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Title: A Character, Panegyric, And Description Of The Legion Club
Author: Jonathan Swift [
More Titles by Swift]
1736
The immediate provocation to this fierce satire upon the Irish Parliament was the introduction of a Bill to put an end to the tithe on pasturage, called _agistment_, and thus to free the landlords from a legal payment, with severe loss to the Church.
As I stroll the city, oft I
See a building large and lofty,
Not a bow-shot from the college;
Half the globe from sense and knowledge
By the prudent architect,
Placed against the church direct,[1]
Making good my grandam's jest,
"Near the church"--you know the rest.[2]
Tell us what the pile contains?
Many a head that has no brains.
These demoniacs let me dub
With the name of Legion[3] Club.
Such assemblies, you might swear,
Meet when butchers bait a bear:
Such a noise, and such haranguing,
When a brother thief's a hanging:
Such a rout and such a rabble
Run to hear Jackpudding gabble:
Such a crowd their ordure throws
On a far less villain's nose.
Could I from the building's top
Hear the rattling thunder drop,
While the devil upon the roof
(If the devil be thunder proof)
Should with poker fiery red
Crack the stones, and melt the lead;
Drive them down on every skull,
When the den of thieves is full;
Quite destroy that harpies' nest;
How might then our isle be blest!
For divines allow, that God
Sometimes makes the devil his rod;
And the gospel will inform us,
He can punish sins enormous.
Yet should Swift endow the schools,
For his lunatics and fools,
With a rood or two of land,
I allow the pile may stand.
You perhaps will ask me, Why so?
But it is with this proviso:
Since the house is like to last,
Let the royal grant be pass'd,
That the club have right to dwell
Each within his proper cell,
With a passage left to creep in
And a hole above for peeping.
Let them, when they once get in,
Sell the nation for a pin;
While they sit a-picking straws,
Let them rave of making laws;
While they never hold their tongue,
Let them dabble in their dung:
Let them form a grand committee,
How to plague and starve the city;
Let them stare, and storm, and frown,
When they see a clergy gown;
Let them, ere they crack a louse,
Call for th'orders of the house;
Let them, with their gosling quills,
Scribble senseless heads of bills;
We may, while they strain their throats,
Wipe our a--s with their votes.
Let Sir Tom,[4] that rampant ass,
Stuff his guts with flax and grass;
But before the priest he fleeces,
Tear the Bible all to pieces:
At the parsons, Tom, halloo, boy,
Worthy offspring of a shoeboy,
Footman, traitor, vile seducer,
Perjured rebel, bribed accuser,
Lay thy privilege aside,
From Papist sprung, and regicide;
Fall a-working like a mole,
Raise the dirt about thy hole.
Come, assist me, Muse obedient!
Let us try some new expedient;
Shift the scene for half an hour,
Time and place are in thy power.
Thither, gentle Muse, conduct me;
I shall ask, and you instruct me.
See, the Muse unbars the gate;
Hark, the monkeys, how they prate!
All ye gods who rule the soul:[5]
Styx, through Hell whose waters roll!
Let me be allow'd to tell
What I heard in yonder Hell.
Near the door an entrance gapes,[6]
Crowded round with antic shapes,
Poverty, and Grief, and Care,
Causeless Joy, and true Despair;
Discord periwigg'd with snakes,'[7]
See the dreadful strides she takes!
By this odious crew beset,[8]
I began to rage and fret,
And resolved to break their pates,
Ere we enter'd at the gates;
Had not Clio in the nick[9]
Whisper'd me, "Lay down your stick."
What! said I, is this a mad-house?
These, she answer'd, are but shadows,
Phantoms bodiless and vain,
Empty visions of the brain.
In the porch Briareus stands,[10]
Shows a bribe in all his hands;
Briareus the secretary,
But we mortals call him Carey.[11]
When the rogues their country fleece,
They may hope for pence a-piece.
Clio, who had been so wise
To put on a fool's disguise,
To bespeak some approbation,
And be thought a near relation,
When she saw three hundred[12] brutes
All involved in wild disputes,
Roaring till their lungs were spent,
PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT,
Now a new misfortune feels,
Dreading to be laid by th' heels.
Never durst a Muse before
Enter that infernal door;
Clio, stifled with the smell,
Into spleen and vapours fell,
By the Stygian steams that flew
From the dire infectious crew.
