Pull'd revelation's sacred robes aside,
And saw what priestly modesty should hide;
Then seiz'd the pen, and with a good intent,
Discover'd hidden meanings never meant.
The reader, who in carnal notions bred,
Has Athanasius without rev'rence read;
Will make a scurvy kind of Lenten-feast
Upon the tortur'd offals of the beast;
But if, in happy superstition taught,
He never once presum'd to doubt in thought,
Like C, lost in prejudice and pride,
He takes the literal meaning for his guide.
Let him read Newton, and his bill of fare.
What prophesics unprophesied are there!
In explanations he's so justly skill'd,
The pseudo prophet's myst'ries are fulfill'd;
No superficial reasons have disgrac'd
The worthy prelate's sacerdotal taste;
No flaming arguments he holds in view,
Like Cn he affirms it, and 'tis true. [crutch,
Faith, Newton, is the tott'ring churchman's
On which our blest religion builds so much;
Thy fame would feel the loss of this support,
As much as Sawny's instruments at court:
For secret services, without a name,
And myst'ries in religion are the same.
But, to return to state, from whence the Muse
In wild digression smaller themes pursues,
And rambling from his grace's magic rod,
Descends to lash the ministers of God.
Both are adventures perilous and hard,
And often bring destruction on the bard;
For priests and hirelings, ministers of state,
Are priests in love, infernals in their hate.

The church, no theme for satire, scorns the lash,
And will not suffer scandal in a dash.

Not Bute, so tender in his spotless fame;

Not Bute, so careful of his lady's name.

Has sable lost its virtue? will the bell
No longer send a straying sprite to Hell?
Since souls, when animate with life, are sold
For benefices, bishoprics, and gold;
Since mitres, nightly laid upon the breast,
Can charm the nightman, conscience, into rest,
And learn'd exorcists very lately made
Greater improvements in the living trade;
Since Warburton (of whom in future rhymes)
Has settled reformation on the times,
Whilst from the teeming press his numbers fly,
And, like his reasons, just exist and die;
Since in the steps of clerical degree
All thro' the telescope of fancy sce:
Tho' fancy under reason's lash may fall,
Yet fancy in religion's all in all.
Amongst the cassock'd worthies is there one
Who has the conscience to be freedom's son?
Horn, patriotic Horn, will join the cause,
And tread on mitres to procure applause.
Prepare thy book, and sacerdotal dress,
To lay a walking spirit of the press,

"Enough," says Mungo, reassume the quill,
And what I can afford to give, I will.”
When Bute the ministry and people's head
With royal favour pension'd Johnson dead,
The Muse in undeserv'd oblivion sunk,
Was read no longer, and the man was drunk.
Some blockhead, ever envious of his fame,
Massacred Shakespear, in the doctor's name:
The pulpit saw the cheat, and wonder'd not,
Death is of all mortality the lot.
Kenrick had wrote his Elegy, and penn'd
A piece of decent praise for such a friend;
And universal catcalls testified

How mourn'd the critics when the genius dy'd.
But now, tho' strange the fact to deists seem,
His ghost is risen in a venal theme!

And emulation madden'd all the Row,

To catch the strains which from a spectre flow,
And print the reasons of a bard deceas'd,
Who once gave all the town a weekly feast.
As beer to ev'ry drinking purpose dead,
Is to a wond'rous metamorphose led,
And open'd to the action of the winds,
In vinegar a resurrection finds,
His genius dead, and decently interr'd,
The clam'rous noise of dáns sonorous heard,
Tour'd into life, assum'd the heavy pen,
And saw existence for an hour again,

Scatter'd his thoughts spontaneous from his brain,
And prov'd we had no reason to complain;
Whilst from his fancy, figures budded out,

