A POETICAL ADDRESS.

Q.What is your name?A.HogorSwine.Q.Did God make you aHog?A.No. God made me man in his own image; theRight Hon.Sublime Beautifulmade me aSwine.Q.How did he make you a Swine?A.By muttering obscure and uncouth spells. He is a dealer in the black art.Q.Who feeds you?A.Our Drivers, the only realmenin thisCounty.Q.How many Hogs are you in all?A.Seven or eight millions.Q.How many Drivers?A.Two or three hundred thousand.Q.With what do they feed you?A.Generally with husks, swill, draff, malt, grains, and now and then with a little barley-meal and a few potatoes, and when they have too much butter-milk themselves they give us some.

Q.What is your name?

A.HogorSwine.

Q.Did God make you aHog?

A.No. God made me man in his own image; theRight Hon.Sublime Beautifulmade me aSwine.

Q.How did he make you a Swine?

A.By muttering obscure and uncouth spells. He is a dealer in the black art.

Q.Who feeds you?

A.Our Drivers, the only realmenin thisCounty.

Q.How many Hogs are you in all?

A.Seven or eight millions.

Q.How many Drivers?

A.Two or three hundred thousand.

Q.With what do they feed you?

A.Generally with husks, swill, draff, malt, grains, and now and then with a little barley-meal and a few potatoes, and when they have too much butter-milk themselves they give us some.

The following must be allowed not to be destitute of humour.

Q.What are theInterpreters[5]called?A.TheBlack Letter Sisterhood.Q.Why do they give the office to women?A.Because they have a fluent tongue, and a knack of scolding.Q.How are they are dressed?A.In gowns and false hair.Q.What are the principal orders?A.Three—Writers,Talkers, andHearers, which last are also calledDeciders.Q.What is their general business?A.To discuss the mutual quarrels of the hogs, and to punish their affronts to any or all of the drivers.Q.If two hogs quarrel, how do they apply to the sisterhood?A.Each hog goes separately to aWriter.Q.What does theWriter?A.She goes to aTalker.Q.What does theTalker?A.She goes to aHearer(orDecider.)Q.What does theHearerdecide?A.What she pleases.Q.If a hog is decided to be in the right, what is the consequence?A.He isalmostruined.Q.If in thewrong, what?A.He isquiteruined.

Q.What are theInterpreters[5]called?

A.TheBlack Letter Sisterhood.

Q.Why do they give the office to women?

A.Because they have a fluent tongue, and a knack of scolding.

Q.How are they are dressed?

A.In gowns and false hair.

Q.What are the principal orders?

A.Three—Writers,Talkers, andHearers, which last are also calledDeciders.

Q.What is their general business?

A.To discuss the mutual quarrels of the hogs, and to punish their affronts to any or all of the drivers.

Q.If two hogs quarrel, how do they apply to the sisterhood?

A.Each hog goes separately to aWriter.

Q.What does theWriter?

A.She goes to aTalker.

Q.What does theTalker?

A.She goes to aHearer(orDecider.)

Q.What does theHearerdecide?

A.What she pleases.

Q.If a hog is decided to be in the right, what is the consequence?

A.He isalmostruined.

Q.If in thewrong, what?

A.He isquiteruined.

After some facetious sneers at the clergy, who are termed peace-makers, the dialogue proceeds.

Q.How are these peace-makers rewarded?A.With our potatoes.Q.What with all?A.Ten per cent. only.Q.Then you have still ninety left in the hundred?A.No, we have only forty left.Q.What becomes of the odd fifty?A.The drivers take them, partly as a small recompence for their trouble in protecting us, and partly to make money of them, for the prosecution of law-suits with the neighbouring farmers.Q.You talk very sensibly for a hog; whence had you your information?A.Froma learned Pig.

Q.How are these peace-makers rewarded?

A.With our potatoes.

Q.What with all?

A.Ten per cent. only.

Q.Then you have still ninety left in the hundred?

A.No, we have only forty left.

Q.What becomes of the odd fifty?

A.The drivers take them, partly as a small recompence for their trouble in protecting us, and partly to make money of them, for the prosecution of law-suits with the neighbouring farmers.

Q.You talk very sensibly for a hog; whence had you your information?

