How sorely I lament your loss!
That such a pair of wealthy ninnies
Should slip your time of dropping guineas;
For, had you made the king your debtor,
Your title had been so much better.
FRIEND Rundle fell, with grievous bump,
Upon his reverential rump.
Poor rump! thou hadst been better sped,
Hadst thou been join'd to Boulter's head;
A head, so weighty and profound,
Would needs have kept thee from the ground.
A CHARACTER, PANEGYRIC, AND DESCRIPTION OF THE LEGION CLUB.
As I stroll the city, oft I
See a building large and lofty,
Not a bow-shot from the college;
Half the globe from sense and knowledge:
By the prudent architect,
Placed against the church direct,
time he had been chaplain to the Smyrna Company. See the Epistolary Correspondence, May 26, 1720.---Scott.
Making good my grandam's jest,
"Near the church"-you know the rest.1
Tell us what the pile contains?
Many a head that holds no brains.
These demoniacs let me dub
With the name of Legion Club.
Such assemblies, you might swear,
Meet when butchers bait a bear:
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 skull,
When the den of thieves is full;
Quite destroy that harpies' nest;
How might then our isle be blest!
On a scrap of paper, containing the memorials respecting the Dean's family, there occur the following lines, apparently the rough draught of the passage in the text. 'Making good that proverb odd,
Near the church and far from God,
Against the church direct is placed,
Like it both in head and waist."---Scott.
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 as with their votes.
Let Sir Tom,1 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,
Perjured rebel, bribed 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! All ye gods who rule the soul:2 Styx, through Hell whose waters roll! Let me be allow'd to tell
What I heard in yonder Hell.
1 Sir Thomas Prendergast.
2 Dii, quibus imperium est animarum, &c.
Sit mihi fas audita loqui.---Virg. Æn. vi. 264.
Near the door an entrance gapes,1
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,3
I began to rage and fret,
And resolved 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,5
Shows a bribe in all his hands;
Briareus the secretary,
But we mortals call him Carey.6
Vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus Orci,
Luctus et ultrices, &c.---Virg. Æn. vi. 273.
Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis.--- Ibid. 281. 3 Corripit hic, subita trepidus, &c.
-Strictamque aciem venientibus offert.---Ibid. 290. 4 Et ni docta comes tenues sine corpore, &c.---Ibid. 291. 5 Et centumgeminus Briareus.---Ibid. 287.
6 The Right Honourable Walter Carey. He was secretary to the Duke of Dorset when lord-lieutenant of Ireland. The Duke of Dorset came to Ireland in 1731. In 1737 he
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