YET, yet a moment, one dim ray of light | |
| Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night! | |
| Of darkness visible so much be lent, | |
| As half to show, half veil the deep intent. | |
| Ye Powers! Whose mysteries restor’d I sing, | 5 |
| To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing, | |
| Suspend a while your force inertly strong, | |
| Then take at once the Poet and the Song. | |
| Now flamed the Dogstar’s unpropitious ray, | |
| Smote ev’ry brain, and wither’d ev’ry bay; | 10 |
| Sick was the sun, the owl forsook his bower, | |
| The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour: | |
| Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night, | |
| To blot out Order, and extinguish Light, | |
| Of dull and venal a new world to mould, | 15 |
| And bring Saturnian days of Lead and Gold. | |
| She mounts the Throne: her head a cloud conceal’d, | |
| In broad effulgence all below reveal’d | |
| (’T is thus aspiring Dulness ever shines); | |
| Soft on her lap her Laureate Son reclines: | 20 |
| Beneath her footstool Science groans in chains, | |
| And Wit dreads exile, penalties, and pains. | |
| There foam’d rebellious Logic, gagg’d and bound; | |
| There, stript, fair Rhetoric languish’d on the ground; | |
| His blunted arms by Sophistry are borne, | 25 |
| And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn, | |
| Morality, by her false guardians drawn, | |
| Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn, | |
| Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord, | |
| And dies when Dulness gives her Page the word. | 30 |
| Mad Mathesis alone was unconfin’d, | |
| Too mad for mere material chains to bind, | |
| Now to pure Space lifts her ecstatic stare, | |
| Now running round the Circle, finds it square. | |
| But held in tenfold bonds the Muses lie, | 35 |
| Watch’d both by envy’s and by flatt’ry’s eye. | |
| There to her heart sad Tragedy addrest | |
| The dagger, wont to pierce the Tyrant’s breast; | |
| But sober History restrain’d her rage, | |
| And promis’d vengeance on a barb’rous age. | 40 |
| There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead, | |
| Had not her sister Satire held her head: | |
| Nor couldst thou, Chesterfield! a tear refuse, | |
| Thou wept’st, and with thee wept each gentle Muse. | |
| When lo! a harlot form soft sliding by, | 45 |
| With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye: | |
| Foreign her air, her robe’s discordant pride | |
| In patchwork flutt’ring, and her head aside; | |
| By singing peers upheld on either hand, | |
| She tripp’d and laugh’d, too pretty much to stand; | 50 |
| Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look, | |
| Then thus in quaint recitativo spoke: | |
| ‘O cara! cara! silence all that train! | |
| Joy to great Chaos! let Division reign! | |
| Chromatic tortures soon shall drive them hence, | 55 |
| Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense: | |
| One Trill shall harmonize joy, grief, and rage, | |
| Wake the dull Church, and lull the ranting Stage; | |
| To the same notes thy sons shall hum, or snore, | |
| And all thy yawning daughters cry encore. | 60 |
| Another Phœbus, thy own Phœbus, reigns, | |
| Joys in my jigs, and dances in my chains. | |
| But soon, ah, soon, rebellion will commence, | |
| If Music meanly borrows aid from Sense: | |
| Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands, | 65 |
| Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands; | |
| To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes, | |
| And Jove’s own thunders follow Mars’s drums. | |
| Arrest him, Empress, or you sleep no more’—— | |
| She heard, and drove him to th’ Hibernian shore. | 70 |
| And now had Fame’s posterior trumpet blown, | |
| And all the nations summon’d to the Throne: | |
| The young, the old, who feel her inward sway, | |
| One instinct seizes, and transports away. | |
| None need a guide, by sure attraction led, | 75 |
| And strong impulsive gravity of head: | |
| None want a place, for all their centre found, | |
| Hung to the Goddess, and cohered around. | |
| Not closer, orb in orb, conglobed are seen | |
| The buzzing bees about their dusky queen. | 80 |
