Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches - Volume 3, Thomas Badington Macaulay [e books for reading txt] 📗

it has suffered much less from his assailants than from his eulogists. For, during many years, his name was the rallying cry of a class of men with whom, at one of those terrible conjunctures which confound all ordinary distinctions, he was accidentally and temporarily connected, but to whom, on almost all great questions of principle, he was diametrically opposed. The haters of parliamentary reform called themselves Pittites, not choosing to remember that Pitt made three motions for parliamentary reform, and that, though he thought that such a reform could not safely be made while the passions excited by the French revolution were raging, he never uttered a word indicating that he should not be prepared at a more convenient season to bring the question forward a fourth time. The toast of Protestant ascendency was drunk on Pitt's birthday by a set of Pittites who could not but be aware that Pitt had resigned his office because he could not carry Catholic emancipation. The defenders of the Test Act called themselves Pittites, though they could not be ignorant that Pitt had laid before George the Third unanswerable reasons for abolishing the Test Act. The enemies of free trade called themselves Pittites, though Pitt was far more deeply imbued with the doctrines of Adam Smith than either Fox or Grey. The very negro-drivers invoked the name of Pitt, whose eloquence was never more conspicuously displayed than when he spoke of the wrongs of the negro. This mythical Pitt, who resembles the genuine Pitt as little as Charlemagne of Ariosto resembles the Charlemagne of Eginhard, has had his day. History will vindicate the real man from calumny disguised under the semblance of adulation, and will exhibit him as what he was, a minister of great talents, honest intentions, and liberal opinions, pre-eminently qualified, intellectually and morally, for the part of a parliamentary leader, and capable of administering with prudence and moderation the government of a prosperous and tranquil country, but unequal to surprising and terrible emergencies, and liable, in such emergencies, to err grievously, both on the side of weakness and on the side of violence.

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MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC.


EPITAPH ON HENRY MARTYN.

(1812.)

Here Martyn lies. In Manhood's early bloom The Christian Hero finds a Pagan tomb. Religion, sorrowing o'er her favourite son, Points to the glorious trophies that he won. Eternal trophies! not with carnage red, Not stained with tears by hapless captives shed, But trophies of the Cross! for that dear name, Through every form of danger, death, and shame, Onward he journeyed to a happier shore, Where danger, death, and shame assault no more.

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LINES TO THE MEMORY OF PITT.

(1813.)

Oh Britain! dear Isle, when the annals of story Shall tell of the deeds that thy children have done, When the strains of each poet shall sing of their glory, And the triumphs their skill and their valour have won.

When the olive and palm in thy chaplet are blended, When thy arts, and thy fame, and thy commerce increase, When thy arms through the uttermost coasts are extended, And thy war is triumphant, and happy thy peace;

When the ocean, whose waves like a rampart flow round thee, Conveying thy mandates to every shore, And the empire of nature no longer can bound thee, And the world be the scene of thy conquests no more:

Remember the man who in sorrow and danger, When thy glory was set, and thy spirit was low, When thy hopes were o'erturned by the arms of the stranger, And thy banners displayed in the halls of the foe,

Stood forth in the tempest of doubt and disaster, Unaided, and single, the danger to brave. Asserted thy claims, and the rights of his master, Preserved thee to conquer, and saved thee to save.

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A RADICAL WAR SONG.

(1820.)

Awake, arise, the hour is come, For rows and revolutions; There's no receipt like pike and drum For crazy constitutions. Close, close the shop! Break, break the loom, Desert your hearths and furrows, And throng in arms to seal the doom Of England's rotten boroughs.

We'll stretch that tort'ring Castlereagh On his own Dublin rack, sir; We'll drown the King in Eau de vie, The Laureate in his sack, sir, Old Eldon and his sordid hag In molten gold we'll smother, And stifle in his own green bag The Doctor and his brother.

In chains we'll hang in fair Guildhall The City's famed recorder, And next on proud St Stephen's fall, Though Wynne should squeak to order. In vain our tyrants then shall try To 'scape our martial law, sir; In vain the trembling Speaker cry That "Strangers must withdraw," sir.

Copley to hang offends no text; A rat is not a man, sir: With schedules, and with tax bills next We'll bury pious Van, sir. The slaves who loved the income Tax, We'll crush by scores, like mites, sir, And him, the wretch who freed the blacks, And more enslaved the whites, sir.

The peer shall dangle from his gate, The bishop from his steeple, Till all recanting, own, the State Means nothing but the People. We'll fix the church's revenues On Apostolic basis, One coat, one scrip, one pair of shoes Shall pay their strange grimaces.

