satirist who had been threatened with state prosecution for his fearless attacks on wickedness in high places.
"Come, Method, come in all thy pride,
Dulness and Whitehead by thy side;
Dulness and Method still are one,
And Whitehead is their darling son.
"Not he[1] whose pen above control,
Struck terror to the guilty soul,
Made Folly tremble through her state,
And villains blush at being great;
Whilst he himself with steady face,
Disdaining modesty and grace,
Could blunder on through thick and thin,
Through every mean and servile sin,
Yet swear by Philip and by Paul,
He nobly scorn'd to blush at all.
"But he who in the Laureate chair,
By grace, not merit, planted there,
In awkward pomp is seen to sit,
And by his patent proves his wit;
For favours of the great we know,
Can wit as well as rank bestow,
And they who without one pretension,
Can get the fools a place or pension,
Must able be suppos'd of course
(If reason be allowed due course)
To gain such qualities and grace
As may equip them for the place.
"But he who measures as he goes,
A mongrel kind of tinkling prose,
And is too frugal to dispense
At once both poetry and sense;
Who, from amidst his slumbering guards
Deals out a charge to subject bards,
Where couplets after couplets creep,
Propitious to the reign of sleep;
Yet every word imprints an awe,
And all his dictates pass for law,
With beaux who simper all around,
And belles who die in every sound,
For in all things of this relation,
Men mostly judge from situation."
- ↑ Paul Whitehead.
