Volume Ii Part 36 (1/2)
The students, drinking, raised their wit and parts; Here, for an age and more, improved their vein, Their Phoebus I, my spring their Hippocrene.
Discouraged youths! now all their hopes must fail, Condemn'd to country cottages and ale; To foreign prelates make a slavish court, And by their sweat procure a mean support; Or, for the cla.s.sics, read ”The Attorney's Guide;”
Collect excise, or wait upon the tide.
Oh! had I been apostle to the Swiss, Or hardy Scot, or any land but this; Combined in arms, they had their foes defied, And kept their liberty, or bravely died; Thou still with tyrants in succession curst, The last invaders trampling on the first; Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate, Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy course of misery is run, Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon shall thy sons (the time is just at hand) Be all made captives in their native land; When for the use of no Hibernian born, Shall rise one blade of gra.s.s, one ear of corn; When sh.e.l.ls and leather shall for money pa.s.s, Nor thy oppressing lords afford thee bra.s.s,[8]
But all turn leasers to that mongrel breed,[9]
Who, from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed; Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear, And waste in luxury thy harvest there; For pride and ignorance a proverb grown, The jest of wits, and to the court unknown.
I scorn thy spurious and degenerate line, And from this hour my patronage resign.
[Footnote 1: Italy was not properly the native place of St. Patrick, but the place of his education, and whence he received his mission; and because he had his new birth there, by poetical license, and by scripture figure, our author calls that country his native Italy.--_Dublin Edition_.]
[Footnote 2: Orpheus, or the ancient author of the Greek poem on the Argonautic expedition, whoever he be, says, that Jason, who manned the s.h.i.+p Argos at Thessaly, sailed to Ireland. And Adria.n.u.s Junius says the same thing, in these lines: ”Ilia ego sum Graiis, olim glacialis Ierne Dicta, et Jasoniae puppis bene cognita nautis.”--_Dublin Edition_.]
[Footnote 3: Tacitus, comparing Ireland to Britain, says of the former: ”Melius aditus portusque per commercia et negotiatores cogniti.”--_Agricola,_ xxiv.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 4: Fordun, in his Scoti-Chronicon, Hector Boethius, Buchanan, and all the Scottish historians, agree that Fergus, son of Ferquard, King of Ireland, was the first King of Scotland, which country he subdued.--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 5: In the reign of Henry II, 1172, Dermot Macmorrogh, King of Leinster, having been expelled from his kingdom by Roderick, King of Connaught, sought and obtained the a.s.sistance of the English for the recovery of his dominions. See Hume's ”History of England,” vol. i, p. 380.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 6: There are no snakes, vipers, or toads in Ireland; and even frogs were not known here till about the year 1700. The magpies came a short time before; and the Norway rats since.--_Dublin Edition_. These plagues are all alluded to in this and the subsequent stanzas.--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 7: The University of Dublin, called Trinity College, was founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1591.--_Dublin Edition_.]
[Footnote 8: Wood's ruinous project against the people of Ireland was supported by Sir Robert Walpole in 1724.--_Dublin Edition_.]
[Footnote 9: The absentees, who spent the income of their Irish estates, places, and pensions, in England.--_Dublin Edition_.]
ON READING DR. YOUNG'S SATIRE, CALLED THE UNIVERSAL Pa.s.sION 1726
If there be truth in what you sing, Such G.o.dlike virtues in the king; A minister[1] so fill'd with zeal And wisdom for the commonweal; If he[2] who in the chair presides, So steadily the senate guides; If others, whom you make your theme, Are seconds in the glorious scheme; If every peer whom you commend, To worth and learning be a friend; If this be truth, as you attest, What land was ever half so blest!
No falsehood now among the great, And tradesmen now no longer cheat: Now on the bench fair Justice s.h.i.+nes; Her scale to neither side inclines: Now Pride and Cruelty are flown, And Mercy here exalts her throne; For such is good example's power, It does its office every hour, Where governors are good and wise; Or else the truest maxim lies: For so we find all ancient sages Decree, that, _ad exemplum regis_, Through all the realm his virtues run, Ripening and kindling like the sun.
If this be true, then how much more When you have named at least a score Of courtiers, each in their degree, If possible, as good as he?
Or take it in a different view.
I ask (if what you say be true) If you affirm the present age Deserves your satire's keenest rage; If that same universal pa.s.sion With every vice has fill'd the nation: If virtue dares not venture down A single step beneath the crown: If clergymen, to show their wit, Praise cla.s.sics more than holy writ: If bankrupts, when they are undone, Into the senate-house can run, And sell their votes at such a rate, As will retrieve a lost estate: If law be such a partial wh.o.r.e, To spare the rich, and plague the poor: If these be of all crimes the worst, What land was ever half so curst?
[Footnote 1: Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford. Young's seventh satire is inscribed to him.--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 2: Sir Spencer Compton, then Speaker, afterwards Earl of Wilmington, to whom the eighth satire is dedicated. See vol. i, 219.--_W. E. B._]
THE DOG AND THIEF. 1726
Quoth the thief to the dog, let me into your door And I'll give you these delicate bits.
Quoth the dog, I shall then be more villain than you're, And besides must be out of my wits.
Your delicate bits will not serve me a meal, But my master each day gives me bread; You'll fly, when you get what you came here to steal, And I must be hang'd in your stead.
The stockjobber thus from 'Change Alley goes down, And tips you the freeman a wink; Let me have but your vote to serve for the town, And here is a guinea to drink.
Says the freeman, your guinea to-night would be spent!
Your offers of bribery cease: I'll vote for my landlord to whom I pay rent, Or else I may forfeit my lease.
From London they come, silly people to chouse, Their lands and their faces unknown: Who'd vote a rogue into the parliament-house, That would turn a man out of his own?
A DIALOGUE[1] BETWEEN MAD MULLINIX AND TIMOTHY 1728