THE True-Born
Englishman:
A SATYR, Answer'd, Paragraph by Paragraph.
Nescio, quâ Natale solum dulcedine cunctos
ucit, & immemores non sinit esse sui.
Ovid.
London
: Printed in the Year 1701.
TO THE Right Worshipful Sir
Charles Duncomb,
Knt. And Alderman of the City of
London.
SIR,
THO' Your Merit has such an establish'd Basis, that neither the Malice of the
Evil Speaker,
nor the restless Attempts of the
Evil Doer
can shake it; and Your Memory stands secur'd of Fame and Immortality, in spight of the Murmurs of the Seditious, and the prevailing Numbers of a sort of People who are unacquainted with
Justice
or
fair Dealing
; yet 'tis but fitting that some should stand up in Vindication of what every one should defend, and Assert the Cause of a Gentleman whose
Works of Charity
deserve better returns than the Base and
Ʋ ncharitable
Reflections that are flung upon him.
But you have this Consolation amongst the Clamours of the Ungrateful, that the same Person who makes it his Business to misrepresent Your Vertues and render 'em Odious (if possible) to Posterity, has done the same by Your Country; and as you have alway's stood up for the Kingdoms good against all manner of Opposers, so you are now a sufferer with it, from the Calumnies that are equally darted against Both.
To be a Patriot in these days, is to provide a Task for the Tongues of the Envious, and to give Alms and Relieve those that are in want, is immediately set down for an Act of
Ostentation
; else, Sir
Charles Duncomb
had seen his Countrymen
Reap
the Fruits of what he
Sow'd,
and the Voice of the People had bless'd him for giving Ear to the Cry of the Prisoners, and plentifully dealing part of what he was possess'd of to People in Distress.
But I give more Offence to your Patience in remembring you of the
Good
you have done, than the
Poetaster,
who has occasion'd the following Remarks, by putting on the Readers belief by the
Ill
you have
not
; and it is equally troublesome to be accus'd of Faults you are not Guilty of, as it is to be told of Vertues which are inherent in Your Temper, and shine with such a continued Lustre in all Your Actions.
I shall therefore only leave my Petition behind me, for Your Acceptance, of what the knowledge of Your Worth has occasion'd; and if the
Papers
I have written, have not done that Justice, either to my Country or Your Self, Which both deserv'd, that You would give me leave to beg pardon for their Defects, and impute 'em to the too hasty Zeal of,
Sir,
Your most Humble And most Obedient Servant.
THE PREFACE.
THere being nothing material in the Preface to this scurrilous Satyr, that has not been repeated over and over again in the Body of it; I cannot but think it very suitable to the Business in hand, to forbear making any further Remarks on the Poets Indecencies, and apply my self to make Excuses for my own.
If the Performance I have let loose into the World is Bad, I have nothing to urge in my own defence, but the hast I was oblig'd to make in the finishing it, thro' the desire of two or three Friends, and the difficulty there is in answering a Pamphlet Paragraph by Paragraph, which has such a Redundancy of Tautologies, as this has.
I should indeed have made my Reply to it in Verse, that being counted the fairer way of entring the Lists with a Poet, but as I never had any great Inclination to
Dactyls
and
Spondees,
so I was afraid I should shew my self as great a Bungler at the
Trade
of Rhiming as the Person has convinc'd the World he is, whom I write in opposition to.
However, since he ends his Preface in Verse, I hope I shall stand excus'd, if I make use of the same Method, and give the Reader a short Specimen of my Poetry, after he has tyr'd him with a large one of his. My Intent at first, notwithstanding my small Acquaintance with the Nine
Water drinking
Ladies the Muses, was to have taken up the Cudgels with him in Verse, but such a Design requiring more Time than I have to bestow upon Poetry, I thought it advisable to lay it aside, that I might drudge on in the Beaten Way of
good Honest, Humble
Prose, and have flung by the following Lines which were written as so many Answers to his two first Paragraphs.
Satyr, Arise, Thy Whips and Stings provide,
And shake thy Scorpions on thy Country's side,
While her own Sons their Parents Bowels tear,
And meditate a more than Civil War.
Speak, speak the Cause that make's the Vip'rous Breed
The Rules of Modesty and Truth exceed,
Eager to deal about their want of Shame,
And impiously Elaspheme BRITANNIA's Name.
The Land has yet, tho' punish'd for it's Crimes,
Patriots who dare be just in thankless Times,
Whom neither Gifts nor Pensions can Persuade
Tamely to see their Liberties betray'd,
Or
Forreigners
their proper Rights invad
.
Not that they would Alliances disclaim,
But
D—ch
-Men are at
Home
at
Am—am,
And it has been a Customary thing
For
Englishmen
to serve an
English
King.
Else had our Senators with Patience heard
Myn Heer to
Pr—cip—lity
prefer'd
And
H—
deservedly the Nation's Boast,
Forborn Reflections on a
P—g—'s
Post.
But since Excess of R—y—l Bounty falls,
And He Commands within the P—lace Walls;
Since on his Leg the
British
Order shines,
And He disdain's His Belgick Father's Loyns,
The
Golden-Key
not make's the Patriot speak,
But
England
's Honour, and His Countrie's sake.
THE True Born-Englishman. A SATYR, Answer'd Paragraph by Paragraph.
AS it is the Duty of every one, that breaths
English
Air, to stand up for the Place of his Nativity, and Vindicate the
English
Nation from the Reproaches which Malice would fasten on it; so I cannot but think my self oblig'd to take notice of a Libel which has stoln into the World, under the Name of a Satyr, and dispers'd its Venom in a conceal'd manner, against a People whose Reputation in the Arts of War and Peace has rendred 'em Famous throughout all Christendom. Had the Author of it been
an open Enemy, perhaps, I could have born it,
but he is
our Acquaintance, and our familiar Friend,
a Man subject to the same Laws as
Englishmen
are, and Liable to the same Obligations; entertain'd by 'em, when he was forc'd to fly from the
Scourges
of
Ireland
; and Hospitably receiv'd, when he had not where to lay his Head in a Kingdom which owes her Obedience to this. The Printer also is known for what he is, a Sowre, Discontented, Canting Fellow, as ever
Murmur'd
at falling
Manna,
or found fault with the Bounties of the Almighty. He has formerly been made City Surveyor, for a Crime of the same Nature, and taken a Prospect of its Buildings from his Wooden Edifice in the middle of the Street; and one might have thought, unless he was in love with that Scandalous Office, he would have avoided all manner of Occasion of bring
lifted up above his Neighbours
again. But He's arriv'd to such a heighth of Malignancy, such an inveteracy of Temper, as to be his Author's Humble Servant, while he was Lampooning his God, and making Sport with the Divine Existence of Him that made Him. Therefore 'tis not to be suppos'd he would stick at lending his helping Hand towards Abuses upon the Country where he would have us think him
Born,
after he had been forward in promoting Blasphemous Expressions, against the Holy One of
Israel
that gave him
Breath.
I shall have Field enough elsewhere to take the Author to task, who acknowledg'd he expected it in his Preface, tho' for other sort of Indecencies, than His
mean Style, rough Verse, and incorrect Language,
and make appear he labours under a greater scarcity of Manners, than the Country he shews his Teeth at ever can. We are happy indeed that a Man of his Character has no great esteem for us, and 'tis a certain sign a People is Good when those who are notoriously Wicked, speak reproachfully of 'em; since it must be granted, few Men fall out with their own likeness, or are at variance with their own Resemblance. But
a Man is known by his Works,
and the way to make him appear in his true Colours, is to search into 'em, and find out the Blackness of his
Soul,
by the foulness of his
Thoughts.
It's fitting therefore we fall into the
SATYR,
and examine whether the Poet be as infamous as the Subject, or he has the same Talent of ingratitude in Verse, as he is celebrated for in Prose. Mr.
T—
has a fit of Mortification coming upon him, or he would have less value for the Hungry Entertainments on Mount
Parnassus,
and is reconciling himself to his old Jesuitical Abstinence and Days of Fasting, or he would scarce fall in Love with telling his Fingers, and making wry Faces for adequate Epithets, as he now certainly does. While his versifying Folly gives us Occasion to examine his other faults, and make an Estimate of the last from the wretched Ingredients the first is compos'd of. But his Poetry carries such an invitation with it, that it's pity the Reader should be any longer detain'd from it. I shall begin therefore with the Invocation of his Muse which I find is but a very scurvey one by her Name and to avoid Confusion, make Remarks on this Celebrated Piece, Paragraph after Paragraph.
The Introduction.
Speak,
Satyr;
for there's none can tell like thee,
Whether 'tis Folly, Pride, or Knavery,
That makes the discontented Land appear
Less happy now in Times of Peace, than War:
Why Civil Feuds disturb the Nation more
Than all our bloody Wars have done before.
Satyr,
is too mild a Name, and the Design of it too good to be made use of by such a Person as the Poet; had he desir'd the assistance of a
Bilingsgate
Amazon, 'twould have been more agreeable to the Matter contain'd in the Poem. For Reformation is very far from his Intentions, since to create Jealousies and Uneasiness amongst us, has been always the business of Incendiaries like himself; and if the Land is discontented, he's mistaken in the Cause of it, which probably is, we have had so much Money spent to support a
War,
that some People have very little left to enjoy after a
Peace.
Fools out of Favour grudge at Knaves in Place,
And Men are always honest in Disgrace:
The Court-Preferments make Men Knaves in course:
But they which wou'd be in them wou'd be worse.
'Tis not at Foreigners that we repine,
Wou'd Foreigners their Perquisites resign:
The Grand Contention's plainly to be seen,
To get some Men put out, and some put in.
For this our S—rs make long Harangues,
And florid M—rs whet their polish'd Tongues.
Statesmen are always sick of one Disease;
And a good Pension gives them present Ease,
That's the Specifick makes them all content
With any King, and any Government.
Good Patriots at Court-Abuses rail,
And all the Nation's Grievances bewail:
But when the
Sov'reign Balsam
's once appli'd,
The Zealot never fails to change his Side.
And when he must the
Golden Key
resign,
The
Railing Spirit
comes about again.
The Parliament, in general, is much oblig'd to him for some Expressions in this Paragraph, and Mr.
H—
in particular, who I am satisfied loves his Country better than any
Golden Key
whatsoever. Every true Patriot ought to stand up for his own Countrymen; and if Foreigners jump into Posts, that our Civil Constitutions allow
Natives
only to be instated in, 'tis their Business as they are
English
Representatives, to take care of the Peoples Prerogatives they are entrusted with. And if those
florid Members
that stand up for the Liberties of the People, do it for the sake of a
Pension,
he passes a very odd Compliment on His Majesty, by insinuating as much, as when they are sick of the
Money-Distemper,
there is a certain
Court Elixir
which has been infallible in the Cure of 'em.
Who shall this Bubbl'd Nation disabuse,
While they their own Felicities refuse?
Who at the Wars have made such mighty Pother,
And now are falling out with one another:
With needless Fears the Jealous Nation fill,
And always have been sav'd against their Will:
Who Fifty Millions
Sterling
have disburs'd,
To be with Peace and too much Plenty curs'd,
Who their Old Monarch eagerly undo,
And yet uneasily obey the New.
Search,
Satyr,
search, a deep Incision make;
The Poison's strong, the Antidote's too weak.
'Tis pointed Truth must manage this Dispute,
And down-right English
Englishmen
confute.
If the Nation's
Bubbled,
it's well for the Gamesters at t'other end of the Town; but I am a better Subject than to think so. I hear of no Members that
refuse their own Felicities,
but are against giving away their Birth-right to Strangers. And how we come to be
sav'd against our will,
it's impossible for me to conjecture, when if we had not forwarded our own Salvations, Matters would scarce have been as they now stand, and our New Monarch had not had the Gift of our Obedience, had not we eagerly undone our Old, which is far from being an Act that is involuntary. But our Author is as good at Sense, as he is at Chirurgery, when he's for making
Incisions
instead of giving proper Antidotes to repel Poison.
Whet thy just Anger at the Nation's Pride;
And with keen Phrase repel the Vicious Tide.
To
Englishmen
their own beginnings show,
And ask them why they slight their Neighbours so,
Go back to Elder Times, and Ages past,
And Nations into long Oblivion cast;
To Old
Britannia's
Youthful Days retire,
And there for
True-Born Englishmen
enquire.
Britannia
freely will disown the Name,
And hardly knows her self from whence they came:
Wonders that They of all Men shou'd pretend
To
Birth
and
Blood,
and for a Name contend.
Go back to Causes where our Follies dwell,
And fetch the dark Original from Hell:
Speak,
Satyr,
for there's none like thee can tell.
Our Author's
Keen Phrase
is made ill use of in this Place, and the question about
slighting
our Neighbours very improper. Because we don't think any of 'em worthy of the Pr—pal—ty of
Wales,
is that any injury to 'em? Or that we repine at the Gift of a Blew—G— when our own Noblemen go without it, does that bear the Face of a
Slight.
The common Principle of Nature persuades us to consult our own good first, and he gives a small increase to the Nobility of the
D—ch
by depretiating the Original of the
English,
who though they have underwent the common Fate of other Conquer'd Countries, have no Lords among 'em that were
Oil-men,
or States-men with
Coronets
on their Coaches, that yesterday shoulder'd a
Bunch of Turnips
from the Market.
THE True-Born
Englishman,
Answered, &c. PART I.
An
English
Proverb,
Where God has a Church, the Devil has a Chappel.
WHere-ever God erects a House of Prayer,
The Devil always builds a Chappel there:
And 'twill be found upon Examination,
The latter has the largest Congregation:
For ever since be first debauch'd the Mind,
He made a perfect Conquest of Mankind.
With Ʋ niformity of Service, he
Reigns with a general Aristocracy.
No Nonconforming Sects disturb his Reign,
For of his Yoak there's very few complain.
He knows the Genius and the Inclination,
And matches proper Sins for ev'ry Nation.
He needs no Standing-Army Government;
He always rules us by our own Consent:
His Laws are easy, and his gentle Sway
Makes it exceeding pleasant to obey.
The List of his Vicegerents and Commanders,
Outdoes your
Caesars,
or your
Alexanders.
They never fail of his Infernal Aid,
And he's as certain ne'er to be betray'd.
Thro' all the World they spread his vast Command,
And Death's Eternal Empire's maintain'd.
They rule so politickly and so well,
As if they were L— J—of Hell.
Duly divided to debauch Mankind,
And plant Infernal Dictates in his Mind.
To begin with an
English
Proverb, looks very much as if our Author was no great Doctor at
English
Poetry; and though T— smells very much of a Church with a Chimney in it, some Roguish sort of Wags will be apt to say, he is one of those that plies at the
Devil's Chappel.
I don't mean the Supposititious one, which he would have the Church of
England
go by the Name of, from its
Ʋ niformity of Service,
but
Calves Head Assemblies,
where Nonconformists meet together, on the 30
th
of
January,
to give Glory to God for his Permission, in suffering the best of Kings to be murder'd by his Subjects that Day before his own Palace Gates.
Pride,
the First Peer, and President of Hell,
To his share
Spain,
that largest Province, fell.
The subtile Prince thought fittest to bestow
On these the Golden Mines of
Mexico;
With all the Silver Mountains of
Peru;
Wealth which would, in wise hands, the World undo:
Because he knew their Genius was such;
Too Lazy and too Haughty to be Rich.
