Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845
Friends of our soul! Permit us, now, in this our Supplement, to suggest to your recollection, that Satire is public or private. Public satire is, or would he, authoritative, robed, magisterial censure. Private satire is private warfare – the worst plague of the state, and the overthrow of all right law. It is worse. For when baron besieges baron, there is high spirit roused, and high deeds are achieved. But private malice in verse is as if the gossiping dames of a tea-table were armed with daggers instead of words, to kill reputations – the School for Scandal turned into a tragedy. We are groaning now over the inferior versifiers. To the Poets, to the mighty ones, we forgave every thing, a month ago. We say then, again, that although duly appointed to this Chair of Justice in which we sit, and having our eyes bandaged like the Goddess whose statue is in the corner of the hall, yet our hands are open, and we are willing – as in all well-governed kingdoms judges have been willing – to take bribes. But we let it be known, we must be bribed high. Juvenal, Persius, Horace, Dryden, and Pope have soothed the itching of our palms to our heart's content; and each has gained his cause in or impartial court. Nay, we are very much afraid, that if that gall-fed, parricidal ruffian, Archilochus, who twisted his verses into a halter for noosing up his wife's father – a melancholy event to which the old gentleman, it is said, lent a helping-hand – were more to us than a tradition, we should be in danger of finding in the poignancy of his iambics a sauce too much to our relish. Avec cette sauce– cried the French gastronome, by the ecstasy of his palate bewitched out of his moral discretion —Avec cette sauce on mangerait son père!
But leaving these imaginative heights, and walking along the level ground of daily life, common sense, and sane criticism, we go on to assert that private satire, lower than the highest, is intolerable. The grandeur of moral indignation in Juvenal, never is altogether without a secret inkling of disquietude at the bottom of the breast. It may be the Muse's legitimate and imposed office to smite the offending city; but it is never her joyous task. The judge never gladly puts on the black cap. The reality oppresses us – we are sore and sick in the very breath of the contagion, even if we escape untainted by it. The power of poetry possesses us for the time, and we must submit. Perhaps it is right, if the Muse be a great magistra vitæ, that she should present life under all its aspects, and school us in all its disciplines; and the direct, real, official censure of manners may be a necessary part of her calling. But how differently does the indirect censure affect us! Shakspeare creating Iago, censures wily, treacherous, envious, malignant, cold-blooded villany, where and whensoever to be found. He does not fix the brand upon the forehead of a time, or of a profession, or of a man, or of a woman; but of a devil who is incarnate in every time, who exercises every profession, is an innate, is the householder rather, now in the steeled breast of a man, and now in woman's softest bosom. This ubiquitous possibility of the Mark's occurring – the ignorance of the archer where his gifted arrow will strike – ennobles, aggrandizes his person and his work. It does not weaken the service which the poet is called upon to render to humanity, by showing himself the foe of her foes. And we, the spectators of the drama – what is that strangely balanced and harmonized conflict of emotions, by means of which we at once loathe and endure the poisonous confidant of the Moor? From the depths of the heart abhorring the odious, execrable man, whilst our fancy hovers, fascinated, about the marvellous creation! Yet we do not call Shakspeare here a Satirist. The distinction is broad. The Satirist is, in the most confined, or in the most comprehensive sense – PERSONAL.