Not the stench of Lake Avernus
Could have more offended her nose;
Had she flown but o'er the top,
She had felt her pinions drop.
And by exhalations dire,
Though a goddess, must expire.
In a fright she crept away,
Bravely I resolved to stay.
When I saw the keeper frown,
Tipping him with half-a-crown,
Now, said I, we are alone,
Name your heroes one by one.
Who is that hell-featured brawler?
Is it Satan? No; 'tis Waller.[13]
In what figure can a bard dress
Jack the grandson of Sir Hardress?
Honest keeper, drive him further,
In his looks are Hell and murther;
See the scowling visage drop,
Just as when he murder'd Throp.[14]
Keeper, show me where to fix
On the puppy pair of Dicks:
By their lantern jaws and leathern,
You might swear they both are brethren:
Dick Fitzbaker,[15] Dick the player,[15]
Old acquaintance, are you there?
Dear companions, hug and kiss,
Toast Old Glorious in your piss;
Tie them, keeper, in a tether,
Let them starve and stink together;
Both are apt to be unruly,
Lash them daily, lash them duly;
Though 'tis hopeless to reclaim them,
Scorpion's rods, perhaps, may tame them.
Keeper, yon old dotard smoke,
Sweetly snoring in his cloak:
Who is he? 'Tis humdrum Wynne,[16]
Half encompass'd by his kin:
There observe the tribe of Bingham,[17]
For he never fails to bring 'em;
And that base apostate Vesey
With Bishop's scraps grown fat and greasy,
While Wynne sleeps the whole debate,
They submissive round him wait;
(Yet would gladly see the hunks,
In his grave, and search his trunks,)
See, they gently twitch his coat,
Just to yawn and give his vote,
Always firm in his vocation,
For the court against the nation.
Those are Allens Jack and Bob,[18]
First in every wicked job,
Son and brother to a queer
Brain-sick brute, they call a peer.
We must give them better quarter,
For their ancestor trod mortar,
And at Hoath, to boast his fame,
On a chimney cut his name.
There sit Clements, Dilks, and Carter;[19]
Who for Hell would die a martyr.
Such a triplet could you tell
Where to find on this side Hell?
Gallows Carter, Dilks, and Clements,
Souse them in their own excrements.
Every mischief's in their hearts;
If they fail, 'tis want of parts.
Bless us! Morgan,[20] art thou there, man?
Bless mine eyes! art thou the chairman?
Chairman to yon damn'd committee!
Yet I look on thee with pity.
Dreadful sight! what, learned Morgan
Metamorphosed to a Gorgon![21]
For thy horrid looks, I own,
Half convert me to a stone.
Hast thou been so long at school,
Now to turn a factious tool?
Alma Mater was thy mother,
Every young divine thy brother.
Thou, a disobedient varlet,
Treat thy mother like a harlot!
Thou ungrateful to thy teachers,
Who are all grown reverend preachers!
Morgan, would it not surprise one!
To turn thy nourishment to poison!
When you walk among your books,
They reproach you with their looks;
Bind them fast, or from their shelves
They'll come down to right themselves:
Homer, Plutarch, Virgil, Flaccus,
All in arms, prepare to back us:
Soon repent, or put to slaughter
Every Greek and Roman author.
Will you, in your faction's phrase,
Send the clergy all to graze;[22]
And to make your project pass,
Leave them not a blade of grass?
How I want thee, humorous Hogarth!
Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art.
Were but you and I acquainted,
Every monster should be painted:
You should try your graving tools
On this odious group of fools;
Draw the beasts as I describe them:
Form their features while I gibe them;
Draw them like; for I assure you,
You will need no _car'catura;_
Draw them so that we may trace
All the soul in every face.
Keeper, I must now retire,
You have done what I desire:
But I feel my spirits spent
With the noise, the sight, the scent.
"Pray, be patient; you shall find
Half the best are still behind!
You have hardly seen a score;
I can show two hundred more."
Keeper, I have seen enough.
Taking then a pinch of snuff,
I concluded, looking round them,
"May their god, the devil, confound them!"[23]
[Footnote 1: St. Andrew's Church, close to the site of the Parliament House.]
