No. XXII.
Reading edition
April 9, 1798.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN.
Sir,—I saw, with strong approbation, your specimen of ancient Sapphic measure in English, which I think far surpasses all that Abraham Fraunce, Richard Stanyhurst, or Sir Philip Sidney himself, have produced in that style—I mean, of course, your sublime and beautiful Knife-Grinder, of which it is not too high an encomium to say, that it even rivals the efforts of the fine-eared democratic poet, Mr. Southey. But you seem not to be aware, that we have a genuine Sapphic measure belonging to our own language, of which I now send you a short specimen.
THE JACOBIN.
I am a hearty Jacobin,
Who own no God, and dread no sin,
Ready to dash through thick and thin
For freedom:
And when the teachers of Chalk-Farm
Gave Ministers so much alarm,
And preach’d that kings did only harm,
I fee’d ’em.
By Bedford’s cut I’ve trimm’d my locks,
And coal-black is my knowledge-box,
Callous to all, except hard knocks
Of thumpers;
142My eye a noble fierceness boasts,
My voice as hollow as a ghost’s,
My throat oft washed by factious toasts
In bumpers.
Whatever is in France, is right;
Terror and blood are my delight;
Parties with us do not excite
Enough rage.
Our boasted laws I hate and curse,
Bad from the first, by age grown worse,
I pant and sigh for univers-[187]
al suffrage.
Wakefield[188] I love—adore Horne Tooke,
And hope that they, by hook or crook,
Will prosper.
But they deserve the worst of ills,
And all th’ abuse of all our quills,
Who form’d of strong and gagging Bills[191]
A cross pair.
Extinct since then each speaker’s fire,
And silent ev’ry daring lyre,[192]
Dum-founded they whom I would hire
To lecture.
143Tied up, alas! is ev’ry tongue
On which, conviction nightly hung,[193]
And Thelwall looks, though yet but young,
A spectre.[194]
B. O. B.
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