| The gath’ring number, as it moves along, | |
| Involves a vast involuntary throng, | |
| Who gently drawn, and struggling less and less, | |
| Roll in her vortex, and her power confess. | |
| Not those alone who passive own her laws, | 85 |
| But who, weak rebels, more advance her cause: | |
| Whate’er of Dunce in College or in Town | |
| Sneers at another, in toupee or gown; | |
| Whate’er of mongrel no one class admits, | |
| A Wit with Dunces, and a Dunce with Wits. | 90 |
| Nor absent they, no members of her state, | |
| Who pay her homage in her sons, the Great; | |
| Who, false to Phœbus, bow the knee to Baal, | |
| Or impious, preach his word without a call: | |
| Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead, | 95 |
| Withhold the pension, and set up the head; | |
| Or vast dull Flatt’ry in the sacred gown, | |
| Or give from fool to fool the laurel crown; | |
| And (last and worst) with all the cant of wit, | |
| Without the soul, the Muse’s hypocrite. | 100 |
| There march’d the Bard and Blockhead side by side, | |
| Who rhymed for hire, and patronized for pride. | |
| Narcissus, prais’d with all a parson’s power, | |
| Look’d a white lily sunk beneath a shower. | |
| There moved Montalto with superior air; | 105 |
| His stretch’d-out arm display’d a volume fair; | |
| Courtiers and Patriots in two ranks divide, | |
| Thro’ both he pass’d, and bow’d from side to side; | |
| But as in graceful act, with awful eye, | |
| Composed he stood, bold Benson thrust him by: | 110 |
| On two unequal crutches propt he came, | |
| Milton’s on this, on that one Johnston’s name. | |
| The decent knight retired with sober rage, | |
| Withdrew his hand, and closed the pompous page: | |
| But (happy for him as the times went then) | 115 |
| Appear’d Apollo’s mayor and aldermen, | |
| On whom three hundred gold-capp’d youths await, | |
| To lug the pond’rous volume off in state. | |
| When Dulness, smiling—‘Thus revive the Wits! | |
| But murder first, and mince them all to bits; | 120 |
| As erst Medea (cruel, so to save!) | |
| A new edition of old Æson gave; | |
| Let standard authors thus, like trophies borne, | |
| Appear more glorious as more hack’d and torn. | |
| And you, my Critics! in the chequer’d shade, | 125 |
| Admire new light thro’ holes yourselves have made. | |
| Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, | |
| A page, a grave, that they can call their own; | |
| But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, | |
| On passive paper, or on solid brick. | 130 |
| So by each Bard an Alderman shall sit, | |
| A heavy Lord shall hang at every Wit, | |
| And while on Fame’s triumphal car they ride, | |
| Some slave of mine be pinion’d to their side.’ | |
| Now crowds on crowds around the Goddess press, | 135 |
| Each eager to present the first address. | |
| Dunce scorning Dunce beholds the next advance, | |
| But Fop shows Fop superior complaisance. | |
| When lo! a spectre rose, whose index hand | |
| Held forth the virtue of the dreadful wand; | 140 |
| His beaver’d brow a birchen garland wears, | |
| Dropping with infants’ blood and mothers’ tears. | |
| O’er ev’ry vein a shudd’ring horror runs, | |
| Eton and Winton shake thro’ all their sons. | |
| All flesh is humbled, Westminster’s bold race | 145 |
| Shrink, and confess the Genius of the place: | |
| The pale boy-senator yet tingling stands, | |
| And holds his breeches close with both his hands. | |
| Then thus: ‘Since man from beast by words is known, | |
| Words are man’s province, words we teach alone. | 150 |
| When reason doubtful, like the Samian letter, | |
| Points him two ways, the narrower is the better. | |
| Placed at the door of learning, youth to guide, | |
| We never suffer it to stand too wide. | |
| To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, | 155 |
| As Fancy opens the quick springs of Sense, | |
| We ply the Memory, we load the Brain, | |
| Bind rebel wit, and double chain on chain, | |
| Confine the thought, to exercise the breath, | |
| And keep them in the pale of words till death. | 160 |
| Whate’er the talents, or howe’er design’d, | |
| We hang one jingling padlock on the mind: | |
