80 | And fear,’ as the Greek says: for ‘purging the mind,’ I doubt if you’ll leave us an equal behind. |
BOTHERBY | |
For a spice of your wit in an epilogue’s aid. | |
INKEL | |
85 | Is it cast yet? |
BOTHERBY | |
As is usual in that most litigious of arts. | |
LADY BLUEBOTTLE | |
TRACY | |
INKEL | |
However, to save my friend Botherby trouble, | |
90 | I’ll do what I can, though my pains must be double. |
TRACY | |
INKEL | |
BOTHERBY | |
Your parts, Mr Inkel, are — | |
INKEL | |
Stick to those of your play, which is quite your own line. | |
95 | LADY BLUEMOUNT |
INKEL | |
On Wordswords, for instance, I seldom alight, | |
Or on Mouthey, his friend, without taking to flight. | |
LADY BLUEMOUNT | |
100 | Will right these great men, and this age’s severity |
Become its reproach. | |
INKEL | |
So I’m not of the party to take the infection. | |
LADY BLUEBOTTLE | |
INKEL | |
105 | Have taken already, and still will continue |
To take – what they can, from a groat to a guinea, | |
Of pension or place; – but the subject’s a bore. | |
LADY BLUEMOUNT | |
INKEL | |
SCAMP | |
110 | Though their system’s absurdity keeps it unknown. |
INKEL | |
SCAMP | |
LADY BLUEBOTTLE | |
Is to see Nature’s triumph o’er all that is art. | |
115 | Wild Nature! – Grand Shakspeare! |
BOTHERBY | |
LADY BLUEMOUNT | |
And my Lord Seventy-four, who protects our dear Bard, | |
, And who gave him his place, has the greatest regard | |
For the poet, who, singing of pedlers and asses, | |
120 | Has found out the way to dispense with Parnassus. |
TRACY | |
SCAMP | |
INKEL | |
TRACY | |
125 | I should like to know who. |
INKEL | |
To know who are | |
LADY BLUEBOTTLE | |
This ‘feast of our reason, and flow of the soul.’ | |
Oh! my dear Mr Botherby! sympathise! – I | |
130 | Now feel such a rapture, I’m ready to fly, |
I feel so elastic — | |
INKEL | |
TRACY | |
BOTHERBY | |
This gentle emotion, so seldom our lot | |
135 | Upon earth. Give it way; ’tis an impulse which lifts |
Our spirits from earth; the sublimest of gifts; | |
For which poor Prometheus was chain’d to his mountain. | |
’Tis the source of all sentiment – feeling’s true fountain: | |
’Tis the Vision of Heaven upon Earth: ’tis the gas | |
140 | Of the soul: ’tis the seizing of shades as they pass, |
And making them substance: ’tis something divine: – | |
INKEL | |
BOTHERBY | |
INKEL | |
145 | TRACY |
INKEL | |
To the knight, as a landlord, much more than the Duke. | |
The truth is, each writer now quite at his ease is, | |
And (except with his publisher) dines where he pleases. | |
150 | But ’tis now nearly five, and I must to the Park. |
TRACY | |
SCAMP | |
For my lecture next week. | |
INKEL | |
Out of ‘Elegant Extracts.’ | |
LADY BLUEBOTTLE | |
155 | But remember Miss Diddle invites us to sup. |
INKEL | |
TRACY | |
BOTHERBY | |
For ’tis then that our feelings most genuinely – feel. | |
160 | INKEL |
I wish to the gods ’twas the same with digestion! | |
LADY BLUEBOTTLE | |
Is worth – God knows what. | |
INKEL | |
165 | SIR RICHARD |
[ |
THE VISION OF JUDGMENT
By Quevedo Redivivus
SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘WAT TYLER.’
‘A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.’
PREFACE
It hath been wisely said, that ‘One fool makes many;’ and it hath been poetically observed,
‘That fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ —
Pope
.
If Mr Southey had not rushed in where he had no business, and where he never was before, and never will be again, the following poem would not have been written. It is not impossible that it may be as good as his own, seeing that it cannot, by any species of stupidity, natural or acquired, be
worse.
The gross flattery, the dull impudence, the renegado intolerance and impious cant, of the poem by the author of ‘Wat Tyler,’ are something so stupendous as to form the sublime of himself – containing the quintessence of his own attributes.
So much for his poem – a word on his preface. In this preface it has pleased the magnanimous Laureate to draw the picture of a supposed ‘Satanic School,’ the which he doth recommend to the notice of the legislature; thereby adding to his other laurels the ambition of those of an informer. If there exists any where, excepting in his imagination, such a School, is he not sufficiently armed against it by his own intense vanity? The truth is, that there are certain writers whom Mr S. imagines, like Scrub, to have ‘talked of
him
; for they laughed consumedly.’
I think I know enough of most of the writers to whom he is supposed to allude, to assert, that they, in their individual capacities, have done more good, in the charities of life, to their fellow-creatures in any one year, than Mr Southey has done harm to himself by his absurdities in his whole life; and this is saying a great deal. But I have a few questions to ask.
1stly, Is Mr Southey the author of ‘Wat Tyler?’
2dly, Was he not refused a remedy at law by the highest judge of his beloved England, because it was a blasphemous and seditious publication?
3dly, Was he not entitled by William Smith, in full parliament, ‘a rancorous renegado?’
4thly, Is he not poet laureate, with his own lines on Martin the regicide staring him in the face?
And, 5thly, Putting the four preceding items together, with what conscience dare
he
call the attention of the laws to the publications of others, be they what they may?
I say nothing of the cowardice of such a proceeding; its meanness speaks for itself; but I wish to touch upon the
motive,
which is neither more nor less than that Mr S. has been laughed at a little in some recent publications, as he was of yore in the ‘Anti-jacobin’ by his present patrons. Hence all this ‘skimble scamble stuff’ about ‘Satanic,’ and so forth. However, it is worthy of him – ‘
qualis ab incepto.
’
If there is any thing obnoxious to the political opinions of a portion of the public in the following poem, they may thank Mr Southey. He might have written hexameters, as he has written everything else, for aught that the writer cared – had they been upon another subject. But to attempt to canon-ise a monarch, who, whatever were his household virtues, was neither a successful nor a patriot king, – inasmuch as several years of his reign passed in war with America and Ireland, to say nothing of the aggression upon France, – like all other exaggeration, necessarily begets opposition. In whatever manner he may be spoken of in this new ‘Vision,’ his
public
career will not be more favourably transmitted by history. Of his private virtues (although a little expensive to the nation) there can be no doubt.