Scarce had her fingers touched the torch,
When, frighted by the sparks it shed,
Nor waiting even to feel the scorch,
She dropped it to the earth-and fled.
And fallen it might have long remained!
But Greece, who saw her moment now,
Caught up the prize, though prostrate, stained,
And waved it round her beauteous brow.
And Fancy bade me mark where, o'er
Her altar, as its flame ascended,
Fair, laurelled spirits seemed to soar,
Who thus in song their voices blended:
"Shine, shine for ever, glorious Flame,
Divinest gift of Gods to men!
From Greece thy earliest splendour came,
To Greece thy ray returns again,
"Take, Freedom, take thy radiant round,
When dimmed, revive, when lost, return,
Till not a shrine through earth be found,
On which thy glories shall not burn!"
Of all that, to the sage's survey,
This world presents of topsy-turvy,
There's nought so much disturbs one's patience,
As little minds in lofty stations,
'Tis like that sort of painful wonder,
Which slight and pigmy columns under
Enormous arches, give beholders ;—
Or those poor Caryatides,
Condemned to smile and stand at ease,
With a whole house upon their shoulders.
If, as in some few royal cases,
Small minds are born into such places
If they are there, by Right Divine,
Or any such sufficient reason,
Why Heaven forbid we should repine !—
To wish it otherwise were treason;
Nay, even to see it in a vision,
Would be what lawyers call misprision.
Sir Robert Filmer saith-and he,
Of course, knew all about the matter"Both men and beasts love Monarchy;" Which proves how rational-the latter.
Sidney, indeed, we know, had quite
A different notion from the Knight.
Nay, hints a King may lose his head,
By slipping awkwardly his bridle :-
But this is Jacobin, ill-bred,
And (now-a-days, when Kings are led
In patent snaffles) downright idle.
No, no-it isn't foolish Kings,
(Those fixed inevitable things-
Bores paramount, by right of birth)
That move my wrath-'tis your pretenders,
Your mushroom rulers, sons of earth,
Who-not, like t'others, crowned offenders,
Regular gratia Dei blockheads,
Born with three Kingdoms in their pockets,-
Nor, leaving on the scale of mind,
These Royal Zeros far behind,
Yet, with a brass that nothing stops,
Push up into the loftiest stations,
And, though too dull to manage shops,
Presume, the dolts, to manage nations!
This class it is, that moves my gall,
And stirs up spleen, and bile, and all.
While other senseless things appear
To know the limits of their sphere-
While not a cow on earth romances
So much as to conceit she dances-
While the most jumping frog we know of,
Would scarce at Astley's hope to show off→→
Your -s, your -s dare,
Pigmy as are their minds, to set them
To any business, any where,
At any time that fools will let thein.
But leave we here these upstart things-
My business is, just now, with Kings;
To whom, and to their right-line glory,
I dedicate the following story:-
The wise men of Egypt, were secret as dummies;
And, even when they most condescended to teach,
They packed up their meaning, as they did their mummies,
In so many wrappers, 'twas out of one's reach.
They were also, good people much given to Kings—
Fond of monarchs and of crocodiles, monkeys and mystery; Bats, hierophants, blue-bottle flies, and such things— As will partly appear in this very short history.
A Scythian philosopher (nephew, they say,
To that other great traveller, young Anacharsis),
Stept into a temple at Memphis one day,
To have a short peep at their mystical farces.
He saw a brisk blue-bottle Fly on an altar,
Made much of, and worshipped, as something divine;
While a large, handsome Bullock, led there in a halter,
Before it lay stabbed at the foot of the shrine.
Surprised at such doings, he whispered his teacher-
"If 'tisn't impertinent, may I ask why
Should a Bullock, that useful and powerful creature,
Be thus offered up to a blue-bottle Fly?"
"No wonder "-said t'other-" you stare at the sight,
But we as a Symbol of Monarchy view it-
That Fly on the shrine is Legitimate Right,
And that Bullock, the People, that's sacrificed to it."
FABLE V.
CHURCH AND STATE.
PROEM.
"The moment any religion becomes national, or established, its purity must certainly be lost, because it is then impossible to keep it unconnected with men's interests; and, if connected, it must inevitably be prevented by them."-SOAME JENYNS.
