for ever than the conjuncture of Eighty-eight presented to the peo- ple of Great Britain. But the disgraceful reigns of Charles and James had weakened and degraded the national character. The bold notions of popular right, which had arisen out of the struggles between Charles the First and his Parliament, were gradually sup- planted by those slavish doctrines for which Lord Hawkesbury eulogizes the churchmen of that period; and as the Reformation had happened too soon for the purity of religion, so the Revolution came too late for the spirit of liberty. Its advantages accordingly were for the most part specious and transitory, while the evils which it entailed are still felt and still increasing. By rendering unnecessary the frequent exercise of Prerogative, that unwieldy power which cannot move a step without alarm,-it diminished the only interference of the Crown which is singly and independently exposed before the people, and whose abuses therefore are obvious to their senses and capacities; like the myrtle over a celebrated statue in Minerva's temple at Athens, it skilfully veiled from the public eye the only obtrusive feature of royalty. At the same time, however, that the Revolution abridged this unpopular attribute, it amply compensated by the substitution of a new power, as much more potent in its effect as it is more secret in its operations. In the disposal of an immense revenue and the extensive patronage annexed to it, the first foundations of this power of the Crown were laid; the innovation of a standing army at once increased and strengthened it, and the few slight barriers which the Act of Settle- ment opposed to its progress have all been gradually removed during the Whiggish reigns that succeeded; till at length this spirit of in- fluence has become the vital principle of the State, an agency, subtle and unseen, which pervades every part of the Constitution, lurks under all its forms, and regulates all its movements, and, like the invisible sylph or grace which presides over the motions of beauty,
"Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia flectit, Componit furtim subsequiturque.”
The cause of Liberty and the Revolution are so habitually associated in the minds of Englishmen, that probably in objecting to the latter, I may be thought hostile or indifferent to the former; but assuredly nothing could be more unjust than such a suspicion. The very object, indeed, which my humble animadversions would attain is that in the crisis to which I think England is now hastening, and between which and foreign subjugation she may soon be compelled to choose, the errors and omissions of 1688 may be remedied; and, as it was then her fate to experience a Revolution without Reform, she may now seek a Reform without Revolution.
In speaking of the parties which have so long agitated England, it will be observed that I lean as little to the Whigs as to their adversaries. Both factions have been equally cruel to Ireland, and perhaps equally insincere in their efforts for the liberties of England. There is one name, indeed, connected with Whiggism, of which I can never think but with veneration and tenderness. As justly, however, might the light of the sun be claimed by any particular nation, as the sanction of that name be monopolized by any
Taints by degrees, and ruins without noise. While parliaments, no more those sacred things Which make and rule the destiny of kings, Like loaded dice by ministers are thrown, And each new set of sharpers cog their own. Hench the rich oil that from the Treasury steais, And drips o'er all the Constitution's wheels, Giving the old machine such pliant play That Court and Commons jog one joltless way While Wisdom trembles for the crazy car, So gilt, so rotten, carrying fools so far; And the duped people, hourly doomed to pay The sums that bribe their liberties away,- Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom See their own feathers plucked, to wing the dart Which rank corruption destines for their heart: But soft! my friend, I hear thee proudly say "What! shall I listen to the impious lay That dares, with Tory licence, to profane The bright bequests of William's glorious reign? Shall the great wisdom of our patriot sires,
Whom Hawkesbury quotes and savoury B-rch admires, Be slandered thus? Shall honest Steele agree With virtuous R-se to call us pure and free, Yet fail to prove it? Shall our patent pair Of wise state-poets waste their words in air, And Pye unheeded breathe his prosperous strain And Canning take the people's sense in vain?"
The people!-ah, that Freedom's form should stay Where Freedom's spirit long hath passed away. That a false smile should play around the dead, And flush the features where the soul hath fled! When Rome had lost her virtue with her rights When her foul tyrant sat on Capree's heights Amid his ruffian spies, and doomed to death Each noble name they blasted with their breath- E'en then (in mockery of that golden time When the Republic rose revered, sublime, And her free sons, diffused from zone to zone, Gave kings to every country but their own),- E'en then the senate and the tribunes stood, Insulting marks, to show how Freedom's flood Had dared to flow, in glory's radiant day, And how it ebbed,-for ever ebbed away!
Oh look around-though yet a tyrant's sword Nor haunts our sleep nor trembles o'er our board, Though blood be better drawn by modern quacks With Treasury leeches than with sword or axe; Yet say, could e'en a prostrate tribune's power, Or a mock senate, in Rome's servile hour,
Insult so much the claims, the rights of man, As doth that fettered mob, that free divan, Of noble tools and honourable knaves, Of pensioned patriots and privileged slaves! That party-coloured mass, which nought can warm But quick corruption's heat-whose ready swarm Spread their light wings in Bribery's golden sky, Buzz for a period, lay their eggs, and die ;— That greedy vampire which from Freedom's tomb Comes forth, with all the mimicry of bloom Upon its lifeless cheek, and sucks and drains A people's blood to feed its putrid veins !