[Footnote 2: On a scrap of paper, containing the memorials respecting the Dean's family, there occur the following lines, apparently the rough draught of the passage in the text:
"Making good that proverb odd,
Near the church and far from God,
Against the church direct is placed,
Like it both in head and waist."--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 3: From the answer of the demoniac that the devils which possessed him were Legion.--St. Mark, v, 9.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 4: Sir Thomas Prendergast, a prominent opponent of the clergy, and a servile supporter of the government. See the verses on "Noisy Tom," _ante_, p. 260.]
[Footnote 5: "Di quibus imperium est animarum umbraeque silentes Sit mihi fas audita loqui."--VIRG., _Aen_., vi, 264.]
[Footnote 6: "Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus Orci Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae;"--273.]
[Footnote 7:"----Discordia demens
Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis."--281.]
[Footnote 8: "Corripit his subita trepidus,
----strictamque aciem venientibus offert."--290.]
[Footnote 9: "Et ni docta comes tenues sine corpore vitas."--VIRG., _Aen_., vi, 291.]
[Footnote 10: "Et centumgeminus Briareus."--287.]
[Footnote 11: The Right Honourable Walter Carey. He was secretary to the Duke of Dorset when lord-lieutenant of Ireland. The Duke of Dorset came to Ireland in 1731.]
[Footnote 12: "Two hundred" written by Swift in the margin.--_Forster_.]
[Footnote 13: John Waller, Esq., member for the borough of Dongaile. He was grandson to Sir Hardress Waller, one of the regicide judges, and who concurred with them in passing sentence on Charles I. This Sir Hardressmarried the daughter and co-heir of John Dowdal of Limerick, in Ireland, by which alliance he became so connected with the country, that after the rebellion was over, the family made it their residence.--_Scott._]
[Footnote 14: Rev. Roger Throp, whose death was said to have been occasioned by the persecution which he suffered from Waller. His case was published by his brother, and never answered, containing such a scene of petty vexatious persecutions as is almost incredible; the cause being the refusal of Mr. Throp to compound, for a compensation totally inadequate, some of the rights of his living which affected Waller's estate. In 1739, a petition was presented to the House of Commons by his brother, Robert Throp, gentleman, complaining of this persecution, and applying to parliament for redress, relative to the number of attachments granted by the King's Bench, in favour of his deceased brother, and which could not be executed against the said Waller, on account of the privilege of Parliament, etc. But this petition was rejected by the House, _nem. con._ The Dean seems to have employed his pen against Waller. See a letter from Mrs. Whiteway to Swift, Nov. 15, 1735, edit. Scott, xviii, p. 414.--_W. E. B_.]
[Footnote 15: Richard Tighe, so called because descended from a baker who supplied Cromwell's army with bread. Bettesworth is termed the _player_, from his pompous enunciation.]
[Footnote 16: "Right Honourable Owen Wynne, county of Sligo.---Owen Wynne, Esq., borough of Sligo.--John Wynne, Esq., borough of Castlebar."]
[Footnote 17: "Sir John Bingham, Bart., county of Mayo.--His brother, Henry Bingham, sat in parliament for some time for Castlebar."]
[Footnote 18: John Allen represented the borough of Carysfort; Robert Allen the county of Wicklow. The former was son, and the latter brother to Joshua, the second Viscount Allen, hated and satirized by Swift, under the name of Traulus. The ancestor of the Allens, as has been elsewhere noticed, was an architect in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign; and was employed as such by many of the nobility, particularly Lord Howth. He settled in Ireland, and was afterwards consulted by Lord Stafford in some of his architectural plans.--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 19: There were then two Clements in parliament, brothers, Nathaniel and Henry. Michael Obrien Dilks represented the borough of Castlemartye. He was barrack-master-general.]
[Footnote 20: Doctor Marcus Antonius (which Swift calls his "heathenish Christian name") Morgan, chairman to that committee to whom was referred the petition of the farmers, graziers, etc. against tithe agistment. On this petition the House reported, and agreed that it deserved the strongest support.]
[Footnote 21: Whose hair consisted of snakes, and who turned all she looked upon to stone.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 22: A suggestion that if the tithe of _agistment_ were abolished, the clergy might be sent to graze.--_W. E. B._]
[Footnote 23: On the margin of a Broadside containing this poem is
written by Swift:
"Except the righteous Fifty Two
To whom immortal honour's due,
Take them, Satan, as your due
All except the Fifty Two."--_Forster._
probably the number of those who opposed the Bill.--_W. E. B._]
[The end]
Jonathan Swift's poem: Character, Panegyric, And Description Of The Legion Club
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