We only know the important truthHis Majesty had cut a tooth. And much his subjects were enchanted, As well all Lama's subjects may be, And would have given their heads, if wanted, To make tee-totums for the baby. As he was there by Right Divine (What lawyers call Jure Divino, Meaning a right to yours, and mine, And every body's goods and rhino)— Of course his faithful subjects' purses Were ready with their aids and succoursNothing was seen but pension'd nurses, And the land groan'd with bibs and tuckers. Oh! had there been a Hume or Bennet The waste of sugar-plums and rattles! But no-if Thibet had M. P.s, They were far better bred than these; Nor the slightest opposition, gave During the Monarch's whole dentition. But short this calm; for, just when he And trod on the old Generals' toes- Rode cock-horse on the City maces, And shot, from little devilish guns, Hard peas into his subjects' faces. When in these moods, to comb or dress him; And even the persons most inclined For Kings, through thick and thin, to stickle, Thought him (if they 'd but speak their mind, Which they did not) an odious pickle. At length, some patriot lords-a breed Extremely rare, and fit, indeed, For folks like Pidcock to exhibit- To which things went, combined their strength, 1 See TURNER'S Embassy to Thibet for an account of his interview with the Lama. Tesboo Lama (he says) was at this time eighteen months old. Though he was unable to speak a word, he made the most expressive signs, and conducted himself with astonishing dignity and decorum,» And penn'd a manly, plain and free The hereditary pap-spoon o'er 'em- That made them almost sick to think of- Of birch before their ruler's eyes; Allow'd, in even a King, were wrong: That such reforms be henceforth made, His Majesty should have a whipping! When this was read-no Congreve rocket, Were first and foremost in the fuss What, whip a Lama!-Suffer birch The fundamentals of the Church! The alarm thus given, by these and other Which gave some fears of revolution, Assures us) like a hero bore it. And though 'mong Thibet Tories, some (Please to observe, the letter D In this last word 's pronounced like B), So much is Thibet's land a debtor, 'T is said, her little Lamas since Have all behaved themselves much better. FABLE VI. THE EXTINGUISHERS. Proem. THOUGH soldiers are the true supports Nay Colonels have been known to reason, — And reasoners, whether clad in pink, Or red, or blue, are on the brink (Nine cases out of ten, of treason. Not many soldiers, I believe, are As fond of liberty as Mina; Else-woe to Kings, when Freedom's fever Once turns into a Scarletina! For then-but hold-'t is best to veil My meaning in the following tale: Fable. A LORD of Persia, rich and great, Just come into a large estate, Was shock'd to find he had, for neighbours, Close to his gate, some rascal Ghebers, Whose fires, beneath his very nose In heretic combustion rose. But lords of Persia can, no doubt, Do what they will-so, one fine morning, He turn'd the rascal Ghebers out, First giving a few kicks for warning. Such Pagan ruins strew'd around. That, while all else obey'd his will, The fire these Ghebers left behind Do what he would-kept burning still. Fiercely he storm'd, as if his frown Could scare the bright insurgent down; But, no-such fires are headstrong things, And care not much for lords or kings. Scarce could his lordship well contrive The flashes in one place to smother, Before-hey, presto-all alive, They sprung up freshly in another. At length when, spite of prayers and damns, 'T was found the sturdy flame defied him, His stewards came, with low salams, Offering, by contract, to provide him Machines no lord should be without, Which would, at once, put promptly out Fires of all kinds-from staring stark Volcanos to the tiniest spark Till all things slept as dull and dark As, in a great lord's neighbourhood, 'T was right and fitting all things should. Accordingly, some large supplies Of these Extinguishers were furnish'd (All of the true, imperial size), And there, in rows, stood black and burnish'd, Ready, where'er a gleam but shone Of light or fire, to be clapp'd on. But, ah! how lordly wisdom errs, Obstructed to his heart's content, His wrath, his rage, when, on returning, Brisk as before, crackling and burning- Of keeping down all lawless blazing, Thus, of his only hope bereft, What,» said the great man, must be done? All that, in scrapes like this, is left To great men is to cut and run. Where, cherish'd, guarded, not confin'd, The living glory dwelt inshrined, And, shedding lustre, strong but even, Moral. The moral hence my Muse infers Is-that such lords are simple elves, In trusting to extinguishers That are combustible themselves. The idea of this fable was caught from one of those brilliant mots which abound in the conversation of my friend, the author of the Letters to Julia-a production which contains some of the happiest specimens of playful poetry that have appeared in this or any age. Corruption and Intolerance ; TWO POEMS. PREFACE. cities: like the myrtle over