| A poet the first day he dips his quill; | |
| And what the last? a very poet still. | |
| Pity! the charm works only in our wall, | 165 |
| Lost, lost too soon in yonder house or hall. | |
| There truant Wyndham ev’ry Muse gave o’er, | |
| There Talbot sunk, and was a Wit no more! | |
| How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast! | |
| How many Martials were in Pulteney lost! | 170 |
| Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise, | |
| In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days, | |
| Had reach’d the work, the all that mortal can, | |
| And South beheld that masterpiece of man. | |
| ‘O (cried the Goddess) for some pedant reign! | 175 |
| Some gentle James, to bless the land again: | |
| To stick the doctor’s chair into the throne, | |
| Give law to words, or war with words alone, | |
| Senates and Courts with Greek and Latin rule, | |
| And turn the Council to a grammar school! | 180 |
| For sure if Dulness sees a grateful day, | |
| ’T is in the shade of arbitrary sway. | |
| O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing, | |
| Teach but that one, sufficient for a King; | |
| That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain, | 185 |
| Which, as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign: | |
| May you, may Cam, and Isis, preach it long! | |
| ‘“The right divine of Kings to govern wrong.”’ | |
| Prompt at the call, around the Goddess roll | |
| Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal: | 190 |
| Thick and more thick the black blockade extends, | |
| A hundred head of Aristotle’s friends. | |
| Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day | |
| (Tho’ Christ Church long kept prudishly away): | |
| Each stanch polemic, stubborn as a rock, | 195 |
| Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke, | |
| Came whip and spur, and dash’d thro’ thin and thick, | |
| On German Crousaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck. | |
| As many quit the streams that murm’ring fall | |
| To lull the sons of Marg’ret and Clare Hall, | 200 |
| Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport | |
| In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port. | |
| Before them march’d that awful Aristarch; | |
| Plough’d was his front with many a deep remark; | |
| His hat, which never veil’d to human pride, | 205 |
| Walker with rev’rence took, and laid aside. | |
| Low bow’d the rest; he, kingly, did but nod; | |
| So upright Quakers please both man and God. | |
| ‘Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne; | |
| Avaunt—is Aristarchus yet unknown? | 210 |
| Thy mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains | |
| Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton’s strains. | |
| Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain, | |
| Critics like me shall make it prose again. | |
| Roman and Greek grammarians! know your better; | 215 |
| Author of something yet more great than letter; | |
| While tow’ring o’er your alphabet, like Saul, | |
| Stands our Digamma, and o’ertops them all. | |
| ’T is true, on words is still our whole debate, | |
| Disputes of me or te, of aut or at, | 220 |
| To sound or sink in cano, O or A, | |
| Or give up Cicero to C or K. | |
| Let Friend affect to speak as Terence spoke, | |
| And Alsop never but like Horace joke: | |
| For me what Virgil, Pliny, may deny, | 225 |
| Manilius or Solinus shall supply: | |
| For Attic phrase in Plato let them seek, | |
| I poach in Suidas for unlicens’d Greek. | |
| In ancient sense if any needs will deal, | |
| Be sure I give them fragments, not a meal; | 230 |
| What Gellius or Stobæus hash’d before, | |
| Or chew’d by blind old scholiasts o’er and o’er. | |
| The critic eye, that microscope of wit, | |
| Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit. | |
| How parts relate to parts, or they to whole, | 235 |
| The Body’s harmony, the beaming Soul, | |
| Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall see; | |
| When man’s whole frame is obvious to a flea. | |
| ‘Ah, think not, Mistress! more true dulness lies | |
| In Folly’s cap, than Wisdom’s grave disguise. | 240 |
| Like buoys, that never sink into the flood, | |
