*

Messrs. Lackington and Co. of which I had myself not the slightest notion till I found it thus alluded to in Mr. Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott. In speaking of the causes which were supposed to have contributed to the comparative failure of the Poem of " Rokeby,” the biographer says, "It is fair to add that, among the London circles, at least, some sarcastic flings, in Mr. Moore's Twopenny Post-Bag, must have had an unfavourable influence on this occasion."†

Among the translations that have appeared on the Continent, of the greater part of my poetical works, there has been no attempt, as far as I can learn, to give a version of any of my satirical writings, -with the single exception of a squib entitled "Little Man and Little Soul," of which there is a translation into German verse, by the late distinguished oriental scholar, Professor Von Bohlen.§ Though unskilled, myself, in German, I can yet perceivesufficiently to marvel at it—the dexterity and ease with which the Old Ballad metre of the original is adopted and managed in the translation. As this trifle may be considered curious, not only in itself, but still more as connected

* Teropenny Post-Bag, pp. 153, 155. I avail myself of the mention here of this latter squib, to recant a correction which I too hastily made in the two following lines of it :

"And, though statesmen may glory in being unbought, In an author, we think, sir, that's rather a fault." Forgetting that Pope's ear was satisfied with the sort of rhyme here used, I foolishly altered (and spoiled) the whole couplet to get rid of it.

***See, for instance," says Mr. Lockhart, "the Epistle of Lady Cork; or that of Messrs. Lackington, booksellers, to one of their dandy authors:-

**Should you feel any touch of poetical glow,

We've a scheme to suggest:- Mr. Sc-tt, you must know, (Who, we're sorry to say it, now works for the Row,)

1 Paternoster Row.

with so learned a name, I shall here present it to my readers, premising that the same eminent Professor has left a version also of one of my early facetiæ, "The Rabbinical Origin of Woman."

"THERE WAS A LITTLE MAN."

(Translated by Professor Von Bohlen.)

Es war ein kleiner Mann.
Und der hatt'n kleinen Geist,

Und er sprach: kleiner Geist sehn wir zu, zu, zu,
Ob uns möglich wohl wird seyn

So ein kleines Redelein

Das wir halten, kleiner ich und kleiner du, du, du,
Das wir halten, kleiner ich und kleiner du.

Und der kleine Geist, der brach

Aus dem Loche nun und sprach:

Ich behaupte, kleiner Mann, du bist keck, keck, keck, Nimm nicht übel meine Zweifel,

Aber sage mir, zum Teufel,

Hat die kleine kleine Red' einen Zweck, Zweck, Zweck, Hat die kleine kleine Red' einen Zweck?

Der kleine Mann darauf

Bliess die Backen mächtig auf,

Und er sprach: kleiner Geist sey gescheut, scheut, scheut; Kleiner ich und kleiner du

Sind berufen ja dazu

Zu verdammen und bekehren alle Leut', Leut', Leut', Zu verdammen und bekehren alle Leut'.

Und sie fingen beide an,

Der kleine Geist und kleine Mann, Paukten ab ihre Rede so klein, klein, klein; Und die ganze Welt für wahr Meint, das aufgeblas 'ne Paar Musst ein winziges Pfaffelein nur seyn, seyn, seyn, Musst ein winziges Pfaffelein, nur seyn.

Having quitted the Borders, to seek new renown,
Is coming, by long Quarto stages, to Town;

And beginning with Rokeby (the job's sure to pay)
Means to do all the Gentlemen's Seats on the way.
Now, the scheme is (though none of our hackneys can beat him)
To start a fresh Poet through Highgate to meet him;
Who, by means of quick proofs no revises - long coaches
May do a few villas, before Sc-tt approaches.
Indeed, if our Pegasus be not curst shabby,

He'll reach, without found'ring, at least Woburn Abbey.'

Alluding to a speech delivered in the year 1813 by the Right Hon. Charles Abbott (then Speaker) against Mr. Grattan's motion for a Committee on the Claims of the Catholics.

§ Author of " The Ancient Indian."

PREFACE.