As hair on humid carcases will sprout.
Horn set this restless shallow spirit still,
And from his venal fingers snatch'd the quill.
If in defiance of the priestly word
He still will scribble learnedly absurd,
North is superior in a potent charm,
To lay the terrours of a false alarm.
Another hundred added to his five
No longer is the stumbling-block alive,
Fix'd in his chair, contented and at home,
The busy Rambler will no longer roam,
Releas'd from servitude, (such 'tis to think,)
He'll prove it perfect bappiness to drink,
Once, (let the lovers of Irene weep,)
He thought it perfect happiness to sleep:
Irene, perfect composition, came
To give us happiness, the author fame;
A snore was much more grateful than a clap,
And box, pit, gallery, own'd it in a nap,
Hail, Johnson, chief of bards, thy rigid laws
Bestow'd due praise, and critics snoar'd applause.
If from the humblest station in a place,
By writers fix'd eternal in disgrace,
Long in the literary world unknown,
To all but scribbling blockheads of its own,
Then only introduc'd (unhappy fate)
The subject of a satire's deadly hate;
Whilst equally the butt of ridicule,
The town was dirty, and the bard a fool:
If from this place where catamites are found
To swarm like Scotchmen Sawney's shade around,
I may presume to exercise the pen,
And write a greeting to the best of men;
Health is the ruling minister I send,
Nor has the minister a better friend:
Greater perhaps in titles, pensions, place,
He inconsiderately prefers his grace.
Ah! North! a humbler bard is better far;
Friendship was never found near Grafton's star;

Bishops are not by office orthodox:
Who'd wear a title when they'd titled Fox;
Nor does the honorary shame stop here,
Have we not Weymouth, Barrington, and Clare.
If noble murders, as in tale we're told,
Made heroes of the ministers of old;
If noble murders, Barrington's divine,
His merit claims the laureated line;
Let officers of train-bands wisely try
To save the blood of citizens and fly.

When some bold urchin beats his drum in sport,
Our tragic trumpets entertain the court,
The captain flies thro' every street in town,
And safe from dangers wears his civic crown:
Our noble secretary scoru'd to run,
But with his magic wand discharg'd his gun;
I leave him to the comforts of his breast,
And midnight ghosts to howl him into rest.
Health to the instruments of Bute the tool,
Who with the little vulgar seems to rule;
But since the wiser maxims of the age
Marks for a Neddy Ptolomy the sage,
Since Newton and Copernicus have taught
Our blundering senses are alone in fault,
The wise look further, and the wise can see
The hand of Sawney actuating thee;
The clock-work of thy conscience turns about,
Just as his mandates wind thee in and out.
By his political machine my rhimes
Conceive an estimation of the times,
And as the wheels of state in measures move,
See how time passes in the world above,
While tott'ring on the slipp'ry age of doubt
Sir Fletcher sees his train-bands flying out,
Thinks the minority, acquiring state,
Will undergo a change, and soon be great.
North issues out his hundred to the crew,
Who catch the atoms of the golden dew.
The etiquettes of wise sir Robert takes
The doubtful, stand resolv'd, and one forsakes.
He shackles ev'ry vote in golden chains,
And Johnson in his list of slaves maintains:
Rest, Johnson, hapless spirit, rest and drink,
No more defie thy claret-glass with ink,
In quiet sleep repose thy heavy les,
Kenrick disdains to p-s upon the dead;
Administration will defend thy fame,
And pensions add importance to thy name.
When sovereign judgment owns thy work divine,
And ev'ry writer of reviews is thine,
Let busy Kenrick vent his little spicen,
And spit his venom in a magazine.
Health to the minister, nor will I dare
To pour out flatt'ry in his noble ear:
His virtues, stoically great, disdains
Smooth adulation's entertaining strains,
And, red with virgin modesty, withdraws
From wondering crowds and murmurs of applause.
Here let no disappointed rhymer say,
Because his virtue shuns the glare of day,
And, like the conscience of a Bristol dean,
Is never by the subtlest optic seen,
That virtue is with North a priestish jest
By which a mere nonentity's exprest.
No-North is strictly virtuous, pious, wise,
As ev'ry pension'd Johnson testifies.
But, reader, I had rather you should see
His virtues in another than in me.
Bear witness, Bristol, nobly prove that I
From thee or North, was never paid to lie.

