If I had composed the following verses, with a view to gratify private resentment, to promote the interest of any faction, or to recommend myself to the patronage of any person whatsoever, I should have been altogether inexcusable. To attack the memory of the dead from selfish considerations, or from mere wantonness of malice, 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 * * * * *'s manners 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.]
[A] Churchill.
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 shar'd by knaves of high and low degree;
Cromwell, and Catiline; Guido Faux, and Thee.
By nature uninspir'd, untaught by art;
With not one thought that breathes the feeling heart,
With not one offering vow'd to Virtue's shrine,
With not one pure unprostituted line;
Alike debauch'd in body, soul, and lays;——
For pension'd censure, and for pension'd praise,
For ribaldry, for libels, lewdness, lies,
For blasphemy of all the Good and Wise;
Coarse virulence in coarser doggerel writ,
Which bawling blackguards spell'd, and took for wit;
For conscience, honour, slighted, spurn'd, o'erthrown;—
Lo, Bufo shines the minion of renown!
Is this the land that boasts a Milton's fire,
And magic Spenser's wildly-warbling lyre?
The land that owns th' omnipotence of song,
When Shakspeare whirls the throbbing heart along?
The land where Pope, with energy divine,
In fine strong blaze bade wit and fancy shine;
Whose verse, by Truth in Virtue's triumph borne,
Gave knaves to infamy, and fools to scorn;
Yet pure in manners, and in thought refin'd,
Whose life and lays adorn'd and blest mankind?
Is this the land where Gray's unlabour'd art
Soothes, melts, alarms, and ravishes the heart;
While the lone wanderer's sweet complainings flow
In simple majesty of manly woe;
Or while, sublime, on eagle-pinion driven,
He soars Pindaric heights, and sails the waste of heaven?
Is this the land, o'er Shenstone's recent urn
Where all the Loves and gentler Graces mourn?
And where, to crown the hoary bard of night,[1]
The Muses and the Virtues all unite?
Is this the land where Akenside displays
The bold yet temperate flame of ancient days?
Like the rapt Sage,[2] in genius as in theme,
Whose hallow'd strain renown'd Ilissus' stream;
Or him, th' indignant Bard,[3] whose patriot ire,
Sublime in vengeance, smote the dreadful lyre;
For truth, for liberty, for virtue warm,
Whose mighty song unnerv'd 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 exil'd,
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 accurst, 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, rais'd to heaven her sight,
But tuned 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 doz'd a scribbling life away,
And yawning nations own'd th' innoxious lay:
But from thy graceless, rude, and beastly brain
What fury breath'd 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 name——
Thus 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 rav'd,
And own'd his soul to liberty enslav'd.
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 show 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 rous'd his ravenous undiscerning maw:
Gulp'd down the tasteless throat, the mess abhorr'd
Shot fiery influence round the maddening board.
O had thy verse been impotent as dull,
Nor spoke the rancorous heart, but lumpish scull;
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 gruntling 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 disgrac'd,
Rais'd 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,
Unnam'd, unnotic'd, 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.
[1] Dr. Young.
[2] Plato.
[3] Alceus. See Akenside's Ode on Lyric Poetry.