<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354709" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Author</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Accursed the man, whom Fate ordains, in spite,<br>And cruel parents teach, to read and write!<br>What need of letters? wherefore should we spell?<br>Why write our names? A mark will do as well.<br>Much are the precious hours of youth misspent,<br>In climbing Learning's rugged, steep ascent;<br>When to the top the bold adventurer's got,<br>He reigns, vain monarch, o'er a barren spot;<br>Whilst in the vale of Ignorance below,<br>Folly and Vice to rank luxuriance grow; <br>Honours and wealth pour in on every side,<br>And proud Preferment rolls her golden tide.<br>O'er crabbed authors life's gay prime to waste,<br>To cramp wild genius in the chains of taste,<br>To bear the slavish drudgery of schools,<br>And tamely stoop to every pedant's rules;<br>For seven long years debarr'd of liberal ease,<br>To plod in college trammels to degrees;<br>Beneath the weight of solemn toys to groan,<br>Sleep over books, and leave mankind unknown; <br>To praise each senior blockhead's threadbare tale,<br>And laugh till reason blush, and spirits fail;<br>Manhood with vile submission to disgrace,<br>And cap the fool, whose merit is his place,<br>Vice-Chancellors, whose knowledge is but small,<br>And Chancellors, who nothing know at all:<br>Ill-brook'd the generous spirit in those days<br>When learning was the certain road to praise,<br>When nobles, with a love of science bless'd,<br>Approved in others what themselves possess'd. <br>But now, when Dulness rears aloft her throne,<br>When lordly vassals her wide empire own;<br>When Wit, seduced by Envy, starts aside,<br>And basely leagues with Ignorance and Pride;<br>What, now, should tempt us, by false hopes misled,<br>Learning's unfashionable paths to tread;<br>To bear those labours which our fathers bore,<br>That crown withheld, which they in triumph wore?<br>When with much pains this boasted learning's got,<br>'Tis an affront to those who have it not: <br>In some it causes hate, in others fear,<br>Instructs our foes to rail, our friends to sneer.<br>With prudent haste the worldly-minded fool<br>Forgets the little which he learn'd at school:<br>The elder brother, to vast fortunes born,<br>Looks on all science with an eye of scorn;<br>Dependent brethren the same features wear,<br>And younger sons are stupid as the heir.<br>In senates, at the bar, in church and state,<br>Genius is vile, and learning out of date. <br>Is this--oh, death to think!--is this the land<br>Where Merit and Reward went hand in hand?<br>Where heroes, parent-like, the poet view'd,<br>By whom they saw their glorious deeds renew'd?<br>Where poets, true to honour, tuned their lays,<br>And by their patrons sanctified their praise?<br>Is this the land, where, on our Spenser's tongue,<br>Enamour'd of his voice, Description hung?<br>Where Jonson rigid Gravity beguiled,<br>Whilst Reason through her critic fences smiled? <br>Where Nature listening stood whilst Shakspeare play'd,<br>And wonder'd at the work herself had made?<br>Is this the land, where, mindful of her charge<br>And office high, fair Freedom walk'd at large?<br>Where, finding in our laws a sure defence,<br>She mock'd at all restraints, but those of sense?<br>Where, Health and Honour trooping by her side,<br>She spread her sacred empire far and wide;<br>Pointed the way, Affliction to beguile,<br>And bade the face of Sorrow wear a smile; <br>Bade those, who dare obey the generous call,<br>Enjoy her blessings, which God meant for all?