Poetical Works of John Oldham/The Eighth Satire of Monsieur Boileau, imitated
THE EIGHTH SATIRE OF MONSIEUR BOILEAU, IMITATED.[1]
OF all the creatures in the world that be,
Beast, fish, or fowl, that go, or swim, or fly
Throughout the globe from London to Japan,
The arrantest fool in my opinion's man.
’What?’ straight I'm taken up, ’an ant, a fly,
A tiny mite, which we can hardly see
Without a perspective, a silly ass,
Or freakish ape? Dare you affirm, that these
Have greater sense than man?'Ay, questionless;
Doctor, I find you're shocked at this discourse.
’Man is,' you cry, ’Lord of the Universe;
For him was this fair frame of nature made,
And all the creatures for his use and aid;
To him alone, of all the living kind,
Has bounteous Heaven the reasoning gift assigned.’
True, sir, that reason ever was his lot,
But thence I argue man the greater sot.
'This idle talk,' you say, ’and rambling stuff
May pass in satire, and take well enough
With sceptic fools, who are disposed to jeer
At serious things; but you must make't appear
By solid proof.' Believe me, sir, I'll do't:
Take you the desk, and let's dispute it out.
Then by your favour, tell me first of all,
What 'tis which you grave doctors wisdom call?
You answer: 'Tis an evenness of soul,
A steady temper, which no cares control,
No passions ruflSe, nor desires inflame,
Still constant to itself, and still the same;
That does in all its slow resolves advance,
With graver steps than benchers when they dance.'
Most true; yet is not this, I dare maintain,
Less used by any, than the fool, called man.
The wiser emmet, quoted just before,
In summer time ranges the fallows o'er,
With pains and labour, to lay in his store;
But when the blustering north with ruffling blasts
Saddens the year, and nature overcasts,
The prudent insect, hid in privacy,
Enjoys the fruits of his past industry.
No ant of sense was e'er so awkward seen,
To drudge in winter, loiter in the spring.
But sillier man, in his mistaken way,
By reason, his false guide, is led astray;
Tossed by a thousand gusts of wavering doubt,
His restless mind still rolls from thought to thought;
In each resolve unsteady and unfixed,
And what he one day loathes, desires the next.
’Shall I, so famed for many a truant jest
’On wiving, now go take a jilt at last?
Shall I turn husband, and my station choose
Amongst the reverend martyrs of the noose?
No, there are fools enough besides in town,
To furnish work for satire and lampoon!'
Few months before, cried the unthinking sot,
Who quickly after, hampered in the knot,
Was quoted for an instance by the rest,
And bore his fate as tamely as the best,
And thought that Heaven from some miraculous side,
For him alone had drawn a faithful bride.
This is our image just: such is that vain,
That foolish, fickle, motley creature, man:
More changing than a weathercock, his head
Ne'er wakes with the same thoughts he went to bed;
Irksome to all beside, and ill at ease,
He neither others, nor himself, can please;
Each minute round his whirling humours run,
Now he's a trooper, and a priest anon,
To-day in buff, to-morrow in a gown.[2]
Yet, pleased with idle whimsies of his brain,
And puffed with pride, this haughty thing would fain
Be thought himself the only stay and prop,
That holds the mighty frame of nature up;
The skies and stars his properties must seem,
And turnspit angels tread the spheres for him;[3]
Of all the creatures he's the lord, he cries,
More absolute than the French King of his.
’And who is there,' say you, ’that dares deny
So owned a truth?’ That may be, sir, do I.
But to omit the controversy here,
Whether, if met, the passenger and bear,
This or the other stands in greater fear;
Or, if an act of parliament should pass
That all the Irish wolves should quit the place,
They'd straight obey the statute's high command,
And at a minute's warning rid the land;
This boasted monarch of the world, that awes
The creatures here, and with his beck gives laws;
This titular King, who thus pretends to be
The lord of all, how many lords has he? [4]
The lust of money, and the lust of power,
With love and hate, and twenty passions more,
Hold him their slave, and chain him to the oar.
Scarce has soft sleep in silence closed his eyes,
’Up!' straight says Avarice, ’'tis time to rise.’
Not yet: one minute longer. 'Up!' she cries.
The Exchange and shops are hardly open yet.
'No matter: Rise!' But after all, for what?
'D'ye ask? go, cut the Line, double the Cape,
Traverse from end to end the spacious deep;
Search both the Indies, Bantam, and Japan;
Fetch sugars from Barbadoes, wines from Spain.'
What need all this? I've wealth enough in store,
I thank the Fates, nor care for adding more.
’You cannot have too much; this point to gain,
You must no crime, no perjury refrain,
Hunger you must endure, hardship, and want,
Amidst full barns keep an eternal Lent,
And though you've more than Buckingham has spent,
Or Cuddon got, like stingy Bethel save,[5]
And grudge yourself the charges of a grave,
And the small ransom of a single groat,
From sword or halter to redeem your throat.'