And now we doubt not, readers beloved, that while you have been enjoying these our reflections on Satire, you may likewise have been dimly foreseeing the purposed end towards which our drift is setting in, as on a strong tide. We have been dealing with first-raters. In them the power of the poetry reconciles us to the matter – mitigates the repugnancy otherwise ready to wait, in a well-constituted mind, upon a series of thoughts and images which studiously persevere in venting the passions of hate and scorn. The curse of the Muse on all middling poets – and upon Parnassus one is tempted to ascribe to the middle zone of the mountain, all those who do not cluster about one of the summits – the common curse seems to fall with tenfold violence upon the middling Satirist. The great poet has authority, magistery, masterdom, seated in his high spirit; and when he chooses to put forth his power, we bow before him, or stoop our heads from the descending bolt. But if one not thus privileged leap uncalled into the awful throne, to hurl self-dictated judgments, this arrogant usurpation of supremacy; justly offends and revolts us. For he who censures the age, or any notable division of contemporary society, in verse, does in fact arrogate to himself an unappealable superiority. He speaks, or affects to speak, muse-inspired, as a prophet, oracularly. He does not enquire, he thunders. Now, the thunder of a scold is any thing but agreeable – and we exclaim —
"Demens! qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen
Ære et cornipedum cursu simulârat equorum."
Poets are the givers of renown. Their word is fame. But fame is good and ill; and therefore they speak Eulogy and Satire. They are the tongues of the world. The music of verse makes way for Lear's words to all our hearts. It makes way for the Satirist's to the heart, where they are to be mortal. If mankind justly moved condemn, the Poet will find voice for that condemnation. Wo be to those who by goading provoke him, who is the organ of the universal voice, to visit his own wrong, to wreak his own vengeance on their heads! The wrong, the wrath is private; but the voice retains its universality, and they are withered as if by the blast of the general hate or scorn —
"He was not for an age, but for all time,"
said one poet of another. There are two ways of belonging to one's age. You are born of it – you die with it. Johnson disclaims for Shakspeare the co-etaneousness by birth and by death. He is the son of all time; and the inheritor of all time. His mind is the mind of ages deceased, and of ages unborn; and his writings remain to each succeeding generation, as fresh as if it had witnessed their springing into existence. They take no date.
Something of this is common to all essential poetry —
"Vivuntque commissi calores
Æoliæ fidibus puellæ."
The loves of Sappho live. They have not passed away. They are immortally. Therefore the Poet, as we said, is the giver of fame. His praise – his scorn – lives for ever.
All who are worthy to read Us know how well the rude primeval people comprehended the worth of the poet. The song rang to the borders of the land or of the name, and that was glory or ignominy alive in every heart. Honour given by the poet was then a substantial possession; to be disgraced by his biting vituperation was like the infliction of a legal punishment. The whole condition of things – men's minds and their outward relations – corresponded to that which seems now to us an extraordinary procedure – that of constituting the poet, in virtue of that name, a state functionary, holding office, rank, and power. Now, the poet is but a self-constituted Censor. He holds office from the Muse only; or upon occasion from the mighty mother, Dulness. The Laureateship is the only office in the State of Poetry that is in the Queen's gift; and that, thanks to her benignity and the good sense of the nineteenth century, has become a sinecure conferred on an Emeritus.
"Hollo! my fancy, whether dost thou roam?"
Nay, she is not roaming at all – for we have been all along steering in the wind's eye right to a given point. We come now to say a few words of Charles Churchill.
Of him it was said by one greater far, that he "blazed the meteor of a season." For four years – during life – his popularity – in London and the suburbs – was prodigious; for forty – and that is a long time after death – he was a choice classic in the libraries of aging or aged men of wit upon town; and now, that nearly a century has elapsed since he "from his horrid hair shook pestilence and war" o'er slaves and Scotsmen, tools and tyrants, peers, poetasters, priests, pimps, and players, his name is still something more than a mere dissyllable, and seems the shadow of the sound that Mother Dulness was wont to whisper in her children's ears when fretting wakefully on her neglected breasts. The Satirist, of all poets, calls the enquiry of the world upon himself. The Censor of manners should in his own be irreproachable. The satirist of a nation should feel that in that respect in which he censures he is whole and sound; that in assailing others he stands upon a rock; that his arrows cannot by a light shifting of the wind return to his own bosom. It was not so with Churchill. But he had his virtues – and he died young.
"Life to the last enjoy'd!! here Churchill lies."
