Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

Who is that hell-featured 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 murther;
See the scowling visage drop,
Just as when he murder'd Throp.t
Keeper, shew 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,‡

Old acquaintance, are you there?

* John Waller, Esq., member for the borough of Dongaile. He was grandson 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.

Richard Tighe, and Richard Bettesworth, Esquires, both sufficiently commemorated elsewhere. Bettesworth is termed the player, from his pompous enunciation. The epithet, Fitzbaker, alludes to Tighe's descent from a contractor who supplied Cromwell's army with bread. He is elsewhere called Pistorides.

Dear companions, hug and kiss,
Toast Old Glorious in your piss;
Tie them, keeper, in a tether,
Let them starve and sink together;
Both are apt to be unruly,

Lash them daily, lash them duly;
Though 'tis hopeless to reclaim them,
Scorpion rods, perhaps, may tame them.
Keeper, yon old dotard smoke,
Sweetly snoring in his cloak:

Who is he? 'Tis humdrum Wynne,*
Half encompass'd by his kin :
There observe the tribe of Bingham,†
For he never fails to bring 'em;
While he sleeps the whole debate,
They submissive round him wait;
Yet would gladly see the hunks,
In his grave and search his trunks,
See, they gently twitch his coat,
Just to yawn and give his vote,
Always firm in this vocation.
For the court against the nation.
Those are Allens Jack and Bob,‡
First in every wicked job,

"Right Honourable Owen Wynne, county of Sligo.-Owen Wynne, Esq., borough of Sligo.-John Wynne, Esq., borough of Castlebar."

"Sir John Bingham, Bart., county of Mayo. His brother, Henry Bingham, sat in parliament for some time for Castlebar."

John Allen represented the borough of Carysfort; Robert Allen the county of Wicklow. The former was son, and the latter brother to Joshua, the second Viscount Allen, hated and satirized by Swift, under the name of Traulus. The ancestor of the Allens, as has been elsewhere noticed, was an architect in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign; and was employed as such by many of the nobility, particularly Lord Howth. He settled in Ireland, and was afterwards consulted by Lord Stafford in some of his architectural plans.

Son and brother to a queer
Brain-sick brute, they call a peer.
We must give them better quarter,
For their ancestor trod mortar,
And at Hoath, to boast his fame,
On a chimney cut his name.

There sit Clements, Dilks, and Harrison;*
How they swagger from their garrison!
Such a triplet could you tell

Where to find on this side Hell?

Harrison, and Dilks, and Clements,
Keeper, see they have their payments,
Every mischief's in their hearts;
If they fail, 'tis want of parts.

Bless us! Morgan,† art thou there, man?
Bless mine eyes! art thou the chairman ?
Chairman to yon damn'd committee !
Yet I look on thee with pity.
Dreadful sight! what, learned Morgan
Metamorphosed to a Gorgon!
For thy horrid looks, I own,

Half convert me to a stone.

There were then two Clements in Parliament, brothers, Nathaniel and Henry. The former was grandfather to the present Lord Leitrim, whose character as a patriot, a gentleman, and a scholar, ranks high in his native country.-Michael Obrien Dilks represented the borough of Castlemartye. He was barrackmaster-general; William Harrison represented the borough of Bannow.

† Doctor Marcus Antony Morgan, sometimes mentioned in a friendly manner in Swift's correspondence about this period, represented the borough of Athy. He seems to have been bred to the church, yet was chairman to that committee to whom was referred the petition of the farmers, graziers, &c., against tithe agistment. On this petition the House reported, and agreed that it deserved the strongest support. At the same time, a motion was made and carried, that commencing suits on the above subject must impair the Protestant interest.

Hast thou been so long at school,
Now to turn a factious tool?
Alma Mater was thy mother,
Every young divine thy brother.
Thou, a disobedient varlet,
Treat thy mother like a harlot !
Thou ungrateful to thy teachers,
Who are all grown reverend preachers!
Morgan, would it not surprise one!
Turn thy nourishment to poison!
When you walk among your books,
They reproach you with their looks;
Bind them fast, or from their shelves
They will come and right themselves:
Homer, Plutarch, Virgil, Flaccus,
All in arms, prepare to back us :
Soon repent, or put to slaughter
Every Greek and Roman author.
Will you, in your faction's phrase,
Send the clergy all to graze;
And to make your project pass,
Leave them not a blade of grass?
How I want thee, humorous Hogarth!
Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art.
Were but you and I acquainted,
Every monster should be painted:
You should try your graving tools
On this odious group of fools;
Draw the beasts as I describe them :
From their features while I gibe them;
Draw them like; for I assure you,

You will need no car'catura;
Draw them so that we may trace

All the soul in every face.

* See Hogarth's Works, 4to., Vol. I. p. 93.

Keeper, I must now retire,

You have done what I desire:
But I feel my spirits spent

With the noise, the sight, the scent.
"Pray, be patient; you shall find
Half the best are still behind!
You have hardly seen a score;
I can shew two hundred more.'
Keeper, I have seen enough.
Taking then a pinch of snuff,
I concluded, looking round them,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

May their god, the devil, confound them!"*

ON A PRINTER'S BEING SENT TO

NEWGATE.

BETTER we all were in our graves,
Than live in slavery to slaves;

* Whilst Swift was writing these satires on the Irish Parliament, he was seized with one of those fits, the effect of which was so dreadful, that he left the poem unfinished; and, after that period, very rarely attempted a composition, either in verse or prose, that required a course of thinking, or perhaps more than one or two sittings to finish. One of these was "The Beasts' Confession." From this time his memory was perceived gradually to decline; and his melancholy increased by the strength of his imagination brooding over the unhappy scene of misery which he foresaw was his lot, when he must become, as he said, a perfect slabberer. He was often heard to offer up his prayers to Almighty God, "to take him away from this evil to come." The prospect of this calamity, which he was daily lamenting, contributed very much, as his passions were violent, to pervert his understanding, to which many other particulars seem also to have concurred.-D. S.

+ Mr. Faulkner, for printing the Proposal for the better Regulation of Quadrille. See Vol. VII. p. 364.

« AnteriorContinua »