A.Froma learned Pig.

The following is given by way of answer to the question by what ceremony the hog is disenchanted, and resumes his natural shape.

A.The hog that is going to be disenchanted, grovels before theChief Driver, who holds an iron skewer over him, and gives him a smart blow on the shoulder, to remind him at once of his former subjection and future submission. Immediately he starts up, like the devil from Ithuriel’s spear, in his proper shape, and ever after goes about with a nick-name. He then beats his hogs without mercy, and when they implore his compassion, and beg him to recollect that he was once theirFellow Swine, he denies that ever he was a hog.

This curious dialogue thus concludes:—

Q.What is the general wish of the hogs at present?A.To save their bacon.Chorus of hogs.Amen.

Q.What is the general wish of the hogs at present?

A.To save their bacon.

Chorus of hogs.

Amen.

It may be observed of Porson, as Junius heretofore remarked of himself, that perhaps his own recollection could not always bring before him the numerous things he had written at various times, and on different occasions. Two learned articles of great judgment and acute criticism, may be pointed out, which not improbably Porson never communicated, except to the individuals for whose immediate service they were intended; more particularly as those individuals proudly pursued and sturdily avowed principles and sentiments, in the most determined opposition to those with whom the Professor lived with greater familiarity and intimacy.

The first of these was an article containing very learned and ingenious observations on the Codex Theodori Bezæ Cantabrigiensis, published by Dr. Kipling in 1793.

The reader may remember, that this MS. was so printed, that every page, line, word, letter, and point, as far as types can imitate hand-writing, corresponded with the original. Dr. Woide had done the same thing before with respect to the celebrated Alexandrian MS. But of the two works, the Professor remarks, “that as much as Kipling’s work is superior to Dr. Woide’s in its outside,so does it appear to be below it in intrinsic merit.”

The Professor objects, in the first instance, to the title prefixed by Dr. Kipling, viz. Codex Theodori Bezæ Cantabrigiensis. It is argued that an ambiguity is here involved, and that the natural construction of the words would make Bezæ, a Cambridge man at least, if not a member of the University. The whole, however, forms a fair and candid specimen of criticism, though the writer persists to the last in assigning the higher rank in point of merit to Dr. Woide’s most valuable publication.

The other Critical Essay, to which the Professor materially contributed, was a series of remarks on Wakefield’s Lucretius. It could not escape the discernment of so sagacious an observer as Porson manifestly was, that even when performing the office merely of editing a classical author, Wakefield could not resist the impulse he always obeyed of obtruding his opinions on subjects no more connected with Lucretius than with the history of China; and this has extorted the following sentence, sharp enough it must be acknowledged, but unquestionably true. “Mr. W.’s notes are very numerous and various; philological, critical, illustrative, and political, such as he always pours forth with a facility which judgment sometimes limps after in vain.”

It is well known to scholars, that the undertaking of collating manuscripts is very far from being an easy task, but in this labour the Professor was remarkably well skilled. It will appear from the observations here alluded to, that Porson actually submitted to the drudgery of collating three of the manuscripts employed by Wakefield. These MSS. were as follows:—

A MS, belonging to the public library at Cambridge, designated in Wakefield’s edition by the Greek letter Ω.

A MS. belonging to Edward Poore, Esq. of no great value or antiquity, referred to by Ο.

And three Harleian MSS. preserved in the British Museum, respectively called in the edition Δ. Π. Σ.

These three last MSS. being immediately within his reach, the Professor carefully collated, and the result of his conclusion was, that Wakefield cannot receive the palm of a skilful and scrupulously accurate collator. It is not intended to assert that the passage which follows, came from Porson’s pen, but it is so perfectly true in itself, and characteristic of Wakefield, that it is here inserted.

“In thus examining the present Edition of Lucretius, we feel a strong confidence that we shall not be suspected of being actuated by any resentment against a person, who must himself feel the chief evils of a restless, impatient, intolerant, mind.We think it, indeed, most lamentable, that a man, whose proper occupations are study and polite literature, should be so little able to command himself, as to fall into extravagances of political conduct, injurious ultimately to himself and family. Too many instances of this spirit appear completely out of their places in this Edition of Lucretius, in the form of political verses, allusions to the glories of France, and aspirations after similar changes here, with prophetic intimations of their approach.