Health to the minister; his vices known,
(As ev'ry lord has vices of his own,
And all who wear a title think to shine,
In forging follies foreign to his line)
His vices shall employ my ablest pen,
And mark him out a miracle of men.
Then let the Muse the lashing strain begin,
And mark repentance upon ev'ry sin.
Why this recoil? and will the dauntless Muse
To lash a minister of state refuse?

What! is his soul so black thou canst not find
Aught like a human virtue in his mind?
Then draw him so, and to the public tell
Who owns this representative of Hell.
Administration lifts her iron chain,

And truth must abdicate ber lawful strain.
O Prudence! if by friends or council sway'd
I had thy saving institutes obey'd,
And, lost to ev'ry love but love of self,
A wretch like Hs living but in pelf,
Then happy in a coach or turtle-feast,
I might have been an aiderman at least.
Sage are the arguments by which I'm taught
To curb the wild excursive flights of thought.
Let Hs wear his self-sufficient air,
Nor dare remark, for Hs is a mayor.
If C's flimsy system cant be prov'd,
Let it alone, C's much belov’d.
If Bry bought a Bacon for a Strange,
The man has credit, and is great on Change.
If Cn ungrammatically spoke,
'Tis dangerous on such men to pass a joke.
If you from satire can withhold the line,
At ev'ry public hall perhaps you'll dine.
"I must confess," rejoins the prudent sage,
"You're really something clever for your age.
Your lines have sentiment, and now and then
A lash of satire stumbles from your pen.
But ah! that satire is a dangerous thing,
And often wounds the writer with its sting:
Your infant Muse should sport with other toys,
Men will not bear the ridicule of boys.
Some of the aldermen (for some indeed
For want of education, cannot read,
And those who can, when they aloud rehearse
What Fowler, happy genius, titles verse,
To spin the strains, sonorous thro' the nose,
The reader cannot call it verse or prose)
Some of the aldermen 'may take offence
At my maintaining them devoid of sense;
And if you touch their aldermanic pride,
Bid dark reflection: tell how Savage died.
Besides the town, the sober honest town 4,
Gives virtue her desert, and vice her frown.
Bids censure brand with infamy your name,
I, even I, must think you are to blame
Is there a street within this spacious place
That boasts the happiness of one fair face,
Where conversation does not turn on you,
Blaming your wild amours, your morals too:
Oaths, sacred and tremendous, oaths you swear,
Oaths, that might shock a Luttrell's soul to

hear;

These very oaths, as if a thing of joke,
Made to betray, intended to be broke,
Whilst the too tender and believing maid,
(Remember pretty *) is betray'd.

Some of the subsequent lines will appear in

the Extract from Kew Gardens.

Then your religion, ah! beware, beware, Altho'a deist is no monster here,

Yet hide your tenets, priests are powerful foes,
And priesthood fetters justice by the nose.
Think not the merit of a jingling song
Can countenance the author's acting wrong;
Reform your manners, and with solemn air
Hear Ct bray and R-s squeak in pray'r.
Honour the scarlet robe, and let the quill
Be silent when his worship eats his fill.
Regard thy int'rest, ever love thyself;
Rise into notice, as you rise in pelf;
The Muses have no credit here, and fame
Confines itself to the mercantile name;
Then clip imagination's wing, be wise,
And great in wealth, (to real greatness rise;)
Or, if you must persist to sing and dream,
Let only panegyric be your theme:
Make North a Chatham, canonize his grace,
And get a pension, or procure a place."