| On learning’s surface we but lie and nod. | |
| Thine is the genuine head of many a house, | |
| And much divinity without a nous. | |
| Nor could a Barrow work on ev’ry block, | 245 |
| Nor has one Atterbury spoil’d the flock! | |
| See! still thy own, the heavy Canon roll, | |
| And metaphysic smokes involve the pole. | |
| For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head | |
| With all such reading as was never read: | 250 |
| For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it, | |
| And write about it, Goddess, and about it: | |
| So spins the silkworm small its slender store, | |
| And labours till it clouds itself all o’er. | |
| ‘What tho’ we let some better sort of fool | 255 |
| Thrid ev’ry science, run thro’ ev’ry school? | |
| Never by tumbler thro’ the hoops was shown | |
| Such skill in passing all, and touching none. | |
| He may indeed (if sober all this time) | |
| Plague with Dispute, or persecute with Rhyme. | 260 |
| We only furnish what he cannot use, | |
| Or, wed to what he must divorce, a Muse: | |
| Full in the midst of Euclid dip at once, | |
| And petrify a Genius to a Dunce: | |
| Or, set on metaphysic ground to prance, | 265 |
| Show all his paces, not a step advance. | |
| With the same cement, ever sure to bind, | |
| We bring to one dead level ev’ry mind: | |
| Then take him to develop, if you can, | |
| And hew the Block off, and get out the Man. | 270 |
| But wherefore waste I words? I see advance | |
| Whore, pupil, and laced governor from France. | |
| Walker! our hat!’——nor more he deign’d to say, | |
| But stern as Ajax’ spectre strode away. | |
| In flow’d at once a gay embroider’d race, | 275 |
| And titt’ring push’d the pedants off the place: | |
| Some would have spoken, but the voice was drown’d | |
| By the French horn or by the opening hound. | |
| The first came forwards with as easy mien, | |
| As if he saw St. James’s and the Queen. | 280 |
| When thus th’ attendant orator begun: | |
| ‘Receive, great Empress! thy accomplish’d son; | |
| Thine from the birth, and sacred from the rod, | |
| A dauntless infant! never scared with God. | |
| The sire saw, one by one, his Virtues wake; | 285 |
| The mother begg’d the blessing of a Rake. | |
| Thou gavest that ripeness, which so soon began, | |
| And ceas’d so soon, he ne’er was boy nor man. | |
| Thro’ school and college, thy kind cloud o’ercast, | |
| Safe and unseen the young Æneas past: | 290 |
| Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down, | |
| Stunn’d with his giddy larum half the town. | |
| Intrepid then, o’er seas and lands he flew; | |
| Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too. | |
| There all thy gifts and graces we display, | 295 |
| Thou, only thou, directing all our way! | |
| To where the Seine, obsequious as she runs, | |
| Pours at great Bourbon’s feet her silken sons; | |
| Or Tyber, now no longer Roman, rolls, | |
| Vain of Italian arts, Italian souls: | 300 |
| To happy convents, bosom’d deep in vines, | |
| Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines: | |
| To isles of fragrance, lily-silver’d vales, | |
| Diffusing languor in the panting gales: | |
| To lands of singing, or of dancing, slaves, | 305 |
| Love-whisp’ring woods, and lute-resounding waves. | |
| But chief her shrine where naked Venus keeps, | |
| And Cupids ride the lion of the deeps; | |
| Where, eas’d of fleets, the Adriatic main | |
| Wafts the smooth eunuch and enamour’d swain. | 310 |
| Led by my hand, he saunter’d Europe round, | |
| And gather’d ev’ry vice on Christian ground; | |
| Saw every Court, heard every King declare | |
| His royal sense of Op’ras or the Fair; | |
| The Stews and Palace equally explored, | 315 |
| Intrigued with glory, and with spirit whored; | |
| Tried all hors-d’œuvres, all liqueurs defined, | |
| Judicious drank, and greatly daring dined; | |
| Dropp’d the dull lumber of the Latin store, | |
| Spoil’d his own language, and acquired no more; | 320 |
| All classic learning lost on classic ground; | |
| And last—turn’d Air, the Echo of a Sound! | |
| See now, half-cured, and perfectly well-bred, | |
| With nothing but a solo in his head; | |
| As much estate, and principle, and wit, | 325 |
| As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber shall think fit; | |
| Stol’n from a Duel, follow’d by a Nun, | |
| And, if a borough choose him not, undone; | |
| See, to my country happy I restore | |
| This glorious youth, and add one Venus more. | 330 |
| Her too receive (for her my soul adores); | |
| So may the sons of sons of sons of whores | |
| Prop thine, O Empress! like each neighbour Throne, | |
| And make a long posterity thy own.’ | |
| Pleas’d, she accepts the Hero and the Dame, | 335 |
| Wraps in her veil, and frees from sense of shame: | |
| Then look’d, and saw a lazy lolling sort, | |
| Unseen at Church, at Senate, or at Court, | |
| Of ever listless loit’rers, that attend | |
| No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend. | 340 |
| Thee, too, my Paridell! she mark’d thee there, | |
| Stretch’d on the rack of a too easy chair, | |
| And heard thy everlasting yawn confess | |
| The pains and penalties of Idleness. | |
| She pitied! but her pity only shed | 345 |
| Benigner influence on thy nodding head. | |
| But Annius, crafty seer, with ebon wand, | |
| And well-dissembled em’rald on his hand, | |
| False as his gems, and canker’d as his coins, | |
| Came, cramm’d with capon, from where Pollio dines. | 350 |
| Soft, as the wily fox is seen to creep, | |
| Where bask on sunny banks the simple sheep, | |
| Walk round and round, now prying here, now there, | |
| So he, but pious, whisper’d first his prayer: | |
| ‘Grant, gracious Goddess! grant me still to cheat! | 355 |
| O may thy cloud still cover the deceit! | |
| Thy choicer mists on this assembly shed, | |
| But pour them thickest on the noble head. | |
| So shall each youth, assisted by our eyes, | |
| See other Cæsars, other Homers rise; | 360 |
| Thro’ twilight ages hunt th’ Athenian fowl, | |
| Which Chalcis, Gods, and Mortals call an owl; | |
| Now see an Attys, now a Cecrops clear, | |
| Nay, Mahomet! the pigeon at thine ear; | |
| Be rich in ancient brass, tho’ not in gold, | 365 |
| And keep his Lares, tho’ his House be sold; | |
| To heedless Phœbe his fair bride postpone, | |
| Honour a Syrian prince above his own; | |
| Lord of an Otho, if I vouch it true; | |
| Bless’d in one Niger, till he knows of two.’ | 370 |
| Mummius o’erheard him; Mummius, fool renown’d, | |
| Who, like his Cheops, stinks above the ground, | |
| Fierce as a startled adder, swell’d and said, | |
| Rattling an ancient Sistrum at his head: | |
| ‘Speak’st thou of Syrian Princes? traitor base! | 375 |
| Mine, Goddess! mine is all the horned race. | |
| True, he had wit to make their value rise; | |
| From foolish Greeks to steal them was as wise; | |
| More glorious yet, from barb’rous hands to keep, | |
| When Sallee rovers chased him on the deep. | 380 |
| Then taught by Hermes, and divinely bold, | |
| Down his own throat he risk’d the Grecian gold, | |
| Receiv’d each demigod, with pious care, | |
| Deep in his entrails—I revered them there, | |
| I bought them, shrouded in that living shrine, | 385 |
| And, at their second birth, they issue mine.’ | |
| ‘Witness, great Ammon! by whose horns I swore | |
| (Replied soft Annius), this our paunch before | |
| Still bears them, faithful; and that thus I eat, | |
| Is to refund the Medals with the Meat. | 390 |
| To prove me, Goddess! clear of all design, | |
| Bid me with Pollio sup as well as dine: | |
| There all the learn’d shall at the labour stand, | |
| And Douglas lend his soft obstetric hand.’ | |
| The Goddess, smiling, seem’d to give consent; | 395 |
| So back to Pollio hand in hand they went. | |
| Then thick as locusts black’ning all the ground, | |
| A tribe with weeds and shells fantastic crown’d, | |
| Each with some wondrous gift approach’d the Power, | |
| A nest, a toad, a fungus, or a flower. | 400 |
| By far the foremost two, with earnest zeal | |
| And aspect ardent, to the throne appeal. | |
| The first thus open’d: ‘Hear thy suppliant’s call, | |
| Great Queen, and common Mother of us all! | |
| Fair from its humble bed I rear’d this flower, | 405 |
| Suckled, and cheer’d, with air, and sun, and shower. | |
| Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I spread, | |
| Bright with the gilded button tipp’d its head, | |
| Then throned in glass, and named it CAROLINE. | |
| Each maid cried, “Charming!” and each youth, “Divine!” | 410 |
| Did Nature’s pencil ever blend such rays, | |
| Such varied light in one promiscuous blaze? | |
| Now prostrate! dead! behold that Caroline: | |
| No maid cries, “Charming!” and no youth, “Divine!” | |
| And lo, the wretch! whose vile, whose insect lust | 415 |
| Laid this gay daughter of the spring in dust. | |
| O punish him, or to th’ Elysian shades | |
| Dismiss my soul, where no Carnation fades.’ | |
| He ceas’d, and wept. With innocence of mien | |
| Th’ accused stood forth, and thus address’d the Queen: | 420 |
| ‘Of all th’ enamell’d race, whose silv’ry wing | |
| Waves to the tepid zephyrs of the spring, | |
| Or swims along the fluid atmosphere, | |
| Once brightest shined this child of Heat and Air. | |
| I saw, and started from its vernal bower | 425 |
| The rising game, and chased from flower to flower. | |
| It fled, I follow’d; now in hope, now pain; | |
| It stopt, I stopt; it mov’d, I mov’d again. | |
| At last it fix’d,’t was on what plant it pleas’d, | |
| And where it fix’d the beauteous bird I seiz’d: | 430 |
| Rose or Carnation was below my care; | |
| I meddle, Goddess! only in my sphere. | |
| I tell the naked fact without disguise, | |
| And, to excuse it, need but show the prize; | |
| Whose spoils this paper offers to your eye, | 435 |
| Fair ev’n in death, this peerless butterfly!’ | |
| ‘My sons! (she answer’d) both have done your parts: | |
| Live happy both, and long promote our Arts. | |
| But hear a mother when she recommends | |
| To your fraternal care our sleeping friends. | 440 |
| The common soul, of Heav’n’s more frugal make, | |
| Serves but to keep Fools pert, and Knaves awake; | |
| A drowsy watchman, that just gives a knock, | |
| And breaks our rest, to tell us what ’s o’clock. | |
| Yet by some object ev’ry brain is stirr’d; | 445 |
| The dull may waken to a Humming-bird; | |
| The most recluse, discreetly open’d, find | |
| Congenial matter in the Cockle king; | |
| The mind, in metaphysics at a loss, | |
| May wander in a wilderness of Moss; | 450 |
| The head that turns at superlunar things | |
| Pois’d with a tail, may steer on Wilkins’ wings. | |
| ‘O! would the sons of men once think their eyes | |
| And Reason giv’n them but to study flies! | |
| See Nature in some partial narrow shape, | 455 |
| And let the Author of the whole escape: | |
| Learn but to trifle; or, who most observe, | |
| To wonder at their Maker, not to serve!’ | |
| ‘Be that my task (replies a gloomy Clerk, | |
| Sworn foe to myst’ry, yet divinely dark; | 460 |
| Whose pious hope aspires to see the day | |
| When moral evidence shall quite decay, | |
| And damns implicit faith, and holy lies; | |
| Prompt to impose, and fond to dogmatize): | |
| Let others creep by timid steps, and slow, | 465 |
| On plain Experience lay foundations low, | |
| By common sense to common knowledge bred, | |
| And last, to Nature’s Cause thro’ Nature led. | |
| All-seeing in thy mists, we want no guide, | |
| Mother of Arrogance, and source of pride! | 470 |
| We nobly take the high priori road, | |
| And reason downward, till we doubt of God: | |
| Make Nature still encroach upon his plan, | |
| And shove him off as far as e’er we can: | |
| Thrust some Mechanic Cause into his place, | 475 |
| Or bind in Matter, or diffuse in Space: | |
| Or, at one bound o’erleaping all his laws, | |
| Make God man’s image; man, the final Cause; | |
| Find Virtue local, all Relation scorn, | |
| See all in self, and but for self be born: | 480 |
| Of nought so certain as our Reason still, | |
| Of nought so doubtful as of Soul and Will. | |
| O hide the God still more! and make us see | |
| Such as Lucretius drew, a God like thee: | |
| Wrapt up in self, a God without a thought, | 485 |
| Regardless of our merit or default. | |
| Or that bright image to our fancy draw, | |
| Which Theocles in raptured vision saw, | |
| While thro’ poetic scenes the Genius roves, | |
| Or wanders wild in academic groves; | 490 |
| That Nature our society adores, | |
| Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus snores!’ | |
| Rous’d at his name, up rose the bousy Sire, | |
| And shook from out his pipe the seeds of fire; | |
| Then snapt his box, and stroked his belly down; | 495 |
| Rosy and rev’rend, tho’ without a gown. | |
| Bland and familiar to the Throne he came, | |
| Led up the youth, and call’d the Goddess Dame; | |
| Then thus: ‘From priestcraft happily set free, | |
| Lo! every finish’d son returns to thee: | 500 |
| First slave to Words, then vassal to a Name, | |
| Then dupe to Party; child and man the same; | |
| Bounded by Nature, narrow’d still by Art, | |
| A trifling head, and a contracted heart. | |
| Thus bred, thus taught, how many have I seen, | 505 |
| Smiling on all, and smil’d on by a Queen! | |
| Mark’d out for honours, honour’d for their birth, | |
| To thee the most rebellious things on earth: | |
| Now to thy gentle shadow all are shrunk, | |
| All melted down in Pension or in Punk! | 510 |
| So K[ent] so B—— sneak’d into the grave, | |
| A monarch’s half, and half a harlot’s slave. | |
| Poor W[harton] nipt in Folly’s broadest bloom, | |
| Who praises now? his chaplain on his tomb. | |
| Then take them all, O take them to thy breast! | 515 |
| Thy Magus, Goddess! shall perform the rest.’ | |
| With that a wizard old his Cup extends, | |
| Which whoso tastes, forgets his former Friends, | |
| Sire, Ancestors, Himself. One casts his eyes | |
| Up to a star, and like Endymion dies: | 520 |
| A feather, shooting from another’s head, | |
| Extracts his brain, and Principle is fled; | |
| Lost is his God, his Country, everything, | |
| And nothing left but homage to a King! | |
| The vulgar herd turn off to roll with hogs, | 525 |
| To run with horses, or to hunt with dogs; | |
| But, sad example! never to escape | |
| Their infamy, still keep the human shape. | |
| But she, good Goddess, sent to every child | |
| Firm Impudence, or Stupefaction mild; | 530 |
| And straight succeeded, leaving shame no room, | |
| Cibberian forehead, or Cimmerian gloom. | |
| Kind Self-conceit to some her glass applies, | |
| Which no one looks in with another’s eyes: | |
| But as the Flatt’rer or Dependant paint, | 535 |
| Beholds himself a Patriot, Chief, or Saint. | |
| On others Int’rest her gay liv’ry flings, | |
| Int’rest, that waves on party-colour’d wings: | |
| Turn’d to the sun, she casts a thousand dyes, | |
| And, as she turns, the colours fall or rise. | 540 |
| Others the Syren Sisters warble round, | |
| And empty heads console with empty sound. | |
| No more, alas! the voice of Fame they hear, | |
| The balm of Dulness trickling in their ear. | |
| Great C—, H—, P—, R—, K—, | 545 |
| Why all your toils? your sons have learn’d to sing. | |
| How quick Ambition hastes to Ridicule: | |
| The sire is made a Peer, the son a Fool. | |
| On some, a priest succinct in amice white | |
| Attends; all flesh is nothing in his sight! | 550 |
| Beeves, at his touch, at once to jelly turn, | |
| And the huge boar is shrunk into an urn: | |
| The board with specious Miracles he loads, | |
| Turns hares to larks, and pigeons into toads. | |
| Another (for in all what one can shine?) | 555 |
| Explains the sève and verdeur of the Vine. | |
| What cannot copious sacrifice atone? | |
| Thy truffles, Périgord, thy hams, Bayonne, | |
| With French libation, and Italian strain, | |
| Wash Bladen white, and expiate Hays’s stain, | 560 |
| Knight lifts the head; for, what are crowds undone, | |
| To three essential partridges in one? | |
| Gone ev’ry blush, and silent all reproach, | |
| Contending Princes mount them in their coach. | |
| Next bidding all draw near on bended knees, | 565 |
| The Queen confers her Titles and Degrees. | |
| Her children first of more distinguish’d sort, | |
| Who study Shakespeare at the Inns of Court, | |
| Impale a glow-worm, or Vertù profess, | |
| Shine in the dignity of F. R. S. | 570 |
| Some, deep Freemasons, join the silent race, | |
| Worthy to fill Pythagoras’s place: | |
| Some Botanists, or florists at the least, | |
| Or issue members of an annual feast. | |
| Nor past the meanest unregarded; one | 575 |
| Rose a Gregorian, one a Gormogon. | |