Heavens, what a picture! yes, my friend, 'tis dark; "But can no light be found, no genuine spark Of former fire to warm us? Is there none, To act a Marvell's part ?" *-I fear not one. To place and power all public spirit tends, In place and power all public spirit ends; Like hardy plants, that love the air and sky, When out, 'twill thrive-but taken in, 'twill die i
Not bolder truths of sacred Freedom hung From Sidney's pen or burned on Fox's tongue Than upstart Whigs produce each market night, While yet their conscience, as their purse, is light; While debts at home excite their care for those Which, dire to tell, their much-loved country owes, And loud and upright, till their prize be known, They thwart the King's supplies to raise their own. But bees, on flowers alighting, cease their hum— So, settling upon places, Whigs grow dumb. And though I feel as if indignant Heaven Must think that wretch too foul to be forgiven Who basely hangs the bright protecting shade Of Freedom's ensign o'er Corruption's trade, And makes the sacred flag he dares to show His passport to the market of her foe, Yet, yet, I own, so venerably dear
Are Freedom's grave old anthems to my ear That I enjoy them, though by rascals sung,
And reverence Scripture e'en from Satan's tongue.
Nay, when the constitution has expired,
I'll have such men, like Irish wakers, hired To sing old "Habeas Corpus" by its side, And ask, in purchased ditties, why it died?
Andrew Marvell, the honest opposer of the Court during the reign of Charles the Second, and the last member of parliament who, according to the ancient mode, took wages from his constituents. The Commons have, since then, much changed their paymasters.-See the State Poems for some rude but spirited effusions of Andrew Marvell.
See that smooth lord, whom nature's plastic pains Seem to have destined for those Eastern reigns When eunuchs flourished, and when nerveless things That men rejected were the chosen of Kings ;- E'en he, forsooth, (oh, mockery accurst!) Dared to assume the patriot's name at first. Thus Pitt began, and thus begin his apes; Thus devils, when first raised, take pleasing shapes. But oh, poor Ireland! if revenge be sweet For centuries of wrong, for dark deceit And withering insult-for the Union thrown Into thy bitter cup,* when that alone
Of slavery's draught was wanting-if for this Revenge be sweet, thou hast that demon's bliss • For, oh! 'tis more than hell's revenge to see That England trusts the men who've ruined thee ;- That, in these awful days, when every hour Creates some new or blasts some ancient power, When proud Napoleon, like the burning shield Whose light compelled each wondering foe to yield, With baleful lustre blinds the brave and free, And dazzles Europe into slavery,—
That, in this hour, when patriot zeal should guide, When Mind should rule, and--Fox should not have died, All that devoted England can oppose
To enemies made fiends, and friends made foes,
Is the rank refuse, the despised remains
Of that unpitying power whose whips and chains
Made Ireland first, in wild, adulterous trance,
Turn false to England's bed, and whore with France. Those hacked and tainted tools, so foully fit
For the grand artizan of mischief, Pitt,
So useless ever, but in vile employ,
So weak to save, so vigorous to destroy!
Such are the men that guard thy threatened shore! O England! sinking England! boast no more.
"This clamour, which pretends to be raised for the safety of religion, has almost worn out the very appearance of it, and rendered us not only the most divided but the most immoral people upon the face of the earth."-Addison, Freeholder, No. 37.
"And in the cup an Union shall be thrown."-Hamlet. †The magician's shield in Ariosto:
"E tolto per virtù dello splendore
La libertate a loro."-Canto 2.
We are told that Caesar's code of morality was contained in the following lines of Euripides, which that great man frequently repeated :
Είπερ γαρ αδικειν χρη τυραννίδος περι
Καλλιστον αδικειν τάλλα δ ̓ εὐσεβειν χρεων. This is also, as it appears, the moral code of Napoleon.
START not, my friend, nor think the muse will stain Her classic fingers with the dust profane
Of Bulls, Decrees, and all those thundering scrolls That took such freedom once with royal souls, When heaven was yet the pope's exclusive trade, And kings were damned as fast as now they're made. No, no-let D-gen-n search the papal chair * For fragrant treasures long forgotten there : And, as the witch of sunless Lapland thinks That little swarthy gnomes delight in stinks, Let sallow Perceval snuff up the gale
Which wizard D-gen-n's gathered sweets exhale. Enough for me, whose heart has learned to scorn Bigots alike in Rome or England born, Who loathe the venom, whencesoe'er it springs, From popes or lawyers, pastry-cooks or kings, Enough for me to laugh and weep by turns, As mirth provokes, or indignation burns, As Canning vapours, or as France succeeds, As Hawkesbury proses, or as Ireland bleeds!
And thou, my friend, if, in these headlong days, When bigot zeal her drunken antics plays
So near a precipice that men the while
Look breathless on and shudder while they smile- If, in such fearful days, thou'lt dare to look
To hapless Ireland, to this rankling nook
Which Heaven hath freed from poisonous things in vain, While Gifford's tongue and M-sgr-ve's pen remain- If thou hast yet no golden blinkers got
To shade thine eyes from this devoted spot,
Whose wrongs, though blazoned o'er the world they be, Placemen alone are privileged not to see-
Oh! turn awhile, and, though the shamrock wreathes My homely harp, yet shall the song it breathes Of Ireland's slavery, and of Ireland's woes, Live, when the memory of her tyrant foes Shall but exist all future knaves to warn, Embalmed in hate and canonized by scorn; When Castlereagh, in sleep still more profound Than his own opiate tongue now deals around, Shall wait the impeachment of that awful day Which even his practised hand can't bribe away.
And oh my friend, wert thou but near me now, To see the spring diffuse o'er Erin's brow Smiles that shine out, unconquerably fair,
The "Stella Stercoraria" of the popes. The Right Honourauie and earned Doctor will find an engraving of this chair in Spanheim's "Disquisitio Historica de Papâ Fœminâ" (p. 118); and I recommend it as a model for the fashion of that seat which the Doctor is about to take in the privy-council of Ireland.
« PreviousContinue » |