a certain statue in Minerva's temple at Athens, it skilfully veiled from their sight the only obtrusive feature of royalty. At the same time, however, that the Revolution abridged this unpopular attribute, it amply compensated by the substitution of a new power, as much more potent in its effect as it is more secret in its operations. In the disposal of an immense revenue, and the extensive patronage annexed to it, the first foundations of this power of the Crown were laid; the innovation of a standing army at once increased and strengthened it, and the few slight barriers which the Act of Settlement opposed to its pro THE practice which has lately been introduced into literature, of writing very long notes upon very indifferent verses, appears to me rather a happy invention; for it supplies us with a mode of turning stupid poetry to account; and as horses too dull for the saddle may serve well enough to draw lumber, so poems of this kind make excellent beasts of burden, and will bear notes, though they may not bear reading. Besides, the comments in such cases are so little under the necessitygress have all been gradually removed during the whigof paying any servile deference to the text, that they may even adopt that Socratic dogma, Quod supra nos nihil ad nos." gish reigns that succeeded, till at length this spirit of Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia flectit, such a suspicion;-the very object which my humble animadversions would attain is, that in the crisis to which I think England is hastening, and between which and foreign subjugation she may soon be compelled to chuse, the errors and omissions of 1688 may be remedied, and that, as she then had a Revolution without a Reform, she may now seek a Reform without a Revolution. In the first of the following poems, I have ventured to speak of the Revolution in language which has sometimes been employed by Tory writers, and which is therefore neither very new nor popular. But, however an Englishman may be reproached with ingratitude, for appreciating the merits and results of a measure which he is taught to regard as the source of his liber-The cause of liberty and the Revolution are so habituties- however ungrateful it might be in Alderman ally associated by Englishmen, that, probably, in objectBirch to question for a moment the purity of that glo-ing to the latter I may be thought hostile or indifferent rious era to which he is indebted for the seasoning of to the former; but nothing can be more unjust than so many orations—yet an Irishman, who has none of these obligations to acknowledge, to whose country the Revolution brought nothing but injury and insult, and who recollects that the book of Molyneux was burned, by order of William's Whig Parliament, for daring to extend to unfortunate Ireland those principles on which the Revolution was professedly founded-an Irishman may venture to criticise the measures of that period, without exposing himself either to the imputation of ingratitude, or the suspicion of being influenced by any popish remains of jacobitism. No nation, it is true, was ever blessed with a more golden opportunity of establishing and securing its liberties for ever than the conjuncture of Eighty-eight presented to the people of Great Britain. But the disgraceful reigns of Charles and James had weakened and degraded the national character. The bold notions of popular right, which had arisen out of the struggles between Charles the First and his Parliament, were gradually supplanted by those slavish doctrines for which Lord H-kesb-ry eulogizes the churchmen of that period; and as the Reformation had happened too soon for the purity of religion, so the Revolution came too late for the spirit of liberty. Its advantages accordingly were for the most part specious and transitory, while the evils which it entailed are still felt and still increasing. By rendering unnecessary the frequent exercise of prerogative, that unwieldy power which cannot move a step without alarm, it limited the only interference of the Crown which is singly and independently exposed before the people, and whose abuses are therefore obvious to their senses and capa In speaking of the parties which have so long agitated England, it will be observed that I lean as little to the Whigs as to their adversaries. Both factions have been equally cruel to Ireland, and perhaps equally insincere in their efforts for the liberties of England. There is one name, indeed, connected with whiggism, of which I can never think but with veneration and tenderness. As justly, however, might the light of the sun be claimed by any particular nation, as the sanction of that name be assumed by any party whatever: Mr Fox belonged to mankind, and they have lost in him their ablest friend. With respect to the few lines upon Intolerance, which I have subjoined, they are but the imperfect beginning of a long series of Essays, with which I here menace my readers, upon the same important subject. I shall look to no higher merit in the task, than that of giving a new form to claims and remonstrances, which have often been much more eloquently urged, and which would long ere now have produced their effect, but that the minds of some men, like the pupil of the eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is shed upon them. CORRUPTION, AN EPISTLE. Νυν δ' άπανθ' ώσπερ εξ αγοράς εκπέπραται ταυτα αντεισήκται δε αντί τούτων, ὑφ' ών απολωλε και νενοσηκεν ἡ Ἑλλας. Ταυτα δ' ες: τις ζήλος, ει τις είληφε τι γελως αν ὁμολογη συγγνώμη τοις ελεγχομενοις· μισος, αν τούτοις τις επιτιμα ταλλα, παντα, όσα εκ του δωροδοκείν ηρτηται. DEMOSTH. Philipp. 