And pray, why all this sparing? 'Don't you know?
Only to enrich a spendthrift heir, or so,
Who shall, when you are timely dead and gone,
With his gilt coach and six amuse the town,
Keep his gay brace of punks, and vainly give
More for a night, than you to fine for shrieve.
But you lose time ; the wind and vessel waits,
Quick, let's aboard ! Hey for the Downs and Straits.'
Or, if all-powerful money fail of charms
To tempt the wretch, and push him on to harms,
With a strong hand does fierce ambition seize,
And drag him forth from soft repose and ease;
Amidst ten thousand dangers spurs him on,
With loss of blood and limbs to hunt renown;
Who for reward of many a wound and maim,
Is paid with nought but wooden legs and fame,
And the poor comfort of a grinning fate,
To stand recorded in the next Gazette.
'But hold,' cries one, ’your paltry gibing wit,
Or learn, henceforth, to aim it more aright;
If this be any, 'tis a glorious fault,
Which through all ages has been ever thought
The hero's virtue and chief excellence;
Pray, what was Alexander in your sense?
A fool belike.' Yes, faith, sir, much the same;
A crack-brained huff that set the world on flame;
A lunatic broke loose, who in his fit
Fell foul on all, invaded all, he met;
Who, lord of the whole globe, yet not content,
Lacked elbow-room, and seemed too closely pent.
What madness was't, that, born to a fair throne,
Where he might rule with justice and renown,
Like a wild robber, he should choose to roam,
A pitied wretch, with neither house nor home,
And hurling war and slaughter up and down,
Through the wide world make his vast folly known?
Happy for ten good reasons had it been,
If Macedon had had a Bedlam then;
That there with keepers under close restraint,
He might have been from frantic mischief pent.
But that we mayn't in long digressions now
Discourse all Reynolds,[6] and the Passions through,
And ranging them in method stiff and grave,
Rhyme on by chapter and by paragraph;
Let's quit the present topic of dispute,
For More and Cud worth to enlarge about;
And take a view of man in his best light,
Wherein he seems to most advantage set.
' 'Tis he alone,' you'll say, ’ 'tis happy he,
That's framed by nature for society;
He only dwells in towns, is only seen
With manners and civility to shine;
Does only magistrates and rulers choose,
And live secured by government and laws.'
'Tis granted, sir; but yet without all these,
Without your boasted laws and policies,
Or fear of judges, or of justices;
Whoever saw the wolves, that he can say,
Like more inhuman us, so bent on prey,
To rob their fellow wolves upon the way?
Whoever saw church and fanatic bear,
Like savage mankind one another tear?
What tiger e'er, aspiring to be great.
In plots and factions did embroil the State?
Or when was't heard upon the Libyan plains,
Where the stem monarch of the desert reigns,
That Whig and Tory lions in wild jars
Madly engaged for choice of shrieves and mayors?
The fiercest creatures we in nature find,
Respect their figure still in the same kind;
To others rough, to these they gentle be,
And live from noise, from feuds, from factions free
No eagle does upon his peerage sue,*
And strive some meaner eagle to undo;
No fox was e'er suborned by spite or hire,
Against his brother fox his life to swear;
Not any hind, for impotence at rut,
Did e'er the stag into the Arches put,
Where a grave dean the weighty case might state,
What makes in law a carnal job complete;
They fear no dreadful quo warranto writ,
To shake their ancient privilege and right;
No courts of sessions, or assize are there,
No Common-Pleas, King's-Bench, or Chancery-Bar;
But happier they, by nature's charter free,
Secure and safe in mutual peace agree,
And know no other law but equity.
'Tis man, 'tis man alone, that worst of brutes,
Who first brought up the trade of cutting throats,
Did honour first, that barbarous term, devise,
Unknown to all the gentler savages;
And, as 'twere not enough t' have fetched from hell,
Powder and guns, with all the arts to kill,
Further to plague the world, he must engross
Huge codes and bulky pandects of the laws,
With doctors' glosses to perplex the cause,
Where darkened equity is kept from light,
Under vast reams of nonsense buried quite.
’Gently, good sir!' cry you, 'why all this rant?
Man has his freaks and passions, that we grant;
He has his frailties and blind sides, who doubts)?
But his least virtues balance all his faults.
Pray, was it not this bold, this thinking man,
That measured Heaven, and taught the stars to scan;
Whose boundless wit, with soaring wings, durst fly
Beyond the flaming borders of the sky;
Turned nature o'er, and with a piercing view
Each cranny searched, and looked her through and through?
Which of the brutes have Universities?
When was it heard that they e'er took degrees,
Or were professors of the faculties?
By law or physic were they ever known
To merit velvet, or a scarlet gown?