So proud a People, so above their Fate,
That if reduc'd to beg, they'll beg in State.
Lavish of Money, to be counted Brave,
And Proudly starve, because they scorn to save.
Never was Nation in the World before,
So very Rich, and yet so very Poor.
If
Pride
had
Spain for her Province, Ireland,
it's certain who had its Inhabitants from thence came in for a share of it Governess's Favours, and there must needs be a smack of it in the Poet
's
Constitution who (as I have been told was a Priest of that Nation. But how 'tis a
Wise
thing to
undo the World,
I can't imagine, unless Mischief is an instance of Policy, and Barbarity a great Token of
Wisdom.
That's certain if his Doctrine be true, the World's in as fair a way to be undone, as a Wicked Man can wish, if the Gold of
Peru
being in
Wise hands (viz.) French
Refiners, can make it so.
Lust
chose the Torrid Zone of
Italy,
Where Blood ferments in Rapes and Sodomy:
Where swelling Veins o'erflow with living Streams,
With Heat impregnate from
Vesuvian
Flames:
Whose flowing Sulphur forms Infernal Lakes,
And human Body of the Soil partakes.
There Nature ever burns with hot Desires,
Fann'd with Luxuriant Air from Subterranean Fires:
Here undisturb'd in Floods of scalding Lust,
Th' Infernal King reigns with Infernal Gust.
Italy
is indeed a hot Country, but some degrees cooler than the
West-Indies,
which are beyond the
Line,
and plac'd under the
Torrid Zone.
Had the Poet amongst his other Enquiries consulted the Celestial Globe, he would have said otherwise: but it may be a mistake, and probably he design'd the Satyr upon
Jamaica
or
Barbardo's,
which had been proper enough, because so many Letcherous Whores and Rogues, have made choice of those Places to reside in. I have heard likewise, that Air has blown up and kindled a Fire, but never was inform'd before, that it was the
Effect
of
Fire,
since I am rather apt to believe it is the
Cause.
Drunk'ness,
the Darling Favourite of Hell,
Chose
Germany
to rule; and rules so well,
No Subjects more obsequiously obey,
None please so well, or are so pleas'd as they.
The cunning Artist manages so well,
He lets them Bow to Heav'n, and Drink to Hell;
If but to Wine and him they Homage pay,
He cares not to what Deity they Pray;
What God they Worship most, or in what way.
Whether by
Luther, Calvin
or by
Rome,
They sail for Heav'n, by Wine he steers them home.
I perceive now that the Spark has read
Heylin
's
Cosmography,
and taken the Character of
Germany
on trust from him. But he cannot assign the same Reasons for their
Drunkenness,
as he does for the
Italians Lust,
since 'tis certain these Men
Intemperance,
are no more influenc'd by the
Temperate Zone,
which the greatest part of it lies directly under, than those Children of Lust are affected by the
Torrid.
But if none
please the Devil so well as they,
how comes he in his Virulent Expressions against the
English,
to say, they are his Chief Favourites. Contradiction is a Talent peculiar to himself, and evil speaking altogether his own; else he would not make 'em
Sail for Heav'n,
with old
Nick
at the Helm, plying at the
Steerage,
or make the Devil bring 'em all into Hell, notwithstanding their Attempts to gain Heav'n, by following the Doctrines of
Luther, Calvin,
or
Rome.
An instance of our Author's Thoughts of the weakness of Pray'r, and the inefficacy of any sort of Devotion whatsoever.
Ʋ rgovern'd Passion settled in
France,
Where Mankind lives in haste, and thrives by Chance.
A
Dancing Nation,
Fickle and Ʋ ntrue:
Have oft undone themselves, and others too:
Prompt the Infernal Dictates to obey,
And in Hell's Favour none more great than they.
Just before none pleas'd the Devil
so well
as the
Germans,
but now the Scene's alter'd to
France,
and none are
more great in his Favour
than the People of that Nation. How to reconcile the Superiority of 'em Both, to Sence, I know not, no more than I do the Character he gives the
French
Men of
thriving by Chance,
when their Industry is so well known, as to make their
Misfortunes
the Effect of
Chance,
not the
Success
which generally attends their Endeavours in matters of
Trade.
The
Pagan
World be blindly leads away,
And Personally rules with Arbitrary Sway:
The Mask thrown Off,
Plain Devil
his Title stands;
And what elsewhere he Tempts, he there Commands.
There with full Gust th' Ambition of his Mind
Governs, as he of old in Heav'n design'd.
Worshipp'd as God, his
Painim Altars
smoke,
Embru'd with Blood of those that him Invoke.
One might have thought after he had surrendred the greatest part of Christendom into Satan's Hands; he would have had some Compassion on his Brother Infidels. But however it happens he falls foul upon them too, as an Enemy of Mankind in general, and either believing the
Turks
to be true Christians, or numbring them with Cannibals, commits an Error in making them who are part of the
Pagan World,
worship the Devil as God, and offer Humane Sacrifice, at his Altars, which is a sort of Ceremony not us'd in the Eastern Countries, who notwithstanding our Author's boasts of an upright Life, making less Application to the Devil than his Worship, who seems to have a great interest with him.
The rest by Deputies he rules as well,
And plants the distant Colonies of Hell.
By them his secret Power he maintains,
And binds the World in his Infernal Chains.
That may be; but I am apt to think, that He that made the World has the Government of it, notwithstanding
Satan
's Deputy-Lieutenants. And one would think from his planting
the distant Colonies of Hell,
he was settling Plantations beyond the South Seas, or had taken possession of some Countries beyond the Moguls, after he had given him the Dominion of all Paganism; but he seldom advises with his Maps, as will be seen by the Country which comes next in Play.
By Zeal the
Irish;
and the
Rush
by Folly:
Fury the
Dane:
The
Swede
by Melancholly:
By stupid Ignorance, the
Muscovite
:
The
Chinese
by a
Child of Hell,
call'd Wit:
Wealth makes the
Persian
too Effeminate:
And Poverty the
Tartars
Desperate:
The
Turks
and
Moors
by
Mah'met
he subdues:
And God has giv'n him leave to rule the
Jews:
Rage rules the
Portuguese;
and Fraud the
Scotch:
Revenge the
Pole;
and Avarice the
Dutch.
By my Shoul, Dear Joy is much in the right, to give his own Country the Post of Honour:
Ireland
has
Zeal
for her Lord Deputy, forsooth, when
Ignorance
had been more proper for it, as being that which is most predominant there. And the
Swedes
are Tyrannically dealt with, by the
Hypochondria
; a Character no Person that knows their way of living can justly give 'em. If
Wit
be a
Child of Hell,
our Author is certainly a
Child of Heaven
; if those who have no manner of Dealings with it deserve that Name. But what is chiefly observable in this Paragraph, is, that the
Dane
and
Portuguese
are so much of the same Complexion, that
Fury
rules one, and
Rage
the other; which in my poor sentiments, is, they have the same Constitution of Mind: A miraculous thing, for certain, that two Nations should so sympathize, when the last is so near the
Sun,
and then first so far from it.
Satyr
be kind and draw a silent Veil,
Thy
Native England
's Vices to conceal:
Or if that Task's impossible to do,
At least be just, and show her Vertues too;
Too Great the first, Alas! the last too Few.
Upon my Conscience he need not request his Satyr to be kind, it's inoffensive enough in every thing but Impudence: But he knows his own Temper best, and doubts, that 'tis
impossible
for him to treat a Country with any manner of Humanity that has used him better than he deserv'd, though he makes a shew of exposing her Virtues to balance her Faults, but has not the heart to do it.
England,
unknown as yet, unpeopled lay;
Happy, had she remain'd so to this day,
And not to ev'ry Nation been a Prey.
Her Open Harbours, and her fertile Plains,
The Merchants Glory these, and those the Swains,
To ev'ry Barbarous Nation have betray'd her,
Who conquer her as oft as they Invade her.
So Beauty guarded but by Innocence,
That ruins her which should be her Defence.
For my part, I can't find where the
Happiness
of
England
had been to have
lain unpeopled,
when without doubt it was design'd at the Creation for Inhabitants, as well as the rest of the World; neither can I imagine that Person has any great skill in History, who affirms, that every Barbarous Nation, that attempted to invade
Her,
gain'd their Ends, and were Conquerors; even
Rome
her self, the Empress of the rest of the World, acknowledged repulses from
Her,
and
Julius Caesar
's conquering Arms found a stop to 'em, for a time, by the Valour of
Her
Natives.
Ingratitude,
a Devil of
Black Renown,
Possess'd her very early for his own.
An Ʋ gly, Surly, Sullen, Selfish Spirit,
Who Satan's worst Perfections does inherit:
Second to him in Malice and in Force,
All
Devil without,
and all within him
Worse.
If Ingratitude be one of the Ingredients which make up an
Englishman,
the Poet has a Title to be called one of the Blood, for treating him after such an infamous manner: But it's a Mystery to me, how this Devil of
Black Renown,
could be
Second to Satan in Malice and in Force,
when he was preferable to his Sovereign Lord by being much worse than Him, which in Hell is a mark of precedence.
He
made her First-born Race to be so rude,
And suffer'd her to be so oft subdu'd:
By several Crowds of Wandring Thieves o'er-run,
Often unpeopl'd, and as oft undone.
While ev'ry Nation that her Pow'rs reduc'd,
Their Languages and Manners introduc'd.
From whose mix'd Relicks our compounded Breed,
By Spurious Generation does succeed;
Making a Race uncertain and unev'n,
Deriv
d from all the Nations under Heav'n.
Very good, Devil-Ingratitude had an excellent hand at Temptation, if he could perswade the First-born to be ungrateful before they had any Benefactors. I always took it for granted, that an ill requital of kind Offices fell under that Name, and no Person could be unthankful for a Courtesie before it was receiv'd. But this Paragraph affords the Reader great choice of Observations: I shall only remark on
as oft unpeopled, and as oft undone,
and desire 'em to consider how that agrees with part of a foregoing Paragraph, that actually says, the Land had been happy had it remain'd unpeopled to this very day.
The
Romans
first with
Julius Caesar
came,
Including all the Nations of that Name,
Gauls, Greeks,
and
Lombards;
and by Computation,
Auxiliaries or Slaves of ev'ry Nation.
With
Hengist, Saxons; Danes,
with
Sueno
came,
In search of Plunder, not in search of Fame.
Scots, Picts,
and
Irish
from th'
Hibernian
Shore:
And Conqu'ring
William
brought the
Normans
o'er.
The
Romans, Danes,
and
Saxons,
that's certain, Conquer'd us, but the same may be said of each of those Countries, the
Goths
and
Vandals,
having broke in upon the first in such a manner, as to destroy their very Language, and the other two fall'n under the Fate of Vanquish'd Kingdoms. So that we have no great reason to undervalue our selves on the account of Conquest, when scarce a Nation in all Christendom has not had Revolutions of the same Nature. But what is the greatest, and most scandalous Reflection, he numbers the
Irish
amongst our Conquerours, when it's well known that Kingdom is now dependent on the
English
Crown by the Right of Conquest, and that they been have ever since their Settlement such an inconsiderable People, as our Kings did not think worth while for a long time to reduce 'em to their present Obedience.
All these their Barb'rous Off-spring left behind,
The Dregs of Armies, they of all Mankind;
Blended with
Britains
who before were here,
Of whom the
Welsh
ha' blest the Character.
In the Nonage of Time there was not that distincton made betwixt Man and Man, as there is now; and when Armies were undisciplin'd, they had no swelling Titles to distinguish one Fellow Creature from another; neither is it probable that a Country so inviting as he owns this to be, should have only the
Dregs of Armes
for its Possessors.
From this Amphibious Ill-born Mob began
That vain ill-natur'd thing, an
Englishman.
The Customs, Sirnames, Languages, and Manners,
Of all these Nations are their own Explainers:
Whose Relicks are so lasting and so strong,
They ha' left a
Shiboleth
upon our Tongue;
By which with easy search you may distinguish
Your
Roman-Saxon-Danish-Norman
English.
The Epithet of Amphibious to People who live in an Island, when the Sea is its defence is not so scandalous as he design'd it, though the Title he gives our Ancestors of an
Ill-born Mob
sounds very hard. I believe he's so little Conversant in Heraldry as to know nothing of their Originals, neither, while there was a sort of equality among Men, has he any just excuse for lessening the Pedegree of those Forefathers, from whence we sprung. As for his finding fault with the Cadence of our Language, I have heard from several hands he has been dabbling at an alteration of it several times to no effect, and I'll defie him to tell me of any modern Tongue which is not made up of a Compound of others, as well as ours, which has risen from the same Cause.
The great Invading
William
the Conq.
Norman
let us know
What Conquerors in After-Times might do.
To ev'ry
Or
Archer.
Musqueteer
he brought to Town,
He gave the Lands which never were his own.
When first the
English
Crown he did obtain,
He did not send his
Dutchmen
home again.
No Reassumptions in his Reign were known.
D'avenant
might there ha' let his Book alone.
No Parliament his Army cou'd disband;
He rais'd no Money, for he paid in Land.
He gave his Legions their Eternal Station,
And made them all Freeholders of the Nation.
He canton'd out the Country to his Men,
And ev'ry Soldier was a Denizen.
The Rascals thus enrich'd, he call'd them
Lords,
To please their Ʋ pstart Pride with new-made Words;
And
Doomsday-Book
his Tyranny records.
What Paralel is there between the Case of
William the Conqueror,
and that of our late Revolution? In his days King
Harold
gave him Battle, and oppos'd Force to Force, which occasion'd a Conquest; but in our Times, His present Majesty was receiv'd by the Consent of the People, invited over by the Nobility and Gentry, and Establish'd in a Throne: The whole Power of
Holland
could not have plac'd him in without our own Concurrence. Therefore as Matters were different between the Conquerour and him, it was but reasonable that those who had made him King, should send away the Troops that came to our Assistance, since we had not folly enough to think they would have came to rescue us without assurance of being paid, nor Estates enough to spare to make a Gentleman of every Foot Soldier. Six hundred thousand pound was a greater reward to the States, than Queen
Elizabeth
had for saving 'em when they wrote themselves,
DISTRESS'D
; and he might have spar'd the Story, which was more to shew King
William
might have done the same, than to disgrace the Original of our Nobility, though what follows shews that also was intended by it.
And here begins the Ancient Pedigree,
That so exalts our Poor Nobility:
'Tis that from some
French
Trooper they derive,
Who with the
Norman
Bastard did arrive:
The Trophies of the Families appear;
Some show the Sword, the Bow, and some the Spear,
Which their Great Ancestor,
forsooth,
did wear.
These in the Heralds Register remain,
Their Noble Mean Extraction to explain.
Yet who the Hero was, no Man can tell,
Whether a Drummer or a Colonel:
The silence Record blushes to reveal
Their Ʋ ndescended Dark Original.
As Kings are the Fountains from whence Honours are deriv'd, so
William the Conqueror
had as much Right to bestow Titles on his Subjects, as another Prince has on his; and if the Poet was to search into some Foreign Noblemens Families, he has such an Esteem for because they are not
English,
it would be a good while before he could find either
Sword,
or
Bow,
or
Spear,
for their Crest. But he's a Leveller, and though he flatters King
William,
is but for making one Estate of the Three the Nation is compos'd of, and reducing the People under the Government of the People, as in the Year 48.