Damn'd narrow notions! tending to disgrace
The boasted reason of the human race.
Bristol may keep her prudent maxims still,
But know, my saving friends, I never will.
The composition of iny soul is made
Too great for servile, avaricious trade:
When raving in the lunacy of ink
1 catch the pen, and publish what I think.
North is a creature, and the king's misled;
Mansfield and Norton came as justice fled:
Few of our ministers are over wise:
Old Harpagon's a cheat, and Taylor lies.
When cooler judgment actuates my brain,
My cooler judgment stili approves the strain;
And if a horrid picture greets your view,
There it continues still, if copied true.
Tho' in the double infamy of lawn
The future bishopric of Barton's drawn.
Protect me, fair ones, if I durst engage
To serve ye in this catamitish age,
To exercise a passion banish'd hence,
And summon satire in to your defence,
Woman, of ev'ry happiness the best,
Is all my Heaven; religion is a jest.
Nor shall the Muse in any future book
With awe upon the chains of favour look:
North shall in all his vices be display'd,
And Warburton in lively pride array'd;
Sandwich shall undergo the healing lash,
And read his character without a dash:
Mansfield, surrounded by his dogs of law,
Shall see his picture drawn in ev'ry flaw:
Luttrell, (if satire can descend so low)
Shall all his native little vices show:
And Grafton, tho' prudentially resign'd,
Shall view a striking copy of his mind.
Whilst iron Justice, lifting up her scales,
Shall weigh the princess dowager of Wales.
Finis. Book the first.

ELEGY,

ON THE DEATH OF MR. JOHN TANDEY, SENR. A sincere Christian friend. He died 5th January, 1769, aged 76.

[From the original, copied by Mr. Catcott.] YE virgins of the sacred choir Awake the soul-dissolving lyre,

Begin the mournful strain; To deck the much-lov'd Tandey's urn, Let the poetic genius burn,

And all Parnassus-drain.

Ye ghosts! that leave the silent tomb,
To wander in the midnight gloom,

Unseen by mortal eye:
Garlands of yew and cypress bring,
Adorn his tomb, his praises sing,

And swell the gen'ral sigh.

Ye wretches, who could scarcely save
Your starving offspring from the grave,
By God afflicted sore;

Vent the big tear, the soul-felt sigh,
And swell your meagre infant's cry,
For Tandey is no more.
To you his charity he dealt,
His melting soul your mis'ries felt,
And made your woes his own:
A common friend to all mankind;
His face the index of his mind,

Where all the saint was shown.

In him the social virtues join'd,
His judgment sound, his sense refin'd,
His actions ever just-

Who can suppress the rising sigh,
To think such saint-like men must die,
And mix with common dust.

Had virtue pow'r from death to save,
The good man ne'er would see the grave,
But live immortal here:
Hawksworth and Tandey are no more;
Lament, ye virtuous and ye poor,
And drop the unfeigned tear.

1

TO A FRIEND,

ON HIS INTENDED MARRIAGE.

[From the original, copied by Mr. Catcott.]
MARRIAGE, dear M—, is a serious thing;
'Tis proper every man should think it so:
"Twill either ev'ry human blessing bring,
Or load thee with a settlement of woe.
Sometimes indeed it is a middle state,
Neither supremely blest nor deeply curst;
A stagnant pool of life; a dream of fate:
In my opinion, of all states the worst.
Observe the partner of thy future state:
If no strong vice is stamp'd upon her mind,
Take her; and let her ease thy am'rous pain:
A little errour, proves her human-kind.
What we call vices are not always such;
Some virtues scarce deserve the sacred name:
Thy wife may love, as well as pray too much,
And to another stretch her rising flame.

The above-mentioned gentleman was a man of unblemished character; and father-in-law to Mr. William Barrett, author of the History of Bristol; and lies interred in Redcliff church, in the same vault with Mr. Barrett's wife. The Elegy would have been inserted in one of the Bristol journals, but was suppressed at the particular request of Mr. Tandy's eldest son.

Choose no religionist; whose every day
Is lost to thee and thine, to none a friend:
Know too, when pleasure calls the heart astray,
The warmest zealot is the blackest fiend.

Let not the fortune first engross thy care,
Let it a second estimation hold:

A Smithfield marriage is of pleasures bare,
And love, without the purse, will soon grow cold.

Marry no letter'd damsel, whose wise head
May prove it just to graft the horns on thine:
Marry no idiot, keep her from thy bed;
What the brains want, will often elsewhere shine.