It is not of his life but his writings we purpose to speak. It is not to be thought that his reputation at the time, and among some high critics since, could be groundless. There is an air of power in his way of attacking any and every subject. He goes to work without embarrassment, with spirit and ease, and is presently in his matter, or in some matter, rarely inane. It is a part, and a high part of genius, to design; but he was destitute of invention. The self-dubbed champion of liberty and letters, he labours ostentatiously and energetically in that vocation; and in the midst of tumultuous applause, ringing round a career of almost uninterrupted success, he seldom or never seems aware that the duties he had engaged himself to perform – to his country and his kind – were far beyond his endowments – above his conception. His knowledge either of books or men was narrow and superficial. In no sense had he ever been a student. His best thoughts are all essentially common-place; but, in uttering them, there is almost always a determined plainness of words, a free step in verse, a certain boldness and skill in evading the trammel of the rhyme, deserving high praise; while often, as if spurning the style which yet does not desert him, he wears it clinging about him with a sort of disregarded grace.
The Rosciad – The Apology – Night – The Prophecy of Famine – An Epistle to William Hogarth – The Duellist – Gotham – The Author – The Conference – The Ghost – The Candidate – The Farewell – The Times – The Journey – Fragment of a Dedication – such is the list of Works, whereof all England rung from side to side – during the few noisy years he vapoured – as in the form of shilling or half-crown pamphlets they frighted the Town from its propriety, and gave monthly or quarterly assurance to a great people that they possessed a great living Poet, worthy of being numbered with their mightiest dead.
He began with the Play-house.
The theatre! Satire belongs to the day, and the theatre belongs to the day. They seem well met. The spirit of both is the same – intense popularity. Actors are human beings placed in an extraordinary relation to other human beings: public characters; but brought the nearer to us by being so – the good ones intimate with our bosoms, dear as friends. Their persons, features, look, gait, gesture, familiar to our thoughts, vividly engraven. They address themselves to every one of us personally, in tones that thrill and chill, or that convulse us with merriment – and all for pleasure! They ask our sympathy, but they task it not. No burthen of distress that they may lay upon us do we desire to rid off our hearts. We only call for more, more! They stir up the soul within us, as nothing else in which, personally, we are quite unconcerned, does. Therefore the praise or sarcasm that visits them, comes home to the privacy of our own feelings. Besides, they belong to the service of the Muse; and so the other servant of the Muse, the Satirist, as the superintendent of the household, may reasonably reprehend or commend them. Further, they offer themselves to favour and to disfavour, to praise, to dispraise; to the applauding hands or to the exploding hisses of the public. There is, then an attraction of fame-bestowing verse towards the stage. And yet does it not seem a pity that the unfortunate bad actors should "bide the pelting of this pitiless storm," over and above that of others they are liable to be assailed with? What great-minded Satirist could step down a play-bill from the first rank of performers to the second and the third – hunting out miserable mediocrities – dragging away the culprits of the stage to flagellation and the pillory? Say then, at once, that the Satirist is not great-minded, and his motives are not pure desires for the general benefit. He is by the gift of nature witty, and rather ill-natured. He very much enjoys his own wit, and he hopes that you have fun enough in you to enjoy his jests, and so he breaks them. The Rosciad is, we believe, by far the best of Churchill's performances; very clever, indeed, and characteristic; at the head of all theatrical criticism in verse; yet an achievement, in spite of the talent and ingenuity it displays, not now perusable without an accompanying feeling akin to contempt.