<br>Is this the land, where, in some tyrant's reign,<br>When a weak, wicked, ministerial train,<br>The tools of power, the slaves of interest, plann'd<br>Their country's ruin, and with bribes unmann'd<br>Those wretches, who, ordain'd in Freedom's cause,<br>Gave up our liberties, and sold our laws;<br>When Power was taught by Meanness where to go,<br>Nor dared to love the virtue of a foe; <br>When, like a leprous plague, from the foul head<br>To the foul heart her sores Corruption spread;<br>Her iron arm when stern Oppression rear'd;<br>And Virtue, from her broad base shaken, fear'd<br>The scourge of Vice; when, impotent and vain,<br>Poor Freedom bow'd the neck to Slavery's chain?<br>Is this the land, where, in those worst of times,<br>The hardy poet raised his honest rhymes<br>To dread rebuke, and bade Controlment speak<br>In guilty blushes on the villain's cheek; <br>Bade Power turn pale, kept mighty rogues in awe,<br>And made them fear the Muse, who fear'd not law?<br>How do I laugh, when men of narrow souls,<br>Whom Folly guides, and Prejudice controls;<br>Who, one dull drowsy track of business trod,<br>Worship their Mammon, and neglect their God;<br>Who, breathing by one musty set of rules,<br>Dote from their birth, and are by system fools;<br>Who, form'd to dulness from their very youth,<br>Lies of the day prefer to gospel truth; <br>Pick up their little knowledge from Reviews,<br>And lay out all their stock of faith in news;<br>How do I laugh, when creatures, form'd like these,<br>Whom Reason scorns, and I should blush to please,<br>Rail at all liberal arts, deem verse a crime,<br>And hold not truth, as truth, if told in rhyme!<br>How do I laugh, when Publius, hoary grown<br>In zeal for Scotland's welfare, and his own,<br>By slow degrees, and course of office, drawn<br>In mood and figure at the helm to yawn, <br>Too mean (the worst of curses Heaven can send)<br>To have a foe, too proud to have a friend;<br>Erring by form, which blockheads sacred hold,<br>Ne'er making new faults, and ne'er mending old,<br>Rebukes my spirit, bids the daring Muse<br>Subjects more equal to her weakness choose;<br>Bids her frequent the haunts of humble swains,<br>Nor dare to traffic in ambitious strains;<br>Bids her, indulging the poetic whim<br>In quaint-wrought ode, or sonnet pertly trim, <br>Along the church-way path complain with Gray,<br>Or dance with Mason on the first of May!<br>'All sacred is the name and power of kings;<br>All states and statesmen are those mighty things<br>Which, howsoe'er they out of course may roll,<br>Were never made for poets to control.'<br>Peace, peace, thou dotard! nor thus vilely deem<br>Of sacred numbers, and their power blaspheme.<br>I tell thee, wretch, search all creation round,<br>In earth, in heaven, no subject can be found: <br>(Our God alone except) above whose height<br>The poet cannot rise, and hold his state.<br>The blessed saints above in numbers speak<br>The praise of God, though there all praise is weak;<br>In numbers here below the bard shall teach<br>Virtue to soar beyond the villain's reach;<br>Shall tear his labouring lungs, strain his hoarse throat,<br>And raise his voice beyond the trumpet's note,<br>Should an afflicted country, awed by men<br>Of slavish principles, demand his pen. <br>This is a great, a glorious point of view,<br>Fit for an English poet to pursue;<br>Undaunted to pursue, though, in return,<br>His writings by the common hangman burn<br>How do I laugh, when men, by fortune placed<br>Above their betters, and by rank disgraced,<br>Who found their pride on titles which they stain,<br>And, mean themselves, are of their fathers vain;<br>Who would a bill of privilege prefer,<br>And treat a poet like a creditor; <br>The generous ardour of the Muse condemn,<br>And curse the storm they know must break on them!<br>'What! shall a reptile bard, a wretch unknown,<br>Without one badge of merit but his own,<br>Great nobles lash, and lords, like common men,<br>Smart from the vengeance of a scribbler's pen?'<br>What's in this name of lord, that I should fear<br>To bring their vices to the public ear?<br>Flows not the honest blood of humble swains<br>Quick as the tide which swells a monarch's veins? <br>Monarchs, who wealth and titles can bestow,<br>Cannot make virtues in succession flow.