A disposition good, a judgment sound,
Will bring substantial pleasures in a wife:
Whilst love and tenderness in thee are found,
Happy and calm will be the married life.

THOMAS CHATTERTON,

ON THOMAS PHILLIPS'S DEATH.

[From the original, copied by Mr. Catcott.]
To Clayfield, long renown'd the Muses' friend,
Presuming on his goodness this I send:
Unknown to you, tranquillity and fame,
In this address perhaps I am to blame.
This rudeness let necessity excuse,

And anxious friendship for a much-lov'd Muse.
Twice have the circling hours unveil'd the east
Since horrour found me and all pleasure ceas'd;
Since ev'ry number tended to deplore;
Since Fame asserted, Phillips was no more.

Say, is he mansion'd in his native spheres,
Or is't a vapour that exhales in tears!
Swift as idea rid me of my pain,

And let my dubious wretchedness be plain,
It is too true: the awful lyre is strung,
His elegy the sister Muses sung.
O may he live, and useless be the strain!
Fly gen'rous Clayfield, rid me of my pain.
Forgive my boldness, think the urgent cause,
And who can bind necessity with laws:
1 wait the admirer of your noble parts,
You, friend to genius, sciences, and arts.

FABLES FOR THE COURT,

DDRESSED TO MR. MICHAEL CLAYFIeld, of BRISTOL.

[Transcribed by Mr. Catcott, October 19, 1796, from Chatterton's MS.]

THE SHEPHERDS.

MORALS, as critics must allow,
Are almost out of fashion now,
And if we credit Dodsley's word,
All applications are absurd.
What has the author to be vain in,
Who knows his fable wants explaining,
And substitutes a second scene,

To publish what the first should mean :

Besides, it saucily reflects

Upon the reader's intellects.
When arm'd in metaphors and dashes,
The bard some noble villain lashes,
'Tis a direct affront, no doubt,
To think he cannot find it out.
The sing-song trifles of the stage,
The happy fav'rites of the age,
Without a meaning crawl along,
And, for a moral, give a song,
The tragic Muse, once pure and chaste,
Is turn'd a whore, debauch'd by taste:
Poor Juliet never claims the tear
'Till borne triumphant on the bier,
And Ammon's son is never great
'Till seated in his chair of state;
And yet the harlot scarce goes down,
She's been so long upon the town,
Her morals never can be seen.
Not rigid Johnson seems to mean,
A tittering epilogue contains
The cobweb of a poet's brains.
If what the Muse prepares to write
To entertain the public sight,
Should in its characters be known,
The knowledge is the reader's own.
When villany and vices shine,
You wont find Sandwich in the line;
When little rascals rise to fame,
Sir Fletcher cannot read his name;
Nor will the Muse digressive run,
To call the king his mother's son,
But plodding on the beaten way,
With honest North prepares the lay,
And should the meaning figures please
The dull reviews of laughing ease,
No politician can dispute

My knowledge of the earl of Bute.

A flock of sheep, no matter where,
Was all an aged shepherd's care;
His dogs were watchful, and he took
Upon himself the ruling crook:
His boys who wattled-in the fold
Were never bought and never sold.
'Tis true, by strange affection led,
He visited a turnip bed;

And, fearful of a winter storm,
Employ'd his wool to keep it warm;
But that comparatively set

Against the present heavy debt,
Was but a trifling piece of state,
And hardly made a villain great.

The shepherd died-the dreadful toll
Entreated masses for his soul.
The pious bosom and the back
Shone in the farce of courtly black.
The weeping laureat's ready pen
Lamented o'er the best of men:
And Oxford sent her load of rhyme
In all varieties of chime,
Administering due consolation,
Well season'd with congratulation.
Cambridge her ancient lumber wrote,
And what could Cambridge do but quote.
All sung, tho' very few could read,
And none but mercers mourn'd indeed.
The younger shepherd caught the crook
And was a monarch in his look.
The flock rejoic'd, and could no less
Than pay their duty and address;