"Gotham" is an irregular, poetical whim, of which it is easier to describe the procedure than to assign the reasonable purpose. Gotham itself is a country unknown to our geographers, which Churchill has discovered, and of which, in right of that discovery, he assumes the sovereignty under his own undisguised name, King Churchill. After spiritedly arraigning the exercise in the real world of that right by which he rules in his imaginary kingdom – a right which establishes the civilised in the lands of the enslaved or expatriated uncivilised, he spends the rest of his first canto in summoning all creatures, rational and irrational, to join the happy Gothamites in the universal choral celebration of his mounting the throne. The second canto, for some two hundred verses, insists upon the necessity of marrying Sense with Art, to produce good writing, and Learning with Humanity, to produce useful writing; and then turns off bitterly to characterise the reigns in succession of the Stuarts, by way of warning to his Gothamites against the temptation to admit a vagrant Stuart for their king. The third canto delivers the rules by which he, King Churchill, who purposes being the father of his people, designs to govern his own reign. That is all. What and where is Gotham? What is the meaning of this royalty with which the poet invests himself? What is the drift, scope, and unity of the poem? Gotham is not, and is, England. It is not England, for he tells us in the poem that he is born in England, and that he is not born in Gotham; besides which, he expressly distinguishes the two countries by admonishing the Gothamites to search "England's fair records," for the sake of imbibing a due hatred for the House of Stuart. It is England, for it is an island which "Freedom's pile, by ancient wisdom raised, adorns," making it great and glorious, feared abroad and happy at home, secure from force or fraud. Moreover, her merchants are princes. The conclusion is, that Gotham is England herself, poetically disidentified by a very thin and transparent disguise. The sovereignty of King Churchill, if it mean any thing capable of being said in prose, may shadow the influence and authority which a single mind, assuming to itself an inborn call to ascendancy, wishes and hopes to possess over the intelligence of its own compatriot nation; and this may be conjectured in a writer who principally dedicates himself to the championship of political principles. The rules, in the Third Book, for the conduct of a prince, afford the opportunity of describing the idea of a patriot king, of censuring that which is actually done adversely to these rules; and, at the same time, they acquire something of a peculiar meaning, if they are to be construed as a scheme of right political thinking – the intelligence of the general welfare which is obligatory upon the political ruler being equally so upon the political teacher. If this kind of deliberate, allegorical design may be mercifully supposed, the wild self-imagination, and apparently downright nonsense of the First Book, may pretend a palliation of its glaring vanity and absurdity; since the blissful reign of King Churchill over Gotham, which is extolled very much like the "Jovis incrementum," in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, thus comes to mean, when translated into the language of men, the reign in England of the opinions for which Churchill battles in rhyme. Or, this may be too much attribution of plan to a caprice that meant little or nothing. The first book was published by itself, and may have aimed at something to which the author found that he could not give shape and consistency. Yet Cowper declares Gotham to be a noble and beautiful poem.
The Author might almost seem intended for a sequel to MacFlecnoe and the Dunciad. Not that it assumes, like them, a fanciful vehicle for the satire, but it undertakes the lashing of peccant authors, and recognises Dulness as an enthroned power to whose empire the writer is hostile; and where he adverts to his own early life, and clerical destination, he mentions her as the patroness upon whom his friends had relied for his future church preferment.
"But now, when Dulness rears aloft her throne,
When lordly vassals her wide empire own;
When Wit, seduced by Envy, starts aside,
And basely leagues with Ignorance and Pride, &c.
* * * *
Bred to the church, and for the gown decreed,
Ere it was known that I should learn to read;
Though that was nothing for my friends, who knew
What mighty Dulness of itself could do,
Never design'd me for a working priest,
But hoped I should have been a dean at least," &c.
The writers more formally and regularly attacked, are Smollett, Murphy, Shebbeare, Guthrie, and one Kidgell, who contrived to earn shame, in exposing to shame the printed but unpublished obscenity and blasphemy of Wilkes. Johnson gets a good word as a state-pensioner, Francis, the translator of Horace, for dulness apparently, and Mason, and even Gray, are signalized, en passant, as artificial rhymesters! The general tenor of the poem complains that in these days true learning, genius, and the honesty of authorship are of no account; whilst the political profligacy of the pen ensures favour and pay. The first hundred lines forcibly express the inspiring indignation proper to the subject, and some of them are still occasionally quoted; but how inferior all to corresponding strains in Dryden and Pope! They were poets indeed – he was not a poet. He has not fancy or imagination – they had both – they were consummate masters in their art: he was but a bold bungler after all. In proof, take the best passage in The Author.