111. BOAST on, my friend-though, stript of all beside, Yet pause a moment-and if truths severe Can find an inlet to that courtly ear Which loves no politics in rhyme but P―e's, And hears no news but W-rd's gazetted lies; If aught can please thee but the good old saws Of Church and State, and William's matchless laws," And Acts and Rights of glorious Eighty-eight,»— It never seems to occur to these orators and addressers who round off so many sentences and paragraphs with the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement, etc., that all the provisions which these Acts contained for the preservation of parliamentary independence have been long laid aside as romantic and troublesome. The Revolution, as its greatest admirers acknowledge, was little more than a recognition of ancient privileges, a restoration of that old Gothic structure which was brought from the woods of Germany into England. Edward the First On all our fate3-where, doom'd to wrongs and slights, bad long before made a similar recognition, and had even more ex We hear you talk of Britain's glorious rights, Boast on, while wandering through my native haunts, And feel, though close our wedded countries twine, More sorrow for my own than pride from thine. Angli suos ac sua omnia impense mirantur: cæteras nationes despectui habent.-BARCLAY (as quoted in one of Dryden's prefaces). England began very early to feel the effects of cruelty towards her dependencies. The severity of her Government (says Macpherson) contributed more to deprive her of the continental dominions of the family of Plantagenet than the arms of France. See his History, vol. i, page 111. 3 By the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland, in 1691 (says Burke), the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure too of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new English interest was settled with as solid a stability as any thing in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were mani festly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke. Yet this is the era to which the wise Common Council of Dublin refer us for invaluable blessings, etc. And this is the era which such Governors as his Grace the Duke of R-chm-nd think it politic to commemorate, in the eyes of my insulted country men, by an annual procession round the statue of King William! An unvarying trait of the policy of Great Britain towards Ireland has been her selection of such men to govern us as were least likely to deviate into justice and liberality, and the alarm which she has taken when any conscientious Viceroy has shown symptoms of departure from the old code of prejudice and oppression. Our most favourite Governors have accordingly been our shortest visitors, and the first moments of their popularity have in general been the last of their goverament. Thus Sir Anthony Bellingham, after the death of Henry the Eighth, was recalled for not sufficiently consulting the English interests, or, in other words, for not shooting the requisite quantity of wild Irish. The same kind of delinquency led to the recal of Sir Jobo Perrot, in Elizabeth's time, and to that of the Earl of Radnor, in the reign of Charles the Second, of whom Lord Orford says, We are not told how he disappointed the King's expectations, probably not by too great complaisance, nor why his administration, which Burnet calls just, was disliked. If it is true that he was a good governor, the presumption will be that his rule was not disliked by those to whom but from whom he was sent.--Royal and Noble Authors. We are not without instances of the same illiberal policy in our own times. pressly reverted to the first principles of the constitution, by declaring that the people shonld have their laws, liberties, and free customs, as largely and wholly as they have used to have the same at any time they had them. But, luckily for the Crown and its interests, the concessions both of Edward and of William bave been equally vague and verbal, equally theoretical and insincere. The feudal system was continued, notwithstanding the former, and Lord M's honest head is upon his shoulders, in spite of the latter. So that I confess I never meet with a politician who seriously quotes the Declaration of Rights, etc. to prove the actual existence of English liberty, that I do not think of the Marquis, whom Montesquieu mentions, (a) who set about looking for mines in the Pyrenees, upon the strength of