For laws, without a sanction join'd,
As all men know, can never bind:
But sanctions reach not us the makers,
For who dares punish us though breakers?
'Tis therefore plain, beyond denial,
That laws were ne'er design'd to tie all;
But those whom sanctions reach alone :
We stand accountable to none.

Besides, 'tis evident, that, seeing

Laws from the great derive their being,
They as in duty bound should love
The great, in whom they live and move,
And humbly yield to their desires :
'Tis just what gratitude requires.
What suckling dangled on the lap
Would tear away its mother's pap?
But hold-Why deign I to dispute
With such a scoundrel of a brute?
Logic is lost upon a knave.
Let action prove the law our slave."
An angry nod his will declar'd
To his gruff yeoman of the guard;
The full-fed mongrels, train'd to ravage,
Fly to devour the shaggy savage.

The beast had now no time to lose
In chopping logic with his foes;
"This argument," quoth he, "has force,
And swiftness is my sole resource."

He said, and left the swains their prey:
And to the mountains scour'd away.

ON THE REPORT OF A MONUMENT

TO BE ERECTED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, TO THE MEMORY OF A LATE AUTHOR."

[Part of a letter to a person of quality.

*** Lest your Lordship, who are so well acquainted with every thing that relates to true honour, should think hardly of me for attacking the memory of the dead, I beg leave to offer a few words in my own vindication.

If I had composed the following verses, with a view to gratify private resentment, to promote the interest of any faction, or to recommend myself to the patronage of any person whatsoever, I should have been altogether inexcusable. To attack the memory of the dead from selfish considerations, or from mere wantonness of malice, is an enormity which none can hold in greater detestation than I. But I composed them from very different motives; as every intelligent reader, who peruses them with attention, and who is willing to believe me upon my own testimony, will undoubtedly perceive. My motives proceeded from a sincere desire to do some small service to my country, and to the

Churchill.

cause of truth and virtue. The promoters of fac tion I ever did, and ever will consider as the enemies of mankind; to the memory of such 1 owe no veneration; to the writings of such I owe no indulgence.

owed the

Those

Your Lordship knows that greatest share of his renown to the most incompetent of all judges, the mob; actuated by the most unworthy of all principles, a spirit of insolence; and inflamed by the vilest of all human passions, hatred to their fellow-citizens. who joined the cry in his favour seemed to me to be swayed rather by fashion than by real sentiment. He therefore might have lived and died unmolested by me; confident as I am, that posterity, when the present unhappy dissensions are forgotten, will do ample justice to his real charac

ter.

But when I saw the extravagant honours that were paid to his memory, and heard that a monument in Westminster Abbey was intended for one whom even his admirers acknowledge to have been an incendiary and a debauchee, I could not help wishing that my countrymen would relect a little on what they were doing, before they consecrated, by what posterity would think the public voice, a character which no friend to virtue or to true taste can approve. It was this sentiment, enforced by the earnest request of a friend, which produced the following little poem; in which I have said nothing of

's manners

that is not warranted by the best authority; nor
of his writings, that is not perfectly agreeable to
the opinion of many of the most competent judges
in Britain.
****, January 1765]

BUFO, begone! with Thee may Faction's fire,
That hatch'd thy salamander-fame, expire.
Fame, dirty idol of the brainless crowd,
What half-made moon-calf can mistake for good!
Since shar'd by knaves of high and low degree;
Cromwell, and Catiline; Guido Faux, and Thee.
By nature uninspir'd, untaught by art;

With not one thought that breathes the feeling
heart,

With not one offering vow'd to Virtue's shrine,
With not one pure unprostituted line;

Alike debauch'd in body, soul, and lays ;-
For pension'd censure, and for pension'd praise,
For ribaldry, for libels, lewdness, lies,
For blasphemy of all the Good and Wise;
Coarse virulence in coarser doggerel writ, [wit;
Which bawling blackguards spell'd, and took for
For conscience, honour, slighted, spurn'd, o'er

thrown ;

Lo, Bufo shines the minion of renown!

Is this the land that boasts a Milton's fire,
And magie Spenser's wildly-warbling lyre?
The land that owns th' omnipotence of song,
When Shakspeare whirls, the throbbing heart
along?

Pope

Elegy

Young

The land where Pope, with energy divine,
In fine strong blaze bade wit and fancy shine;
Whose verse, by Truth in Virtue's triumph borne,
Gave knaves to infamy, and fools to scorn;

Yet pure in manners, and in thought refin'd,
Whose life and lays adorn'd and blest mankind?
Is this the land where Gray's unlabour'd art
Soothes, melts, alarms, and ravishes the heart;
While the lone wanderer's sweet complainings flow
In simple majesty of manly woe;

Or while, sublime, on eagle-pinion driven,

He soars Pindaric heights, and sails the waste of
heaven?

Is this the land, o'er Shenstone's recent urn
Where all the Loves and gentler Graces mourn?
And where, to crown the hoary Bard of Night,
The Muses and the Virtues all unite?

Is this the land where Akenside displays
The bold yet temperate flame of ancient days?
Like the rapt Sage, in genius as in theme,
Whose hallow'd strain renown'd Ilissus' stream;
Or him, th' indignant Bard, whose patriot ire,
Sublime in vengeance, smote the dreadful lyre;
For truth, for liberty, for virtue warm,

Whose mighty song unnerv'd a tyrant's arm,
Hush'd the rude roar of discord, rage, and lust,
And spurn'd licentious demagogues to dust.