But grant the best, How came the Change to pass,
A
True-Born Englishman
of
Norman
Race?
A
Turkish
Horse can show more History,
To prove his Well-descended Family.
Conquest,
as by the
Dr.
Sherl.
De Facto.
Moderns 'tis exprest,
May give a Title to the Lands possest:
But that the Longest Sword shou'd be so Civil,
To make a
Frenchman English,
that's the Devil.
To Answer that Question, it is not the Blood makes an
Englishman,
but the Climate; and it's allow'd by the Civil Law, that whatsoever Kingdom a Person is born in, though of Foreign Parents, he is actually at the time of his Birth a Denizon of it.
These are the Heroes that despise the
Dutch,
And rail at new-come Foreigners so much;
Forgetting that themselves are all deriv'd
From the most Scoundrel Race that ever liv'd.
A horrid Medly of Thieves and Drones,
Who ransack'd Kingdoms, and dispeopl'd Towns.
The
Pict
and Painted
Britain,
Treach'rous
Scot,
By Hunger, Theft, and Rapine, hither brought.
Norwegian
Pirates, Buccaneering
Danes,
Whose Red-hair'd Offspring ev'ry where remains.
Who joyn'd with
Norman-French,
compound the Breed
From whence your
True-born Englishmen
proceed.
We have no aversion for 'em, as they are
Dutchmen,
but as they are possessed of Places of Trust the Natives of the same Country might reasonably expect to have. And whatever our Primitive Original was, the Blood which gave us Being, having issued through so many Channels, might in length of time purge it self off; and 'tis known by experience, the most unclean things imaginable, thrown into a running stream, leave no infection behind them; which makes against him, if he allows the Circulation of the Blood, which I believe, notwithstanding all his Equivocations, he cannot deny.
And lest by Length of Time it be pretended,
The Climate may this Modern Breed ha' mended,
Wise Providence, to keep us where we are,
Mixes us daily with exceeding Care:
We have been
Europe
's Sink, the
Jakes
where she
Voids all her Offal Out-cast Progeny.
From our Fifth
Henry
's time, the Strolling Bands
Of banish'd Fugitives from Neighb'ring Lands,
Have here a certain Sanctuary found:
The Eternal Refuge of the Vagabond.
Wherein but half a common Age of Time,
Borr'wing new Blood and Manners from the Clime,
Proudly they learn all Mankind to Contemn,
And all their Race are
True-Born Englishmen.
Here he seems to be apprehensive of the Argument that was made use of against his last; and to fence it off guards himself with a known untruth.
Henry
the Fifth, a Prince of the greatest Honour imaginable, after his Accession to the Throne, is made to countenance Vagabonds and banish'd Fugitives, when there are many instances to the contrary, if he will take the trouble upon him to read his Life. But were it actually as he would have it, it was always reckon'd no small Reputation for a Kingdom to be a Sanctuary to the Distressed, and a Refuge to poor People, who possibly might have other reasons for flying from the Land of their Nativity, than the Crimes he seems to charge 'em with.
Dutch, Walloons, Flemings, Irishmen,
and
Scots,
Vaudois,
and
Valtolins,
and
Hugonots,
In good Queen
Bess
's Charitable Reign,
Supply'd us with Three hundred thousand Men.
Religion,
God we thank thee,
sent them hither,
Priests, Protestants, the Devil and all together:
Of all Professions, and of ev'ry Trade,
All that were persecuted or afraid;
Whether for Debt or other Crimes they fled,
David
at
Hackelah
was still their Head.
This Paragraph being much of the same nature with the former, and written to reproach the Memory of the best of Queens, after he had too hastily
shot his Bolt
against the most Glorious of our Kings, I shall jump over the
repeated Crambe
he tires the Reader with, to take notice of his expression,
God we thank thee
: Full of as much Impiety as could come from an Atheist's Mouth, and one who denies all manner of reveal'd Religion. He could have utter'd forth no worse complaints against the Goodness of that infinite Being, had he said,
God you are only to be blam'd for putting such Whims in the Fools, as the Notions of Religion, and instilling into their empty Skulls the Fears of offending an incensed Deity, which has forced them to quit their own Country, and lie a Rent-charge on our Hands.
Which is downright Blasphemy, or nothing can deserve that Name.
The Offspring of this Miscellaneous Crowd,
Had not their new Plantations long enjoy'd,
But they grew
Englishmen,
and rais'd their Votes
At Foreign Shoals of
Interloping Scots.
The
King
Jam.
1.
Royal Branch from
Pict-land
did succeed,
With Troops of
Scots
and Scabs from
North-by-Tweed.
The Seven first Years of his Pacifick Reign,
Made him and half his Nation
Englishmen.
Scots
from the
Northern
Frozen Banks of
Tay,
With Packs and Plods came
Whigging
all away:
Thick as the Locusts which in
Aegypt
swarm'd,
With Pride and hungry Hopes compleatly arm'd:
With Native Truth, Diseases, and No Money,
Plunder'd our
Canaan
of the Milk and Honey.
Here they grew quickly Lords and Gentlemen,
And all their Race are
True-Born-Englishmen.
And what could hinder them from deserving the Name, if they were born in
England
? Since they were obliged to perform all the Offices of true-born
Englishmen,
where is the hurt to give them the Title of such? K.
James
the II. was an excellent Prince, and his Subjects were truly happy under his Reign, which he by way of ridicule calls Pacifick. And we cannot deny but several Families of
Scots
came with him into
England
; but it's worth his Observation to take notice, that his chiefest
Favourite
was an
Englishman,
notwithstanding his Affection to his own Nation.
The Civil Wars, the common Purgative,
Which always use to make the Nation thrive,
Made way for all that strolling Congregation,
Which throng'd in
King
Cha.
II.
Pious
Ch---s
's Restauration.
The
Royal Refugee
our Breed restores,
With
Foreign Courtiers,
and with
Foreign Whores:
And carefully repeopled us again,
Throught his Lazy, Long, Lascivious Reign,
With such a blest and True-born
English
Fry,
As much illustrates our Nobility.
A Gratitude which will so black appear,
As future Ages must abhor to hear:
When they look back on all that Crimson Flood,
Which stream'd in
Lindsey
's and
Caernarvon
's Blood:
Bold
Strafford, Cambridge, Capel, Lucas, Lisle,
Who crown'd in Death his Father's Fun'ral Pile.
The Loss of whom, in order to supply
With True-Born
English
Nobility,
Six Bastard Dukes survive his Luscious Reign,
The Labours of
Italian C------n,
French P------h, Tabby S----t,
and
Cambrian.
Besides the Num'rous Bright and Virgin Throng,
Whose Female Glories shade them from my Song.
It's but an odd sort of an Observation, that Countries
thrive by Civil Wars,
since it is evident that where the Seat of a War is, the Trade of that People is at a stand; and had not that injur'd Prince, whom he, for want of due respect to his Memory, brands with the Name of a
Refugee
been forc'd by Rebellious Subjects from the Land of his Inheritance, he would have had no Obligations to return to Foreign Courts. But a Party, which our Author glories in being a Member of, having been the occasion of his Exile, we may thank them, if he was withdrawn from a due Exercise of those admirable Parts he was the happy Master of; and when he was Possessor of a Genius the fittest that could be for business, that he gave himself up too much to his Pleasures. The same reason that perswaded him to a due respect of His late Majesty's Natural Daughters, might have with held him from abusing his Princely Sons, some of which have been and are a Pattern of true behaviour to the
English
Court: But where Manners are not, they cannot be expected.
This Offspring, if one Age they multiply,
May half the House with
English
Peers supply:
There with true
English
Pride they may contemn
S------g
and
P-----d,
new-made Noblemen.
If we had no worse sort of Gentlemen amongst our
English
Nobility, we need not care how many we had of the Breed; no disparagement to
S------g
and
P------d,
his new made Noblemen.
French
Cooks,
Scotch
Pedlars, and
Italian
Whores,
Were all made Lords, or Lords Progenitors.
Beggars and Bastards by his new Creation,
Much multiply'd the Peerage of the Nation;
Who will be all, e'er one short Age runs o'er,
As True-Born Lords as those we had before.
These six Lines should have been explain'd, if he would have any Body know the meaning of them: For I am well assured no
French
Cooks, or
Scotch
Pedlars were ever made Noblemen in the King's Reign, whose Ashes he disturbs so basely. And for the
Italian
Whores he makes mention of, they might possibly have been made
Ladies
; though I never heard the Dutchess of
Mazarine
had any
English
Title conferr'd on her: But if he is not abandon'd to the want of Sense, as well as good Manners, he must agree with me, their Sex would not permit them to be made
Lords.
Then to recruit the Commons he prepares,
And heal the latent Breaches of the Wars:
The Pious Purpose better to advance,
H' invites the banish'd Protestants of
France
:
Hither for God's sake and their own they fled,
Some for Religion came, and some for Bread:
Two hundred thousand Pair of Wooden Shooes,
Who, God be thank'd, had nothing left to lose;
To Heav'n's great Praise did for Religion fly,
To make us starve our Poor in Charity.
In ev'ry Port they plant their fruitful Train,
To get a Race of
True-Born Englishmen:
Whose Children will, when riper Years they see,
Be as Ill-natur'd and as Proud as we:
Call themselves
English,
Foreigners despise,
Be surly like us all, and just as wise.
Had our Author any sense of Shame or Christianity in him, he would never blame a Prince for an Action, that has rendred his Name Famous in all the Courts of
Europe.
When the Professors of Christ's Holy Gospel were expell'd from the Place of their Nativity, he receiv'd them—
Omnium egenos, Ʋ rbe, domo Daeos:
And more than imitated the Queen of
Carthage
's Noble Saying of
Non ignora mali miseris succurrere disco.
He had been hospitably dealt with himself, by the same People, whose Prince's persecuting Genius flung them upon his Protection; and if there had been Two Millions, instead of Two Hundred Thousand, his Name ought to be had in Everlasting Remembrance; since to Feed the Hungry, and Cloth the Naked, is so far from the Transgression of a Duty, that it is an actual Performance of our Saviour's Command.
Thus from a Mixture of all Kinds began,
That Het'rogeneous Thing,
An Englishman:
In eager Rapes, and furious Lust begot,
Betwixt a Painted
Britain
and a
Scot
:
Whose gend'ring Off-spring quickly learnt to bow,
And yoke their Heifers to the
Roman
Plough:
From whence a Mongrel half-bred Race there came,
With neither Name nor Nation, Speech or Fame.
Infus'd betwixt a
Saxon
and a
Dane.
While their Rank Daughters, to their Parents just,
Receiv'd all Nations with Promiscuous Lust.
This Nauseous Brood directly did contain
The well-extracted Blood of
Englishmen.
The word
thus,
seems to intimate we
Englishmen
had our Original from the
French
Refugees, who have been admitted into the Kingdom these last thirty Years, for no Persecution began in
Charles
the Second's Reign before. But the Poet being not very good at Connexion, and unsatisfy'd with abusing us in the same Nature before, falls again into the very same malicious Account of our Primitive Rise, on purpose to whet our Memory, and stamp impressions on it of his great Civilities, that we might think of suitable returns.
Which Medly canton'd in a Heptarchy,
A Rhapsody of Nations to supply,
Among themselves maintain'd eternal Wars,
And still the Ladies lov'd the Conquerors.
It seems there were
Ladies
in the time of the
Heptarchy,
though he allows of no such things as
Lords
before
William the Conqueror
; but though he seems to have a respect for the Fair Sex by the Title he gives 'em, he deserves to lose much of their esteem (if he ever had any of it) for the Character he gave the Women in those Times of being
Mercenary,
and in Love with the
strongest side.
The
Western-Angles
all the rest subdu'd;
A bloody Nation, barbarous and rude:
Who by the Tenure of the Sword possest
One part of
Britain,
and subdu'd the rest.
And as great things denominate the small,
The Conqu'ring Part gave Title to the Whole.
The
Scot, Pict, Britain, Dane
submit,
And with the
English-Saxon
all unite:
And these the Mixture have so close pursu'd,
The very Name and Memory's subdu'd:
No
Roman
now, no
Britain
does remain;
Wales
strove to separate, but strove in vain:
The silent Nations undistingush'd fall,
And
Englishman
's the common Name for all.
Fate jumbl'd them together,
God knows how;
Whate'er they were, they're
True-Born English
now.
We have had as much before, in good honest Prose, which has more Beauties in it than his lamentable Verse, that the
Western-Angles
Conquer'd the rest; but the Parts which were Conquer'd, as the
East-Angles,
&c. help'd to give the whole Country the Name of
England,
as well as that which had subdued 'em. Which shews the Poet lies under a mistake, and is guilty of some escapes in matters of History. But what deserves our notice more particularly, is his making the Conquerors who were Inhabitants of the Western Parts,
Bloudy, Barbarous,
and
Rude,
when 'tis apparent in our Chronicles those of the North were the most Cruel, on purpose to taint the Nation in general, which had submitted to the Conquest of those
Inhumane
People, with the said Vices.
The Wonder which remains is at our Pride,
To value that which all wise Men deride.
For
Englishmen
to boast of Generation,
Cancels their Knowledge, and lampoons the Nation.
A
True-Born Englishman
's a Contradiction,
In Speech an Irony, in Fact a Fiction.
A Banter made to be a Test of Fools,
Which those that use it justly ridicules.
A Metaphor invented to express
A Man
a-kin
to all the Ʋ niverse.
Pride
was wholly attributed to the
Spaniards
sometime before, but now 'tis the property of the
English.
Either his Memory is very treacherous, or he has been so lavish of the Vices he has charg'd us with, that he is forc'd to have recourse to those he has flung upon others, because of the lowness of his Stock. And if we are
a-kin to all the Ʋ niverse,
we have a multitude of Noble Relations for certain, which renders us above the
common dregs of all Mankind,
without any manner of Question.
For as the
Scots,
as Learned Men ha' said,
Throughout the World their Wandring Seed ha' spread;
So open-handed
England,
'tis believ'd,
Has all the Gleaning of the World receiv'd.
The Travelling of the
Scots,
is an Argument of their enquiries after Knowledge, a Vertue for which they are unreproachable; therefore our Author does very ill to make use of
Cleaveland's
Word (Wandring)
unless he had been gifted with
Cleaveland's
Wit:
But how he can prove that
England
has receiv'd all the Gleanings of the World, unless he can make appear we had any Forefathers from
Japan
and
China,
I can't imagine.
Some think of
England
'twas our Saviour meant,
The Gospel should to all the World be sent:
Since when the blessed Sound did hither reach,
They to all Nations might be said to Preach.
Though he pretends to make out our Original, he's more than Presumptious to explain our Saviour's Doctine after that manner. I am apt to think, those are no ones Sentiments but his own; and notwithstanding the dangerous Opinion he has of no such Person in the Blessed Trinity, no Man that has the Name of a Christian, but will conclude that Christ's Predictions will be fullfill'd, without any such mean Evasion as he impiously lays hold on.
'Tis well that Vertue gives Nobility,
Else God knows where we had our Gentry;
Since scarce one Family is left alive,
Which does not from some Foreigner derive.