No, questionless; nor did we ever read
Of quacks with them, that were licentiates made,
By patent to profess the poisoning trade;
No doctors in the desk there hold dispute
About black pudding, while the wondering rout
Listen to hear the knotty truth come out;
Nor virtuosos teach deep mysteries
Of arts for pumping air, and smothering flies.
But, not to urge the matter farther now,
Nor search it to the depth, what 'tis to know,
And whether we know anything or no;
Answer me only this, what man is there
In this vile thankless age, wherein we are,
Who does by sense and learning value bear?
’Wouldst thou get honour, and a fair estate,
And have the looks and favours of the great?'
Cries an old father to his blooming son;
’Take the right course, be ruled by me, 'tis done.
Leave mouldy authors to the reading fools,
The poring crowds in colleges and schools:
How much is threescore nobles?’ Twenty pound.
'Well said, my son, the answer's most profound:
Go, thou knowest all that's requisite to know;
What wealth on thee, what honours haste to flow!
In these high sciences thyself employ,
Instead of Plato, take thy Hodder, boy;
Learn there the art to audit an account,
To what the King's revenue does amount;
How much the Customs and Excise bring in,
And what the managers each year purloin.
Get a case-hardened conscience, Irish proof,
Which nought of pity, sense, or shame can move;
Turn Algerine, Barbarian, Turk, or Jew,
Unjust, inhuman, treacherous, base, untrue;
Ne'er stick at wrong; hang widows' sighs and tears,
The cant of priests to frighten usurers;
Boggle at nothing to increase thy store,
Nor orphans' spoils, nor plunder of the poor;
And scorning paltry rules of honesty,
By surer methods raise thy fortune high.
'Then, shoals of poets, pedants, orators,
Doctors, divines, astrologers, and lawyers.
Authors of every sort, and every size.
To thee their works, and labours shall address,
With pompous lines their dedications fill,
And learnedly in Greek and Latin tell
Lies to thy face, that thou hast deep insight,
And art a mighty judge of what they write.
He that is rich, is everything that is,
Without one grain of wisdom he is wise,
And knowing nought, knows all the sciences;
He's witty, gallant, virtuous, generous, stout,
Well-born, well-bred, well-shaped, well-dressed, what not?
Loved by the great, and courted by the fair,
For none that e'er had riches found despair;
Gold to the loathsomest object gives a grace,
And sets it off, and makes even Bovey please;
But tattered poverty they all despise,
Love stands aloof, and from the scarecrow flies.'
Thus a staunch miser to his hopeful brat
Chalks out the way that leads to an estate;
Whose knowledge oft with utmost stretch of brain
No higher than this vast secret can attain,
Five and four 's nine, take two, and seven remain.
Go, doctor, after this, and rack your brains,
Unravel Scripture with industrious pains;
On musty fathers waste your fruitless hours,
Correct the critics and expositors;
Outvie great Stillingfleet in some vast tome,
And there confound both Bellarmine and Rome;
Or glean the rabbies of their learnèd store,
To find what Father Simeon has passed o'er;
Then at the last some bulky piece compile,
There lay out all your time, and pains, and skill;
And when 'tis done and finished for the press,
To some great name the mighty work address,
Who, for a full reward of all your toil,
Shall pay you with a gracious nod or smile:
Just recompense of life too vainly spent!
An empty 'Thank you, sir!' and compliment.
But, if to higher honours you pretend,
Take the advice and counsel of a friend;
Here quit the desk, and throw your scarlet by,
And to some gainful course yourself apply;
Go, practise with some banker how to cheat,
There's choice in town, enquire in Lombard-street;
Let Scot and Ockam wrangle as they please;
And thus in short with me conclude the case,
A doctor is no better than an ass.
’A doctor, sir, yourself! Pray have a care,
This is to push your raillery too far.
But not to lose the time in trifling thus
Beside the point, come now more home and close.
That man has reason is beyond debate,
Nor will yourself, I think, deny me that;
And was not this fair pilot given to steer
His tottering bark through life's rough ocean here?’
All this I grant; but if in spite of it
The wretch on every rock he sees will split,
To what great purpose does his reason serve,
But to misguide his course, and make him swerve?
What boots it Howard, when it says, "Give o'er
Thy scribbling itch, and play the fool no more,’
If her vain counsels, purposed to reclaim,
Only avail to harden him in shame?
Lampooned and hissed, and damned the thousandth time,
Still he writes on, is obstinate in rhyme;
His verse, which he does everywhere recite,
Put all his neighbours and his friends to flight;
Scared by the rhyming fiend, they haste away,
Nor will his very groom be hired to stay.