We'll strap the bar's deluding train In their own darling halter, And with his big church bible brain The parson at the altar. Hail glorious hour, when fair Reform Shall bless our longing nation, And Hunt receive commands to form A new administration.

Carlisle shall sit enthroned, where sat Our Cranmer and our Secker; And Watson show his snow-white hat In England's rich Exchequer. The breast of Thistlewood shall wear Our Wellesley's star and sash, man: And many a mausoleum fair Shall rise to honest Cashman.

Then, then beneath the nine-tailed cat Shall they who used it writhe, sir; And curates lean, and rectors fat, Shall dig the ground they tithe, sir. Down with your Bayleys, and your Bests, Your Giffords, and your Gurneys: We'll clear the island of the pests, Which mortals name attorneys.

Down with your sheriffs, and your mayors, Your registrars, and proctors, We'll live without the lawyer's cares, And die without the doctor's. No discontented fair shall pout To see her spouse so stupid; We'll tread the torch of Hymen out, And live content with Cupid.

Then, when the high-born and the great Are humbled to our level, On all the wealth of Church and State, Like aldermen, we'll revel. We'll live when hushed the battle's din, In smoking and in cards, sir, In drinking unexcised gin, And wooing fair Poissardes, sir.

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THE BATTLE OF MONCONTOUR.

(1824.)

Oh, weep for Moncontour! Oh! weep for the hour, When the children of darkness and evil had power, When the horsemen of Valois triumphantly trod On the bosoms that bled for their rights and their God.

Oh, weep for Moncontour! Oh! weep for the slain, Who for faith and for freedom lay slaughtered in vain; Oh, weep for the living, who linger to bear The renegade's shame, or the exile's despair.

One look, one last look, to our cots and our towers, To the rows of our vines, and the beds of our flowers, To the church where the bones of our fathers decayed, Where we fondly had deemed that our own would be laid.

Alas! we must leave thee, dear desolate home, To the spearmen of Uri, the shavelings of Rome, To the serpent of Florence, the vulture of Spain, To the pride of Anjou, and the guile of Lorraine.

Farewell to thy fountains, farewell to thy shades, To the song of thy youths, and the dance of thy maids, To the breath of thy gardens, the hum of thy bees, And the long waving line of the blue Pyrenees.

Farewell, and for ever. The priest and the slave May rule in the halls of the free and the brave. Our hearths we abandon; our lands we resign; But, Father, we kneel to no altar but thine.

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THE BATTLE OF NASEBY,

BY OBADIAH BIND-THEIR-KINGS-IN-CHAINS-AND-THEIR-NOBLES-WITH- LINKS-OF-IRON, SERJEANT IN IRETON'S REGIMENT. (1824.)

Oh! wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North, With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout? And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread?

Oh evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit, And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we trod; For we trampled on the throng of the haughty and the strong, Who sate in the high places, and slew the saints of God.

It was about the noon of a glorious day of June, That we saw their banners dance, and their cuirasses shine, And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair, And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine.

Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword, The General rode along us to form us to the fight, When a murmuring sound broke out, and swell'd into a shout, Among the godless horsemen upon the tyrant's right.

And hark! like the roar of the billows on the shore, The cry of battle rises along their charging line! For God! for the Cause! for the Church! for the Laws! For Charles King of England and Rupert of the Rhine!

The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums, His bravoes of Alsatia, and pages of Whitehall; They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes, close your ranks; For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall.

They are here! They rush on! We are broken! We are gone! Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast. O Lord, put forth thy might! O Lord, defend the right! Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last.

Stout Skippon hath a wound; the centre hath given ground: Hark! hark!-What means the trampling of horsemen on our rear? Whose banner do I see, boys? 'Tis he, thank God, 'tis he, boys, Bear up another minute: brave Oliver is here.

Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row, Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes, Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst, And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes.

Fast, fast, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple Bar; And he-he turns, he flies:-shame on those cruel eyes That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on war.

Ho! comrades, scour the plain; and, ere ye strip the slain, First give another stab to make your search secure, Then shake from sleeves and pockets their broad-pieces and lockets, The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of the poor.

Fools! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay and bold, When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-day; And to-morrow shall the fox, from her chambers in the rocks, Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey.

Where be your tongues that late mocked at heaven and hell and fate, And the fingers that once were so busy with your blades, Your perfum'd satin clothes, your catches and your oaths, Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds and your spades?

Down, down, for ever down with the mitre and the crown, With the Belial of