Filled with this fear, I flew and caught SING-SING-MUSIC WAS GIVEN. SING-sing-Music was given To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving; By harmony's laws alone are kept moving. To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving; By harmony's laws alone are kept moving. When Love, rocked by his mother, Lay sleeping as calm as slumber could make him, 'Hush, hush,' said Venus, no other Sweet voice but his own is worthy to wake him.' To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving; CORRUPTION, AND INTOLERANCE. TWO POEMS: ADDRESSED TO AN ENGLISHMAN BY AN IRISHMAN. 1808. 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 Eighty-eight 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 eulogizes the churchmen of that period; and as the Refor mation 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 Whiggish 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, The cause of Liberty and the Revolution are so habitually associated in the minds of Englishmen, that probably in objecting to the latter, I may be thought hostile or indifferent to the former; but 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 may be remedied; and, as it was then her fate to experience a Revolution without Reform, she may now seek 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. As justly, however, might the light of the sun be claimed by any particular nation, as the sanction of that name be monopolized by any party whatever. Mr. Fox belonged to mankind, and they have lost in him their ablest friend. 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. CORRUPTION. AN EPISTLE. Νυν δ' ἀπανθ' ώσπερ εξ αγορας εκπεπραται ταυτα αντεισήκται δε αντι τουτων, υφ' ών απολωλε και νενοσηκεν ή Ελλας. Ταύτα δ' εστι τι; ζηλος, ει τις ειληφε τι γελως αν ὁμολογη συγγνωμη τοις ελεγχομενοις· μισος, αν τούτοις τις επιτιμα ταλλο παντα, όσα εκ του δωροδοκείν ηρτηται. Demosthenes, Philipp. iii. BOAST on, my friend--though stripp'd 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 unstrung, Outlives e'en Wh-tel--cke's sword and H-wk-sh'ry's tongue! Boast on, my friend, while in this humbled isle2 Where Honour mourns and Freedom fears to smile, On all our fate3-where, doom'd to wrongs and slights, Boast on, while wandering through my native haunts, And feel, though close our wedded countries twine, Yet pause a moment-and if truths severe Can find an inlet to that courtly ear, Which loves no politics in rhyme but Pye's, Of Church and State,' and 'William's matchless laws,' 1'Angli suos ac sua omnia impense mirantur; cæteras nationes despectui 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 anything 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.' 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. So that, I confess, I never hear a politician who quotes Turn, while I tell how England's freedom found, While kings were poor, and all those schemes unknown Ere yet a yielding Commons had supplied Those chains of gold by which themselves are tied; And claim'd a right from God to trample man! Too gross, too visible to work the spell 'Twas then, my friend, thy kneeling nation quaff'd How bright, how glorious, in that sunshine hour 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. 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 2 The drivelling correspondence between James Henry VII, and his successor reduced their I. and his 'dog Steenie' (the Duke of Bucking-weight by breaking up the feudal system of proham), which we find among the Hardwicke perty; that the power of the Crown became Papers, sufficiently shows, if we wanted any such then supreme and absolute, till the Lod en 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. |