THE practice which has been lately introduced into literature, of writing very long notes upon very indifferent verses, appears to me rather a happy invention; as it supplies us with a mode of turning dull poetry to account; and as horses too heavy for the saddle may yet serve well enough to draw lumber, so Poems of this kind make excellent beasts of burden, and will bear notes, though they may not bear reading. Besides, the comments in such cases are so little under the necessity of paying any servile deference to the text, that they may even adopt that Socratic dogma, "Quod supra nos nihil ad nos."

In the first of the two following Poems, I have ventured to speak of the Revolution of 1688, in language which has sometimes been employed by Tory writers, and which is therefore neither very new nor popular. But however an Englishman might be reproached with ingratitude, for depreciating the merits and results of a measure, which he is taught to regard as the source of his liberties-however ungrateful it might appear in Alderman B-rch to question for a moment the purity of that glorious era, to which he is indebted for the seasoning of so many orations-yet an Irishman, who has none of these obligations to acknowledge; to whose country the Revolution brought nothing but injury and insult, and who recollects that the book of Molyneux was burned, by order of William's Whig Parliament, for daring to extend to unfortunate Ireland those principles on which the Revolution was professedly founded an Irishman may be allowed to criticise freely the measures of that period, without exposing himself either to the imputation of ingratitude, or to the suspicion of being influenced by any Popish remains of Jacobitism. No nation, it is true, was ever blessed with a more golden opportunity of establishing and securing its liberties for ever than the conjuncture of Eightyeight presented to the people of Great Britain. But the disgraceful reigns of Charles and James had weakened and degraded the national character.

The bold notions of popular right, which had arisen out of the struggles between Charles the First and his Parliament, were gradually supplanted by those slavish doctrines for which Lord H—kesb-ry eulogises the Churchmen of that period; and as the Reformation had happened too soon for the purity of religion, so the Revolution came too late for the spirit of liberty. Its advantages accordingly were for the most part specious and transitory, while the evils which it entailed are still felt and still increasing. By rendering unnecessary the frequent exercise of Prerogative,- that unwieldy power which cannot move a step without alarm,it diminished the only interference of the Crown, which is singly and independently exposed before the people, and whose abuses therefore are obvious to their senses and capacities. Like the myrtle over a celebrated statue in Minerva's temple at Athens, it skilfully veiled from the public eye the only obtrusive feature of royalty. At the same time. however, that the Revolution abridged this unpopular attribute, it amply compensated by the substitution of a new power, as much more potent in its effect as it is more secret in its operations. In the disposal of an immense revenue and the extensive patronage annexed to it, the first foundations of this power of the Crown were laid; the innovation of a standing army at once increased and strengthened it, and the few slight barriers which the Act of Settlement opposed to its progress have all been gradually removed during the whi gish reigns that succeeded; till at length this spirit of influence has become the vital principle of the state,- an agency, subtle and unseen, which pervades every part of the Constitution, lurks under all its forms and regulates all its movements, and, like the invisible sylph or grace which presides over the motions of beauty,

"Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia flectit.
Componit furtim subsequiturque."

The cause of Liberty and the Revolution are so habitually associated in the minds of English.men, that probably in objecting to the latter I may be thought hostile or indifferent to the former. Bur assuredly nothing could be more unjust than such

a suspicion. The very object, indeed, which my humble animadversions would attain is, that in the crisis to which I think England is now hastening, and between which and foreign subjugation she may soon be compelled to choose, the errors and omissions of 1688 should be remedied; and, as it was then her fate to experience a Revolution without Reform, so she may now endeavour to accomplish a Reform without Revolution.

In speaking of the parties which have so long agitated England, it will be observed that I lean as little to the Whigs as to their adversaries. Both factions have been equally cruel to Ireland, and perhaps equally insincere in their efforts for the liberties of England, There is one name, indeed, connected with whiggism of which I can never think but with veneration and tenderness. justly, however, might the light of the sun be claimed by any particular nation, as the sanction of that name be monopolised by any party whatsoever. Mr. Fox belonged to mankind, and they have lost in him their ablest friend.