Of Sixty thousand
English
Gentlemen,
Whose Names and Arms in Registers remain,
We challenge all our Heralds to declare
Ten Families which
English-Saxons
are.
'Tis well (to use his own words) he will acknowledge any such thing as Vertue to be amongst us. It's a Condescension he has not before been guilty of; and if we have Sixty Thousand
English
Gentlemen, it's no Matter whether they are deriv'd from the
Saxons
or no, since we had People that have Conquer'd us of as great Antiquity as them.
France
justly boasts the Ancient Noble Line
Of
Bourbon, Mommorency,
and
Lorrain.
The
Germans
too the House of
Austria
show,
And
Holland
their Invincible
Nassau.
Lines which in Heraldry were Ancient grown,
Before the Name of
Englishman
was known.
Even
Scotland
too her Elder Glory shows,
Her
Gourdons, Hamiltons,
and her
Monroes;
Dowglas, Mackays,
and
Grahams,
Names well known,
Long before Ancient
England
knew her own.
France,
and both the
Germany's, High
and
Low,
have chang'd their Masters as often as us; and though they have great swelling Names, some of our Families may be no more obscure than theirs, since we have the same Reasons to boast of their Antiquity. And our Poetaster had paid ne'er the less Difference to the
Invincible Nassau,
had he plac'd his Grand-Fathers Family (
viz.
that of the
Stewarts
) which is the most Ancient in
Scotland,
before that of
Monroe,
which I never heard was Famous for any Member of it, but one Mr.
Monroe,
who is a
celebrated Tobaconist.
But
England,
Modern to the last degree,
Borrows or makes her own Nobility
And yet she boldly boasts of Pedigree:
Repines that Foreigners are put upon her,
And talks of her Antiquity and Honour:
Her
S—lls, S—ls, C—ls, De— M—rs,
M—ns
and
M—ues, D—s
and
V—rs,
Not one have
English
Names, yet all are
English
Your
H—ns, P—llons,
and
L—liers,
Pass now for True-Born
English
Knights and Squires, Peers.
And make good Senate-Members, or Lord-Mayors.
Wealth, howsoever got, in
England
makes
Lords of Mechanicks, Gentlemen of Rakes.
Antiquity and Birth are needless here;
'Tis Impudence and Money makes a P—r.
The Names may be
French,
on Account of the
Norman
Invasion; but it's the Title that makes the Nobleman, which cannot be said to be borrow'd. If the Kings of
England
could not make their own Peers, they would have less Prerogative than the meanest Soveraign Princes, who have a Right to multiply the number of 'em as they please; and if
Impudence and Money make a Peer
in these Days, he has made a pretty sort of a Complement to His present Majesty, whom we shall find he has Written a most Bombast Harangue in Verse upon, and been after his laudable Custom, exceeding Civil to the Duke and Earl, whom he would have preferable to King
Charles
the Second's Sons.
Innumerable City-Knights we know,
From
Blewcoat Hospitals
and
Bridewell
flow.
Draymen and Porters fill the City Chair,
And Foot-boys Magisterial Purple wear.
Fate has but very small Dictinction set
Betwixt the
Counter
and the Coronet.
Tarpaulin Lords, Pages of High Renown,
Rise up by Poor Men's Valour, not their own.
Great Families of yesterday we show,
And Lords, whose Parents were
the Lord knows who.
It's a sign, when People rise in the World, and make a Figure from small Beginnings, Industry has had a great hand in their Promotion; and when People of indifferent Circumstances are advanc'd to Honour, there is an encouragement of Vertue going forward. The Common Seaman's Labours may do much towards the gaining a Naval Victory; but it is the Admiral's Conduct that brings it to pass; and though
English
Pages for their Bravery at Sea are made Lords, it is not a thing to be wondered at, since a certain Gentleman, belonging to a Nation he's so fond of, has had more than the same Honour done him, for
none
of those Performances.
PART II.
THE Breed's describ'd: Now,
Satyr,
if you can,
Their Temper show, for
Manners makes the Man.
Fierce as the
Britain,
as the
Roman
Brave;
And less inclin'd to Conquer than to Save:
Eager to Fight, and lavish of their Blood;
And equally of
Fear
and
Forecast
void.
The
Pict
has made 'em Sowre, the
Dane
Morose;
False from the
Scot,
and from the
Norman
worse.
What Honesty they have, the
Saxon
gave them,
And That, now they grow old, begins to leave them.
The Climate makes them Terrible and Bold;
And
English
Beef their Courage does uphold:
No Danger can their
Daring
Spirit pall,
Always provided
that their Belly's full.
This Paragraph makes our Author look like a
Roman
himself, though he will allow none of us to be any thing like them, (when they have left their Brood behind them, without doubt, as well as any of our other Conquerors;) and he seems like
Janus
to carry his Head two ways: One while, he commends us for our Valour; another, rails against us for our Falshood: He names the Nations that bequeathed us the Vices he makes mention of; and for our Stock of Honesty, because he would make it as small as he could, the
Saxons
forsooth, above all other People, must be our Benefactors in leaving us that: A valuable sort of Gift, indeed, when according to his Challenge, out of 60000 Families, ten of them had not so much as a drop of their Blood in them.
In close Intriegues their Faculty's but weak,
For gen'rally whate'er they know, they speak:
And often their own Councils undermine
By their Infirmity, and not Design.
From whence the Learned say it does proceed,
That
English
Treasons never can succeed:
For they're so open-hearted, you may know
Their own most secret Thoughts, and others too.
If the
English
betray the Secrets that are committed to them, by
Infirmity,
not by any
Design,
it's as plain as the Nose in his Face they are
Honest
; which contradicts the Character he gave of them in the foregoing Paragraph: And as that implies a contradiction to
Sense,
so the Character he gives them, of having Faculties too weak for Intriegues, is a downright contradiction to
Truth
; since we have Statesmen now in being, and
Englishmen
too, not inferiour to the
Richlieu
's and
Mazarine
's of
France
; or to any hard Names whatsoever the
Dutch
are distinguish'd by. And it's beyond all manner of doubt certainly true, that the last might have been glad to have got back to the
Texel
again, had not some
Wise
Gentlemen, that lived near the Names, laid their Heads together, in order to forward the
Happy
Revolution they boast of.
The Lab'ring Poor, in spight of Double Pay,
Are Sawcy, Mutinous, and Beggarly?
So lavish of their Money and their Time,
That want of Forecast is the Nation's Crime.
Good Drunken Company is their Delight;
And what they get by Day, they spend by Night.
Dull Thinking seldom does their Heads engage,
But Drink their Youth away, and hurry on Old Age.
Empty of all good Husbandry and Sense;
And void of Manners most, when void of Pence.
Their strong Aversion to Behaviour's such,
They always talk too little, or too much.
So dull, they never take the pains to think;
And seldom are good-natur'd,
but in Drink.
He's
Almanzor
-like for killing all, and making a compleat Victory over the whole
English
Race. The Nobility and Gentry have had a Tast of his Fury, and he'll be impartial, and fall upon the Poor also; when if they were so
lavish of their Money and Time,
as he would perswade us they are, few of'em would come to wear
Gold Chains,
which he blames them for, or shew their Charity in
Magisterial Purple,
which has been such a Mortification to him, and if they had not
given themselves Time to think,
they would never have arriv'd at.
In
English
Ale their dear Enjoyment lies,
For which they'll starve themselves and Families.
An
Englishman
will fairly drink as much
As will maintain Two Families of
Dutch
:
Subjecting all their Labours to the Pots;
The greatest Artists are the greatest Sots.
I never heard but the
Dutch
were as good Toss-pots as our selves, though he would have us believe,
one
Englishman
can drink as much as will maintain two Families of 'em.
However he has made amends for that known
Lye,
by giving his Assent to a known
Truth,
which is, that we are more dext'rous at Business than them, and are the
greatest Artists
by consequence, since he has the ill manners to call us
the greatest Sots.
The Country Poor do by Example live;
The Gentry Lead them, and the Clergy drive:
What may we not from such Examples hope?
The Landlord is their God, the Priest their Pope.
A Drunken Clergy, and a Swearing Bench,
Has giv'n the Reformation such a Drench,
As Wise Men think there is some cause to doubt,
Will purge Good Manners and Religion out.
The way to abolish Religion, which has been the main design of our Author, is to make the Clergy look little in the Eyes of the Laity; and he has laid hold of effectual means to further his intentions, nothing being more capable to draw the People from the respect which is due to them, so much as the imputation of Drunkenness, unless they open their Eyes and examine into the Character of him that charges them with it. But God be thank'd, we have the soberest Clergy in the World; our Ministers are Men of exemplary Lives, as well as great Learning; and our Gentry's Tenants are so far from standing in such a reverential Awe of their Landlords, that they are Gentlemen themselves in respect of the Boors beyond Sea.
Nor do the Poor alone their Liquor prize,
The Sages joyn in this great Sacrifice.
The Learned Men who study
Aristotle,
Correct him with an Explanation-Bottle;
Praise
Epicurus
rather than
Lysander,
And
The Drunkards Name for Canary.
Aristippus
more than
Alexander.
The Doctors too their
Galen
here resign,
And gen'rally prescribe
Specifick Wine.
The Graduates Study's grown an easier Task,
While for the
Urinal
they toss the
Flask.
The Surgeons Art grows plainer ev'ry Hour,
And Wine's the Balm which into Wounds they pour.
The reason he has for pecking at our Universities, is, because the Vice-Chancellor of one of them, civilly desired him to withdraw himself from it, for fear of his corrupting young Gentlemen-Student's Morals, which he had an excellent Talent at; otherwise common Justice would have forced him to own, there are the most excellent Scholars in them, which are to be found in any place of Learning throughout all
Europe
; and the Statutes are so regularly put in force against all manner of Licentiousness, that he has no manner of excuse for the Scandal he charges them with.
English
Physicians also are Men of the best Reputation in that Faculty throughout the whole Universe. And to speak against our Practitioners dexterity in Chirurgery, is to give the lye to demonstration, and vent a known
falshood,
in the room of that which is
true.
Poets long since
Parnassus
have forsaken,
And say the Ancient Bards were all mistaken.
Apollo
's lately abdicate and fled,
And good King
Bacchus
reigneth in his stead:
He does the Chaos of the Head refine,
And Atom-thoughts jump into Words by Wine.
The Inspiration's of a finer Nature;
As Wine must needs excel
Parnassus
Water.
One may perceive by his hungry insipid Lines he's a Fresh-water Poet, and that Wine is very far from having any such thing as Inspiration in it, if he makes use of it; that is, for certain
Apollo
would abdicate, if he was in danger of having good Sense and Verse murder'd by the rest of his Subjects, as he has done; and
Helicon
would be soon drunk up, were the rest of the Fraternity troubled so much with the
Heart-burning
as he is. But your Man of Verse knows better, that would acquire Fame by his Writings, and to perpetuate his Memory like one of his Predecessors, always goes,—
Bene Potus ad Arma.
Statesmen their weighty Politicks refine,
And Soldiers raise their Courages by Wine.
Caecilia
gives her Choristers their Choice,
And lets them all drink Wine to clear the Voice.
As for our Statesmen, without Question, the making their Heads
hot
is not the way to make their Thoughts sedate and cool, and it's evident from the success of their Counsels, our Author is no great Politician himself. It's apparent also he's no Songster, since he understands the Customs of Singing-Men so little, as to make them drink, when Liquors are the most Pernicious things to a good Voice, and the likeliest imaginable to take their livelihood from 'em.
Some think the Clergy first found out the way,
And Wine's the only Spirit by which they Pray.
But other less prophane than so, agree,
It clears the Lungs, and helps the Memory:
And therefore all of them Divinely think,
Instead of Study, 'tis as well to drink.
For certain he's not one of the
less prophane,
by the wicked Expressions that come from him; And seems to agree with the Belief of the Jews, who said the Apostles were drunk with New Wine, when they declaring the Message of the most High God. So that the Reader may find what Sect he belongs to, since he is against the Response, of,
with thy Spirit let us pray.
And here I would be very glad to know,
Whether our
Asgilites
may drink or no.
Th' Enlight'ning Fumes of Wine would certainly
Assist them much
when they begin to fly:
Or if a Fiery-Chariot shou'd appear,
Inflam'd by Wine, they'd ha' the less to fear.
He's resolv'd to pull every Body in by the Neck and Shoulders, and Mr.
Asgil
is maul'd off next for his notion of
Translation
; but in such a manner, that any Man would deserve the Name of a Wise one, that could find out where the Satyr Bit. He asks a Question, and answers it himself; for if it would give Wings to
Asgel
's Disciples, and guard 'em from the
Fear of Death,
without doubt Mr.
Asgil
would not forbid 'em the use of a Liquor, which would be very instrumental in forwarding their Translation.
Even the Gods, themselves, as Mortals say,
Were they on Earth, wou'd be as drunk as they:
Nectar
would be no more Celestial Drink,
They'd all take Wine, to teach them how to Think.
But
English
Drunkards, Gods and Men outdo,
Drink their Estates away, and Senses too.
Colon
's in Debt, and if his Friends should fail
To help him out, must die at last in Gaol:
His
Wealthy Uncle
sent a Hundred Nobles
To pay his Trifles off, and rid him of his Troubles:
But
Colon,
like a
True-Born Englishman,
Drank all the Money out in bright Champaign;
And
Colon
does in Custody remain.
Drunk'ness has been the Darling of the Realm,
E'er since a Drunken Pilot had the Helm.
What he brings the Gods in for, is a secret to me, unless he would shew he has read Poetry, though he is Master of none of the Beauties of it. And whom he means by
Colon
I can't tell; but if it be any particular Person, he points his
harmless
Satyr at, it is foreign to the purpose, since he designs it as a Reflection against the
English
in general. For though there may be a
Colon
or two, or many more in the Nation, he has no Authority to infer from thence, that Drunkenness is the darling Vice in it; or to shew the Partiality of his Spleen, if it were so, by dating it from the Reign of a Prince whom he had before rendred infamous for a Vice which is not consistent with it.
In their Religion they are so unev'n,
That each Man goes
his own By-way to Heav'n.
Tenacious of Mistakes to that degree,
That ev'ry Man pursues it sep'rately,
And fancies none can find the Way but he:
So shy of one another they are grown,
As if they strove to get to Heav'n alone.
Rigid and Zealous, Positive and Grave,
And ev'ry Grace, but Charity, they have:
This makes them so Ill-natur'd and Ʋ ncivil,
That all Men think an
Englishman
the Devil.
Any one may perceive he's for voting an Act of
Comprehension,
and that he would all have the the straggling Sects whatsoever enjoy the same Privileges with those that are actually in common with the Establish'd Church; though by his saying they are
tenacious of mistakes,
he seems to conclude every different sort of Religion Practic'd in these Realms is
false,
and none but the phantastical Schemes he proposes to us as Matters of Faith,
true.
Surly to Strangers, Froward to their Friend;
Submit to Love with a reluctant Mind;
Resolv'd to be ungrateful and unkind.
If by Necessity reduc'd to ask,
The Giver has the difficultest Task:
For what's bestow'd they awkwardly receive,
And always Take less freely than they Give.
The Obligation is their highest Grief;
And never love, where they accept Relief.