<br>Wouldst thou, proud man! be safely placed above<br>The censure of the Muse? Deserve her love:<br>Act as thy birth demands, as nobles ought;<br>Look back, and, by thy worthy father taught,<br>Who earn'd those honours thou wert born to wear,<br>Follow his steps, and be his virtue's heir.<br>But if, regardless of the road to fame,<br>You start aside, and tread the paths of shame; <br>If such thy life, that should thy sire arise,<br>The sight of such a son would blast his eyes,<br>Would make him curse the hour which gave thee birth,<br>Would drive him shuddering from the face of earth,<br>Once more, with shame and sorrow, 'mongst the dead<br>In endless night to hide his reverend head;<br>If such thy life, though kings had made thee more<br>Than ever king a scoundrel made before;<br>Nay, to allow thy pride a deeper spring,<br>Though God in vengeance had made thee a king, <br>Taking on Virtue's wing her daring flight,<br>The Muse should drag thee, trembling, to the light,<br>Probe thy foul wounds, and lay thy bosom bare<br>To the keen question of the searching air.<br>Gods! with what pride I see the titled slave,<br>Who smarts beneath the stroke which Satire gave,<br>Aiming at ease, and with dishonest art<br>Striving to hide the feelings of his heart!<br>How do I laugh, when, with affected air,<br>(Scarce able through despite to keep his chair, <br>Whilst on his trembling lip pale Anger speaks,<br>And the chafed blood flies mounting to his cheeks)<br>He talks of Conscience, which good men secures<br>From all those evil moments Guilt endures,<br>And seems to laugh at those who pay regard<br>To the wild ravings of a frantic bard.<br>'Satire, whilst envy and ill-humour sway<br>The mind of man, must always make her way;<br>Nor to a bosom, with discretion fraught,<br>Is all her malice worth a single thought. <br>The wise have not the will, nor fools the power,<br>To stop her headstrong course; within the hour,<br>Left to herself, she dies; opposing strife<br>Gives her fresh vigour, and prolongs her life.<br>All things her prey, and every man her aim,<br>I can no patent for exemption claim,<br>Nor would I wish to stop that harmless dart<br>Which plays around, but cannot wound my heart;<br>Though pointed at myself, be Satire free;<br>To her 'tis pleasure, and no pain to me.' <br>Dissembling wretch! hence to the Stoic school,<br>And there amongst thy brethren play the fool;<br>There, unrebuked, these wild, vain doctrines preach.<br>Lives there a man whom Satire cannot reach?<br>Lives there a man who calmly can stand by,<br>And see his conscience ripp'd with steady eye?<br>When Satire flies abroad on Falsehood's wing,<br>Short is her life, and impotent her sting;<br>But when to Truth allied, the wound she gives<br>Sinks deep, and to remotest ages lives. <br>When in the tomb thy pamper'd flesh shall rot,<br>And e'en by friends thy memory be forgot,<br>Still shalt thou live, recorded for thy crimes,<br>Live in her page, and stink to after-times.<br>Hast thou no feeling yet? Come, throw off pride,<br>And own those passions which thou shalt not hide.<br>Sandwich, who, from the moment of his birth,<br>Made human nature a reproach on earth,<br>Who never dared, nor wish'd, behind to stay,<br>When Folly, Vice, and Meanness led the way, <br>Would blush, should he be told, by Truth and Wit,<br>Those actions which he blush'd not to commit.<br>Men the most infamous are fond of fame,<br>And those who fear not guilt, yet start at shame.<br>But whither runs my zeal, whose rapid force,<br>Turning the brain, bears Reason from her course;<br>Carries me back to times, when poets, bless'd<br>With courage, graced the science they profess'd;<br>When they, in honour rooted, firmly stood,<br>The bad to punish, and reward the good; <br>When, to a flame by public virtue wrought,<br>The foes of freedom they to justice brought,<br>And dared expose those slaves who dared support<br>A tyrant plan, and call'd themselves a Court?