authorities which he had read in some ancient authors. The poor Marquis toiled and searched in vain. He quoted his authorities to the last, but he found no mines after all. The chief, perhaps the only, advantage which has resulted from the system of influence, is the tranquil, uninterrupted flow which it has given to the administration of Government. If Kings must be paramount in the State (and their Ministers at least seem to think so), the country is indebted to the Revolution for enabling them to become so quietly, and for removing so skilfully the danger of those shocks and collisions which the alarming efforts of prerogative never failed to produce. of Government. Having neither leisure nor ability to discuss its meaIt is the nature of a people in general to attend but to the externals sures, they look no deeper than the surface for their utility, and no farther than the present for their consequences. Mrs Macaulay has said of a certain period, « The people at this time were, as the people of Great Britain always are, half-stupid, half-drunk, and half-asleep, and however we may dissent from this petulant effusion of a Scotchwoman, it must be owned that the reasoning powers of John Ball are not very easily called into action, and that even where he does cond scend to exert them, it is like Dogberry's display of his reading and writing, where there is no need of such vanity as upon that deep question about the dangers of the church, which was submitted for his discussion by Mr P-rc-v-1 at the late elections. It follows, however, from this apathy of the people, that as long as no glaring exertion of power, no open violation of forms is obtruded upon them, it is of very little consequence how matters are managed bebind the curtain; and a few quiet men, getting close to the ear of the Throne, may whisper away the salvation of the country so inaudibly, that rain will be divested of half its alarming preparatives. If, in addition to this slumber of the people, a great majority of those whom they have deputed to watch for them, can be induced, by any irresistible argument, to prefer the safety of the government to the integrity of the constitution, and to think a connivance at the encroachments of power less troublesome than the difficulties which would follow reform, I cannot imagine a more tranquil state of affairs than must necessarily result from such general and well-regulated acquiescence (a) Liv. n. chap. 11. While Kings were poor, and all those schemes unknown Those chains of gold by which themselves are tied; Instead of vain and agitating efforts to establish that speculative balance of the constitution, which perhaps has never existed but in the pages of Montesquieu (a) and De Lolme, a preponderance would be silently yielded to one of the three estates, which would carry the other two almost insensibly, but effectually, along with it; and even though the path might lead eventually to destruction, yet its specious and gilded smoothness would almost atone for the danger -like Milton's bridge over Chaos, it would lead Smooth, easy,' inoffensive, down to ****. How bright, how glorious in that sun-shine hour, Like mighty Babel, seem'd too bold for man; To thwart a work which raised men near to Heaven! Tacitus has expressed his opinion, in a passage very frequently quoted, that such a distribution of power as the theory of the British constitution exhibits is merely a subject of bright speculation, a system more easily praised than practised, and which, even could it happen to exist, would certainly not prove permanent; and, in truth, if we reflect on the English history, we shall feel very much inclined to agree with Tacitus. We shall find that at no period whatever bas this balance of the three estates existed; that the nobles predominated, till the policy of Henry VII and his successor reduced their weight by breaking up the feudal system of property; that the power of the Crown became then supreme and absolute, till the bold encroachments of the Commons subverted the fabric'altogether; that the alternate ascendancy of prerogative and privilege distracted the period which followed the Restoration; and that, lastly, the Acts of 1688, by laying the foundation of an unbounded court influence, have secured a preponderance to the Throne which every succeeding year increases. So that the British constitution has never perhaps existed but in theory. Those two thieves (says Ralph) between whom the nation was crucified. Use and Abuse of Parliaments, page 164. 