Live in her page, and stink to after-times.

Hast thou no feeling yet? Come, throw off

pride,

And own those passions which thou shalt not hide.
Sandwich, who from the moment of his birth 227
Made human nature a reproach on earth,
Who never dared, nor wish'd, behind to stay,
When Folly, Vice, and Meanness led the way,
Would blush, should he be told, by Truth and Wit
Those actions, which he blush'd not to commit.
Men the most infamous are fond of fame,
And those who fear not guilt, yet start at shame.

But whither runs my zeal, whose rapid force,
Turning the brain, bears Reason from her course;
Carries me back to times, when poets, bless'd
With courage, graced the science they profess'd;
When they, in honour rooted, firmly stood
The bad to punish and reward the good;

240

227 Walpole, in one of his letters to Sir H. Mann, contained in the concluding series of them just published, observes of Churchill," that many of his characters are obscure even to the (then) present age, and some of the most known were so unknown to him that he has missed all resemblance, of which Lord Sandwich is a striking instance." This is one of Wal pole's many random inconsistencies; as in several of his letters to George Montagu and others, he repeatedly adverts to Lord Sandwich's profligacies and blasphemies. The satire is no doubt overcharged, but a reduced tone of it would have only rendered it more just, and therefore more severe.

254 The pension bestowed upon Johnson was unaccompanied by any political stipulation, and the triumph it afforded to the enemies of this great man must be attributed to the general tendency of his principles in church and state. The

245

When, to a flame by public virtue wrought,
The foes of freedom they to justice brought,
And dared expose those slaves who dared support
A tyrant plan, and call'd themselves a Court?
Ah! what are poets now? as slavish those
Who deal in verse, as those who deal in prose.
Is there an Author, search the kingdom round,
In whom true worth and real spirit's found?
The slaves of booksellers, or (doom'd by Fate
To baser chains) vile pensioners of state,
Some, dead to shame, and of those shackles proud
Which Honour scorns, for slavery roar aloud;
Others, half-palsied only, mutes become, [dumb.
And what makes Smollett write makes Johnson

250

256

Why turns yon villain pale? why bends his eye Inward, abash'd when Murphy passes by? Dost thou sage Murphy for a blockhead take, Who wages war with vice for virtue's sake?

unfortunate definition he gave of the word pensioner, in his dictionary, whom he describes as one supported by an allowance paid at the will of another, a dependant, a slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master, was at once so injudicious and inconsistent with his own subsequent conduct, as to afford a continual source of animadversion to the North Briton, and all other anti-ministerial witlings. For many years he abstained from taking any part as a writer in politics, but at length, irritated by the incessant clamour of the popular party, and impelled by a sense of the rectitude of his opinions, he, in 1770, published "The False Alarm," in which he justly reprobates the seditious conduct of Wilkes, and while he ingeniously vindicates the measures adopted by government, ridicules the alarm attempted to be excited at the occasionally partial decisions of parliament.

"We have

No, no, like other worldlings, you will find
He shifts his sails, and catches every wind:
His soul the shock of interest can't endure:
Give him a pension then, and sin secure.

260

With laurell'd wreaths the flatterer's brows adorn,

Bid Virtue crouch, bid Vice exalt her horn;
Bid cowards thrive, put Honesty to flight,
Murphy shall prove or try to prove it right.
Try, thou state-juggler, every paltry art,
Ransack the inmost closet of my heart,

265

found," he says, "by experience, that though a squire has given ale and venison in vain, and a borough has been compelled to see its dearest interests in the hands of him whom it did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the same. The sun has risen and the corn has grown, and whatever talk has been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built the house was master of the door."

A very angry pamphlet was written by Wilkes, but without any name, in answer to the "False Alarm," which Dr. Johnson determined not to reply to, but in conversation with Mr. Langton, he mentioned a particular or two which if he had replied might perhaps have been inserted. In the answerer's pamphlet it was asked with solemnity," Do you consider, Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a creature is to its Creator?" To this question, said Johnson, I would have replied, "that in the first place the idea of a Creator must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature. Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make aws for its Creator."

254 Smollett received pecuniary assistance from government as long as he contributed the Briton to its defence, but no stated pension was ever conferred upon him.

Swear thou'rt my friend; by that base oath make

way

Into my breast, and flatter to betray;

270

275

279

Or, if those tricks are vain, if wholesome doubt
Detects the fraud, and points the villain out,
Bribe those who daily at my board are fed,
And make them take my life who eat my bread.
On Authors for defence, for praise depend,
Pay him but well, and Murphy is thy friend:
He, he shall ready stand with venal rhymes,
To varnish guilt, and consecrate thy crimes,
To make corruption in false colours shine,
And damn his own good name, to rescue thine.
But, if thy niggard hands their gifts withhold,
And Vice no longer rains down showers of gold,
Expect no mercy; facts, well grounded, teach:
Murphy, if not rewarded, will impeach.
What though each man of nice and juster thought,
Shunning his steps, decrees, by honour taught,
He ne'er can be a friend, who stoops so low
To be the base betrayer of a foe?

284

What though, with thine together link'd, his name
Must be with thine transmitted down to shame?
To every manly feeling callous grown,
Rather than not blast thine, he'll blast his own.

To ope the fountain whence sedition springs,
To slander government, and libel kings;
With Freedom's name to serve a present hour,
Though born and bred to arbitrary power;
To talk of William with insidious art,

Whilst a vile Stuart's lurking in his heart,
And, whilst mean Envy rears her loathsome head,
Flattering the living, to abuse the dead,

300

Where is Shebbeare? Oh let not foul reproach,
Travelling thither in a City-coach,

The pillory dare to name: the whole intent
Of that parade was fame, not punishment;

And that old, staunch Whig, Beardmore, stand

ing by,

Can in full court give that report the lie.

305

801 Dr. John Shebbeare, a physician and notorious jacobitical writer, after a long course of virulent invectives against the reigning family, was at length, in 1759, prosecuted for writing a seventh letter to the people of England. For this performance he was sentenced to the pillory, and to two years' confinement in prison. The mode of executing the former part of the sentence became the subject of an application to the Court of King's Bench for an attachment against the under-sheriff. The doctor being patronized by the city magistrates, it appeared that he went in one of the city coaches, accompanied by his friend Beardmore (then under-sheriff, and afterwards Wilkes's attorney) to Charing-Cross, where the pillory was erected, and that his progress thither had every appearance of a triumphal procession. Evidence was adduced by the Attorney-General to shew that Shebbeare only stood upon the platform of the pillory unconfined and at his ease, attended by a servant in livery (which servant and livery were hired for the occasion) holding an umbrella over his head all the time that his head, hands, neck, and arms, were not at all confined, or put into the holes of the pillory; but that he sometimes put his hands upon the holes of the pillory in order to rest himself. It was also proved that Beardmore attended as under-sheriff with his wand, and that ho treated the criminal with great complaisance in taking him to and from the pillory. Fourteen or fifteen equivocating affi