So sullen in their Sorrows, that 'tis known,
They'll rather die than their Afflictions own:
And if reliev'd, it is too often true,
That they'll abuse their Benefactors too:
For in Distress their Haughty Stomach's such,
They hate to see themselves oblig'd too much.
Seldom contented, often in the wrong;
Hard to be pleas'd at all, and never long.
As for the Character he gives us in the beginning of this Paragraph, it's so inconsistent with an
English
Temper, that he needs nothing but his own Words to refute him;
and if we take less freely than we give,
it's a plain Argument against that lowness of Birth, he would tax us with, and shews our Generosity to be such, that we take more Pleasure in having our own Beneficences accepted, than to give our acceptance of those of others: Which is so far from any thing that tends to our disparagement, that it is a Vertue we ought to be priz'd above our Neighbours for, and an Excellence of that uncommon Nature, that makes us Superior to the rest of those Nations that People the World.
If your Mistakes their Ill Opinion gain,
No Merit can their Favour reobtain:
And if they're not Vindictive in their Fury,
'Tis their unconstant Temper does secure ye:
Their Brain's so cool, their Passion seldom burns;
For all's condens'd before the Flame returns:
The Fermentation's of so weak a Matter,
The Humid damps the Fume, and runs it all to Water.
So though the Inclination may be strong,
They're pleas'd by Fits, and never angry long.
If we are
inconstant in our Temper,
we should certainly, by the frequent changes it is guilty of, sometime or other fall into a
Vindictive
Fury, and resent Affronts which are put upon us; but if we are such Strangers to Passion, what a-murrain is become of the
Danish Fury,
and the
Porteguese Rage,
which he not long since said had such an Ascendant over us? And for the
Humid
to
damp the Fume,
he might have as well said, one moist thing adds moistness to another, which proceeds from no Antipathy of one different Quality to another, as he ignorantly would have it.
Then if Good Nature shows some slender proof,
They never think they have Reward enough:
But like our
Modern Quakers
of the Town,
Expect your Manners, and return you none.
The last Distich agrees very little with the first, and I find he's over-happy in making Similitudes; for if we are the Benefactors (which he call's
a slender Proof of good Nature
) it's our Business; to
receive
acknowledgments, and not
return
'em before any such thing is paid us.
Friendship,
th' abstracted Ʋ nion of the Mind,
Which all Men seek, but very few can find:
Of all the Nations in the Ʋ niverse,
None talk on't more, or understand it less:
For if it does their Property annoy,
Their Property their Friendship will destroy.
As I take it, Friendship is the Union of two distinct Minds, and not of one; neither is it an
Abstract
of Agreement, which is a sort of an Epitome of Happiness; but an
entire, perfect,
and
compleat
Enjoyment betwixt one Soul and another. And if we were so unhappy as to deserve the Character he gives, since very few Nations are Masters of this Friendship, we have this comfort, as to have a great many Countries (and amongst them perhaps his beloved
Dutchland
) who share with us in the want of it.
As you discourse them, you shall hear them tell
All things in which they think they do excel:
No Panegyrick needs their Praise record;
An
Englishman
ne'er wants his own good Word.
His first Discourses gen'rally appear
Prologu'd with his own wond
rous Character:
When, to illustrate his own good Name,
He never fails his Neighbour to defame:
And yet he really designs no wrong;
His Malice goes no further than his Tongue.
But pleas'd to Tattle, he delights to Rail,
To satisfie the Lech'ry of a Tale.
His own dear Praises close the ample Speech,
Tells you how Wise he is;
that is, how Rich:
For Wealth is Wisdom; he that's Rich is Wise;
And all Men Learned Poverty despise.
His Generosity comes next, and then
Concludes that he's a
True-born Englishman;
And they, 'tis known, are Generous and Free,
Forgetting, and Forgiving Injury:
Which may be true, thus rightly understood,
Forgiving Ill Turns, and Forgetting Good.
Were our Author an
Englishman,
as he would perswade us he is, he would have contradicted himself in this point, and been so far from giving himself his own good Word, that he would have shewn he had pick'd out the worst he could find in the whole
English
Vocabulary. But he is more partial than so, and being of another Nation, flings all the dirt that is possible upon us: Tho' I dare swear he is in the wrong, for charging our Rich Natives with boasting of their Riches, since 'tis manifest there is no People in the Universe, that are more cautious of having their Wealth known than the generality of Ours; witness the Numbers in this Kingdom that are possessed of vast Sums, and yet would have the World believe nothing like it. As for our
forgiving Ill Turns,
we thank him for the Character, and take it for our own, being in hopes he will apply that of
forgetting Good
to himself, since he has been so unthankful for the Favours he has receiv'd here, and so ungenerous as to return the Mercy of a Nation, who might have handed him very severely for his impious Writings, with so barbarous a Treatment.
Chearful in Labour when they've undertook it;
But out of Humour, when they're out of Pocket.
But if their Belly and their Pocket's full,
They may be Phlegmatick, but never Dull:
And if a Bottle does their Brains refine,
It makes their Wit as sparkling as their Wine.
His Satyr now bears the countenance of Panegyrick, and he has taken off the Scandal, he before fastened on us, of being a lazie People, by putting that of our being
chearful in Labour
in its room; and if a
Bottle refines our Brains,
and gives a spirituous influence to our
Wit,
it very much makes against his side, who has blamed us for diverting our selves over it.
As for the general Vices which we find
They're guilty of in common with Mankind,
Satyr,
forbear, and silently endure;
We must conceal the Crimes we cannot cure.
Nor shall my Verse the brighter Sex defame;
For
English
Beauty will preserve her Name.
Beyond dispute, Agreeable and Fair;
And Modester than other Nations are:
For where the Vice prevails, the great Temptation
Is want of Money, more than Inclination.
In general, this only is allow'd,
They're something Noisy, and a little Proud.
We have all manner of reason to thank him for his great condescension, in being graciously pleas'd to shew his compassion in concealing our Vices, after he has charged us with all the Devil could put in his Head; and, if he must not divulge the
crimes
he
cannot cure,
he has already broke through that prohibition, by making mention of so much as one single Fault, since very few Patients will accept of a Cure, where Old-Nick is known to be the Doctor. As for the Ladies, they are in his favour, though I question whether he will be in theirs, since to make them
Noisy
and
Proud
is enough to put them out of Humour.
An
Englishman
is gentlest in Command;
Obedience is a Stranger in the Land:
Hardly subjected to the Magistrate;
For
Englishmen
do all Subjection hate.
Humblest when Rich, but peevish when they're Poor;
And think whate'er they have, they merit more.
If an
Englishman
is
gentle in Command,
and does not curb in those who are put under him with too stiff a Rein, he is certainly praise-worthy, and is deservedly had in esteem: But if
Obedience be a Stranger, in the Land,
how comes it about that His present Majesty is own'd as such throughout all the Three Kingdoms. To be
humblest when rich,
is also a certain token of an innate Goodness; but to reconcile what follows with it, is beyond my Ability, since if their increase of Wealth is an increase of their Humility, they can never be unsatisfied, and think they merit more.
Shamwhig
pretends t' ha' serv'd the Government,
But baulk'd of due Reward, turns Malecontent.
For
English
Christians always have regard
To future Recompences of Reward.
His forfeit Liberty they did restore,
And gave him Bread, which he had not before.
But
True-born English Shamwig
lets them know,
His Merit must not lie neglected so.
As Proud as Poor, his Masters he'll defy;
And writes a
Piteous
Satyr in Praise of Folly and Knavery.
Satyr
upon
Honesty.
Some think the Poem had been pretty good,
If he the Subject had but understood.
He got Five Hundred Pence by this, and more,
As sure as he had ne'er a Groat before.
To call
Tutchin
a
Shamwig,
is directly to affirm, he has not half the ill Qualities of a
Whig,
as he would have him. For my part, I must own, I think he has the particular Characteristic of that Rebellious, and Whining Sect, if a Murmuring Genius, and an Unsatisfied Temper, can point him out as a Member of so scandalous a Society. But how two such Brothers in Iniquity, who so directly
Tally
in every thing, but their Opinion about Foreigners should fall out, that's a Riddle to me. Every Body knows
Tutchin
was deservedly order'd to be whip'd, through the West Country Market-Towns, and that he was set at Liberty, and entertain'd by some People of no small note after the Revolution, and how that he like a
True Whig,
and Villain, afterwards abus'd his Benefactors, by writing a
Satyr in Praise of Folly and Knavery,
incomparably better then his
True-Born Englishman,
but I never could hear any Body say
Tutchin
was worse then
T—d.
In Bus'ness next some Friends of his employ'd him;
And there he prov'd that Fame had not bely'd him:
His Benefactors quickly he abus'd,
And falsly to the Government accus'd:
But they, defended by their Innocence,
Ruin'd the Traytor in their own Defence.
This is also a Truth, which he has pick'd out of the
Reverse
which was an Answer to the
Foreigners,
and which, as I take it, intimates he had a Place given him at the Victualling-Office; but accusing the Commissioners before the Lords of the Admiralty, and not able to make out what he charg'd 'em with, he himself was divested of his own Post. By this the Author may perceive I am not so bad, and so abandon'd to Wickededness, as to be a Friend of
Tutchin
's, neither have I so little Judgment; as to have a good Opinion of the Person who rails at him.
Thus kick'd about from Pillars unto Posts,
He whets his Pen against the Lord of Hosts:
Burlesques his God and King in Paltry Rhimes:
Against the
Dutch
turns Champion for the Times;
And Huffs the King, upon that very score,
On which he Panegyrick'd him before.
It's natural for Men of both their Kidneys to change sides as occasion offers; and if
Tutchin
's design in writing the Foreigners, was only for the Good of his Nation, he was far enough from Huffing the King, who is an
English
Prince, since he Reigns over us, by taking part with the
English
who are the Subjects, that have stood by him with their Lives and Fortunes, and lost abundance of Treasure in his Defence, when the
Dutch
have been Gainers by the War.
Ʋ nhappy
England,
hast thou none but such,
To plead thy Scoundrel Cause against the
Dutch?
This moves their Scorn, and not their Indignation;
He that Lampoons the
Dutch,
Burlesques the Nation.
If
England
's be a
Scoundrel Cause,
for God's sake what must that of
Holland
be? And if we
move their scorn,
it's our own Fault, since we have had it in our power to
Command
their
Fear
; and might have
Lampoon'd the Dutch,
without
Burlesquing the Nation,
had we been so wise as to have less dealings with 'em.
The meanest
English
Plough-man Studies Law,
And keeps thereby the Magistrates in Awe:
Will boldly tell them what they ought to do,
And sometimes punish their Omissions too.
Certainly, he has been in
Wales,
or
Yorkshire,
by the Character he gives the Plough-men; and the Gentlemen of the long Robe have no Reason to thank him for casting such a Reflection on the
Study of the Law.
For their Part, those are wise Magistrates indeed that are kept in awe by 'em; and for mine, I have never heard of any such, but one City-Justice, and he has a
Shoe-Maker
to read Law to him.
Their Liberty and Property's so dear,
They scorn their Laws or Governors to fear:
So bugbear'd with the Name of Slavery,
They can't submit to their own Liberty.
Restraint from Ill is Freedom to the Wise;
But
Englishmen
do all Restraint despise.
Slaves to the Liquor, Drudges to the Pots,
The Mob are Statesmen, and their Statesmen Sots.
If he blames us for our Liberty and Property being dear to us, he cannot be a Friend to the late Revolution, which he would be taken for a Champion of; and he would do well to explain his unintelligible Assertion of our not being able to submit to our own Liberty: The next two Lines are applicable to no
Englishmen,
but those of his own Persuasion; and the Contents of 'em put in practice by no sort of Persons, but those who are under a perpetual uneasiness, and have the Impudence to call our
Statesmen Sots
; which reflects upon the Wisdom of him that made choice of 'em.
Their Governours they count such dangerous things,
That 'tis their custom to affront their Kings:
So jealous of the Power their Kings possess'd,
They suffer neither Power nor Kings to rest.
The Bad with Force they eagerly subdue,
The Good with constant Clamours they pursue:
And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too.
A discontented Nation, and by far
Harder to rule in Times of Peace than War:
Easily set together by the Ears,
And full of causeless Jealousies and Fears:
Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel,
And never are contented when they're well,
No Government cou'd ever please them long,
Cou'd tye their Hands, or rectify their Tongue.
In this to Ancient
Israel
well compar'd,
Eternal Murmurs are among them heard.
He goes on with the known Qualities of his own Sect, and being seemingly asham'd of owning 'em himself, flings 'em on those who have no manner of relation to 'em. He acknowledges there are but too many of this Temper in this Kingdom, and that Rebellion, Dissatisfaction, and the other Crimes he falsly Charges us with, has a Multitude of Disciples ready to side with either of 'em. But let us seek for the Fountain which gives Being to this Sea of Wickedness, and which for other causes then the River
Nile,
hides its Head, and we shall soon find the source of those mischiefs, that are our perpetual Disturbers, is on that side which he is the ungrateful Defender of.
It was but lately that they were opprest,
Their Rights invaded, and their Laws supprest:
When nicely tender of their Liberty,
Lord! What a Noise they made of Slavery.
In daily Tumults show'd their Discontent;
Lampoon'd their King, and mock
d his Government,
And if in Arms they did not first appear,
'Twas want of Force, and not for want of Fear.
In humbler Tone than
English
us
d to do,
At Foreign Hands for Foreign Aid they sue.
And where was the Harm to think our selves injur'd, if we really were; and to complain of Grievances, if we had a just cause for it? King
James
was led aside, and we did not make our Addresses to the
Dutch,
who treading in wrong Paths themselves could not set His Majesty in the right: but sent our Remonstrances over to the Princess and Prince of
Orange,
in order to let them know, whose principal Concern it was, that they had a Jealousie there was no fair Play going forward at the
English
Court. They addressed them in no humbler Tone, than was fitting to be made use of to Princes of their High Birth; and invited their Highnesses to
England,
not so much for want of Force, but because it was necessary that the Persons whose Concern it was to examine into the P— of
Wales
his Birth, should be at the Head of them to countenance what otherwise would have born the Face of a Rebellion.
William
the Great Successor of
Nassau,
Their Prayers heard, and their Oppressions saw:
He saw and sav'd them: God and Him they prais'd;
To This their Thanks, to That their Trophies rais'd.
But glutted with their own Felicities,
They soon their New Deliverer despise;
Say all their Prayers back, their Joy disown,
Ʋ nsing their Thanks, and pull their Trophies down:
Their Harp of Praise are on the Willows hung;
For
Englishmen
are ne'er contented long.
It is not our business to question what he says on His Majesty's part; and he says nothing on the part of the People but what is true, since they gave their Deliverer no other Thanks than those he deserv'd. But it's the greatest of Falshoods to say
we
soon despis'd him; when if any Sect of People were guilty of that piece of Ingratitude, those that call themselves Dissenters are the Persons, who are not satisfied of having a free Exercise of their Religion, according to the Dictates of their Conscience; but will murmur on till theirs is the Establish'd Faith, and their Meetings have the same Royal Authority in their behalf, as the Kirk of
Scotland
; which, I presume from His Majesty's great Knowledge of the Church-of-
England
Loyalty, will never come to pass.
The Rev'rend Clergy too! and who'd ha' thought
That they who had such Non-resistance taught,
Should e'er to Arms against their Prince be brought?