As

With respect to the few lines upon Intolerance, which I have subjoined, they are but the imperfect beginning of a long series of Essays, with which I here menace my readers, upon the same important subject. I shall look to no higher merit in the task, than that of giving a new form to claims and remonstrances, which have often been much more eloquently urged, and which would long ere now have produced their effect, but that the minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is shed upon them.

1 Angli nos ac sua omnia impense mirantur; cæteras nationes despectul habent.-Barclay (as quoted in one of Dryden's prefaces).

2 England began very early to feel the effects of cruelty towards her dependencies. "The severity of her government (says Macpherson) contributed more to deprive her of the continental dominions of the family of Plantagenet than the arms of France."-See his History, vol. i.

3"By the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691 (says Burke), the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure, too, of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new English interest was settled with as solid a stability as any thing in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke." Yet this is the era

CORRUPTION,

AN EPISTLE.

Νυν δ' ἀπανθ' ώσπερ εξ αγοράς εκπεπραται ταύτα αντεισήκται δε αυτι τούτων, ὑφ' ὧν απολωλε και νενοσηκεν ἡ ̔Ελλας. Ταύτα δ' εστι τις ζηλος, ει τις ειληφε τι γελως αν όμολογή συγγνώμη τους ελεγχομενοις μέσος, αν τούτοις τις επιτιμα ταλλα παντα, όσα εκ του δωροδοκείν ήρτηται. DEMOSTH. Philipp. iii.

BOAST on, my friend-though stript of all beside,
Thy struggling nation still retains her pride: 1
That pride, which once in genuine glory woke
When Marlborough fought, and brilliant St. John
spoke;
That pride which still, by time and shame unstung,

Outlives even Wh-tel-cke's sword and H-wk-sb'ry's tongue!

Boast on, my friend, while in this humbled isle 2
Where Honour mourns and Freedom fears to smile,
Where the bright light of England's fame is known
But by the shadow o'er our fortunes thrown;
Where, doom'd ourselves to nought but wrongs
and slights,3

We hear you boast of Britain's glorious rights,
As wretched slaves, that under hatches lie,
Hear those on deck extol the sun and sky!
Boast on, while wandering through my native
haunts,

I coldly listen to thy patriot vaunts;
And feel, though close our wedded countries twine,
More sorrow for my own than pride from thine.

Yet pause a moment- and if truths severe
Can find an inlet to that courtly ear,
Which hears no news but W-rd's gazetted lies,
And loves no politics in rhyme but Pye's, -
If aught can please thee but the good old saws
Of" Church and State," and "William's matchless
laws,"

And" Acts and Rights of glorious Eighty-eight,”—
Things, which though now a century out of date,
Still serve to ballast, with convenient words,
A few crank arguments for speeching lords,* -
Turn, while I tell how England's freedom found,
Where most she look'd for life, her deadliest
wound;

to which the wise Common Council of Dublin refer us for "invaluable blessings," &c.

4 It never seems to occur to those orators and addressers who round off so many sentences and paragraphs with the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement, &c., that most of the provisions which these Acts contained for the preservation of parliamentary independence have been long laid aside as romantic and troublesome. I never meet, I confess, with a politician who quotes seriously the Declaration of Rights, &c., to prove the actual existence of English liberty, that I do not think of that marquis, whom Montesquieu mentions*, who set about looking for mines in the Pyrenees, on the strength of authorities which he had read in some ancient authors. The poor marquis toiled and searched in vain. He quoted his authorities to the last, but found no mines after all.

Liv. xxi. chap. 2.

How brave she struggled, while her foe was seen, How faint since Influence lent that foe a screen; How strong o'er James and Popery she prevail'd, How weakly fell, when Whigs and gold assail'd.'

