'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more ; Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; 'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betray'd, ' Destruction before me, and sorrow behind. O pity, great Father of Light,' then I cried, 'Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee; Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride: From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free! So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray, See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending, And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb,' ON THE REPORT OF A MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, TO THE MEMORY OF A LATE AUTHOR. (CHURCHILL.) (Written in 1765.) [Part of a letter to a person of quality.] -LEST your lordship, who are so well acquainted with every thing that relates to true honour, should think hardly of me for attacking the memory of the dead, I beg leave to offer a few words in my own vindication. If I had composed the following verses with a view to gratify private resentment, to promote the interest of any faction, or to recommend myself to the patronage of any person whatsoever, I should have been altogether inexcusable. To attack the memory of the dead from selfish considerations, or from mere wantonness of malice, is an enormity which none can hold in greater detestation than I. But I composed them from very different motives; as every intelligent reader, who peruses them with attention, and who is willing to believe me upon my own testimony, will undoubtedly perceive. My motives proceeded from a sincere desire to do some small service to my country, and to the cause of truth and virtue. The promoters of faction I ever did, and ever will consider as the enemies of mankind: to the memory of such I owe no veneration: to the writings of such I owe no indulgence. Your lordship knows that (Churchill) owed the greatest share of his renown to the most incompetent of all judges, the mob: actuated by the most unworthy of all principles, a spirit of insolence, and inflamed by the vilest of all human passions, hatred to their fellow citizens. Those who joined the cry in his favour seemed to me to be swayed rather by fashion than by real sentiment: he therefore might have lived and died unmolested by me, confident as I am, that posterity, when the present unhappy dissensions are forgotten, will do ample justice to his real character. But when I saw the extravagant honours that were paid to his memory, and heard that a monument in Westminster Abbey was intended for one whom even his admirers acknowledge to have been an incendiary, and a debauchee, I could not help wishing that my countrymen would reflect a little on what they were doing, before they consecrated, by what posterity would think the public voice, a character, which no friend to virtue or true taste can approve. It was this sentiment, enforced by the earnest request of a friend, which produced the following little poem; in which I have said nothing of (Churchill's) manners that is not warranted by the best authority; nor of his writings, that is not perfectly agreeable to the opinion of many of the most competent judges in Britain. (Aberdeen,) January, 1765. BUFO, begone! with thee may faction's fire, What half-made moon-calf can mistake for good! With not one thought that breathes the feeling heart, Alike debauch'd in body, soul, and lays ;- For blasphemy of all the good and wise : Is this the land that boasts a Milton's fire, The land, where Pope, with energy divine, In simple majesty of manly woe: Or while, sublime, on eagle-pinion driven, Is this the land, o'er Shenstone's recent urn Is this the land, where Akenside displays Whose mighty song unnerved a tyrant's arm, Is this the queen of realms! the glorious isle, * Dr. Young. + Plato. Alceus. See Akenside's Ode on Lyric Poetry. His name accurst, who leagued with ****** and Hell, Driveling and dull, when crawls the reptile Muse, Swoln from the sty, and rankling from the stews, With envy, spleen, and pestilence replete, And gorged with dust she lick'd from Treason's feet: Hard-fated Bufo! could not dulness save Yet blazon'd was his verse with Virtue's name- And fops to taste, have sometimes made pretence : Nor yet, though thousand cits admire thy rage, |