| The last, not least in honour or applause, | |
| Isis and Cam made Doctors of her Laws. | |
| Then, blessing all, ‘Go children of my care! | |
| To practice now from theory repair. | 580 |
| All my commands are easy, short and full: | |
| My sons! be proud, be selfish, and be dull. | |
| Guard my Prerogative, assert my Throne: | |
| This nod confirms each privilege your own. | |
| The cap and switch be sacred to His Grace; | 585 |
| With staff and pumps the Marquis leads the race; | |
| From stage to stage the licens’d Earl may run, | |
| Pair’d with his fellow charioteer, the sun; | |
| The learned Baron butterflies design, | |
| Or draw to silk Arachne’s subtle line; | 590 |
| The Judge to dance his brother sergeant call; | |
| The Senator at cricket urge the ball: | |
| The Bishop stow (pontific luxury!) | |
| A hundred souls of turkeys in a pie; | |
| The sturdy Squire to Gallic masters stoop, | 595 |
| And drown his lands and manors in a soup. | |
| Others import yet nobler arts from France, | |
| Teach Kings to fiddle, and make Senates dance. | |
| Perhaps more high some daring son may soar, | |
| Proud to my list to add one monarch more; | 600 |
| And nobly-conscious, Princes are but things | |
| Born for first Ministers, as slaves for Kings, | |
| Tyrant supreme! shall three estates command, | |
| And make one mighty Dunciad of the land!’ | |
| More she had spoke, but yawn’d—All nature nods: | 605 |
| What mortal can resist the yawn of Gods? | |
| Churches and chapels instantly it reach’d | |
| (St. James’s first, for leaden Gilbert preach’d); | |
| Then catch’d the Schools; the Hall scarce kept awake; | |
| The Convocation gaped, but could not speak. | 610 |
| Lost was the Nation’s sense, nor could be found, | |
| While the long solemn unison went round: | |
| Wide, and more wide, it spread o’er all the realm; | |
| Ev’n Palinurus nodded at the helm: | |
| The vapour mild o’er each committee crept; | 615 |
| Unfinish’d treaties in each office slept; | |
| And chiefless armies dozed out the campaign; | |
| And navies yawn’d for orders on the main. | |
| O Muse! relate (for you can tell alone, | |
| Wits have short memories, and Dunces none), | 620 |
| Relate who first, who last, resign’d to rest; | |
| Whose heads she partly, whose completely blest; | |
| What charms could Faction, what Ambition lull, | |
| The venal quiet, and entrance the dull, | |
| Till drown’d was Sense, and Shame, and Right, and Wrong; | 625 |
| O sing, and hush the nations with thy song! . . . . . | |
| In vain, in vain—the all-composing hour | |
| Resistless falls; the Muse obeys the power. | |
| She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold | |
| Of Night primeval, and of Chaos old! | 630 |
| Before her Fancy’s gilded clouds decay, | |
| And all its varying rainbows die away. | |
| Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, | |
| The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. | |
| As one by one, at dread Medea’s strain, | 635 |
| The sick’ning stars fade off th’ ethereal plain; | |
| As Argus’ eyes, by Hermes’ wand opprest, | |
| Closed one by one to everlasting rest; | |
| Thus at her felt approach, and secret might, | |
| Art after Art goes out, and all is night. | 640 |
| See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, | |
| Mountains of casuistry heap’d o’er her head! | |
| Philosophy, that lean’d on Heaven before, | |
| Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. | |
| Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, | 645 |
| And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! | |
| See Mystery to Mathematics fly! | |
| In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. | |
| Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, | |
| And unawares Morality expires. | 650 |
| Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; | |
| Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! | |
| Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restor’d; | |
| Light dies before thy uncreating word: | |
| Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; | 655 |
| And universal Darkness buries all. | |
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