Such a noise, and such haranguing,
When a brother thief is hanging:
Such a rout and such a rabble
Run to hear Jackpudding gabble:
Such a crowd their ordure throws
On a far less villain's nose.
Could I from the building's top
Hear the rattling thunder drop,
While the devil upon the roof
(If the devil be thunder proof)
Should with poker fiery red
Crack the stones, and melt the lead;
Drive them down on every scull,
When the den of thieves is full;
Quite destroy the harpies nest;
How might then our isle be blest!
For divines allow, that God
Sometimes makes the devil his rod;
And the Gospel will inform us,
He can punish sins enormous.
Yet should Swift endow the schools,
For his lunatics and fools,
With a rood or two of land,
I allow the pile may stand.
You perhaps will ask me, Why so?
But it is with this proviso:
Since the house is like to last,
Let the royal grant be pass'd,
That the club have right to dwell
Each within his proper cell,
With a passage left to creep in,
And a hole above for peeping.
Let them, when they once get in,
Sell the nation for a pin;
While they sit a picking straws,
Let them rave at making laws;
While they never hold their tongue,
Let them dabble in their dung:
Let them form a grand committee,
How to plague and starve the city;
Let them stare, and storm, and frown
When they see a clergy gown;
Let them, ere they crack a louse,
Call for th' orders of the house;
Let them, with their gosling quills,
Scribble senseless heads of bills;
We may, while they strain their throats,
Wipe our a-s with their votes.
Let Sir Tom,* that rampant ass,
Stuff his guts with flax and grass;
But before the priest he fleeces,
Tear the Bible all to pieces :
At the parsons, Tom, halloo, boy,
Worthy offspring of a shoeboy,
Footman, traitor, vile seducer,
Perjur'd rebel, brib'd accuser,
Lay thy paltry privilege aside,
Sprung from Papists, and a 'regicide;
Fall a working like a mole,
Raise the dirt about your hole.
Come, assist me, Muse obedient!
Let us try some new expedient;
Shift the scene for half an hour,
Time and place are in thy power.
Thither, gentle Muse, conduct me;
I shall ask, and you instruct me.
See, the Muse unbars the gate; Hark, the monkeys, how they prate!
Sir Thomas Prendergast. See the verses on Noisy Tom, P. 543.
All ye gods who rule the soul ! * Styx, through Hell whose waters roll! Let me be allow'd to tell
What I heard in yonder Hell.
Near the door an entrance gapes, †
Crowded round with antic shapes,
Poverty, and Grief, and Care,
Causeless Joy, and true Despair;
Discord periwigg'd with snakes, ‡
See the dreadful strides she takes!
By this odious crew beset,
I began to rage and fret,
And resolv'd to break their pates,
Ere we enter'd at the gates;
Had not Clio in the nick §
Whisper'd me, "Lay down your stick."
What, said I, is this the mad-house?
These, she answer'd, are but shadows,
Phantoms bodiless and vain,
Empty visions of the brain.
In the porch Briareus stands, ¶
Shows a bribe in all his hands;
Briareus the secretary,
But we mortals call him Carey.**
* Dii, quibus imperium est animarum, &c.
Sit mihi fas audita loqui, &c. Virg. Æn. VI. 264. + Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus Orci, Luctus et ultrices, &c. Ibid. 273.
Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis. Ibid. 281.
Corripuit hic subita trepidus, &c.
-Strictamque aciem venientibus offert.-Ibid. 290.
Et ni docta comes tenues sine corpore, &c. Ibid. 291.
Et centum geminus Briareus. Virg. Æn. VI. 287.
**The Right Honourable Walter Carey. He was secretary to the Duke of Dorset when lord-lieutenant of Ireland. The
When the rogues their country fleece,
They may hope for pence a-piece.
Clio, who had been so wise
To put on a fool's disguise,
To bespeak some approbation,
And be thought a near relation,
When she saw three hundred brutes
All involv'd in wild disputes,
Roaring till their lungs were spent,
PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT,
Now a new misfortune feels,
Dreading to be laid by th' heels.
Never durst a Muse before
Enter that infernal door;
Clio, stifled with the smell,
Into spleen and vapours fell,
By the Stygian streams that flew
From the dire infectious crew.
Not the stench of Lake Avernus
Could have more offended her nose;
Had she flown but o'er the top,
She had felt her pinions drop.
And by exhalations dire,
Though a goddess, must expire.
In a fright she crept away,
Bravely I resolv'd to stay.
When I saw the keeper frown,
Tipping him with half-a-crown,
Now, said I, we are alone,
Name your heroes one by one.
Duke of Dorset came to Ireland in 1731. In 1737 he was succeeded by the Duke of Devonshire. In Boulter's Letters there is one addressed to him from that primate.
Who is that hell-featur'd brawler?
Is it Satan? No; 'tis Waller. *
In what figure can a bard dress
Jack the grandson of Sir Hardress?
Honest keeper, drive him further,
In his looks are Hell and murder;
See the scowling visage drop,
Just as when he murder'd Throp. †
Keeper show me where to fix
On the puppy pair of Dicks:
By their lantern jaws and leathern,
You might swear they both are brethren:
Dick Fitzbaker, Dick the player, t
Old acquaintance, are you there?
John Waller, Esq. member for the borough of Dongaile. He was grandon to Sir Hardress Waller, one of the regicide judges, and who concurred with them in passing sentence on Charles I. This Sir Hardress married the daughter and co-heir of John Dowdal of Limerick, in Ireland, by which alliance he became so connected with the country, that, after the rebellion was over, the family made it their residence.
+ Rev. Roger Throp, whose death was said to have been occasioned by the persecution which he suffered from Waller. His case was published by his brother, and never answered, containing such a scene of petty vexatious persecutions as is almost incredible; the cause being the refusal of Mr Throp to compound, for a compensation totally inadequate, some of the rights of his living which affected Waller's estate. In 1739 a petition was presented to the house of commons by his brother, Robert Throp, gentleman, complaining of this persecution, and applying to parliament for redress, relative to the number of attachments granted by the King's Bench, in favour of his deceased brother, and which could not be executed against the said Waller, on account of the privilege of parliament, &c. But this petition was rejected by the house, nem. con. The Dean seems to have employed his pen against Waller. See a letter from Mrs Whiteway, Vol. XVIII. p. 435, 436.
Richard Tighe, and Richard Bettesworth, Esquires, both
|