“In such a farrago, abuse of us and our work, as supporting all that Mr. W. wishes to see overthrown, is virtually the highest compliment, and though we owe no gratitude to the author, we cannot but approve the tendency of his conduct towards us.

“We see, however, in his pages not the slightest tincture of that character, which he has, very early in his Preface, bestowed upon himself. ‘Si quis unquam diffidens mei.’ A most extravagant self-confidence, on the contrary, is every where conspicuous, except in a few of the prefatory flourishes; and though his maturer judgment has enabled him to see in his own ‘Silva critica plurima quæ sint juveniliter temeraria απροσδιονυσα prorsus et homine critico indigna,’ yet the very same character unimproved, will be found to prevail in his critical conjectures, scattered abundantly throughout the notesto his work, and readily accessible by means of his critical index. No author escapes his rage for correction, and Horace and Virgil in particular would have as little knowledge of their own works, were they presented to them reformed à la Wakefield, as we should of the British constitution were it given to his emendation. We can, however, pity while we censure, and most sincerely wish that with a more temperate mind, even in literature, he would give himself exclusively, and without mixture, to those studies, in which, with all his failings, he has certainly made a proficiency not common among scholars of this country.”

Whether the miscellaneous articles which follow be worthy of insertion, may by some be doubted, but they are genuine, and asperity may be softened by the consideration that they are the last.

If the reader will refer to the edition of Demosthenes, by Wolfius, printed at Frankfort, 1604, at p. 470, he will find the Oration of Æschines contre Ctesiphontem to conclude thus:

Και ειμεν καλως και αζιως του αδικηματος κατηγορηκα, ειπον ως εβουλομην, ειδε ενδεεστερως ως εδυναμην.

Porson has noted a singular coincidence of expression to be found in the 38th verse of the last chapter of the second book of Maccabees.

“And if I have done well and as fitting the story it is that which I desired, but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.”

Part of a humourous and satirical copy of verses addressed to Dr. W⸺, on his being appointed Tutor to the D⸺ of G⸺ by some attributed to Porson, by some to a hand now Right Reverend.

PART I.

Sage W⸺, Royal William’s Tutor,Thou reverend dilettanti Fluter,His voice an humble poet raisesTo celebrate thy Pupil’s praises;The lovely Boy and senior Gloster,Shall condescend my muse to fosterWith praise—not pay; for you and I knowOur patron’s not too full of rhino;You for a paltry pimping payment,That scarce will find you food and raiment,Give up your talents, freedom, leisure,To do the Royal folks a pleasure;I, for we poets in all ages,Have scorned to do our work for wages,Waste pen, wit, rhyme, and why? the cause isAn hungry hope of lean applauses....Now W⸺ swears, so goes the rumour,These squibs more scandal have than humour.“Oh! curse the rascal, did I know him, (aside)“I’d maul him for his doggrel poem[6].”Yet W⸺, should ill-tempered satire,Prince William’s character bespatter,Fret not, but check thy rising choler,For I’ll defend thy Royal Scholar.

Sage W⸺, Royal William’s Tutor,

Thou reverend dilettanti Fluter,

His voice an humble poet raises

To celebrate thy Pupil’s praises;

The lovely Boy and senior Gloster,

Shall condescend my muse to foster

With praise—not pay; for you and I know

Our patron’s not too full of rhino;

You for a paltry pimping payment,

That scarce will find you food and raiment,

Give up your talents, freedom, leisure,

To do the Royal folks a pleasure;

I, for we poets in all ages,

Have scorned to do our work for wages,

Waste pen, wit, rhyme, and why? the cause is

An hungry hope of lean applauses.

...

Now W⸺ swears, so goes the rumour,

These squibs more scandal have than humour.

“Oh! curse the rascal, did I know him, (aside)

“I’d maul him for his doggrel poem[6].”

Yet W⸺, should ill-tempered satire,

Prince William’s character bespatter,

Fret not, but check thy rising choler,

For I’ll defend thy Royal Scholar.

END OF PART I.