3 The monarchs of Great Britain can never be sufficiently grateful for that generous spirit which led the Revolutionary Whigs to give away the Crown, without imposing any of those restraints or stipulations which other men might have taken advantage of such a moment to enforce, and in framing of which they had so good a model to follow as the limitations proposed by the Lords Essex and Halifax, in the debate upon the Exclusion Bill. They not only condescended, however, to accept of places, but they took care that these dignities should be no impediment to their voice potential in affairs of legislation; and though an Act was after many years suffered to pass, which by one of its articles disqualified placemen from serving as members of the House of Commons, yet it was not allowed to interfere with the influence of the reigning monarch, nor indeed with that of his successor Anne, as the purifying clause was not to take effect till after the decease of the latter sovereign, and she very considerately repealed it altogether. So that, as representation has continued ever since, if the King were simple enough to send to foreign courts amhassadors who were most of them in the pay of those courts, he would be just as faithfully represented as his people. It would be endless to enumerate all the favours which were conferred upou William by those apostate Whigs. They complimented him with the first suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act which had been hazarded since the confirmation of that privilege; and this example of our Deliverer's reign bas not been lost upon any of his successors. They promoted the establishment of a standing army, and circulated in its defence the celebrated Balancing Letter, in which it is insinuated that England, even then, in her boasted hour of regeneration, was arrived at such a Though the Kings of England were most unroyally harassed and fettered in all their pursuits by pecuniary difficulties, before the provident enactments of William's reign had opened to the Crown its present sources of wealth, yet we must not attribute to the Revolutionary Whigs the credit altogether of inventing this art of government. Its advantages had long been understood by ministers and favourites, though the limits of the royal revenue prevented them from exercising it with effect. In the reign of Mary, indeed, the gold of Spain, being added to the usual resources of the Throne, produced such a spirit of ductility in her Parliaments, that the price for which each member had sold himself was publicly ascertained: and if Charles the First could have commanded a similar supply, it is not too much to suppose that the Commonwealth never would have exist-pitch of faction and corruption, that nothing could keep her in order ed. But it was during the reign of the second Charles that the nearest but a Whig ministry and a standing army. They refused, as long as approaches were made to that pecuniary system which our debt, they could, to shorten the duration of Parliaments; and, though the our funds, and our taxes, have since brought to such perfection; declaration of rights acknowledged the necessity of such a reform, and Clifford and Danby would not disgrace even the present times they were able, by arts not unknown to modero ministers, to brand of political venality. Still, however, the experiment was but par- those as traitors and republicans who urged it (a). But the grand and tial and imperfect, (6) and attended with scarcely any other advan- distinguishing trait of their measures was the power which they gave tage than that of suggesting the uses to which the power of the purse to the Crown of annihilating the freedom of elections, of muddying has been since converted, just as the fulminating dust of the che- for ever that stream of representation, which had, even in the most mists may have prepared the way for the invention of gunpowder. agitated times, reflected some features of the people, but which then, The drivelling correspondence between James I and his dog for the first time, became the Pactolus of the Court, and grew so darkSteenies (the Duke of Buckingham), which we find among the Hardened with sands of gold, that it served for the people's mirror no wicke Papers, sufficiently shows, if we wanted such illustration, into longer. We need but consult the writings of that time, to understand what doting, idiotic brains the plan of arbitrary power may enter. the astonishment then excited by measures, which the practice of a ceutury has rendered not only familiar but necessary. See a pamphlet called The Danger of mercenary Parliaments, 1698; State Tracts, Will. III, vol. ii, p. 638; and see also Some Paradoxes presented as ■ New Year's Gift (State Poems, vol. iii, p. 327). (a) Montesquien seems not a little satisfied with his own ingenuity in finding out the character of the English from the nature of their political institutions; but it appears to me somewhat like that easy sagacity by which Lavater has discovered the genius of Shakspeare in his features. (b) See Preface to a collection of Debates, etc. in 1694 and 1695, for an account of the public tables kept at Westminster, in Charles the Second's time, to feed the betrayers of their country. The payment of each day's work was left under their respective plates. (a) See a Pamphlet, published in 1693, upon the King's refusing to siga the Triennial Bill, called A Discourse between a Yeoman of Kent and a Knight of a Shire. Hereupon (says the Yeoman) the gentleman grew angry, and said that I talked like a base commouswealth man. |