"Is this – O death to think! – is this the land
Where merit and reward went hand in hand?
Where heroes, parent-like, the poet view'd,
By whom they saw their glorious deeds renew'd?
Where poets, true to honour, tuned their lays,
And by their patrons sanctified their praise?
Is this the land where, on our Spenser's tongue,
Enamour'd of his voice, Description hung?
Where Jonson rigid Gravity beguiled,
While Reason through her critic fences smiled?
Where Nature listening stood whilst Shakspeare play'd,
And wonder'd at the work herself had made?
Is this the land where, mindful of her charge,
And office high, fair Freedom walk'd at large?
Where, finding in our laws a sure defence,
She mock'd at all restraints, but those of sense?
Where, Health and Honour trooping by her side,
She spreads her sacred empire far and wide;
Pointed the way, Affliction to beguile,
And bade the face of Sorrow wear a smile —
Bade those who dare obey the generous call
Enjoy her blessings, which God meant for all?
Is this the land where, in some tyrant's reign,
When a weak, wicked, ministerial train,
The tools of power, the slaves of interest, plann'd
Their country's ruin, and with bribes unmann'd
Those wretches, who ordain'd in Freedom's cause,
Gave up our liberties, and sold our laws;
When Power was taught by Meanness where to go,
Nor dared to love the virtue of a foe;
When, like a lep'rous plague, from the foul head
To the foul heart her sores Corruption spread,
Her iron arm when stern Oppression rear'd,
And Virtue, from her broad base shaken, fear'd
The scourge of Vice; when, impotent and vain,
Poor Freedom bow'd the neck to Slavery's chain?
Is this the land, where, in those worst of times,
The hardy poet raised his honest rhymes
To dread rebuke, and bade Controlment speak
In guilty blushes on the villain's cheek;
Bade Power turn pale, kept mighty rogues in awe,
And made hem fear the Muse, who fear'd not law?
"How do I laugh, when men of narrow souls,
Whom folly guides, and prejudice controls;
Who, one dull drowsy track of business trod,
Worship their Mammon, and neglect their God;
Who, breathing by one musty set of rules,
Dote from their birth, and are by system fools;
Who, form'd to dulness from their very youth,
Lies of the day prefer to Gospel-truth;
Pick up their little knowledge from Reviews,
And lay out all their stock of faith in news;
How do I laugh, when creatures form'd like these,
Whom Reason scorns, and I should blush to please,
Rail at all liberal arts, deem verse a crime,
And hold not truth as truth, if told in rhyme?"
These are commendable verses, but they are not the verses of a true poet. For instance, when he will praise the greatest poets —
"Is this the land, where, on our Spenser's tongue,
Enamour'd of his voice, Description hung" —
the intention is good, and there is some love in the singling out of the name; but Description is almost the lowest, not the highest praise of Spenser. The language too is mean and trite, not that of one who is "inflammatus amore" of the sacred poet whom he praises. How differently does Lucretius praise Epicurus! The words blaze as he names him. How differently does Pope or Gray praise Dryden! Even in Churchill's few words there is the awkward and heavy tautology – tongue and voice. It is more like the tribute of duty than sensibility. The well-known distich on Shakspeare is rather good – it utters with a vigorous turn the general sentiment, the nation's wonder of its own idol. But compare Gray, who also brings Nature and Shakspeare together; or see him speaking of Dryden or Milton, and you see how a poet speaks of a poet – thrilled with recollections – reflecting, not merely commemorating, the power. Indeed, we design to have a few (perhaps twenty) articles entitled Poets on Poets – in which we shall collect chronologically the praises of the brotherhood by the brotherhood. In the mean time we do believe that the one main thing which you miss in Churchill is the true poetical touch and temper of the spirit. He is, as far as he succeeds, a sort of inferior Junius in verse – sinewy, keen – with a good, ready use of strong, plain English; but he has no rapture. His fire is volcanic, not solar. Yet no light praise it is, that he rejects frivolous ornament, and trusts to the strength of the thought, and of the good or ill within. But besides the disparity – which is great – of strength, of intellectual rank – this draws an insuperable difference in kind between him and Pope or Dryden, that they are essentially poets. The gift of song is on their lips. If they turn Satirists, they bring the power to another than its wonted and native vocation. But Churchill obtains the power only in satirizing. As Iago says —
"For I am nothing if not critical."