THUS did Soame Jenyns-though a Tory,
A Lord of Trade and the Plantations;
Feel how Religion's simple glory
Is stained by State associations.
When Catherine, after murdering Poles
Appealed to the benign Divinity;
Then cut them up in protocols,
Made fractions of their very souls t—
All in the name of the blessed Trinity;
Or when her grandson, Alexander,
That mighty Northern salamander,+
Whose icy touch, felt all about,
Puts every fire of Freedom out-
When he, too, winds up his Ukases
With God and the Panagia's praises-
When he, of royal Saints the type,
In holy water dips the sponge,
With which, at one imperial wipe,
He would all human rights expunge;
* According to Ælian, it was in the island of Leucadia they practised this ceremony-veir Вovv тais μviais.—De Animal. lib. ii. cap. 3.
The salamander is supposed to have the power of extinguishing fire by its natural coldness and moisture,
When Louis (whom as King, and eater,
Some name Dix-huit and some Des-huîtres,)
Calls down "St. Louis' God" to witness
The right, humanity, and fitness
Of sending eighty thousand Solons,
Sages, with muskets and laced coats,
To cram instruction, nolens volens,
Down the poor struggling Spaniards' throatsI can't help thinking, though to Kings
I must, of course, like other men, bow,)
That when a Christian monarch brings
Religion's name to gloss these things-
Such blasphemy out- Benbows Benbow!*
Or-not so far for facts to roam,
Having a few much nearer home-
When we see Churchmen, who, if asked,
"Must Ireland's slaves be tithed, and tasked
And driven like Negroes or Croäts,
That you may roll in wealth and bliss?"
Look from beneath their shovel hats
With all due pomp, and answer "Yes!"
But then, if questioned, "Shall the brand
Intolerance flings throughout that land,
Betwixt her palaces and hovels,
Suffering nor peace nor love to grow,
Be ever quenched?"-from the same shovels
Look grandly forth, and answer "No."---
Alas, alas! have these a claim
To merciful Religion's name?
If more you want, go see a bevy
Of bowing parsons at a levee-
(Choosing your time, when straw's before
Some apoplectic bishop's door,)
Then, if thou can'st, with life, escape
That sweep of lawn, that press of crape,
Just watch their rev'rences and graces,
Should'ring their way on, at all risks,
And say, if those round, ample faces
To heaven or earth most turn their disks?
This, this it is-Religion, made,
'Twixt Church and State, a truck, a trade
This most ill-matched, unholy Co.,
From whence the ills we witness flow;
The war of many creeds with one
The extremes of too much faith, and none--
The qualms the fumes of sect and sceptic,-
And all that Reason, grown dyspeptic
By swallowing forced or noxious creeds,
From downright indigestion breeds;
* A well-known publisher of irreligious books.
Till, 'twixt old bigotry and new,
'Twixt Blasphemy and Cant-the two
Rank ls with which this age is curst
We can no more tell which is worst,
Than erst could Egypt, when so rich
In various plagues, determine which
She thought most pestilent and vile,
Her frogs, like Benbow and Carlisle,
Croaking their native mud-notes loud
Or her fat locusts, like a cloud
Of pluralists, obesely lowering,
At once benighting and devouring!
This-this it is-and here I pray
Those sapient wits of the Reviews,
Who make us poor, dull authors say,
Not what we mean, but what they choose;
Who to our most abundant shares
Of nonsense add still more of theirs,
And are to poets just such evils
As caterpillars find those flies,*
Which, not content to sting like devils,
Lay eggs upon their backs likewise
To guard against such foul deposits
Of other's meaning in my rhymes,
(A thing more needful here, because it's
A subject, ticklish in these times)—
I, here, to all such wits make known,
Monthly and Weekly, Whig and Tory,
'Tis this Religion-this alone
I aim at in the following story:—
When Royalty was young and bold,
Ere, touched by Time, he had become,
If 'tisn't civil to say old,
At least, a ci-devant ieune homme;
One evening, on some wild pursuit
Driving along, he chanced to see
Religion, passing by on foot,
And took him in his vis-à-vis.
This said Religion was a Friar,
The humblest and the best of men
Who ne'er had notion or desire
Of riding in a coach till then.
"The greatest number of the ichneumon tribe are seen settling upon the back of the caterpillar, and darting at different intervals their stings into its body-at every dart they depose an egg."-Goldsmith.
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