Classic Poem

What hand, what skill can form the artful piece,
To paint our ruins in a proper dress?
Inspire us, Denham's Genius, while w' indite,
Urged by true zeal to do our country right;
As when the daring artist, taught by you,
With master strokes the first bold landskip drew.
Here, Painter, here employ thy utmost skill;
With war and slav'ry the vast canvas fill:
And that the lines be easier understood,
Paint not with fading colors, but with blood;
Blood of our bravest youth in battle slain,
At Steenkirk and at Landen's fatal plain;
Or that which flowed, and does just Heaven invoke,
When Fenwick yielded to the cruel stroke.
First draw the hero seated on the throne,
Spite of all laws, himself observing none;
Let English rights all gasping round him lie,
And native freedom thrown neglected by:
On either hand the priest and lawyer set,
Two fit supporters of the monarch's seat.
There in a greasy rochet clothed, describe
The bulky oracle of the preaching tribe;
That solid necessary tool of state,
Profoundly dull, divinely obstinate.
Here in polluted robes just reeking, draw
Th'adulterous moderator of the law;
Whose wrinkled cheeks and sallow looks proclaim,
The ill effects of his distempered flame.
If more you'd know, consult his friend Tom Hobbes
Who vamps him up with his mercurial jobs.
Next cringing Benting place, whose earth-born race
The coronet and garter does disgrace;
Of undescended parentage, made great
By chance, his virtues not discovered yet.
Patron o'th'noblest order, O be just
To thy heroic founder's injured dust!
From his ignoble neck thy collar tear,
Let not his breast thy rays of honor wear;
To black designs and lust let him remain
A servile favorite, and grants obtain:
While ancient honors sacred to the crown
Are lavished to support the minion.
Pale envy rages in his cankered breast,
And to the British name a foe professed.
Artist, retire, 'twere insolence too great
T'expose the secrets of the cabinet;
Or tell how they their looser moments spend;
That hellish scene would all chaste ears offend.
For should you pry into the close alcove,
And draw the exercise of royal love,
Keppel and he are Ganymede and Jove.
Avert the omen, Heaven! O may I ne'er
Purchase a title at a rate so dear:
In some mean cottage let me die unknown,
Rather than thus be darling of a throne.
Now, Painter, even art is at a stand,
For who can draw the Proteus Sunderland?
The deep reserves of whose apostate mind,
No skill can reach, no principles can bind;
Whose working brain does more disguises bear
Than ever yet in vision did appear.
A supple whispering minister, ne'er just,
Trusted, yet always forfeiting his trust,
And only constant to unnat'ral lust.
For prostituted faith alone made great,
And this is he who must support the weight,
And prop the ruins of a sinking state.
Artist proceed, next the bribed senate draw,
That arbitrary body above the law;
Place noise and faction and disorder there,
And formal Paul set mumping in the chair;
Once the chief bulwark of the church and state,
Their darling once, but now their fear and hate:
So a rich cordial, when its virtue's spent,
Contributes to the death it should prevent;
Of public treasure lavishly profuse,
Large sums diverted to their private use;
By places and by bounty largely paid,
For rights given up, and liberty betrayed.
Expose the mercenary herd to view,
And in the front imperious Montagu:
With venal Wit, and prostituted sense,
With matchless pride and monstrous impudence;
To whose successful villainies we owe
All his own ills, and all that others do.
Slavish excises are his darling sin,
And 'Chequer bills the product of his brain;
No public profit but conduces most
To raise his fortune at the public cost.
Orders and precedents are things of course,
Too weak to interrupt his rapid force;
Till wiser Commons shall in time to come
Their ancient English principles resume,
And give their base corrupter his just doom.
Thus have I seen a whelp of lion's brood
Couch, fawn and lick his keeper's hand for food,
Till in some lucky hour the generous beast,
By an insulting lash, or some gross fraud oppressed,
His just resentment terribly declares,
Disdains the marks of slavery he wears,
And his weak feeder into pieces tears.
Let Gaffney's noble hangman next advance,
And tell his fears of popery and France;
And for the blust'ring pedant leave a space,
Who wears Corinthian metal in his face:
See where the florid warlike Cutts appears,
As brave and senseless as the sword he wears.
Here Sloan baits Seymour, Littleton, Jack How,
And all the while old Bowman cries bow-wow.
To Palmes and Strickland, and the Yorkshire crew
By Smith directed, the next station's due.
Smith while he seems good-natured, frank and kind,
Betrays th'inveterate rancor of his mind.
To the chit Spencer, Painter, next be just,
That roiling whithered offspring of forced lust,
Which his unnatural father grudged to spare
From his Italian joys, and spoiled his heir;
From hence the awkward politician came,
To commonwealths, which he admires, a shame,
And slave to kings, though he abhors the name.
He votes for armies, talks for liberty,
In th' House for millions, out, for property;
Thus father-like, with flattery betrays
The government which he pretends to raise.
Near him Lord William draw, whose well-stocked brain
Outweighs his index-learning half a grain.
Next, Painter, draw our politician Boyle,
That fawning arse-worm with his cringing smile;
Relations, country, court do all despise him,
He's grown so low ev'n buggery can't raise him.
With these as fellow empirics in design,
Let Wharton, Rich, Young, Clark, and Hobart join;
And let not Hawles pass unregarded by.

'Twere endless to recount the meaner fry
Of yelping yeas and no's, who poll by rote,
And multiply the units of a vote;
Oppressed with clamor, truth and justice flies,
And thus pursued, down-hunted reason lies.
Some few untainted patriots still remain,
Who native zeal and probity retain;
These sullen draw, disgraced and discontent,
Mourning the ruin which they can't prevent.
But, Painter, hold--reserve the vacant room
For knaves in embryo, and rogues to come;
Who undiscovered, yet will us betray,
And sell their country in a closer way.