XXII.  SATIRE ON A CONCEITED PLAYWRIGHT.

    The person against whom this attack was directed was Edward Howard,
    author of The British Princess.

  Thou damn’d antipodes to common-sense,
  Thou foil to Flecknoe, pr’ythee tell from whence
  Does all this mighty stock of dulness spring? 
  Is it thy own, or hast it from Snow-hill,
  Assisted by some ballad-making quill? 
  No, they fly higher yet, thy plays are such,
  I’d swear they were translated out of Dutch. 
  Fain would I know what diet thou dost keep,
  If thou dost always, or dost never sleep? 
  Sure hasty-pudding is thy chiefest dish,
  With bullock’s liver, or some stinking fish: 
  Garbage, ox-cheeks, and tripes, do feast thy brain,
  Which nobly pays this tribute back again. 
  With daisy-roots thy dwarfish Muse is fed,
  A giant’s body with a pigmy’s head. 
  Canst thou not find, among thy numerous race
  Of kindred, one to tell thee that thy plays
  Are laught at by the pit, box, galleries, nay, stage? 
  Think on’t a while, and thou wilt quickly find
  Thy body made for labour, not thy mind. 
  No other use of paper thou shouldst make
  Than carrying loads and reams upon thy back. 
  Carry vast burdens till thy shoulders shrink,
  But curst be he that gives thee pen and ink: 
  Such dangerous weapons should be kept from fools,
  As nurses from their children keep edg’d tools: 
  For thy dull fancy a muckinder is fit
  To wipe the slobberings of thy snotty wit: 
  And though ’tis late, if justice could be found,
  Thy plays like blind-born puppies should be drown’d. 
  For were it not that we respect afford
  Unto the son of an heroic lord,
  Thine in the ducking-stool should take her seat,
  Drest like herself in a great chair of state;
  Where like a Muse of quality she’d die,
  And thou thyself shalt make her elegy,
  In the same strain thou writ’st thy comedy.

JOHN ARBUTHNOT.

(1667-1735.)

XXIII.  PREFACE TO JOHN BULL AND HIS LAW-SUIT.

First published as a political pamphlet, this piece had an extraordinary run of popularity.  It was originally issued in four parts, but these afterwards were reduced to two, without any omission, however, of matter.  They appeared during the years 1712-13, and the satire was finally published in book form in 1714.  The author was the intimate friend of Swift, Pope, and Gay.  The volume was exceedingly popular in Tory circles.  The examples I have selected are “The Preface” and also the opening chapters of the history, which I have made to run on without breaking them up into the short divisions of the text.

When I was first called to the office of historiographer to John Bull, he expressed himself to this purpose: