betterness by lefford and his imitaler

cous a parmless and even amiable woman. is a THE MODERN BONtfab, the affected and silly as mext of the female

What can provoke thy Muse ?-in silence deep

Tooke rests-but not in everlasting sleep : torders ifter

*

Another scene awaits his trembling sight, c.

204

A gloom more awful, or a blaze more brightowever a
The veil is rent, the Sceptic's hateful name †

fave:

Stands justly branded with contempt and shame
The Christian Banner is again unfurl'd, naling

And Truth once more illumes a falling world ccomplished
P. All this is true—but still enough remains

with

und
in mind
* During the French Revolution, a law passed, decreeing
the sleep of death to be eternal. To such philosophers I
reply in the sublime language of Tully:
Quod si ivalents abou
hoc erro, quod animos hominum immortales esse credam,
libenter error; nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector dum
vivo, extorqueri volo; sin mortuus, ut quidam minuti
philosophi censent, nihil sentiam; non vereor, ne hunc
errorem meum mortui philosophi irideant."

Let me also add a passage from a good old English
Dramatist :

"Wits that presum'd

On wit too much, by striving how to prove
There was no God, with foolish grounds of art,
Discover'd first the nearest way to hell,

And fill'd the world with devilish atheism."

+ It has become popular to inveigh against the avarice, pride, and intolerance of the Church; and those have joined loudest in the cry who possessed the largest share of the sacrilegious plunder wrested from her by a sensual and ferocious tyrant, and lavished on his pimps, of whom these ingrate railers are the right honorable (?) representatives and successors. Fanatics of every variety of creed, hating,

: disent

in his day what

bret

THE MODERN DUNCIAD.

Bright & in our wanted pes discretion, and eloquence. Enough in conscience to provoke my strains.

Gule

Sone

*

See Thelwall, void of decency and sense,

Erect, God wot! a school for eloquence;

The newest style of rhetoric to teach, And full-grown gentlemen their parts of speech : was the While from his tub, Gale Jones, sedition's sprite, Ernest Son Nonsense with sense confounds, and wrong with

offers day

X

right;

da kants,
Rants, bounces, capers, a fantastic show!
To scare the shilling orators below.

Prolific Pasquin plies th' eternal quill,
Fitzgerald rhymes, and Cobbett proses still;
Hoarse Clio Rickman's + sonnets bay the moon,

persecuting, and reviling each other, have held a temporary truce, and welcomed into their ranks the notoriously profligate and profane to make head against their common enemy. How-itt happens that a mountebank in quaker masquerade should presume to charge any set of men with hypocrisy and fraud, is a question that the impudent imposter who babbles so much about priests and priestcraft can best answer. It is surely enough for this low buffoon to be the scandal of one sect, without craving the additional infamy of lifting his hoof against a faith, that, while it deplores his errors, despises his animosity.

* Mr. Thelwall continues" tuning his voice, and balancing his hands,"

-

"Preacher at once, and zany of the age!"

+ A citizen of the world! for in this character he has the effrontery to parade the streets, to the no small enter

"Thy hoarse Rickman frévious republi

can but a

man of considerable taste d if

I of extensive reading

Clio, a poet, patriot, and buffoon. Godwin cour
Godwin pursues his philosophic schemes, an old knave
And rapt in trance, Joanna Southcott dreams; s
Jeffrey turns critic, but betrays his trust,
And hot-press'd Little breathes the soul of lust;
While chaste Minerva kindly lends her aid te ded not
To calm the scruples of each wishful maid. couce him :,

lever one.

Lo, mad enthusiasts,* would-be saints, stand forth of philou.ppy

Sworn foes to god-like genius, private worth,
He corole

With furious zeal attack e'en Shakespeare's fame,

Goldsmith attacked thats per ! novels, bro:

tainment of the mob; and display his ludicrous figure
(rendered still more ridiculous by the affectation of a

"graphy;

whimsical costume,) in the print shops. Clio is a concnticidi tributor of Odes and Sonnets to the Monthly Magazine;

an avowed admirer of the new French school of philosophy 2nd polities

and a staunch advocate for " The Rights of Man."

* The following criticism is taken from the third volumtzo Caleb of the Eclectic Review, Part 1, p. 76. Art. Twiss's " Verbal Williams.

Index of Shakespeare."

'He (Shakespeare) has been

called, and justly too, the poet of nature; a slight acquaint

ance with the religion of the Bible will shew, however, that

Stheon

it is of human nature in its worst shape, deformed by the all be basest passions, and agitated by the most vicious propen

sities, that the poet became the priest; and the incense remembered

offered at the altar of his goddess still continues to spread

its poisonous fumes over the hearts of his countrymen, till

long after the

the memory of his works is extinct. Thousands of unhappy modem
spirits, and thousands yet to increase the number, will
everlastingly look back with unutterable anguish on the Dunciad-
nights and days in which the plays of Shakespeare ministered

to their guilty delights.". . And again, "What Christian

3 forgotten

And hurl their pois'nous darts at Garrick's name;
And while they talk of Truth, of Candour rave,
Insult the dead, and violate the grave.
In Magazines vile anecdotes appear,

And deal out dirty scandal through the year;
For desp❜rate libellers, when duns assail,
Dare lawsuits, whips, the pill'ry, and the jail.

*

This Hewson Clarke can tell, misguided youth,

What demon lur'd him from the path of truth,

low ambition fill'd his canker'd mind,

Many Passages of Byron's English Bards have been preced on to this Satire,

dond

lannin

New Me

??)

can pass through the most venerable pile of sacred architecture which our metropolis can boast, without having his best feelings insulted by observing within a few yards of the spot from which prayers and praises are daily offered to the Most High, the absurd and impious epitaph upon the tablet raised to one of the miserable retailers of his impurities! Our readers who are acquainted with London, will discover that it is the inscription upon David Garrick, in Westminster Abbey, to which we refer."

Now stop your noses, readers all, and some,
For here's a tun of midnight work to come!"

The "pertinacious, and never-enough quoted" Mr. Hewson
Clarke, according to his own statement, (for Mr. Clarke
has favoured the public with his autobiography in the third
number of the " Scourge," written, it would seem, by a
third person, but in reality penned by himself;) is the
author of numerous and successful writings, chiefly ano-
nymous.
But of what these numerous and successful
writings consist, it were impossible to say, except I name

ble

entertain the basest of mankind?

may he late for all his sins atone,

And while he gains their ears, preserve his own!*

Behold yon gorgeous Sign that swings in air,
(A well-known refuge for the sons of Care,)
There meet a piebald race, who cautious creep
From garrets high, or in night cellars sleep;
The courtier bland, the opposition churl,
To taste the sweets of politics and purl.

a lamentable production in rhyme, called The art of Pleasing," and the principal part of the scurrility that has appeared in the Satirist, Scourge, and Theatrical Inquisitor.

Every one of his (Mr. Clarke's) productions has been omposed in haste, and sent to the press without revision; his sonnets have not been ushered into the world after undergoing the ordeal of private criticism, nor his Essays assisted in their circulation by the officiousness of honourable friends, and the puffs of dependant critics." Let Mr. Clarke remember that the trade of a libeller is a dangerous

one:

"What street, what lane, but knows His purgings, pumpings, blankettings, and blows?"

and take the advice of honest Stephano,-" While thou liv'st, keep a good tongue in thy head."

* Warburton says,

"Scribblers have not the common

sense of other vermin, who commonly abstain from mischief

when they see any of their kind gibbeted, or nailed up as terrible examples."

Clarke, he