<br>Ah! what are poets now? As slavish those<br>Who deal in verse, as those who deal in prose.<br>Is there an Author, search the kingdom round,<br>In whom true worth and real spirit's found?<br>The slaves of booksellers, or (doom'd by Fate<br>To baser chains) vile pensioners of state; <br>Some, dead to shame, and of those shackles proud<br>Which Honour scorns, for slavery roar aloud;<br>Others, half-palsied only, mutes become,<br>And what makes Smollett write, makes Johnson dumb.<br>Why turns yon villain pale? Why bends his eye<br>Inward, abash'd, when Murphy passes by?<br>Dost thou sage Murphy for a blockhead take,<br>Who wages war with Vice for Virtue's sake?<br>No, no, like other worldlings, you will find<br>He shifts his sails and catches every wind. <br>His soul the shock of Interest can't endure:<br>Give him a pension then, and sin secure.<br>With laurell'd wreaths the flatterer's brows adorn:<br>Bid Virtue crouch, bid Vice exalt her horn;<br>Bid cowards thrive, put Honesty to flight,<br>Murphy shall prove, or try to prove it right.<br>Try, thou state-juggler, every paltry art;<br>Ransack the inmost closet of my heart;<br>Swear thou'rt my friend; by that base oath make way<br>Into my breast, and flatter to betray. <br>Or, if those tricks are vain; if wholesome doubt<br>Detects the fraud, and points the villain out;<br>Bribe those who daily at my board are fed,<br>And make them take my life who eat my bread.<br>On Authors for defence, for praise depend;<br>Pay him but well, and Murphy is thy friend:<br>He, he shall ready stand with venal rhymes,<br>To varnish guilt, and consecrate thy crimes;<br>To make Corruption in false colours shine,<br>And damn his own good name, to rescue thine. <br>But, if thy niggard hands their gifts withhold,<br>And Vice no longer rains down showers of gold,<br>Expect no mercy; facts, well-grounded, teach,<br>Murphy, if not rewarded, will impeach.<br>What though each man of nice and juster thought,<br>Shunning his steps, decrees, by Honour taught,<br>He ne'er can be a friend, who stoops so low<br>To be the base betrayer of a foe?<br>What though, with thine together link'd, his name<br>Must be with thine transmitted down to shame? <br>To every manly feeling callous grown,<br>Rather than not blast thine, he 'll blast his own.<br>To ope the fountain whence sedition springs,<br>To slander government, and libel kings;<br>With Freedom's name to serve a present hour,<br>Though born and bred to arbitrary power;<br>To talk of William with insidious art,<br>Whilst a vile Stuart's lurking in his heart;<br>And, whilst mean Envy rears her loathsome head,<br>Flattering the living, to abuse the dead, <br>Where is Shebbeare? Oh, let not foul reproach,<br>Travelling thither in a city-coach,<br>The pillory dare to name: the whole intent<br>Of that parade was fame, not punishment;<br>And that old staunch Whig, Beardmore, standing by,<br>Can in full court give that report the lie.<br>With rude unnatural jargon to support,<br>Half-Scotch, half-English, a declining court;<br>To make most glaring contraries unite,<br>And prove beyond dispute that black is white; <br>To make firm Honour tamely league with Shame,<br>Make Vice and Virtue differ but in name;<br>To prove that chains and freedom are but one,<br>That to be saved must mean to be undone,<br>Is there not Guthrie? Who, like him, can call<br>All opposites to proof, and conquer all?<br>He calls forth living waters from the rock;<br>He calls forth children from the barren stock;<br>He, far beyond the springs of Nature led,<br>Makes women bring forth after they are dead; <br>He, on a curious, new, and happy plan,<br>In wedlock's sacred bands joins man to man;<br>And to complete the whole, most strange, but true,<br>By some rare magic, makes them fruitful too;<br>Whilst from their loins, in the due course of years,<br>Flows the rich blood of Guthrie's 'English Peers.'