Who up to Heav'n did Regal Pow'r advance;
Subjecting
English
Laws to Modes of
France.
Twisting Religion so with Loyalty,
As one cou'd never live, and t'other dye.
And yet no sooner did their Prince design
Their Glebes and Perquisites to undermine,
But all their Passive-Doctrines laid aside;
The Clergy their own Principles deny'd:
Ʋ npreach'd their Non-Resisting Cant, and pray'd
To Heav'n for Help, and to the
Dutch
for Aid.
The Church chim'd all her Doctrines back again,
And Pulpit-Champions did the Cause maintain;
Flew in the face of all their former Zeal,
And Non-Resistance did at once repeal.
Non-Resistance in Things that are lawful, was the Doctrine of our Church; and the greatest part of our Clergy preached up Passive Obedience only where their Prince did not violate the Rights of his Subjects. A great number of them, I am well assured, would have suffered the greatest Extremities for the sake of their Religion; though when the Church-Lands were called in question, and the Possessors of them were likely to be forced from them; then
Judgment began at the House of God
; and a certain Time-server, who is in
his
Party's Interest, and lives not a Mile from the
Temple,
cut asunder the
Gordian
Knot which he had before made indissoluble; which does not at all affect the Church-of-
England
Loyalty, since that fulsome Harange-maker is looked upon as one of its rotten Members.
The
Rabbies
say it would be too prolix,
To tye Religion up to Politicks:
The Church's Safety is
Suprema Lex.
And so by a new Figure of their own,
Do all their former Doctrines disown.
As Laws
Post Facto
in the Parliament,
In urgent Cases having obtain'd Assent;
But are as dangerous Presidents laid by;
Made lawful only by Necessity.
The
Safety of the Church
is the Preservation of the Laws; and as the infringement of the Privileges of the one, is a downright violation of the other, so unless the Authority of Religion be kept up; and the Ministers of God's Holy Ordinances had in Reverence, the Statutes of the Kingdom will be but an ill Fence to restrain the Violence of Licentious Men, who will break in upon the other Laws, after they have destroy'd that which is their Fundamental.
The Rev'rend Fathers then in Arms appear,
And Men of God became the Men of War.
The Nation,
fir
d by them,
to Arms apply;
Assault their Antichristian Monarchy;
To their due Channel all our Laws restore,
And made things what they shou'd ha' been been before.
But when they came to Fill the Vacant Throne,
And the
Pale Priests
look'd back on what they had done;
How
English
Liberty began to thrive,
And Church-of-
England
Loyalty out-live:
How all their Persecuting Days were done,
And their Deliv'rer plac'd upon the Throne:
The Priests,
as Priests are wont to do,
turn'd Tail;
They're
Englishmen,
and
Nature will prevail.
Now they deplore the Ruines they ha' made,
And Murmur for the Master they Betray'd.
Excuse those Crimes they cou'd not make him mend;
And suffer for the Cause they can't defend.
Pretend they'd not ha' carry'd things so high;
And Proto-Martyrs make for Popery.
The Reflection which he designs upon the Lord Bishop of
London
(for none of our other Fathers in God took Arms on that occasion) is of so little force, that his Lordship has nothing to fear from it. His Lordship was suspended by an Ecclesiastical High Court which was unlawfully established, was under apprehensions of suffering every day worse and worse, and had every Misfortune to provide himself against, that either a Subject or a Christian ought to stand in fear of; and therefore is very much to be excused, though I don't vindicate taking Arms against a Sovereign. But the Priests whom he joins the Epithet of
Pale
to (meaning the Non-Jurants) are falsly traduced; they gave no more Assistance to the then Prince of
Orange,
than their Prayers for his Success, and their continued Vows to the Almighty to crown an Undertaking, for the sake of Religion, with an happy Issue. And notwithstanding they were Men of such tender Consciences, as not to be led by any hopes of Gain to take Oaths to a Prince, who was established in the Throne during the Life of the King they had sworn to, I am well persuaded they are so far from turning Martyrs for Popery, that no People whatsoever are more against that idolatrous Opinion than themselves.
Had the Prince done as they design'd the thing,
Ha' set the Clergy up
to rule the King;
Taken
a Donative
for coming hither,
And so ha' left their King and them together,
We had, say they, been now a happy Nation.
No doubt we had seen a Blessed Reformation:
For Wise Men say
t's as dangerous a thing,
A Ruling Priesthood, as a Priest-rid
King.
And of all Plagues with which Mankind are curst,
Ecclesiastick Tyranny's the worst.
It was not only the
Priest's
thoughts, that His present Majesty would have settled Affairs on their Ancient Establishment, and been contented with the Glory of rescuing Three Nations from Propery and Slavery, but his Majesty's own Intentions, as may be seen in his Declaration, in the year 1688. was agreeable to their thoughts; till the Parliament was so importunate with him to accept the Three, that he could not have refused them, without leaving the People he had freed to the same dangers they were before exposed to.
If all our former Grievances were feign'd,
King
James
has been abus'd, and we trepann'd;
Bugbear'd with Popery and Power Despotick,
Tyrannick Government, and Leagues Exotick:
The Revolution's a Phanatick Plot,
W—
a Tyrant,
S—
a Sot:
A Factious Army and a Poyson'd Nation,
Ʋ njustly forc'd King
James
's Abdication.
No true Protestant, I am perswaded, believes our Grievances were feign'd, but is heartily glad they are redress'd. However, though I have a greater Veneration for the Person and Merit of
W—
than to say he's a Ty---nt, I am ready to affirm one
S—
as I know (perhaps not the Person he means) guilty of a greater Crime than Sottishness, for betraying so kind a Master.
But if he did the Subjects Rights invade,
Then he was punish'd only, not betray'd:
And punishing of Kings is no such Crime,
But
Englishmen
ha' done it many a time.
I must needs acknowledge I don't understand the Doctrine of punishing Kings; though the Murder of good King
Charles
has been such a Barbarous Instance of it, that if Divine Punishment does not overtake the Authors of it, certainly there is no Vengeance in store for the vilest Offenders.
When Kings the Sword of Justice first lay down,
They are no Kings, though they possess the Crown.
Titles are Shadows, Crowns are empty things,
The Good of Subjects is the End of Kings;
To guide in War, and to protect in Peace:
Where Tyrants once commence, the King's do cease:
For Arbitrary Power's so strange a thing,
It makes the
Tyrant,
and unmakes the
King.
If Kings by Foreign Priests and Armies reign,
And Lawless Power against their Oaths maintain,
Then Subjects must ha' reason to complain.
If Oaths must bind us when our Kings do ill;
To call in Foreign Aid is to rebel.
By Force to circumscribe our Lawful Prince,
Is wilful Treason in the largest sense:
And they who once rebel, most certainly
Their God, and King, and former Oaths defy.
If we allow no Male-Administration
Could cancel the Allegiance of the Nation;
Let all our Learned
Sons of Levi
try,
This Eccles'astick Riddle to unty:
How they could make a Step to Call the Prince,
And yet pretend to Oaths and Innocence.
If I mistake not, the two first Lines in this Paragraph are not clear from Exceptions; for according to the rules of common sense, whether a King reigns justly or unjustly, he is nevertheless a King, beyond all dispute, while he sits upon the Throne. But great Disputants are sometimes out in their Consequences; therefore I shall skip over the rest of his Argument, as what is heard every day over Coffee and Tea, and examine into the last Verses, which seem to bear all the strength of Reason he is capable of mustring up. If we may call a Person to the Relief of a Kingdom, without any design of presenting him with the Throne of it, as certainly we may, there is no question but the People who called him, are innocent, and free from the breach of their Oath to their then Sovereign; since to take up Arms is one thing, and to petition for Assistance to remove Priests, and Evil Counsellours, another.
By th' first Address they made beyond the Seas,
They're per
ur'd in the most intense Degrees;
And without Scruple for the time to come,
May swear to all the Kings in
Christendom.
And truly did our Kings consider all,
They'd never let the Clergy swear at all:
Their Politick Allegiance they'd refuse;
For Whores and Priests do never want excuse.
Perjury is the Violation of an Oath, taken after a serious and premeditated manner; but to break an Oath of Allegiance to one King, without swearing to another, makes it impossible that the
Non-juring
Clergy should fall under the Censure of so notorious a piece of impiety. However, the whole Fraternity, Swearers or Non-swearers, are extraordinarily oblig'd to their good Friend, Mr.
Author,
who makes them as ready, if they are in the wrong, to prove themselves in the right; and as good at furnishing themselves with Excuses, as a thorough-paced Whore before a Magistrate, or a venerable Hypocritical Bawd before one of the
Society for Reformation of Manners.
A great token of the respect he has for God's Ministers.
But if the
Mutual Contract
was dissolv'd,
The Doubt's explain'd, the Difficulty solv'd:
That Kings when they descend to Tyranny,
Dissolve the Bond, and leave the Subjects free.
The Government's ungirt when Justice dies,
And Constitutions are Non-Entities.
It is impossible Justice should die, while the Fountain of it is living: The Chanels through which it passes may be choak'd up for a time; but as long as there is wherewithal to feed it at the Spring-head, can never wholly be stop'd.
The Nation's all a Mob, there's no such thing
As Lords or Commons, Parliament or King.
A great promiscuous Crowd the Hydra lies,
Till Laws revive, and mutual Contract ties:
A Chaos free to chuse for their own share,
What Case of Government they please to wear:
If to a King they do the Reins commit,
All Men are bound in Conscience to submit:
But then that King must by his Oath assent
To
Postulata
's of the Government;
Which if he breaks, be cuts off the Entail,
And Power retreats to its Original.
The design of this Paragraph, is to shew, that the Kingly Power is the Gift of the Subjects, and that whenever a Prince fails in the Duty of his Office, the People may recal their Gift, and bestow the Crown on whom they please. This Doctrine might do very well in
Poland,
amongst the
Radziouskies
and
Potoskies,
who are for an Elective Kingdom; but never will suit with a Nation, whose Kingdom has been Hereditary upwards of six hundred years, and always went to the next Heir of course, notwithstanding the defects of the King, for the time being, might occasion his Dethronement.
This Doctrine has the Sanction of Assent,
From Nature's Ʋ niversal Parliament.
The Voice of Nations, and the Course of Things,
Allow that Laws superior are to Kings.
None but Delinquents would have Justice cease,
Knaves rail at Laws, as Soldiers rail at Peace:
For Justice is the End of Government,
As Reason is the Test of Argument.
If Laws are superiour to Kings, the
Creature
may pretend a Sovereignty over the
Creator,
since they are the product of their Royal Assent, and never capable of being put in Force without their approbation: The Potsherd may as well say to the Potter, Wherefore hast thou made me? as the Law put a Question to the King, and ask him, Why hast thou done thus?
No Man was ever yet so void of Sense,
As to debate the Right of Self-Defence;
A Principle so grafted in the Mind,
With Nature born, and does like Nature bind:
Twisted with Reason, and with Nature too;
As neither one nor t'other can undo.
Self-Defence
is acknowledg'd by Universal Consent for the Voice of Nature, and enjoin'd by her Laws to be put in Practice; that is, upon any sudden Attack of an Enemy, or any causeless Provocation that may be given us, to take care of our selves. But the Divine Law which is superior to it, and commands us
not to lift up our Hand against the Lord's Anointed
; prohibits us to call Rebellion
Self-Defence
; and ev'n Humane Ordinance allows Kings to be the Head of their People, and not liable to the Censure of those that are inferiour to 'em.
Nor can this Right be less when National;
Reason which governs one, should govern all.
Whate're the Dialect of Courts may tell,
He that his Right demands, can ne'er rebel.
Which Right, if 'tis by Governors deny'd,
May be procur'd by Force, or Foreign Aid.
For
Tyranny
's a Nation's Term for Grief;
As Folks cry
Fire,
to hasten in Relief.
And when the hated word is heard about,
All Men shou'd come to help the People out.
That would be pretty indeed, and we should have a hopeful Nation of it, should the same Reason, or rather want of it, which
governs him, govern all.
Every one would cry such a Post of Honour was his Right; and if the King should deny him the Grant of it, Rebellion would be the next Word; and every Fool would cry Fire, on purpose to make his Neighbour as wise as himself.
S.
Serjeants
when a Pris'ner they've beset
Cry out
stop Thief,
when all the Theft is Debt
Thus
England
groan'd,
Britannia
's Voice was heard;
And Great
Nassau
to rescue her, appear'd:
Call'd by the Ʋ niversal Voice of Fate;
God and the Peoples Legal Magistrate.
Ye Heav'ns regard! Almighty
Jove
look down,
And view thy Injur'd Monarch on the Throne.
On their Ʋ ngrateful Heads due Vengeance take,
Who sought his Aid, and then his part forsake.
Witness, ye Powers! It was Our Call alone,
Which now our Pride makes us asham'd to own.
Britannia
's Troubles fetch'd him from afar,
To court the dreadful Casualties of War:
But where Requital never can be made,
Acknowledgment's a Tribute seldom paid.
That is as much as to say, after his own way of expressing himself,
England
cry'd Fire
,
and a Neighbour came in an instant, and quench'd it, and receiv'd the House, and all the Furniture for his Pairs. Not that I would detract from the Debt of Gratitude, which will be ever due to His Majesty; but I Question not but His Majesty holds himself contented with the large Acknowledgments of both Houses of Parliament. Since 700000
per Annum
more than the Crown Revenue, is a Gift never given to any Prince before, though this Impudent Author in defrance of the Donors, calls down for Vengeance on their ungrateful Heads.
He dwelt in Bright
Maria
's Circling Arms,
Defended by the Magick of her Charms,
From Foreign Fears, and from Domestick Harms.
Ambition found no Fuel for her Fire,
He had what God cou'd give, or Man desire.
Till
Pity
z'd him from his soft Repose,
His Life to unseen Hazards to expose:
Till
Pity
mov'd him in our Cause t' appear;
Pity!
That Word which now we hate to hear.
But
English
Gratitude is always such,
To hate the Hand which does oblige too much.
No Body doubts but the late Queen of Blessed Memory, was an inestimable Present to His Majesty; but to say, he
had all that God could give
in the Possession of Her, was to set Bounds to the Power of the Deity, and say unto the Almighty, Hither couldst thou go, and no farther. A thought too big for him that made use of it, and too little for that Infinite Being for whom he made use of it.
Britannia
's Cries gave Birth to his Intent,
And hardly gain'd his unforeseen Assent:
His boding Thoughts foretold him he should find.
The People Fickle, Selfish, and Ʋ nkind.
Which Thought did to his Royal Heart appear
More dreadful than the Dangers of the War:
For nothing grates a Generous Mind so soon,
As base Returns for hearty Service done.
I don't believe His present Majesty's Assent was so unforeseen as our Author would have it; neither can it enter into my thoughts, that his Majesty's thoughts foretold to him, that we are a
fickle, selfish,
and
unkind
sort of People; since his Majesty would not have thought it worth his while to accept of the Government of a Kingdom, he foresaw he should be uneasie in; or yield to the repeated desires of such Petitioners, as would be unthankful for the Grant of their Request.
Satyr, be silent,
awfully prepare
Britannia
's Song, and
William
's Praise to hear.
Stand by, and let her chearfully rehearse
Her Grateful Vows in her Immortal Verse.
