1945 1950 As for my sons, the family is bless'd, 1955 1960 Rest well assured, the Pardelis replied, My sons would all support the regal side, Though Heaven forbid the cause by battle should be tried. 1965 The matron answer'd with a loud Amen, And thus pursued her argument again. If, as you say, and as I hope no less, Your sons will practise what yourselves profess, What angry power prevents our present peace? The Lion, studious of our common good, Desires (and Kings' desires are ill withstood) 1970 To join our nations in a lasting love; The bars betwixt are easy to remove; For sanguinary laws were never made above. If you condemn that prince of tyranny, Whose mandate forced your Gallic friends to fly, 1975 Make not a worse example of your own; 1985 But you, perhaps, remove that bloody note, And stick it on the first Reformers' coat. Oh, let their crime in long oblivion sleep: "Twas theirs indeed to make, 'tis yours to keep. Unjust, or just, is all the question now; 'Tis plain, that not repealing you allow. 1990 1995 To name the Test would put you in a rage; You charge not that on any former age, But smile to think how innocent you stand, Arm'd by a weapon put into your hand. Yet still remember, that you wield a sword Forged by your foes against your Sovereign Lord; Design'd to hew the imperial cedar down, Defraud succession, and dis-heir the crown. To abhor the makers, and their laws approve, Is to hate traitors, and the treason love. What means it else, which now your children say, We made it not, nor will we take away? Suppose some great oppressor had, by slight Of law, disseised your brother of his right, Your common sire surrendering in a fright; Would you to that unrighteous title stand, Loft by the villain's will to heir the land 2000 2005 2055 Your answer is, they were not dispossess'd; 2040 2043 Ver. 2039. The Papist only has his writ of ease.] By the Test Act transubstantiation is to be abjured, a principal tenet of the Papists. DERRICK. 2085 Which, well inform'd, will ever be the same. 2090 2095 But when, by long experience, you had proved, 2100 2105 2110 Nor upward look'd on that immortal spring, 2120 Ver. 2083. with every distant view. The original edition has-with every different view. TODD. Ver. 2098. fruitful as the Nile;] The religions rites and notions of any country, that are founded on the physical state of that country, continue notwithstanding all external changes of religion. The Nile in Egypt, and the Ganges in India, are still adored, notwithstanding the establishment of Mahometism. The difficulties of converting the Hindoos and some other Indian castes, and the Chinese, seem almost insuperable, without supernatural aid. Dr. J. WARTON. Ver. 2106. And made a wise alliance, &c.] Orig. edit. TODD. 2130 The first commands me to maintain the crown, 213 2145 2150 Few words will serve to finish our dispute; Who will not now repeal, would persecute. To ripen green revenge your hopes attend, Wishing that happier planet would ascend. For shame let Conscience be your plea no more: To will hereafter, proves she might before; But she's a bawd to gain, and holds the door. Your care about your banks infers a fear Of threatening floods and inundations near: If so, a just reprise would only be 2155 Of what the land usurp'd upon the sea; Tyrannic force is that which least you fear; The sound is frightful in a Christian's ear: Avert it, Heaven! nor let that plague be sent To us from the dispeopled continent. 2161 2165 But piety commands me to refrain; Those prayers are needless in this monarch's reign. Behold! how he protects your friends op press'd, 2170 2175 Receives the banish'd, succours the distress'd: And yet, 'tis but because you must; You would be trusted, but you would not 2210 2215 He took possession of his just estate: 2220 2225 But shows of honest bluntness, to betray: Exceeded her commission to befriend. 2230 But fluttering there, they nestle near the throne, Then to be sure they never fail'd their lord: 2256 All this they had by law, and none repined; 2900 Their flesh was never to the table served; Though 'tis not thence inferr'd the birds were starved; But that their master did not like the food, 270 2300 2306 Fain would they filch that little food away, falls 2310 2315 Of crowing Chanticleers in cloister'd walls. 2320 2325 2330 The way to win the restive world to God, Was to lay by the disciplining rod, Unnatural fasts, and foreign forms of prayer: Religion frights us with a mien severe. Tis prudence to reform her into ease, And put her in undress to make her please: A lively faith will bear aloft the mind, And leave the luggage of good works behind. Such doctrines in the Pigeon-house were taught: You need not ask how wond'rously they wrought; But sure the common cry was all for these, Whose life and precepts both encouraged ease. Yet fearing those alluring baits might fail, And holy deeds o'er all their arts prevail; (For vice, though frontless, and of harden'd face, Is daunted at the sight of awful grace,) An hideous figure of their foes they drew, Nor lines, nor looks, nor shades, nor colours true; And this grotesque design exposed to public view. One would have thought it some Egyptian piece, With garden-gods, and barking deities, More thick than Ptolemy has stuck the skies. All so perverse a draught, so far unlike, It was no libel where it meant to strike. Yet still the daubing pleased, and great and small, To view the monster, crowded Pigeon-hall. There Chanticleer was drawn upon his knees Adoring shrines, and stocks of sainted trees; And by him, a misshapen, ugly race; The curse of God was seen on every face. 2335 2340 2345 2335 A law, the source of many future harms, Had banish'd all the poultry from the farms; With loss of life, if any should be found To crow or peck on this forbidden ground. That bloody statute chiefly was design'd For Chanticleer the white, of clergy kind; But after-malice did not long forget The lay that wore the robe and coronet. For them, for their inferiors and allies, Their foes a deadly Shibboleth devise: By which unrighteously it was decreed, That none to trust, or profit, should succeed, Who would not swallow first a poisonous wicked weed: Or that, to which old Socrates was cursed, 2370 2576 By which the Sovereign was of subjects' use debarr'd. All gentle means he tried, which might withdraw The effects of so unnatural a law: 23880 But still the Dove-house obstinately stood 2390 2305 Now made the champions of a cruel cause, 2385 2400 2405 And therefore, since their main impending fear wreak; The