faces The Egyptians weren't at all partic'lar, | Sometimes, indeed, their neighbours' 80 But all your common people gorgons! Of course, if any knave but hinted That the King's nose was turned awry, Or that the Queen (God save us!) squinted The judges doomed that knave to die. But rarely things like this occurred; The people to their King were duteous, And took it, on his royal word, That they were frights and he was beauteous. The cause whereof, among all classes, Was simply this :-These island elves Had never yet seen looking-glasses, And therefore did not know themselves Might strike them as more full of reason, More fresh than those in certain placesBut, Lord! the very thought was treason! Besides, howe'er we love our neighbour, And take his face's part, 'tis known We never half so earnest labour, As when the face attacked's our own.. So on they went-the crowd believing (As crowds well governed always do); Their rulers, too, themselves deceiving So old the joke they thought it true. But jokes, we know, if they too far go, Must have an end; and so, one day, Upon that coast there was a cargo Of looking-glasses cast away. 'Twas said some Radicals, somewhere, Had laid their wicked heads together, And forced that ship to founder thereWhile some believe it was the weather. However this might be, the freight Was landed without fees or duties; And from that hour historians date The downfall of the race of beauties. The looking-glasses got about, And grew so common through the land, That scarce a tinker could walk out Without a mirror in his hand. If chance a Duke, of birth sublime, Presumed upon his ancient face (Some calf-head, ugly from all time), They popped a mirror to his Grace Just hinting, by that gentle sign, How little Nature holds it true, That what is called an ancient line Must be the line of Beauty too. From Dukes they passed to regal : phizzes, Compared them proudly with their own, And cried, 'How could such monstrous quizzes In Beauty's name usurp the throne!' They then wrote essays, pamphlets, books, Upon cosmetical economy, Which made the King try various looks, But none improved his physiognomy. And satires at the Court they levelled, And smal! lampoons, so full of sly nesses, That soon, in short, they quite bedeviled Their Majesties and Royal High nesses. At length-but here I drop the veil, To spare some loyal folks' sensations: Besides, what follows is the tale Of all such late-enlightened nations; Of all to whom old Time discloses A truth they should have sooner known That Kings have neither rights nor noses A whit diviner than their own. FABLE III. THE TORCH OF LIBERTY. I SAW it all in Fancy's glass Herself, the fair, the wild magician, Who bid this splendid day dream pass, And named each gliding apparition. 'Twas like a torch race-such as they Of Greece performed, in ages gone, When the fleet youths, in long array, Passed the bright torch triumphant on. I saw the expectant nations stand, The clear, though struggling, glory And oh, their joy, as it came near, "Twas in itself a joy to see ;While Fancy whispered in my ear, "That torch they pass is Liberty!' And each, as she received the flame, Lighted her altar with its ray; Then, smiling to the next who came, Speeded it on its sparkling way. From Albion first, whose ancient shrine Was furnished with the fire already, Columbia caught the boon divine, And lit a flame, like Albion's, steady. The splendid gift then Gallia took, The brand aloft, its sparkles shook, And, like a wild Bacchante, raising As she would set the world a-blazing: And when she fired her altar high, It flashed into the reddening air So fierce, that Albion, who stood nigh, Shrunk, almost blinded by the glare! Next, Spain, so new was light to her, Leaped at the torch-but, ere the spark That fell upon her shrine could stir, "Twas quenched-and all again was dark. Yet, no-not quenched-a treasure, worth So much to mortals, rarely dies: Again her living light looked forth, And shone, a beacon, in all eyes. Who next received the flame? alas, Unworthy Naples-shame of shames, That ever through such hands should pass That brightest of all earthly flames! Scarce had her fingers touched the torch, When, frighted by the sparks it shed, Nor waiting even to feel the scorch, She dropped it to the earth-and fled. And fallen it might have long remained! | Nay, even to see it in a vision, But Greece, who saw her moment Would be what lawyers call misprision. Or all that, to the sage's survey, ; As little minds in lofty stations. If, as in some few royal cases, Sir Robert Filmer says—and he, Of course, knew all about the matter- Sidney, indeed, we know, had quite By slipping awkwardly his bridle : No, no-it isn't foolish Kings That move my wrath, but your pre- Your mushroom rulers, sons of earth, (Regular gratia Dei blockheads, Nor leaving, on the scale of mind, Push up into the loftiest stations, This class it is that moves my gall, While the most jumping Frog we Would scarce at Astley's hope to show Small minds are born into such places-To any business, any where, If they are there by right Divine, At any time that fools will let them.. But leave we here these upstart things Why Heaven forbid we should re- My business is, just now, with Kings; pine! To wish it otherwise were treason; To whom, and to their right-line glory, He saw a brisk blue-bottle Fly on an altar,1 Made much of, and worshipped as something divine; While a large handsome Bullock, led there in an halter, Before it lay stabbed at the foot of the shrine. Surprised at such doings, he whispered his teacher 'If 'tisn't impertinent, may I ask why Should a Bullock, that useful and powerful creature, Be thus offered up to a blue-bottle fly?' 'No wonder,' said t'other, 'you stare at the sight, But we as a symbol of monarchy view it: That Fly on the shrine is Legitimate Right, And that Bullock the people that's sacrificed to it.' FABLE V. CHURCH AND STATE. 'The moment any religion becomes national, or established, its purity must certainly be lost, because it is then impossible to keep it uncon nected with men's interests; and, if connected, it must evidently be perverted by them.'-Soame Jenyns. THUS did Soame Jenyns-though a Tory, A Lord of Trade and the Plantations Feel how Religion's simple glory Is stained by State associations. When Catherine, after murdering Poles, Appealed to the benign Divinity, Made fractions of their very soulsThen cut them up in protocols, All in the name of the blessed Trinity; Or when her grandson, Alexander, That mighty northern salamander Whose icy touch, felt all about, Puts every fire of Freedom outWhen he, too, winds up his Ukases With God and the Panagia's praisesWhen he, of royal saints the type, In holy water dips the sponge, With which, at one imperial wipe, He would all human rights expunge When (whom, as King and cater, Some name and some 3 ! Calls down Saint Louis' God' to witness The right, humanity, and fitness Sages with muskets and laced coatsTo cram instruction, nolens volens, Down the poor struggling Spaniards' throats An allusion to a play on the sound of words made at the time in France, by which Louis dix-huit (18th) was called des huitres (of the oysters), in ridicule of his taste for the pleasures of the table. sceptic, I can't help thinking (though to Kings | The qualms, the fumes of sect and This, this it is-Religion, made, And all that Reason, grown dyspeptic Those sapient wits of the Reviews, Who to our most abundant shares As caterpillars find those flies,2 Of others' meanings in my rhymes I aim at in the following story: Fable. WHEN Royalty was young and bold. come- "Twixt Church and State, a truck, a If 'tis not civil to say old trade This most ill-matched unholy "o. At least, a ci-devant jeune homme. From whence the ills we witness flow-One evening, on some wild pursuit, The war of many creeds with one, none A publisher of infidel works. The greatest number of the ichneumon tribe are seen settling upon the back of the caterpillar, Driving along, he chanced to see and darting at different intervals their stings into its body-at every dart they depose an egg?Goldsmith. |