Is this merely a repetition of Juvenal's "facit indignatio versus," rendered in prose, "Indignation makes me a poet," who am not a poet by nature? In the first place, Juvenal prodigiously transcends Churchill in intellectual strength; and in the second, Juvenal has far more of essential poetry, although hidden in just vituperation, and in the imposed worldliness of his matter. But we must pull up.
The so-called "Epistle to Hogarth" is, after the wont of Churchill, a shapeless, undigested performance. It is nothing in the likeness of an epistle; but for three hundred lines a wandering, lumbering rhapsody, addressed to nobody, which, after abusing right and left, suddenly turns to Hogarth, whom it introduces by summoning him to stand forth at the bar in the Court of Conscience, an exemplar of iniquities worse than could have been believed of humanity, were he not there to sustain the character, and authenticate the rightful delineation. Thenceforwards obstreperously railing on, overwhelming the great painter with exaggerated reproaches for envy that persecuted all worth, for untired self-laudation, for painting his unfortunate Sigismunda; and oh! shame of song! for the advancing infirmities of old age. The merits of Hogarth, as master of comic painting, are acknowledged in lines that have been often quoted, and are of very moderate merit – not worth a rush. "The description of his age and infirmities," as Garrick said at the time, "is too shocking and barbarous." It nauseates the soul; and unmasks in the Satirist the rancorous and malignant hostility which assumes the disguise of a righteous indignation.
"Hogarth! stand forth. – Nay, hang not thus aloof —
Now, Candor! now thou shalt receive such proof,
Such damning proof, that henceforth thou shalt fear
To tax my wrath, and own my conduct clear —
Hogarth! stand forth – I dare thee to be try'd
In that great court where Conscience must preside;
At that most solemn bar hold up thy hand;
Think before whom, on what account, you stand —
Speak, but consider well – from first to last
Review thy life, weigh ev'ry action past —
Nay, you shall have no reason to complain —
Take longer time, and view them o'er again —
Canst thou remember from thy earliest youth,
And, as thy God must judge thee, speak the truth;
A single instance where, self laid aside,
And justice taking place of fear and pride,
Thou with an equal eye did'st genius view,
And give to merit what was merit's due?
Genius and merit are a sure offence,
And thy soul sickens at the name of sense.
Is any one so foolish to succeed?
On Envy's altar he is doom'd to bleed;
Hogarth, a guilty pleasure in his eyes,
The place of executioner supplies:
See how he glotes, enjoys the sacred feast,
And proves himself by cruelty a priest.
"Whilst the weak artist, to thy whims a slave,
Would bury all those pow'rs which Nature gave;
Would suffer black concealment to obscure
Those rays thy jealousy could not endure;
To feed thy vanity would rust unknown,
And to secure thy credit blast his own,
In Hogarth he was sure to find a friend
He could not fear, and therefore might commend:
But when his Spirit, rous'd by honest shame,
Shook off that lethargy, and soar'd to fame;
When, with the pride of man, resolv'd and strong,
He scorn'd those fears which did his honour wrong,
And, on himself determin'd to rely,
Brought forth his labours to the public eye,
No friend in thee could such a rebel know;
He had desert, and Hogarth was his foe.
