Who steals a bugle-horn, a ring, a steed,
Or such like worthless thing, has some discretion.
'Tis petty larceny.—Not such his deed
Who robs us of our fame, our best possession;
And he who takes our labour's worthiest meed,
May well be deemed a felon by profession;
Who so much more our hate and scourge deserves.
As from the rule of right he wider swerves.
Sometimes indulging in a declamation against vices or follies, he makes his satire more poignant by allusions to some prevalent practice of the day: thus, in a sally against avarice, he attacks those who masqued it under the disguise of hypocrisy in the following stanza:
This other, under show of an adviser
And practiser of what is strict and right;
But being in effect a rogue and miser,
Cloisters a dozen daughters out of sight:
And fain would have the pretty creatures wiser
Than their frail sisters; but mistakes them quite;
For they are like the rest, and set the group
Of monks, and priests, and abbots, cock-a-hoop.
The following extract, illustrating a philosophical dogma of his age, taken from the opening of the forty-sixth canto, is of another description, and may serve as a specimen of the variety of his vein, and the odd ingenuity with which he winds in and out of his argument; sometimes bearing up for his harbour when in the middle of a digression; and then, when he seems to feel himself sure of a retreat, indulging in a new sally, in which he however never entirely loses sight of his port.
1.
He who the name of little world applied
To man, in this approved his subtle wit:
Since, save it is not round, all things beside
Exactly with this happy symbol fit;
And I may say that long and deep, and wide
And middling, good and bad, are found in it.
Here too, the various elements combined
Are dominant; snow, rain, and mist and wind.
2.
Now clear, now overcast. 'Tis there its land
Will yield no fruit; here bears a rich supply:
As the mixt soil is marle, or barren sand;
And haply here too moist, or there too dry.
Here foaming hoarse, and there with murmur bland,
Streams glide, or torrents tumble from on high.
Such of man's appetites convey the notion:
Since these are infinite, and still in motion.
3.
Two solid dikes the invading streams repel,
The one is Reason, arid the other Shame.
The torrents, if above their banks they swell,
Wit and discretion are too weak to tame.
The crystal waters, which so smoothly well.
Are appetites of things, devoid of blame.
Those winds, and rains, and snows, and night, and day.
Ye learned clerks, divine them as ye may.
4.
Among these elements, misfortune wills
Our nature should have most of earth: for she.
Moved by what influence heaven or sun instils.
Is subject to their power; nor less are we.
In her, this star or that, in barren hills
Produces mines in rich variety:
And those who human nature wisely scan
May this discern peculiarly in man.
5.
Who would believe that various minerals grew,
And many metals, in our rugged mind;
From gold to nitre? Yet the thing is true;
But, out, alas! the rub is how to find
This ore. Some letters and some wealth pursue,
Some fancy steeds, some dream, at ease reclined;
These song delights, and those the cittern's sound,
Such are the mines which in our world abound.
6.
As these are worthier, more or less, so they
Abound with lead or gold; and practised wight,
The various soil accustomed to survey,
Is fitted best to find the substance bright.
And such in our Apulia is the way
They heal those suffering from the spider's bite;
Who strange vagaries play, like men possessed;
Tarantulated*, as 'tis there express'd.