While kings were poor, and all those schemes unknown

Which drain the people, to enrich the throne;
Ere yet a yielding Commons had supplied
Those chains of gold by which themselves are
tied;

Then proud Prerogative, untaught to creep
With Bribery's silent foot on Freedom's sleep,
Frankly avow'd his bold enslaving plan,
And claim'd a right from God to trample man!
But Luther's schism had too much rous'd mankind
For Hampden's truths to linger long behind;
Nor then, when king-like popes had fallen so low,
Could pope-like kings escape the levelling blow.
That ponderous sceptre (in whose place we bow
To the light talisman of influence now),
Too gross, too visible to work the spell
Which modern power performs, in fragments fell:
In fragments lay, till, patch'd and painted o'er
With fleur-de-lys, it shone and scourg'd once more.

1 The chief, perhaps the only advantage which has resulted from the system of influence, is that tranquil course of uninterrupted action which it has given to the administration of government. If kings must be paramount in the state (and their ministers for the time being always think so), the country is indebted to the Revolution for enabling them to become so quietly, and for removing skilfully the danger of those shocks and collisions which the alarming efforts of prerogative never failed to produce.

Instead of vain and disturbing efforts to establish that speculative balance of the constitution, which, perhaps, has never existed but in the pages of Montesquieu and De Lolme, a preponderance is now silently yielded to one of the three estates, which carries the other two almost insensibly, but still effectually, along with it; and even though the path may lead eventually to destruction, yet its specious and gilded smoothness almost atones for the danger; and, like Milton's bridge over Chaos, it may be said to lead,

"Smooth, easy, inoffensive, down to

.'

2 The drivelling correspondence between James I. and his " dog Steenie" (the Duke of Buckingham), which we find among the Hardwicke papers, sufficiently shows, if we wanted any such illustration, into what doting, idiotic brains the plan of arbitrary power may enter.

3 Tacitus has expressed his opinion, in a passage very frequently quoted, that such a distribution of power as the theory of the British constitution exhibits is merely a subject of bright speculation, "a system more easily praised than practised, and which, even could it happen to exist, would certainly not prove permanent;" and, in truth, a review of England's annals would dispose us to agree with the great historian's remark. For we find that at no period whatever has this balance of the three estates existed that the nobles predominated till the policy of Henry VII. and his successor reduced their weight by breaking up the feudal system of property; that the power of the Crown became then supreme and absolute, till the bold encroachments of the Commons subverted the fabric altogether; that the alternate ascendency of prerogative and privilege distracted the period which followed the Restoration; and that, lastly, the Acts of 1688, by laying the foundation of an unbounded court-influence, have secured a preponderance to the Throne, which every succeeding year increases. So that the vaunted British constitution has never perhaps existed but in mere theory.

4 The monarchs of Great Britain can never be sufficiently grateful for that accommodating spirit which led the Revolutionary Whigs to give away the crown, without imposing any of those re

'Twas then, my friend, thy kneeling nation quaff'd Long, long and deep, the churchman's opiate draught

Of passive, prone obedience then took flight
All sense of man's true dignity and right;
And Britons slept so sluggish in their chain,
That Freedom's watch-voice call'd almost in
vain.

Oh England! England! what a chance was thine,
When the last tyrant of that ill-starr'd line
Fled from his sullied crown, and left thee free
To found thy own eternal liberty!

How nobly high, in that propitious hour,
Might patriot hands have rais'd the triple tower
Of British freedom, on a rock divine
Which neither force could storm nor treachery
mine!

But, no-the luminous, the lofty plan,
Like mighty Babel, seem'd too bold for man;
The curse of jarring tongues again was given
To thwart a work which rais'd men nearer heaven,
While Tories marr'd what Whigs had scarce be