Musquet, and the Coystrel were too weak, Too fierce the Falcon; but, above the rest, The noble Buzzard ever pleased me best; 2415 Ver. 2361. A law, the source, &c.] Penal laws against Popish recusants. DERRICK. Ver. 2401. For fools are doubly fools, &c.] The original edition has, double fools. TODD. Ver. 2414. Above the rest, The noble Buzzard ever pleased me best;] The character of the Buzzard was drawn for the ccle 2420 Of small renown, 'tis true; for, not to lie, I wish you would confer the sovereign sway: 2425 This pithy speech prevail'd, and all agreed, 2430 His lodgings furnish'd, and a train prepared, With B's upon their breast, appointed for his guard. brated Bishop Burnet, out of compliment to King James II., to whom he had been, on many accounts, obnoxious. He is introduced as a prince, because his spirit and activity raised him to be regarded by many of the opponents to the courtmeasures, as the head of their party; and certainly none of the clergy was so meddling and inquisitive as he was; so that it is not unjust of our poet to say, that He dares the world; and, eager of a name, The bishop was good-humoured, conversable, and charitable; absent, credulous, and talkative; More learn'd than honest, more a wit than learn'd. It is certain he gave room for this impeachment of his honesty, by drawing up two papers in defence of divorce and polygamy; a task very unworthy of a clergyman: and by his behaviour, with regard to the Earl of Lauderdale's affairs in the House of Commons, where he was examined as to what he heard that nobleman say, about arming the Irish Papists, and bringing a Scotch army into England, to support some arbitrary measures intended to be set on foot by the king, and to overawe the Parliament. He at first refused to answer upon the latter point, and was dismissed he then returned, uncall'd, his patron t control, Having waited for some time in the lobby, in hope of being called in again, he desired to be re-admitted, and now revealed everything that had passed between them in private conversation; for which conduct he makes but a poor excuse in his History of his Own Times. The House of Commons laid great stress upon his declaration, and thus furnished with fresh matter, renewed their address against the earl. The papers above mentioned were written to support a design set on foot by Shaftesbury and his emissaries, to divorce the king and procure him another wife, whose issue might exclude the Duke of York from the succession: they are to be found in Mackay's Memoirs. Burnet first came from Scotland, where he was born, to London, to complete the Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton. The Earl of Lauderdale, at that time, received him with great hospitality, and a friendship that merited a different return from what he received. Nor was his behaviour to the Duke of York less indefensible, his Highness having given him some distinguishing marks of his favour, which he requited with becoming one of his severest enemies; not so much from any views of serving these kingdoms, but because that object that seemed most immediate to his interest. most engaged his attention; and he thought opposition the swiftest way to preferment. It is certain King James hated him, not without reason, and would have made him feel his resentment, if he had not retired to the Prince of Orange, with whom he returned to England in 1688. The bishop has revenged himself, by calling Dryden, in the History of his Own Times, a monster of impurity, and by mentioning him in his Reflections on Varillas, with a contempt to which he was infinitely superior. DERRICK. Ver. 2418. I know he hates, &c.] I know he haunts, &c.] Orig edit. Todd. 2435 He came, and crown'd with great solemnity, A prophet form'd to make a female proselyte. Or forced by fear, or by his profit led, a wit than Or both conjoin'd, his native clime he fled : 2445 2450 Ver. 2435. A portly prince,] This character of Buzzard was intended to ridicule Bishop Burnet, who had attacked Dryden for a translation of Varillas. Montague and Prior make their Bayes speak thus of this passage:-"The ercellence of a fable is in the length of it. Æsop indeed, like a slave as he was, made little, short, simple stories, with a dry moral at the end of them, and could not form any noble design. But here, I give you fable upon fable; and after you are satisfied with beasts in the first course, serve you up with a delicate dish of fowl for the second: now I was at all this pains to abuse one particular person; for Igad I'll tell you what a trick he served me: I was once translating a very good French author, but being something long about it, as you know a man is not always in the humour; what does this Jack do, but puts out an answer to my friend before I had half finished the translation; so there was three whole months lost upon his account. But I think I have my revenge on him sufficiently, for I let all the world know that he is a tall, broad-backed, lusty fellow, of a brown complexion, fair behaviour, a fluent tongue, and taking amongst the women; and to top it all, that he 's much a scholar, more a wit, and owns but two sacraments. Don't you think this fellow will hang himself? But, besides, I have so nick't his character in a name, as will make you split. I call him, 'gad I won't tell you, unless you remenber what I said of him. Smith. Why that he was much a scholar, and more a wit. Bayes. Right, and his name is Buzzard. Ha! ha! ha!" Dr. J. WARTON. Ibid. A portly prince,] This violent and cutting satire on Bishop Burnet, which approaches the very verge of downright and disgusting ribaldry, must be accounted for (I will not say apologised) by the bishop's having called Dryden a monster of impiety, for the obscenities, blasphemies, and falsehoods, with which he said our author's works abounded. Burnet's own character appears every day to be more and more approved and brightened by calm examination. His History of his Own Times, allowing, per haps, that it is written in too careless and familiar a style. yet abounds in most curious facts that otherwise would have been unknown, and this very familiarity is pleasing His History of the Reformation is surely a most valuable and important work, and one of the most decisive blows Popery ever received. His Exposition of the Articles is sensible, acute, and candid; with a laudable endeavour to free them from some seeming absurdities and contradictions. And his short account of Lord Rochester a most useful, pious, and instructive little narrative. Dr. .' WARTON. |