The ass, whom nature reason has denied,
Content with instinct for his surer guide,
Still follows that, and wiselier does proceed:
He ne'er aspires with his harsh braying note
The songsters of the wood to challenge out;
Nor, like this awkward smatterer in arts,
Sets up himself for a vain ass of parts;
Of reason void, he sees, and gains his end,
While man, who does to that false light pretend,
Wildly gropes on, and in broad day is blind.
By whimsey led he does all things by chance,
And acts in each against all common sense.
Pleased and displeased with everything at once,
He knows not what he seeks, nor what he shuns;
Unable to distinguish good or bad,
For nothing he is gay, for nothing sad;
At random loves and loathes, avoids, pursues,
Enacts, repeals, makes, alters, does, undoes.[7]
Did we, like him, e'er see the dog, or bear,
Chimeras of their own devising fear?
Frame needless doubts, and for those doubts forego
The joys which prompting nature calls them to?
And, with their pleasures awkwardly at strife,
With scaring phantoms pall the sweets of life?
Tell me, grave sir, did ever man see beast
So much below himself, and sense debased,
To worship man with superstitious fear,
And fondly to his idol temples rear?
Was he e'er seen with prayers and sacrifice
Approach to him, as ruler of the skies,
To beg for rain or sunshine on his knees?
No, never; but a thousand times has beast
Seen man, beneath the meanest brute debased,
Fall low to wood and metal heretofore,
And madly his own workmanship adore;
In Egypt oft has seen the sot bow down,
And reverence some deified baboon;
Has often seen him on the banks of Nile
Say prayers to the almighty crocodile;
And now each day, in every street abroad,
Sees prostrate fools adore a breaden-god.
'But why,' say you, 'these spiteful instances
Of Egypt and its gross idolatries?
Of Rome and hers, as much ridiculous?
What are these lewd buffooneries to us?
How gather you from such wild proofs as these,
That man, a doctor, is beneath an ass?
An ass! that heavy, stupid, lumpish beast,
The sport and mocking-stock of all the rest?
Whom they all spurn, and whom they all despise,
Whose very name all satire does comprise?'
An ass, sir? Yes: pray what should make us laugh?
Now he unjustly is our jeer and scoff.
But, if one day he should occasion find
Upon our follies to express his mind;
If Heaven, as once of old, to check proud man,
By miracle should give him speech again;
What would he say, d'ye think, could he speak out,
Nay, sir, betwixt us two, what would he not?
What would he say, were he condemned to stand
For one long hour in Fleet-street, or the Strand,
To cast his eyes upon the motley throng,
The two-legged herd, that daily pass along;
To see their old disguises, furs, and gowns,
Their cassocks, cloaks, lawn sleeves, and pantaloons?
What would he say to see a velvet quack
Walk with the price of forty killed on's back?
Or mounted on a stage, and gaping loud,
Commend his drugs and ratsbane to the crowd?
What would he think on a Lord Mayor's day,
Should he the pomp and pageantry survey?
Or view the judges, and their solemn train,
March with grave decency to kill a man?
What would he think of us, should he appear
In Term amongst the crowds at Westminster,
And there the hellish din and jargon hear,
Where Jeffreys[8] and his pack, with deep-mouthed notes,
Drown Billingsgate and all its oyster-boats?
There see the judges, sergeants, barristers,
Attorneys, counsellors, solicitors,
Criers and clerks, and all the savage crew
Which wretched man at his own charge undo?
If after prospect of all this, the ass
Should find the voice he had in Æsop's days;
Then, doctor, then, casting his eyes around
On human fools, which everywhere abound,
Content with thistles, from all envy free,
And shaking his grave head, no doubt he'd cry,
'Good faith, man is a beast as much as we!'
- ↑ Written in October, 1682.
- ↑ ’This hour a slave, the next a deity.—Pope.
- ↑ In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes.
Men would be angels, angels would be gods. — Ib. - ↑ The lord of all things, yet a prey to all.—Ib.
- ↑ Alderman Cuddon and Sheriff Singsby Bethel.
- ↑ Dr. Reynolds, Bishop of Norwich, author, amongst numerous works, of a treatise Of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man, 1640. In 1648, he was appointed Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, in the room of Dr. Fell, who was ejected; and in 1651 was himself ejected for refusing the engagement to be faithful to the Commonwealth. At the Restoration he was replaced in his deanery, made one of his Majesty's chaplains, and consecrated Bishop of Norwich.
- ↑ Chaos of thought and passion, all confused.
Still by himself abused, and disabused—
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled.
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.—Pope. - ↑ Judge Jeffreys, who is dearly indicated here, (the name, in common with several others, being left blank in the early editions) had not attained his ultimate infamy when this poem was written; but he was sufficiently notorious even then to justify the distinction conferred upon him by the satirist. Shortly before, he had made himself very active in the Duke of York's interest, and had succeeded in a cause respecting the Post-office, of considerable importance to his Royal Highness's revenues. He was knighted in 1680, and made chief justice and a baronet in 1681.