Each hero burns to conquer or to die,
What mighty hearts in little bosoms lie!
Having disposed of the substances, let us now attend to the shadow on the cockpit, and this it seems is the reflection of a man drawn up to the ceiling in a basket, and there suspended, as a punishment for having betted more money than he can pay. Though suspended, he is not reclaimed; though exposed, not abashed; for in this degrading situation he offers to stake his watch against money, in another wager on his favourite champion.
The decorations of this curious theatre are, a portrait of Nan Rawlins, and the King's arms.
In the margin at the bottom of the print is an oval, with a fighting cock, inscribed ROYAL SPORT.
Of the characteristic distinctions in this heterogeneous assembly, it is not easy to speak with sufficient praise. The chimney-sweeper's absurd affectation sets the similar airs of the Frenchman in a most ridiculous point of view. The old fellow with a trumpet at his ear, has a degree of deafness that I never before saw delineated; he might have lived in the same apartment with Xantippe, or slept comfortably in Alexander the copper-smith's first floor. As to the nobleman in the centre, in the language of the turf, he is a mere pigeon; and the peer, with a star and garter, in the language of Cambridge, we must class as—a mere quiz. The man sneezing,—you absolutely hear; and the fellow stealing a bank note,—has all the outward and visible marks of a perfect and accomplished pick-pocket; Mercury himself could not do that business in a more masterly style.
Tyers tells us that "Pope, while living with his father at Chiswick, before he went to Binfield, took great delight in cock-fighting, and laid out all his school-boy money, and little perhaps it was, in buying fighting cocks." Lord Orrery observes, "If we may judge of Mr. Pope from his works, his chief aim was to be esteemed a man of virtue." When actions can be clearly ascertained, it is not necessary to seek the mind's construction in the writings: and we must regret being compelled to believe that some of Mr. Pope's actions, at the same time that they prove him to be querulous and petulant, lead us to suspect that he was also envious, malignant, and cruel. How far this will tend to confirm the assertion, that when a boy, he was an amateur of this royal sport, I do, says Mr. Ireland, not pretend to decide: but were a child, in whom I had any interest, cursed with such a propensity, my first object would be to correct it: if that were impracticable, and he retained a fondness for the cockpit, and the still more detestable amusement of Shrove Tuesday, I should hardly dare to flatter myself that he could become a merciful man.—The subject has carried me farther than I intended: I will, however, take the freedom of proposing one query to the consideration of the clergy,—Might it not have a tendency to check that barbarous spirit, which has more frequently its source in an early acquired habit, arising from the prevalence of example, than in natural depravity, if every divine in Great Britain were to preach at least one sermon every twelve months, on our universal insensibility to the sufferings of the brute creation?
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the Gods,
Draw near them then in being merciful;
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