straints or stipulations which other men might have taken advantage of so favourable a moment to enforce, and in the framing of which they had so good a model to follow as the limitations proposed by the Lords Essex and Halifax, in the debate up the Exclusion Bill. They not only condescended, however, to accept of places, but took care that these dignities should be no impetis ment to their "voice potential" in affairs of legislation and although an Act was after many years suffered to pass, which by one of its articles disqualified placemen from serving as merabera of the House of Commons, it was yet not allowed to interfere with the influence of the reigning monarch, nor with that of his guecessor Anne. The purifying clause, indeed, was not to take effect till after the decease of the latter sovereign, and she very cosiderately repealed it altogether. So that, as representation has continued ever since, if the king were simple enough to send to foreign courts ambassadors who were most of them in the pay of those courts, he would be just as honestly and faithfully represented as are his people. It would be endless to enumerate all the favours which were conferred upon William by those "spostate Whigs." They complimented him with the first suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act which had been hazarded since the entrme tion of that privilege; and this example of our Deliverer's reign has not been lost upon any of his successors. They promoted the establishment of a standing army, and circulated in its defer the celebrated" Balancing Letter," in which it is insinuated that England, even then, in her boasted hour of regeneration, was ar rived at such a pitch of faction and corruption, that nothing ovad keep her in order but a Whig ministry and a standing army. They refused, as long as they could, to shorten the duration of parliaments; and though, in the Declaration of Rights, the necessity of such a reform was acknowledged, they were able, by arts not unknown to modern ministers, to brand those as traitors and republicans who urged it. But the grand and distinguishing trait of their measures was the power they bestowed on the Crown if almost annihilating the freedom of elections,- of turning from its course, and for ever defiling that great stream of Representation. which had, even in the most agitated periods, reflected some features of the people, but which, from thenceforth, became the

See a pamphlet published in 1693, upon the King's refusing to sign the Triennial Bill, called "A Discourse between a Yeoman of Kent and a Knight of a Shire."-" Hereupon (says the Year the gentleman grew angry, and said that I talked like a base outmons-wealth man."

The hour was lost, and William with a smile, Saw Freedom weeping o'er the unfinish'd pile!

Hence all the ills you suffer,

hence remain Such galling fragments of that feudal chain,' Whose links, around you by the Norman flung, Though loos'd and broke so often, still have clung.

Hence sly Prerogative, like Jove of old,

Has turn'd his thunder into showers of gold,
Whose silent courtship wins securer joys,
Taints by degrees, and ruins without noise.
While parliaments, no more those sacred things
Which make and rule the destiny of kings,

Pactolus, the "aurifer amnis," of the court, and served as a mirror of the national will and popular feeling no longer. We need but consult the writings of that time, to understand the astonishment then excited by measures, which the practice of a century has rendered not only familiar but necessary. See a pamphlet called "The Danger of mercenary Parliaments," 1698; State Tracts, Will. III. vol. ii. ; see also "Some Paradoxes presented as a New Year's Gift." (State Poems, vol. iii.)

The last great wound given to the feudal system was the Act of the 12th of Charles II., which abolished the tenure of knight's service in capite, and which Blackstone compares, for its salutary influence upon property, to the boasted provisions of Magna Charta itself. Yet even in this Act we see the effects of that counteracting spirit which has contrived to weaken every effort of the English nation towards liberty. The exclusion of copyholders from their share of elective rights was permitted to remain as a brand of feudal servitude, and as an obstacle to the rise of that strong counterbalance which an equal representation of property would oppose to the weight of the Crown. If the managers of the RevoIntion had been sincere in their wishes for reform, they would not only have taken this fetter off the rights of election, but would have renewed the mode adopted in Cromwell's time of increasing the number of knights of the shire, to the exclusion of those rotten insignificant boroughs, which have tainted the whole mass of the constitution. Lord Clarendon calls this measure of Cromwell's "an alteration fit to be more warrantable made, and in a better time." It formed part of Mr. Pitt's plan in 1783; but Pitt's plan of reform was a kind of announced dramatic piece, about as likely to be ever acted as Mr. Sheridan's " Foresters."

It would be a task not uninstructive to trace the history of Prerogative from the date of its strength under the Tudor princes, when Henry VII. and his successors "taught the people (as Nathaniel Bacon says) to dance to the tune of Allegiance," to the period of the Revolution, when the Throne, in its attacks upon liberty, began to exchange the noisy explosions of Prerogative for the silent and effectual air-gun of Influence. In following its course, too, since that memorable era, we shall find that, while the royal power has been abridged in branches where it might be made conducive to the interests of the people, it has been left in full and washackled vigour against almost every point where the integrity of the constitution is vulnerable. For instance, the power of chartering boroughs, to whose capricious abuse in the hands of the Stuarts we are indebted for most of the present anomalies of representation, might, if suffered to remain, have in some degree atoned for its mischief, by restoring the old unchartered boroughs to their rights, and widening more equally the basis of the legislature. But, by the Act of Union with Scotland, this part of the prerogative was removed, lest Freedom should have a chance of being healed, even by the rust of the spear which had formerly wounded her. The dangerous power, however, of creating peers, which has been so often exercised for the government against the constitution, is still left in free and unqualified activity; notwithstanding the example of that celebrated Bill for the limitation of this ever-budding branch

