave descends the sensual sot,
Unnamed, unnoticed, let his carrion rot.
When paltry rogues, by stealth, deceit, or force,
Hazard their necks, ambitious of your purse;
For such the hangman wreathes his trusty gin,
And let the gallows expiate their sin.
But when a ruffian, whose portentous crimes
Like plagues and earthquakes terrify the times,
Triumphs through life, from legal judgment free,
For hell may hatch what law could ne'er foresee;
Sacred from vengeance shall his memory rest ?—
Judas though dead, though damn'd, we still detest.
IN IMITATION OF SHAKESPEARE'S "BLOW, BLOW, THOU WINTER WIND."
BLOW, blow, thou vernal gale!
Thy balm will not avail
To ease my aching breast;
Though thou the billows smooth,
Thy murmurs cannot soothe
My weary soul to rest.
Flow, flow, thou tuneful stream!
Infuse the easy dream
Into the peaceful soul;
But thou canst not compose
The tumult of my woes,
Though soft thy waters roll.
Blush, blush, ye fairest flowers!
Beauties surpassing yours
My Rosalind adorn;
Nor is the winter's blast,
That lays your glories waste,
So killing as her scorn.
Breathe, breathe, ye tender lays,
That linger down the maze
Of yonder winding grove;
Oh, let your soft control
Bend her relenting soul
To pity and to love.
Fade, fade, ye flow'rets fair!
Gales, fan no more the air!
is an enormity which none can hold in greater detestation than I. But I composed them from very different motives; as every intelligent reader, who peruses them with attention, and who is willing to believe me upon my own testimony, will undoubtedly perceive. My motives proceeded from a sincere desire to do some small service to my country, and to the cause of truth and virtue. The promoters of faction I ever did, and ever will consider as the enemies of mankind; to the memory of such I owe no veneration; to the writings of such I owe no indulgence.
Your Lordship knows that owed the greatest share of his renown to the most incompetent of all judges, the mob; actuated by the most unworthy of all principles, a spirit of insolence; and inflamed by the vilest of all human passions, hatred to their fellow citizens. Those who joined the cry in his favour seemed to me to be swayed rather by fashion than by real sentiment. He therefore might have lived and died unmolested by me; confident as I am, that posterity, when the present unhappy dissensions are forgotten, will do ample justice to his real character. But when I saw the extravagant honours that were paid to his memory, and heard that a monument in Westminster Abbey was intended for one, whom even his admirers acknowledge to have been an incendiary and a debauchee, I could not help wishing that my countrymen would reflect a little on what they were doing before they consecrated, by what posterity would think the public voice, a character which no friend to virtue or to true taste can approve. It was this sentiment, enforced by the earnest request of a friend, which produced the following little poem; in which I have said nothing of ners that is not warranted by the best authority; nor of his writings, that is not perfectly agreeable to the opinion of many of the most competent judges in Britain. January 1765.]
BUFO, begone! with thee may Faction's fire,
That hatch'd thy salamander-fame, expire.
Fame, dirty idol of the brainless crowd,
What half-made moon-calf can mistake for good!
Since shared by knaves of high and low degree;
Cromwell, and Catiline; Guido Faux, and thee.
By nature uninspired, untaught by art,
With not one thought that breathes the feeling heart,
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