Loud Fame's Eternal Trumpet let her sound;
Listen ye distant Poles, and endless Round.
May the strong Blast the welcome News convey
As far as Sound can reach, or Spirit fly.
To
Neighb'ring Worlds,
if such there be, relate
Our Hero's Fame, for theirs to imitate.
To distant Worlds of Spirits let her rehearse:
For Spirits without the helps of Voice converse.
May Angels hear the gladsome News on high,
Mixt with their everlasting Symphony.
And Hell it self stand in suspence to know
Whether it be the Fatal Blast, or no.
That Injunction's well enough! And the Whore, his Satyrical Muse, has exhausted her Magazine of Venome so much, that 'tis time her Draggle-tail-ship should have a Holiday for silence. But the Panygerical Lady is the Devil and all for her part, she cannot Quaver a Note, unless both the
Poles
give their Attention, and loud Fame lends her a Trumpet to sound her bombast unmusical Notes in. As for the Subject's part, it deserves a better hand to undertake it: And as for the Undertaker, one would think that a worse part might be more fit for him. However, let us hear what Words he puts in
Britannia
's Mouth; tho'
Hell
's acquainted with his way of Sounding too well to take it for the last
Fatal Blast.
BRITANNIA.
The Fame of Virtue 'tis for which I sound,
And Heroes with Immortal Triumphs crown'd.
Fame built on solid Virtue swifter flies,
Than Morning Light can spread my
Eastern
Skies.
The gath'ring Air returns the doubling Sound,
And loud repeating Thunders force it round:
Ecchoes return from Caverns of the Deep:
Old Chaos dreams on't in Eternal Sleep.
Time hands it forward to its latest Ʋ rn,
From whence it never, never shall return,
Nothing is heard so far, or lasts so long;
'Tis heard by ev'ry Ear, and spoke by ev'ry Tongue.
The Trumpeter's out of Tune at the first Note; that is, he has no manner of Musick in the first Line, which is discouragement enough to give any farther attention: But since the
Winds,
and the
Poles,
and the
Endless Round,
wait his Motions, it will be presumptious in us not to do the same. So—now 'tis a comical sort of a sound indeed—the Devil-a-bit of any Eccho comes from it, which is the Beauty of Musick; it has taken a flight into Old
Time's
long Ears, which though they are hollow enough to return any manner of Voice; yet the Miser is of so greedy a Temper, as to keep it all to himself.
My Hero, with the Sails of Honour furl'd,
Rises like the Great Genius of the World.
By Pate and Fame wisely prepar'd to be
The Soul of War, and Life of Victory.
He spreads the Wings of Vertue on the Throne,
And ev'ry
Wind of Glory
fans them on.
Immortal Trophies dwell upon his Brow,
Fresh as the Garlands he has worn but now.
Sweet!
The Sails of Honour furl'd,
shews a vast reach of Thought, and an exuberancy of Fancy! though I know the meaning of it no more than him that wrote it. But they are Words, and that's enough; for it's uncivil to expect more, when he is made up of nothing else.
Fans them on,
too, is a very elegant Expression; though he does our Great and Good King very little Service by the Wind he raises for him.
By different Steps the high Ascent he gains,
And differently that high Ascent maintains.
Prime for Pride and
Lust of Rule
make War,
And struggle for the Name of Conqueror.
Some fight for Fame, and some for Victory.
He Fights to Save, and Conquers to set Free.
All this is to be confessed, and that's a Madman who will not own it, though I believe His Majesty has those Heroick Vertues in him, as to love the Name of a Conqueror, at the same time that he sets us
Free,
since none but a Conqueror can deserve that Glorious Appellation.
Then seek no Phrase his Titles to conceal,
And bide with Words what Actions must reveal.
No Parallel from
Hebrew
Stories take,
Of God-like Kings my Similies to make:
No borrow'd Names conceal my living Theam;
But Names and Things directly I proclaim.
'Tis honest Merit does his Glory raise;
Whom that exalts, let no Man fear to praise.
Of such a Subject no Man need be shy;
Virtue's above the Reach of Flattery.
He needs no Character but his own Fame,
Nor any flattering Titles, but his Name.
If
Phrases conceal
His Majesty's
Titles,
it may be taken for granted our Poetical Man of Prose, or rather our Prosaical Man of Poetry, has published more than is consistent with the true sense of him. Since to say, he'll directly proclaim Names and Thing of Him, when he takes care to speak very little of either, is as much as to say,
Your Majesty's gracious Favours will be an Encouragement for me to speak more.
William
's the Name that's spoke by ev'ry Tongue:
William
's the Darling Subject of my Song.
Listen ye Virgins to the Charming Sound,
And in Eternal Dances hand it round:
Your early Offerings to this Altar bring;
Make him at once a Lover and a King.
May he submit to none but to your Arms;
Nor ever be subdu'd,
but by your Charms.
May your soft Thoughts for him be all sublime;
And ev'ry tender Vow be made for him.
May he be first in ev'ry Morning-thought,
And Heav'n ne'er hear a Pray'r
where he's left out.
May ev'ry Omen, ev'ry boding Dream,
Be
Fortunate
by mentioning his Name.
May this one Charm Infernal Powers affright,
And guard you from the Terrors of the Night.
May ev'ry chearful Glass as it goes down
To
William
's Health,
be Cordials to your own.
Let ev'ry Song be Chorust with his Name.
And Musick pay her Tribute to his Fame.
Let ev'ry Poet tune his Artful Verse,
And in Immortal Strains his Deeds rehearse.
And may
Apollo
never more inspire
The Disobedient Bard with his Seraphick Fire.
May all my Sons their grateful Homage pay;
His Praises sing, and for his Safety pray.
The Reader will infallibly conclude with me, that
William
is a Name too good for his hoarse Instrument, that sounds more like a
Lancashire
Horn-Pipe than a Trumpet; and that the
Virgins
may
listen
to
Eternity,
and not hear such a thing come from him as a
Charming Sound.
But I am amaz'd to see him turn
Pimp,
while he is lab'ring at the painful Vocation of a
Panegyrist,
and seek out for
Maidenheads
for His Majesty, after having offer'd up his Wishes that he may be a
Lover
as well as a King. How
soft Thoughts
can be
sublime
without altering the property, I confess I am to seek: And the next is the uncharitablest Wish imaginable,
viz.
that
Heav'n should ne'er hear a Prayer where his Name is left out
; since we ought to pray for our Enemies: And some disaffected People who don't own His present Majesty for their King, without doubt pray for
Another.
But this is the most diverting Passage of All, after he has blamed the Men for taking a Cup so freely, he encourages the
Ladies
to take a
chearful
Glass, and drink about as a sort of a Cordial for them.
Satyr return to our Ʋ nthankful Isle,
Secur'd by Heav'n's Regard, and
William
's Toil.
To both Ʋ ngrateful, and to both Ʋ ntrue;
Rebels to God, and to Good Nature too.
Saytyr may return, if it pleases; but no body will take notice of its scandalous Appearance. How we have been either ungrateful or untrue to our King and Country, may be seen by the large Summs we have advanced for the Service of both.
If e'er this Nation he distress'd again,
To whomsoe'er they cry, they'll cry in vain.
To Heav'n they cannot have the Face to look;
Or if they should, it would but Heaven provoke.
To hope for Help from Man would be too much;
Mankind would always tell 'em of the
Dutch:
How they came here our Freedoms to maintain,
Were
Paid,
and
Curs'd,
and
Hurry'd home again.
How, by their Aid, we first dissolv'd our Fears,
And then our Helpers damn'd for Foreigners.
'Tis not our
English
Temper to do better;
For
Englishmen
think ev'ry Man their Debtor.
That is more than he knows; Six hundred thousand pounds is a great deal of Money; and there are People in the World would jump at it once more, should we have occasion for their Assistance. And the best Instance that can be thought on to prevail with any of our Neighbours, will be, that we
paid
the
Dutch
before we
sent them home again.
As for Abuses upon us for
damning them for Foreigners,
'twas done by Vote of Parliament, and had the King's own Royal Assent to it; and if he has any thing to remonstrate it, against the
Sixth of February
is near at Hand, when he may see what thanks our Senators will give him, for finding fault with their wise Consulation.
'Tis worth observing, that we ne're complain'd
Of Foreigners, nor of the Wealth they gain'd,
Till all their Services were at an End.
Wise men affirm it is the
English
way,
Never to Grumble till they come to Pay;
And then they always think their Temper's such,
The Work too little, and the Pay too much.
That Observation is a very wrong one, to my Knowledge; for the
Dutch
were found fault with some Years before the Peace, though we stood in need of Troops for our
Quota
toward the War, and 'twas more adviseable to pay Foreigners which were
Veterane
Troops, than raise new ones of raw and unexperienc'd Natives.
As frighted Patients, when they want a Cure,
Bid any Price, and any Pain endure:
But when the Doctor's Remedies appear,
The Cure's too Easy, and the Price too Dear.
We never thought that we
paid
the
Dutch too much,
though they were of such an unsatisfied Temper, as to think it too little; so that his Simile is very little to the purpose, that relates to the
Doctor
and his
Patients.
Great
Portland
ne'er was banter'd, when he strove
For Ʋ s his Master's kindest Thoughts to move.
We ne'er Lampoom'd his Conduct, when employ'd
King
James
's Secret Councils to divide:
Then we caress'd him as the only Man,
Which could the Doubtful Oracle explain:
The only
Hushia
able to repel.
The Dark Designs of
our Achitophel.
Compar'd his Master's Courage to his Sense;
The Ablest Statesman, and the Bravest Prince,
On his Wise Conduct we depended much,
And lik'd him ne'er the worse for being
Dutch,
Nor was he valued more than he deserv'd;
Freely he ventur'd, faithfully he serv'd.
In all King
William
's Dangers he has shar'd;
In
England
's Quarrels always he appear'd:
The
Revolution
first, and then the
Boyne;
In Both his Counsels and his Conduct shine.
His Martial Valour
Flanders
will confess;
And
France Regrets
his Managing the Peace.
Faithful to
England
's Interest and her King:
The greatest Reason of our Murmuring.
Ten Years in
English
Service he appear'd,
And gain'd his Master's and the World's Regard:
But 'tis not
England
's Custom to Reward.
The Wars are over,
England
needs him not;
Now he's a
Dutchman,
and
the Lord knows what.
Great Portland
at the time of the Revolution, was plain
Myn Heer Bentnick,
and Possess'd no Place which
Englishmen
were wont to be Masters of; so that he gave no occasion of murmuring to a People, who stand mightily upon their Birth-Right. And no Body questions but he perform'd his Embassy in
France,
with an Extraordinary Conduct, but we never caress'd him as the
only Man
sit for so great an Employment; being well satisfy'd that his Lordship, notwithstanding his great Abilities, has those who are Natives of this Kingdom, that can equal him. But I shall never be of the Opinion, that
France regrets his managing the Peace,
till what pass'd between his Lordship, and the Duke
de Boufflers,
be made publick, which perhaps may lead me into a lower esteem of the
French
Politicks; and
England
(
though 'tis not her Custom to reward
) has recompenc'd that
Noble Peer
's Services, by giving his Royal Master such an addition to the Crown-Revenue, as to enable him to make his Lordship what returns His Majesty shall think fitting.
Schonbergh,
the Ablest Soldier of his Age,
With
Great Nassau
did in our Cause engage:
Both join'd for
England
's Rescue and Defence;
The Greatest Captain, and the Greatest Prince.
With what Applause his Stories did we tell?
Stories which
Europe
's Volumes largely swell,
We counted him an Army in our Aid:
Where he commanded, no Man was afraid.
His Actions with a constant Conquest shine,
From
Villa-Vitiosa
to the Rhine.
France, Flanders, Germany,
his Fame confess;
And all the World was fond of him, but Ʋ s.
Our Turn first serv'd, we grudg'd him the Command.
Witness the Grateful Temper of the Land.
If he means the old Mareschal
de Schonberg,
(as certainly he must by what he relates of him) he's very much in the dark as to his Knowledge; for that General was never Ill spoken of by the People of
England
; but deservedly counted next His Majesty, their support in time of War: Or if he would have us understand him, as to the Present Duke his Son, and
Generalissimo
of the Forces in
England,
whose Post has cheifly been since the Reduction of
Ireland
here in
England
; and who has been so far from extending his Conquests from
Villa-Vitioso to the Rhine,
though without question he has Courage and Conduct to do it enough, if Opportunity should offer, tho' I never heard his Grace had orders to attempt any thing, but the taking
Furnes,
and
Dixmude.
Some malicious People perhaps have spoken disrespectfully of him; but it's so far from being a natural affront put upon him, that it's nothing else but the Resentments of some Soldiers under his Command.
We blame the K— that he relies too much
On Strangers,
Germans, Hugonots,
and
Dutch;
And seldom does his great Affairs of State,
To
English
Counsellors Communicate.
The Fact might very well be answer'd thus;
He has so often been betray'd by us,
He must have been a Madman to rely
On
English
G—ns Fidelity.
For laying other Arguments aside,
This Thought might mortify our
English
Pride,
That Foreigners have faithfully obey'd him
And none but
Englishmen
have e'er betray him.
They have our Ships and Merchants bought and sold,
And barter'd
English
Blood for Foreign Gold.
First to the
French
they sold our
Turky
-Fleet,
And Injur'd
Talmash
next at
Camaret.
The King himself is shelter'd from their Snares,
Not by his Merit, but the Crown he wears.
Experience tell us 'tis the
English
way,
Their Benefactors alway to betray.
Without doubt His Majesty would find himself more assur'd of the Hearts, and Purses of his
English
Subjects, (if it could be possible) if none but They were admitted into His Majesty's Council, in relation to
English
Affairs. For certainly a reliance on their Fidelity, who have run all Hazards, ventur'd their Lives and Fortunes, and every thing that was dear to them for his Service, would not be improper at a juncture of Time when the Hearts and Purses of those Subjects may be very necessary. I know of no
English-man
in a Place of Trust that has betray'd Him;
ut in His Majesty's younger Days in
Holland,
there were
De Wits
who would, had not Providence hind'red their Designs: And as for the Loss of the
Turkey-Fleet,
and the brave General
Talmash,
few Men of Understanding but know both those unhappy Miscarriages lie at a Country's door, who have no great Aversion to Herrings and Butter.
And lest Examples should be too remote,
A Modern Magistrate of Famous Note,
Shall give you his own History by Rote.
I'll make it out, deny it he that can,
His Worship is a True-born
Englishman,
In all the Latitude that Empty Word
By Modern Acceptation's understood.
The Parish-Books his Great Descent record,
And now he hopes e're long to be a Lord.
And truly as things go, it wou'd be pity
But such as he bore Office in the City:
While Robb'ry for Burnt-Offering he brings,
And gives to God what he has stole from Kings:
Great Monuments of Charity he raises,
And good
St. Magnus
whistles out his Praises.
To City-Gaols he grants a Jubilee,
And hires Huzza's from his own Mobile.
Lately he wore the Golden Chain and Gown,
With which equipt he thus harangu'd the Town.