The Essay which succeeds was discovered after his decease among the manuscripts of the elegant and accomplished youth, whose character will be found in Vol. I. p. 173, et seq. It is supposed to be descriptive of his own particular situation.

Goodness wounds itself,And sweet affection proves the spring of woe.Shakespeare.

Goodness wounds itself,And sweet affection proves the spring of woe.

Goodness wounds itself,

And sweet affection proves the spring of woe.

Shakespeare.

The character of Timon of Athens presents a delineation of sudden change in the principles of human action, which, though drawn by the pen of Shakespeare himself, whose knowledge of the heart appears almost intuitive, has been censured as extravagant and unnatural. The glowing generosity, the indefatigable friendship, the expansive openness of soul, which mark the earlier features of the character of Timon, are suddenly, on a change of fortune, which discover treachery in his supposed friends, subverted to their foundation. The whole mental scene, shifting with rapidity and violence, presents in their room the most inveterate and ferocious detestation directed against all mankind. In my mind, the poet has here only afforded another proof of the keenness of that penetration,which, glancing through all the springs and mazes of the human soul, fixes the changing features of the mental portrait, and holds a mirror to nature herself. He perceived that on the ruins of our best feelings the temple of misanthropy is ever erected, the force of this truth he has exemplified by characters stamped with the kindliest affections of nature, containing those propensities on which the fairest structure of human happiness is raised, in which those benefits, so far from tending to their proper end, ill-managed and abused, involve their possessors in delusion and misery, and naturally end in a frame of mind inimical to mankind, and incapable of felicity.

Of these Timon is one; although inconsiderate ostentation forms a striking feature in the delineation of Shakespeare, the violence of misanthropy is to be traced to other causes, and we are led to exclaim, from a thorough knowledge of his character, with the faithful Flavius,

Poor honest Lord, brought low by his own heart;Undone by goodness.

Poor honest Lord, brought low by his own heart;

Undone by goodness.

To follow the general idea of the poet more closely, to apply it more generally to human nature at large, will probably reward our labour. For this purpose, we may call up before our eyes the painful, though too common picture, which themind, where the glow of fancy triumphs over reason, and the mere impulse of sensibility supersedes reflection and settled principle, exhibits in its progress through the world.

To a mind of high wrought feelings, and heated imagination, the entrance of life is fairy ground. The objects which solicit attention, viewed through the medium of that elevated hope which youth alone inspires, shine with a brilliancy of tint not their own. The face of universal nature impresses the soul with secret influence, a delicious rapture, which gives a new charm to being, and the heart, intoxicated with its own sensations, expands with an unbounded warmth to all existence.

The desert of the world is decorated with the fleeting visions of a raised and glowing fancy, while the eye rests, with unsuspicious wonder, on the splendid prospects which the magic of early expectation calls up on every side. Filled with that strong enthusiasm which elevates whilst it deludes, the mind soon is taught to feel, that in the crowd of pleasures, which court her acceptance, something is still deficient. The finer and more exalted ideas, which stimulate incessantly to action, are still without an object worthy of all their energy. The powers of the soul languish, and are depressed, from the narrowness of the sphere in which they have yet moved, the master strings of the heartare yet untouched, the higher, stronger passions of the breast are to be rouzed before the keenness of expectation can be gratified. The charms of friendship, the delicate and intoxicating sensations which attend the first delicious emotions of the tender passion, rush on the imagination with violence, to which even the energy of youthful ambition is feeble and impotent in comparison. It seems that but a dream of pleasure, a prospect of bliss, has been presented to the view, which friendship and love alone can realize and render perfect.

The enthusiast now looks eagerly around for the objects, which a heart, yet unacquainted with the realities of things, and wound up to its highest pitch, tells him are alone able to fill that void which still aches within the bosom. In the moment of delusion, the connections are formed which are to stamp existence with happiness or misery in the extreme. A blind impulse overpowers deliberation, and the heart expands itself for the reception of inmates, whose value it has not for a moment paused to ascertain. The measure of happiness is now for a moment full. The mind, conscious that the energy of sentiment no longer languishes in inaction, feels those wishes compleated, which the vividity of imagination had before but imperfectly suggested, and yields without reserve to the novel emotions, which begin to make part of its existence. On every sidethe heart is cheered by the smile of affection, on every side the arms of friendship are expanded with inviting openness.