• Historic, and Politic. Discourse, &c. part ii. p. 114.

Like loaded dice by ministers are thrown,
And each new set of sharpers cog their own.
Hence the rich oil, that from the Treasury steals,
Drips smooth o'er all the Constitution's wheels,
Giving the old machine such pliant play,3
That Court and Commons jog one joltless way,
While Wisdom trembles for the crazy car,
So gilt, so rotten, carrying fools so far;
And the dup'd people, hourly doom'd to pay
The sums that bribe their liberties away,
Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,
See their own feathers pluck'd, to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart!

of prerogative, which was proposed in the reign of George I. under the peculiar sanction and recommendation of the Crown, but which the Whigs thought right to reject, with all that characteristic delicacy, which, in general, prevents them, when enjoying the sweets of office themselves, from taking any uncourtly advantage of the Throne. It will be recollected, however, that the creation of the twelve peers by the Tories in Anne's reign (a measure which Swift, like a true party man, defends) gave these upright Whigs all possible alarm for their liberties.

With regard to the generous fit about his prerogative which seized so unroyally the good king George I., historians have hinted that the paroxysm originated far more in hatred to his son than in love to the constitution. This, of course, however, is a calumny : no loyal person, acquainted with the annals of the three Georges, could possibly suspect any one of those gracious monarchs either of ill-will to his heir, or indifference for the constitution.

3 "They drove so fast (says Welwood of the ministers of Charles I.), that it was no wonder that the wheels and chariot broke." (Memoirs, p. 35.) But this fatal accident, if we may judge from experience, is to be imputed far less to the folly and impetuosity of the drivers, than to the want of that suppling oil from the Treasury which has been found so necessary to make a government like that of England run smoothly. Had Charles been as well provided with this article as his successors have been since the happy Revolution, his Commons would never have merited from him the harsh appellation of "seditious vipers," but would have been (as they now are, and I trust always will be) dutiful Commons," "loyal Commons," &c. &c., and would have given him ship-money, or any other sort of money he might have fancied.

4 Among those auxiliaries which the Revolution of 1688 marshalled on the side of the Throne, the bugbear of Popery has not been the least convenient and serviceable. Those unskilful tyrants, Charles and James, instead of profiting by that useful subserviency which has always distinguished the ministers of our religious establishment, were so infatuated as to plan the ruin of this best bulwark of their power, and, moreover, connected their designs upon the Church so undisguisedly with their attacks upon the Constitution, that they identified in the minds of the people the interests of their religion and their liberties. During those times, therefore, "No Popery" was the watchword of freedom, and served to keep the public spirit awake against the invasions of bigotry and prerogative. The Revolution, however, by removing this object of jealousy, has produced a reliance on the orthodoxy of the Throne, of which the Throne has not failed to take advantage; and the cry of" No Popery," having thus lost its power of alarming the people against the inroads of the Crown, has served ever since the very different purpose of strengthening the Crown against the pretensions and struggles of the people. The danger of the Church from Papists and Pretenders was the chief pretext for the repeal of the Triennial Bill, for the adoption of a standing army, for the numerous suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act, and, in short, for all those spirited infractions of the constitution by which the reigns of the last century were so eminently distinguished. We have seen very lately, too, how the Throne has been enabled, by the same scarecrow sort of alarm, to select its ministers from among men, whose servility is their only claim to elevation, and who are pledged (if such an alternative could arise) to take part with the scruples of the King against the salvation of the empire.

+ Coxe says that this Bill was projected by Sunderland.