Ye pack of pensionary peers,
Whose fingers itch for poets' ears;
Ye bishops, far removed from saints,
Why all this rage? Why these complaints?
Why against printers all this noise?
This summoning of blackguard boys?
Why so sagacious in your guesses?
Your effs, and tees, and arrs, and esses!
Take my advice; to make you safe,
I know a shorter way by half.
The point is plain; remove the cause;
Defend your liberties and laws.
Be sometimes to your country true,
Have once the public good in view:
Bravely despise champagne at court,
And choose to dine at home with port:
Let prelates, by their good behaviour,
Convince us they believe a Saviour;
Nor sell what they so dearly bought,
This country, now their own, for nought.
Ne'er did a true satiric muse
Virtue or innocence abuse;
And 'tis against poetic rules
To rail at men by nature fools:
HORACE, PART OF BOOK I., SAT. VI.,* PARAPHRASED. 1733.
IF Noisy Tomt should in the senate prate, "That he would answer both for church and state; And, farther, to demonstrate his affection, Would take the kingdom into his protection;" All mortals must be curious to inquire,
Who could this coxcomb be, and who his sire? "What! thou, the spawn of him who shamed our isle,
Traitor, assassin, and informer vile!
Though, by the female side,§ you proudly bring,
To mend your breed, the murderer of the king:
What was thy grandsire,|| but a mountaineer,
Who held a cabin for ten groats a-year:
* Qui promittit, cives, urbem sibi curæ,
Imperium fore, et Italiam, et delubra Deorum;
Quo patre sit natus, num ignota matre inhonestus,
Omnes mortales curare, et quærere cogit.
Tune Syri, Damæ, aut Dionysî filius, audes
Dejicere é saxo cives, aut tradere Cadmo?
† Sir Thomas Prendergast.-F.
The father of Sir Thomas Prendergast, who engaged in a plot to murder King William III.; but, to avoid being hanged, turned informer against his associates, for which he was rewarded with a good estate, and made a baronet.-F.
A poor thieving cottager under Mr. Moore, condemned at Clonmell assizes to be hanged for stealing cows.-F.
Whose master Moore* preserved him from the
For stealing cows! nor could he read the Psalter!
Durst thou, ungrateful, from the senate chase
Thy founder's grandson,† and usurp his place?
Just Heaven! to see the dunghill bastard brood
Survive in thee, and make the proverb good?‡
Then vote a worthy citizen to jail, §
In spite of justice, and refuse his bail; "I
*The grandfather of Guy Moore, Esq., who procured him a pardon.-F.
† Guy Moore was fairly elected member of Parliament for Clonmell; but Sir Thomas, depending upon his interest with a certain party then prevailing, and since known by the title of parson-hunters, petitioned the House against him; out of which he was turned upon pretence of bribery, which the paying of his lawful debts was then voted to be.-F.
"Save a thief from the gallows, and he will cut your throat."
§ Mr. George Faulkner. Mr. Sergeant Bettesworth, a member of the Irish Parliament, having made a complaint to the House of Commons against the "Satire on Quadrille," they voted Faulkner the printer into custody (who was confined closely in prison three days, when he was in a very bad state of health, and his life in much danger) for not discovering the author.-F.
Among the poems, &c., preserved by Mr. Smith are the following verses on the same subject and person with these in the The Dean, as appears by the endorsement, ascribed them.
A full and true Vindication of SIR THOM. P from the many scandalous Libels lately written against him, with the Resolution of the House; by a Member of the House of Commons.
Defendit numerus, junctæque umbone Phalanges.
YE dealers in doggrel, and friends to the Dean,
Who dare the transactions of senates arraign,
And give to our men of distinction no quarter,
From the knight of the post to the knight of the garter.
How false are your libels! How weak is your spite,
To rail at Sir Thomas, that worshipful wight,
Sir Thomas of peerless, Sir Thomas the true-son,
That bulwark and prop of the grand revolution!
You call him the spawn of a traitor and felon,
A vermin raised up from the dung, like a melon,
You swear, that his father had no more religion
Than the ass of old Balaam, or Mahomet's pigeon,
That so he escaped but the rope, and got prog,
Whoe'er was the miller, he would be his dog;
And what he perform'd for our glorious defender,
He would do as well for a Popish Pretender.
This stupid old maxim, in short, you would add,
"The treason was good, but the traitor was bad."
Which plainly discovers the cause of your hate,
And proves you all traitors and foes to the state.
The treason you fairly allow to be good;
(I hope information is here understood,)
But then the informer (for traitor's a term
Of double construction) was bad, you affirm :
If so, your false logic we quickly detect,
"The cause being nobler than any effect;
Nor was he a traitor who brought to their end,
Such rebels as Fenwick, and Perkin, and Friend.
If he was a traitor, it must be a mystery;
It never could be-see Burnet's own History:
'Twas loyalty made him discover the Plot,
Not the neck that he saved, nor the fortune he got.
You give out in speeches, and fain would enlarge on't,
He was an old Jacobite, vagabond serjeant,
Or corporal rather-but Sarum has told
For certain, that he was an officer bold;
And we, from the orthodox prelate deceased,
Judge, he was a major, or captain at least.
Our knight by the dam's side, you trace but of blood low,
And call him the descendant of king-killing Ludlow ;
And what must become, at this rate, of all true hearts,
Who bravely brought under the pride of the Stuarts?
Our dear brother Protestants, on whom they droll,
(I mean the disciples of goodly St. Noll,)
With very good reason may tell their debentures,
And go to America for new adventures;
To avoid cursed tithes, remove all their chattles,
And leave us in God's name to fight our own battles.
You trump up his grandsire, and gladly would dwell
On something that happen'd some time at Clonmell;
You write with ill nature, that he, among rogues
Convicted, had like to have died in his brogues.
That he was a worthy, I grant you indeed,
Whose gallant achievements on record we read:
Some make him a Briton, and some a Milesian,
But I would derive him from Ajax the Grecian;
Great Ajax, who caused many widows to weep,
And gave in his anger no quarter to sheep!
Or Jason, that travelling captain of Greece,
So cried up by poets for bearing the fleece;
But Jason, however renown'd for his plunder,
With humble submission to him must knock under;
That captain one fleece in his life only bore,
Our hero in one night would have beat off a score;
Not such as the Argonaut's was, we are told,
And yet he converted them all into gold,
For which the king granted him out of his bounty,
Pro tempore use of his house in the county;
Whence he, like a Roman, in duty strict tied,
For the good-but for Moore-for his country had died;
Which great disappointment and high provocation,
Was revenged by Sir Thom in the third generation;
For all through his doings, and not without cost,
His grandson a seat in the senate has lost.
Some people allege, that Sir Thom, in his sad age,
Thus acted, that he might fulfil an old adage,
And some say the knight's good instruction was double,
To serve his dear country, and save him some trouble.
You style him a blockhead, among other slanders,
But I, to confute you, appeal to bystanders,
With what oratorial grace and energy,
He honour'd his father, and humbled the clergy;
How grand was his aspect, his action how just,
Before the assembly of wise-heads august!
The words of sage Hector, or else Homer lies,
Descended as soft as the snow from the skies;
The words of Sir Thomas, though pompous and big,
Descended as soft as the snow from his wig.
You add, that Dick Bettesworth and he of one feather Would ruin the church and the clergy together;
Which shews that your doctrine can ne'er stand the test,
And proves it all Heathenish, or Popish at best;
The church and the clergy are things as remote,
As courtier and patriot, or gown and laced coat.
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