No. XXII
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;
My 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.
Wakefield188 I love—adore Horne Tooke,
With pride on Jones189 and Thelwall190 look,
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 Bills191
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.
Tied 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.