The wand of deception creates a little world around, where nothing meets the eye but the mutual efforts of emulative exertion, and the smile of beneficence exulting over its own work. And love! sacred love! who that has truly felt thy first pure, and delicious influence, but learns, even if the object be delusion, that the few moments which thy power can confer, are of more value than whole existences unanimated by thy holy and vital flame.

But this rapture is not to last. The time is to come when the prospect which depended on the influence of passion, however noble, and prejudice, however honest, shall melt away from the view. The mind, raised to a pitch of enjoyment above the reality of sublunary happiness, is in danger when the faces of things appear at once in their proper colours, of sinking to a degree equally below it. He, who in the glow of his earlier feelings, feasted his eye with increasing transport, on the gay and captivating scenery, with which the creative power of an ardent imagination had overspread the barrenness of reality, now begins to find a thousand little deceptions wear away. The insipidity and nakedness of many an object, which, at a distance, had attracted his eagerness, and roused the keennessof his passions, press so close upon him, that even prejudice and enthusiasm fail to operate the accustomed delusion.

The little vanity, so often interwoven with the best natures, receives a variety of unexpected and grievous wounds. As the mists which clouded his better judgment retire, on every side he discovers with astonishment, that a dupe to self-deception, he has, like a blind idolator, fallen prostrate before the gaudy images his own hands have formed and decorated. He perceives that he has walked in a world of his own creation, that life and man are still before him to study, and he only recovers his cooler reason to feel the loss of that mental elevation, that brilliant perception of things, which, though ideal, were so dear to him.

But perhaps this is not all, nor does the discovery which scourges vanity, and detects the harmless fallacies of judgment, alone await him. Perhaps the hour of deception has treasured up disappointment more heavy and intolerable. What are his sensations, if the truth he now begins anxiously and fearfully to learn, is brought immediately home to his own bosom, and he is doomed to feel that the exalted and glowing ideas of friendship, which first expanded his soul, shrink even in his view, and leave his breast void and desolate. When in the heart, which his earliest ideas had imaged as the residenceof that sacred passion, the trial of experience detects hollowness and falsehood. When it is his bitter lot to mark the progress of alienated affection, to watch the subsidence of cooling attachment, to feel the ties connected in an honest and unsuspicious bosom with all his first enjoyments of happiness, beginning one by one to untwine. When he is to groan under the pang of the heart, which accompanies the tearing out of the thousand little habits of confidence, the innumerable kindly affections, which long custom had rooted in the soul, and made a part of the pleasantness of existence; or when he is to experience the agony of the moment, when he, in whom the bosom fondly trusted, insults the confidence he has cruelly violated, and aggravates by unfeeling mockery the distress his perfidy has excited.

But if this can be borne, perhaps the last and most fearful shock awaits him; the tenderest strings of his soul are to be more cruelly rent, and the wound, which before smarted almost to madness, rendered at once incurable. There are finer and more exalted ties, comprehending the best feelings, the dearest relations of which our natures are capable. Their severing is accompanied by sensations to which the wound of violated friendship itself is feeble, and, to minds of a certain frame, communicates that deadly stroke, to which the power of allother human evils, would have been inadequate. Such are those which unexpected treachery, from that quarter where the soul had gathered up its best and tenderest hope, must call forth, and few are the hearts, round the ruggedness of whose nature so little of the softer feelings are entwined, as not to feel the full keenness of that wound which the tearing of the ties of love inflicts, though its firmness had been inaccessible to the force of common calamities. The distress is more complicated and hopeless from its nature than any other, and the pangs of a thousand discordant passions are crouded and concentrated into that terrible moment which discovers infidelity, where the confiding heart had fondly rested all its prospects of happiness. Under other strokes of calamity the soul gains force and dignity from the greatness of unmerited misfortunes, and rouses every latent power to combat against evil fate.

In the school of distress the energies of the mind are disclosed, and, learning our own powers, we combat against the impression of adversity till we are able to contemn it. But here the sufferer finds himself as it were waked suddenly from a dream of happiness to intolerable misery; with his mind unnerved and weakened by passion, all the resources of fortitude lying dormant, every tender sensation doubly acute, every softening feeling alive. Fromthe object of tenderness and idolatry of one, who was the world to him, he at once finds himself a deserted and despised being; he sees his best and finest feelings blasted for ever, his honest sources of pleasure and peace cut off at one stroke, with the terrible aggravation that the hand to which alone he could look for comfort and healing under the wound of calamity, instead of being stretched out to save him, itself lodges the dagger in his breast.

He is now alone. The ties which bound him to existence, cruelly loosened before, are torn for ever by this last, worst stroke. The prospect which before warmed his heart, is narrowed and darkened on every side. The journey of life is before him dreary and comfortless. The weary path of rugged labour remains to be trodden, when the motives of activity and the rewards of exertion have ceased to exist, when the keenness of expectation can no longer be stimulated, and the spirit of enterprize has subsided into sullen indifference. While he ruminates with agony on the past, he cheerlessly looks forward to a gloomy futurity, and his foreboding mind sees, in the ruin of his first and fondest hopes, the nothingness of the visions of imagination, the destruction of the thousand little schemes and prospects suggestedby an honest ambition, which the exultation of an heart untouched by calamity had fondly and fearlessly indulged. The recollection of those delusions, which cheated his unsuspecting youth, whispers for ever that safety is alone compatible withapathy, and cases his heart in impenetrable suspicion. A line of separation is drawn between him and his species.

Deceived, insulted, wounded, from that quarter where his heart had treasured up all hope, where his ideas of human excellence had all concentred confidence in mankind, is in his eyes the weakness of despicable folly, or the extreme of desperate madness. The principles of the soul, already unsettled, are soon shaken to their foundation. The milk of human kindness turns fast to gall; while those very passions, that frame of mind, which operated the first delusion, which stamped the features of unbounded friendship, of enthusiastic beneficence, now all subverted, are applied to exalt the violence of the opposite character. Under this stroke the self-love, which might bear up against the common weight of calamity, receives an incurable and rankling wound, over which the soul gloomily broods. The passions of the misanthrope still flaming with violence, tend, as to a centre, to the aggravation of abhorrence anddistrust of his species, and he hates with a keenness and acrimony proportioned to the strength of disappointed feeling which marked his entrance into life.

H⸺

The following Imitations of the Ancients, by Milton and Pope, are printed from a Manuscript of Gilbert Wakefield’s, dated Warrington, April 20, 1783.

Book I. l. 594.

As when the sunIn dim eclipse,disastrous twilight shedsOn half the nations—

As when the sun

In dim eclipse,disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations—

Lucan. Pharsal.I. 542.

Involvetqueorbem tenebris, gentesque coegitDesperare diem—

Involvetqueorbem tenebris, gentesque coegit

Desperare diem—

Book I. v. 665.

The sudden blazeFar round illumined hell; highly they ragedAgainst the Highest, and fierce with grasped armsClashed on their sounding shields the din of war.

The sudden blaze

Far round illumined hell; highly they raged

Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms

Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war.

Lucret.L II. 325.

Fulgur ibi ad cœlum se tollit, totaque circumÆre renidescit tellus, subterque, virûm vi,Excitur pedibus sonitus, clamoreque montesIctei rejectant voces ad sidera mundi.

Fulgur ibi ad cœlum se tollit, totaque circum

Ære renidescit tellus, subterque, virûm vi,

Excitur pedibus sonitus, clamoreque montes

Ictei rejectant voces ad sidera mundi.

Book II. 220.

This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.

Sophoc. Ajax.397.

Ιω σκοτος εμον φαος·Ερεβος ω φαεννοτατον.

Ιω σκοτος εμον φαος·

Ερεβος ω φαεννοτατον.

Book III. v. 39.

As the wakeful birdSings darkling, and in shadiest covert hidTunes her nocturnal note—

As the wakeful bird

Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid

Tunes her nocturnal note—

Moschus.Id. III. 9.

Αδονες αἱ πυκινοισιν οδυρομεναι ποτι φυλλοις.

Book III. v. 217.

He asked, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,And silence was in heaven.

He asked, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,

And silence was in heaven.

Il.κ. 218.

Ὡς ἔφαθ. οι δε αρα παντες ακην εγενοντο σιωπῆ.