<br>Dost thou contrive some blacker deed of shame,<br>Something which Nature shudders but to name,<br>Something which makes the soul of man retreat,<br>And the life-blood run backward to her seat? <br>Dost thou contrive, for some base private end,<br>Some selfish view, to hang a trusting friend;<br>To lure him on, e'en to his parting breath,<br>And promise life, to work him surer death?<br>Grown old in villany, and dead to grace,<br>Hell in his heart, and Tyburn in his face,<br>Behold, a parson at thy elbow stands,<br>Lowering damnation, and with open hands,<br>Ripe to betray his Saviour for reward,<br>The Atheist chaplain of an Atheist lord! <br>Bred to the church, and for the gown decreed,<br>Ere it was known that I should learn to read;<br>Though that was nothing, for my friends, who knew<br>What mighty Dulness of itself could do,<br>Never design'd me for a working priest,<br>But hoped I should have been a Dean at least:<br>Condemn'd, (like many more, and worthier men,<br>To whom I pledge the service of my pen)<br>Condemn'd (whilst proud and pamper'd sons of lawn,<br>Cramm'd to the throat, in lazy plenty yawn) <br>In pomp of reverend beggary to appear,<br>To pray, and starve on forty pounds a-year:<br>My friends, who never felt the galling load,<br>Lament that I forsook the packhorse road,<br>Whilst Virtue to my conduct witness bears,<br>In throwing off that gown which Francis wears.<br>What creature's that, so very pert and prim,<br>So very full of foppery, and whim,<br>So gentle, yet so brisk; so wondrous sweet,<br>So fit to prattle at a lady's feet; <br>Who looks as he the Lord's rich vineyard trod,<br>And by his garb appears a man of God?<br>Trust not to looks, nor credit outward show;<br>The villain lurks beneath the cassock'd beau;<br>That's an informer; what avails the name?<br>Suffice it that the wretch from Sodom came.<br>His tongue is deadly--from his presence run,<br>Unless thy rage would wish to be undone.<br>No ties can hold him, no affection bind,<br>And fear alone restrains his coward mind; <br>Free him from that, no monster is so fell,<br>Nor is so sure a blood-hound found in Hell.<br>His silken smiles, his hypocritic air,<br>His meek demeanour, plausible and fair,<br>Are only worn to pave Fraud's easier way,<br>And make gull'd Virtue fall a surer prey.<br>Attend his church--his plan of doctrine view--<br>The preacher is a Christian, dull, but true;<br>But when the hallow'd hour of preaching's o'er,<br>That plan of doctrine's never thought of more; <br>Christ is laid by neglected on the shelf,<br>And the vile priest is gospel to himself.<br>By Cleland tutor'd, and with Blacow bred,<br>(Blacow, whom, by a brave resentment led,<br>Oxford, if Oxford had not sunk in fame,<br>Ere this, had damn'd to everlasting shame)<br>Their steps he follows, and their crimes partakes;<br>To virtue lost, to vice alone he wakes,<br>Most lusciously declaims 'gainst luscious themes,<br>And whilst he rails at blasphemy, blasphemes. <br>Are these the arts which policy supplies?<br>Are these the steps by which grave churchmen rise?<br>Forbid it, Heaven; or, should it turn out so,<br>Let me and mine continue mean and low.<br>Such be their arts whom interest controls;<br>Kidgell and I have free and modest souls:<br>We scorn preferment which is gain'd by sin,<br>And will, though poor without, have peace within.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Charles+Churchill">Charles Churchill</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=354709" data-title="The Author de Charles Churchill" data-description="Accursed the man, whom Fate ordains, in spite, And cruel parents teach, to read and write! What need of letters? wherefore should we spell? Why write our names? A mark will do as well. Much are the precious hours of youth misspent, In climbing Lea..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black