If our Author was capable of blushing, he might exert that Faculty now, when he is going to abuse a Gentleman, whose Name is as Ancient as that of most Families, and who has advanc'd his Reputation and his Wealth to such a degree, that never
London
-Magistrate acquir'd such deserved Esteem, during the Execution of his Office, and never one went out of it with more good Wishes, and
Money,
after he had bestow'd so much in Charitable Uses. But as these Calumnies were written on purpose to lessen the Number of those who had espous'd his Party, against the ensuing Election for Members of Parliament for the City, and the Author of it was in Fee with that scandalous, hypocritical Sect, that gave Bills out against him: So Sir
Charles Duncomb
has the less to be concern'd at, from the known Partiality and Inveteracy of those that are his Enemies; and may stand secur'd of those Rewards for his Good Works, which no Hireling-Scribler can detract from; and which shall deduce his Name to Posterity, when such a Fellow as the Author represents himself to be, shall not be known so much as to have been born.
Sir
C----s D----b
's Fine Speech,
&c.
WIth Clouted Iron Shooes and Sheepskin Breeches,
More Rags than Manners, and more Dirt than Riches:
From driving Cows and Calves to
Layton
-Market,
While of my Greatness there appear'd no Spark yet,
Behold I come, to let you see the Pride
With which Exalted Beggars always ride.
'Tis well known to all People, who have any knowledge of the Gentleman he insolently spits his Venom at, that his Father had not wherewithal to educate him, as his sprightly Genius deserv'd; yet he was so far from making him a
Cow-Driver,
which sort of People are seldom thought to write and read, that he had all the Education necessary for one who being born to no great Matters of Possession, was one day to launch out into the World to make his Fortune.
Born to the Needful Labours of the Plough,
The Cart-Whip grace't me as the Chain does now.
Nature and Fate in doubt what course to take,
Whether I shou'd a Lord or Plough-Boy make;
Kindly at last resolv'd they wou'd promote me,
And first
a Knave,
and then
a Knight
they vote me.
What Fate appointed, Nature did prepare,
And furnishd me with an exceeding Care.
To fit me for what they design'd to have me;
And ev'ry Gift
but Honesty
they gave me.
Lyars, they say, ought to have good Memories, and the Poet should have bethought himself of his making Sir
Charles
a Cow-driver in the preceding Paragraph, before he made him a
Carter
in this; else he must never expect the Character of a Man of
exceeding Care,
which he has given a Person that deserves it without an
Irony.
And thus Equipt, to this Proud Town I came,
In quest of Bread, and not in quest of Fame.
Blind to my future Fate, an humble Boy,
Free from the
Guilt and Glory
I enjoy.
The Hopes which my Ambition entertain'd,
Were in the Name of
Foot-Boy
all contain'd.
The Greatest Heights from Small Beginnings rise;
The Gods were Great on Earth, before they reach'd the Skies.
If he had not been Equip'd otherwise than our Author would have him, and been furnished with Honesty which all Persons, who have had any dealing him are ready to testifie, yet even then he had exceeded him that makes his Speech for him, and all his fancied Acquirements. And if to come up to Town in order to advance his Fortunes, may fall under the diminutive way of Business, that Men follow who are in
Quest of Bread
then every Clergyman, Physician, and Person of other Creditable Callings may fall under the same imputation.
B---well,
the Generous Temper of whose Mind,
Was always to be bountiful inclin'd:
Whether by his Ill Fate or Fancy led,
First took me up, and furnish'd me with Bread.
The little Services he put me to,
Seem'd Labours rather than were truly so.
But always my Advancement be design'd;
For twas his very Nature to be kind.
Large was his Soul, his Temper ever Free;
The best of Masters and of Men to me.
And I who was before decreed by Fate,
To be made Infamous as well as Great,
With an obsequious Diligence obey'd him,
Till trusted with his All,
and then betray'd him.
Sir
Charles D—mb
has often made appear, that he was never ungrateful for the Kindnesses he receiv'd of Alderman
Backwell,
and is ready to own him now in the midst of his Prosperity, for the first, and some occasion of his rising in the World. And if the Alderman was His Master (as possibly he might, though not in the low Station the Poetaster fixes him in) it's a sign he was an Excellent and Faithful Servant, or a Man of that Famous Banker's Penetrancy of Judgment, and cautious way of Proceeding, would never have
trusted him with his All.
All his past Kindesses I trampled on,
Ruin'd his Fortunes to erect my own.
So Vipers in the Bosom bred, begin
To hiss at that Hand first which took them in.
With eager Treach'ry I his Fall pursu'd,
And my first Trophies were
Ingratitude.
If he had ruin'd his Fortunes, the Son of that Honest and unhappy Bankrupt would have shewn his Resentments for it. But Mr.
B------ll
who is now living, is satisfy'd of other things, and none at this time has a greater respect for Sir
Charles D---mb,
and visits him oftner in the Country upon all Occasions.
Ingratitude
's the worst of Human Guilt,
The basest Action Mankind can commit;
Which like the Sin against the Holy Ghost,
Has least of Honour, and of Guilt the most.
Distinguish'd from all other Crimes but this,
That 'tis a Crime which no Man would confess.
That Sin alone, which shou'd not be forgiv'n
On Earth, altho perhaps it may in Heav'n.
We have nothing to urge in defence of the Sin of Ingratitude, or to speak in behalf of any Person who is guilty of it; but when it is apply'd to a Gentleman who has it not in his Temper to Reward Good with Evil, we should be guilty of the Sin our selves, should we not stand up in his Vindication. The Sin against the Holy Ghost is
unpardonable,
and is the highest Offence any Human Being can commit; but he makes a Comparison between it and Ingratitude which is Venial with God and Man, which shews he does not rightly understand the Nature of the Crime he writes about.
Thus my first Benefactor I o'rethrew;
And how shou'd I be to a second true?
The Publick Trust came next into my Care,
And I to use them scurvily prepare:
My Needy Sov'reign Lord I play'd upon,
And Lent him many a Thousand of his own;
For which, great Int'rest I took care to Charge,
And so my Ill-got Wealth became so large.
That is as much as to say he
Broke the Alderman's Back by not holding it
; when 'tis apparently true King
Charles
the 2d's shutting up the Exchequer was the Cause of it; and he had never been forc'd out of his Native Country by his Creditors, had not his Faithful Services been overbalanc'd by the Treachery of some Persons who manag'd his then Soveraign's Treasury. I believe the Author is no great Conjurer of a Grammarian by making the word
Them
which is of the
Plural
Number, agree with
Publick Trust,
which is certainly the
Singular
; but to take notice of his Faults and Incoherences that way, would Employ us too much; and 'tis so well known that when Sir
Charles
farm'd one of the Crown Revenues, no Person that ever manag'd a Place of Trust, behav'd himself more to the Satisfaction of his King and Country than himself.
My Predecessor
Judas
was a Fool,
Fitter to ha' been whipt and sent to School,
Than Sell a Saviour: had I been at hand,
His Master had not been so Cheap Trepann'd;
I wou'd ha' made the eager
Jews
ha' found,
For Thirty Pieces, Thirty thousand Pound.
This is a High Rant indeed! The Poet might have as well Compar'd himself to one of the most
Faithful
among the Apostles, as the Gentleman whose good Name he takes such Liberty with, to the most
Faithless.
My Cousin
Ziba,
of Immortal Fame,
(Ziba
and I shall never want a Name:
)
First-born of Treason, nobly did advance
His Master's Fall for his Inheritance.
By whose keen Arts old
David
first began
To break his Sacred Oath to
Jonathan:
The Good Old King, 'tis thought, was very loath
To break his Word, and therefore broke his Oath.
Ziba
's a Traytor of some Quality,
Yet
Ziba
might have been inform'd by me:
Had I been there, he ne're had been content
With half th' Estate, nor half the Government.
The Person whom he rail's at under the Name of
Ziba,
has so signaliz'd himself in his Services to the
English
Government, that his envious Reflections on him, return upon himself; and without doubt if the
King was loath to break his Word,
he would have had some scruple at
breaking
his Oath, since Perjury is a Crime infinitely greater, than the Breach of a Promise.
In our late Revolution 'twas thought strange,
That I of all mankind shou'd like the Change:
But they who wonder
d at it, never knew,
That in it I did my Old Game pursue:
Nor had they heard of Twenty thousand Pound,
Which ne're was lost, yet never cou'd be found
The Report this Paragraph is grounded upon, is as false as Hell, and Sir
Charles
was so far from getting such a large Sum by the Revolution, that it's well known to some Persons who are more Acquainted with him than the Author, he lost considerably by several belonging to the Court of St.
Germains.
Yet he Valued the Interest of the Country he was born in, more than his own, and Rejoyced at his present Majesty's Accession to the Throne, purely out of a Principle of Love to the
Kingdom,
not because he had out-witted the
King.
Thus all things in their turn to Sale I bring,
God and my Master first and then the King
Till by successful Villanies made bold,
I thought to turn the Nation into Gold;
And so to Forg--y my Hand I bent,
Not doubting I could gull the Government;
But there was ruffl'd by the Parliament.
And if I 'scap'd th' Ʋ nhappy Tree to climb,
'Twas want of Law, and not for want of Crime.
The very Vote of the
House of Commons,
which has been Printed by his Enemies to hinder his Election in the City speaks otherwise; and tho' there were not a few who gap'd more after his large Possessions than the good of their Fellow Subjects, the Wisdom of the Parliament thought fit to drop the Pursuit of the Matter, notwithstanding an Enemy of his who was against Reassumptions, and is now above being a Member of the House, push'd on the Matter in Dispute as far as possible. And if such a Crime as
Forgery
could have been prov'd against him, there was Law enough at that time in Force against him, and they would scarce have put Themselves to the trouble of Voting for a new Act of Parliament for him.
But my
The Devil.
Old Friend,
who printed in my Face
A needful Competence of
English
Brass,
Having more business yet for me to do,
And loth to lose his Trusty Servant so,
Manag'd the matter with such Art and Skill,
As sav'd his Hero, and threw out the B--l.
If the Devil stood Sir
Charles
's Friend, and hinder'd the Bill from passing; the Parliament of Consequence must have been influenc'd by him. Which is a very disrespectful Reflection on so venerable an Assembly.
And now I'm grac'd with unexpected Honours,
For which I'll certainly abuse the Donors:
Knighted and made a Tribune of the People,
Whose Laws and Properties I'm like to keep well:
The
Custos Rotulorum
of the City,
And Captain of the Guards of their
Banditti.
Surrounded by my Catchpoles, I declare
Against the Needy Debtor open War.
I hang poor Thieves for stealing of your Pelf,
And suffer none to rob you but my self.
Sir
Charles
no more made an Interest to be dubb'd a Knight, than he did to be made a Sheriff; but since it was His Majesty's and the Cities Pleasure, that he should have those
unexpected Honours
conferr'd on him, he was ready to do what lay in his Power for the Service of both. Tho' he was so far from declaring War against
Needy Debtors,
that he made
even their Enemies to be at Peace with 'em,
and reconcil'd their Creditors to 'em, by assisting those that were Insolvent.
The King commanded me to help Reform ye,
And how I'll do't Miss ----- shall inform ye.
I keep the best Seraglio in the Nation,
And hope in time to bring it into Fashion.
No
Brimstone-Whore
need fear the Lash from me,
That part I'll leave to Brother
Jeffery.
Our Gallants need not go abroad to
Rome,
I'll keep a Whoring Jubilee at home.
Whoring's the Darling of my Inclination;
A'n't I a Magistrate for Reformation?
For this my Praise is sung by ev'ry Bard,
For which
Bridewell
wou'd be a just Reward.
In Print my Panegyricks fill the Street,
And hir'd Goal-birds their Huzza's repeat.
Some Charities contriv'd to make a show,
Have taught the Needy Rabble to do so:
Whose empty Noise is a Mechanick Fame,
Since for Sir
Belzebub
they'd do the same
Our Author who has it not in his Nature to be tender of any ones Reputation, would have giv'n us the Name of the Lady as he has done that of the Knight, were there any thing of Truth in what he Affirms. But he knows so little of the Matter, that he cannot so much as give us the first Letter of her Name, an infallible Argument of his insufficiency in Matters of Proof. If
Bridewell
be the Reward of those that Cry up the Great Actions of
Worthy
Persons,
Newgate
certainly should be the place of Residence for those that publish their Praises on the
Ʋ nworthy.
And tho' I scarce believe any of the first will be sent to beat Hemp, yet if common Discourse be not false, one of the last is likely to be sent to the
Chequer Inn
in
Newgate street,
if Captain
Darby
in St.
Martins-Lane
be taken up by a Messenger, as it's reported.
The Conclusion.
THen let us boast of Ancestors no more,
Or Deeds of Heroes done in days of Yore,
In latent Records of the Ages past,
Behind the Rear of Time, in long Oblivion plac'd.
For if our Virtues must in Lines descend,
The Merit with the Families would end:
And Intermixtures would most Fatal grow;
For Vice would be Hereditary too;
The Tainted Blood wou'd of necessity,
Involuntary Wickedness convey.
The Conclusion bears very little proportion to the Premises, for the Close of the Poem is fill'd with a Libel against Sir
Charles Duncomb
only, who is so far from
boasting of his Ancestors,
that he is very ready to acknowledge he did not come into the World with that Advantage as some do. If he did actually value himself on the Account of his Descent; what Relation does that bear to the Nation in General? Or what Plea has the Author to Justifie himself with, for Taxing above two Millions of People with a Folly which he only charg'd one in particular with.
Vice like Ill Nature, for an Age or two,
May seem a Generation to pursue;
But Virtue seldom does regard the Breed;
Fools do the Wise, and Wise Men Fools succeed.
Ill Nature
is certainly a Vice, therefore the Consequence of his
Simile
is, that Vice is like Vice, which every one knew before. And if
Vertue does not regard the Breed,
I am inclinable to think he deserves no manner of Excuse, for making
Vice
an Attendant of it, and tainting the whole
English
Posterity with the Baseness of their Fore-Fathers: Since a Love of Virtue without doubt has as much prevalence, and run's in the Blood, as an Inclination towards Actions that are Vitious.—
What is't to us, what Ancestors we had?
If Good, what better? Or what worse, if Bad?
Examples are for Imitation set,
Yet all Men follow Virtue with Regret.
That question is resolv'd without any Difficulty, for if our Ancestors were good, than the remembrance of their Brave Actions would excite us to tread in the same Paths of Honour; if Bad, the Reflections on their dishonourable Practices would create in us a Detestation of Vice, and make us endeavour to degenerate from 'em.
Cou'd but our Ancestors retrieve their Fate,
And see their Off-spring thus degenerate;
How we contend for Birth and Names unknown,
And build on their past Actions, not our own;
They'd cancel Records; and their Tombs deface,
And openly disown the vile degenerate Race:
For Fame of Families is all a Cheat,
'Tis Personal Virtue only makes us great.
This Paragraph seems to contradict the main Design of all that went before; for the Intent of the Satyr was to render our Ancestors Infamous, but now he says we Degenerate from 'em, which in plain
English
is, we do nothing that is not Praise worthy. A
I am glad to hear from him that
Personal Virtue
ly makes us Great,
since he's likely to go without any great Stock of Fame, who has so little Virtue to
Truck
for it by way of Exchange. For if he has as small a share of Honesty, as he has shewn of good Nature, through his whole lamentable piece of Poetry; he may more properly be stil'd a
Bankrupt,
than a Dealer in that sort of Commodity.
FINIS.