Arm'd with a staff of such a size Who would not smite this man of lies: Here, scribbler, help me! seize that pen With which he blasts all rhyming men: His goose-quill must not with him go To persecute the bards below.--
How vast a change an hour may bring! How abject lies this snarling thing! No longer wit to him shall bow, To him the world is nothing now; And all he writ, and all he read Is, with himself, in silence laid!
Dead tho' he be--(not sent to rest) No keen remorse torments my breast: Yet, something in me seems to tell I might have let him live, as well;-- 'Twas his to snarl, and growl, and grin, And life had, else, a burthen been.
[322] This was first published in the _Freeman's Journal_, Oct 11, 1786, though it undoubtedly was written before the poet left Philadelphia. It was republished in the 1788 edition under the title "The Pamphleteer and the Critic." The text follows the 1795 edition.
ON THE LEGISLATURE OF GREAT-BRITAIN PROHIBITING THE SALE, IN LONDON, OF
Doctor David Ramsay's History of the Revolutionary war in South Carolina[323]
Some bold bully Dawson, expert in abusing, Having passed all his life in the practice of bruising; At last, when he thinks to reform and repent, And wishes his days had been soberly spent, Though a course of contrition in earnest begins, He scarcely can bear to be told of his sins. So the British, worn out with their wars in the west (Where burning and murder their prowess confessed) When, at last, they agreed 'twas in vain to contend (For the days of their thieving were come to an end) They hired some historians to scribble and flatter, And foolishly thought they could hush up the matter. But Ramsay[324] arose, and with Truth on his side, Has told to the world what they laboured to hide; With his pen of dissection, and pointed with steel, If they ne'er before felt he has taught them to feel, Themselves and their projects has truly defined, And dragged them to blush at the bar of mankind. As the author, his friends, and the world might expect, They find that the work has a damning effect-- In reply to his Facts they abuse him and rail, And prompted by malice, prohibit the sale. But, we trust, their chastisement is only begun; Thirteen are the States--and he writes but of one; Ere the twelve that are silent their story have told, The king will run mad, and the book will be sold.