"Souls of a tim'rous cast, of petty name
In Envy's court, not yet quite dead to shame,
May some remorse, some qualms of conscience feel,
And suffer honour to abate their zeal;
But the man truly and completely great
Allows no rule of action but his hate;
Thro' ev'ry bar he bravely breaks his way,
Passion his principle, and parts his prey.
Mediums in vice and virtue speak a mind
Within the pale of temperance confin'd;
The daring spirit scorns her narrow schemes,
And, good or bad, is always in extremes.
"Man's practice duly weigh'd, thro' ev'ry age
On the same plan hath Envy form'd her rage,
'Gainst those whom fortune hath our rivals made,
In way of science and in way of trade:
Stung with mean jealousy she arms her spite,
First works, then views their ruin with delight.
Our Hogarth here a grand improver shines,
And nobly on the gen'ral plan refines:
He like himself o'erleaps the servile bound;
Worth is his mark, wherever worth is found;
Should painters only his vast wrath suffice?
Genius in ev'ry walk is lawful prize:
'Tis a gross insult to his o'ergrown state;
His love to merit is to feel his hate.
"When Wilkes, our countryman, our common friend,
Arose, his king, his country, to defend;
When tools of pow'r he bar'd to public view,
And from their holes the sneaking cowards drew;
When Rancour found it far beyond her reach
To soil his honour and his truth impeach;
What could induce thee, at a time and place
Where manly foes had blush'd to show their face,
To make that effort which must damn thy name,
And sink thee deep, deep, in thy grave with shame?
Did virtue move thee? No; 'twas pride, rank pride,
And if thou had'st not done it thou had'st dy'd.
Malice, (who, disappointed of her end,
Whether to work the bane of foe or friend,
Preys on herself, and driven to the stake,
Gives virtue that revenge she scorns to take,)
Had kill'd thee, tott'ring on life's utmost verge,
Had Wilkes and Liberty escap'd thy scourge.
"When that Great Charter, which our fathers brought;
With their best blood, was into question bought,
When, big with ruin, o'er each English head
Vile slav'ry hung suspended by a thread;
When Liberty, all trembling and aghast,
Fear'd for the future, knowing what was past;
When ev'ry breast was chill'd with deep despair,
Till reason pointed out that Pratt was there;
Lurking most ruffian-like behind a screen,
So plac'd all things to see, himself unseen,
Virtue, with due contempt, saw Hogarth stand,
The murd'rous pencil in his palsied hand.
What was the cause of Liberty to him,
Or what was Honour? let them sink or swim,
So he may gratify without control
The mean resentment of his selfish soul;
Let freedom perish, if, to freedom true,
In the same ruin Wilkes may perish too.
"With all the symptoms of assur'd decay,
With age and sickness pinch'd and worn away,
Pale qiuv'ring lips, lank cheeks, and falt'ring tongue,
The spirits out of tune, the nerves unstrung,
The body shrivell'd up, thy dim eyes sunk
Within their sockets deep, thy weak hams shrunk,
The body's weight unable to sustain,
The stream of life scarce trembling, thro' the vein,
More than half-kill'd by honest truths, which fell
Thro' thy own fault from men who wish'd thee well,
Canst thou, ev'n thus, thy thoughts to vengeance give,
And, dead to all things else, to malice live?
Hence, Dotard! to thy closet; shut thee in;
By deep repentance wash away thy sin;
From haunts of men to shame and sorrow fly,
And, on the verge of death, learn how to die."
What was Hogarth's unpardonable sin? Nature had lodged the unlovely soul of Jack Wilkes in an unlovely and ludicrous person, which the wicked and inimitable pencil of Hogarth had made a little unlovelier perhaps, and a little more ludicrous. Horace Walpole spoke in his usual clear-cutting style of Mr Charles Pylades and Mr John Orestes. They liked one another, and ran the scent, strong as a trail of rancid fish-guts, of the same pleasures – but let not such hunting in couples profane the name of friendship.