Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/879

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PETER PINDAR
751

publisher, considering that the restraint thereby imposed would militate against his profits, filed a bill in Chancery against him, and got the sum reduced to two hundred. Wolcot was furious, and vowed vengeance against Walker, which he eventually accomplished, by living nearly twenty years afterwards.

But he presently met his match, William Gifford, also a Devonshire man; in his "Anti-Jacobin," Gifford fell upon the poet, and in a review of his life called him "his disgustful subject, the profligate reviler of his Sovereign and impious blasphemer of his God." Peter Pindar was quite unable to stand his ground against Gifford, whose "Epistle to Peter Pindar" was savage and caustic in the extreme (1800).

 
Lo, here the reptile! who from some dark cell,
Where all his veins in the native poison swell,
Crawls forth a slimy toad, and spits and spews
The crude abortions of his loathsome muse
On all that genius, all that worth holds dear—
Unsullied rank, and piety sincere.
******Lo, here the brutal sot! who drench'd with gin,
Lashes his wither'd nerves to tasteless sin;
Squeals out (with oaths and blasphemies between)
The impious song 1 , the tale, the jest obscene;
And careless views, amidst the barbarous roar,
His few grey hairs strew, one by one, the floor.
******Oh! check, a moment check, the obstreperous din
Of guilty joy, and hear the voice within;
The small, still voice of Conscience, hear it cry:
An atheist thou mayst live, but canst not die.
******For me—why shouldst thou with abortive toil,
Waste the poor remnant of thy spluttering oil
In filth and falsehood? Ignorant and absurd!
Pause from thy pains, and take my closing word;
Thou canst not think, nor have I power to tell,
How much I scorn and loathe thee—so—Farewell.