Advice to a Painter.

Spread a large canvas, Painter, to contain
The great assembly and the numerous train,
Who all about him shall in council sit,
Abjuring wisdom, and despising wit;
Hating all justice, and resolved to fight,
To rob his native country of its right.
First draw his Highness prostrate to the south,
Adoring Rome, this label in his mouth, —
" Most holy Father! being joined in league
With Father Patrick, Darby, and with Teague,
Thrown at your sacred feet, I humbly bow,
I, and the wise associates of my vow,
A vow nor fire nor sword shall ever end,
Till all this nation to your footstool bend.
Thus armed with zeal and blessings from your hands,
I'll raise my Irish and my Popish bands,
And by a noble well-contrived plot,
Managed by wise Fitz-Gerrard, and by Scott,
Prove to the world I'll have Old England know
That common sense is my eternal foe.
I ne'er can fight in a more glorious cause,
Than to destroy their liberties and laws,
Their House of Commons, and their House of Lords,
Their parchment precedents, and dull records;
Shall these e'er dare to contradict my will,
And think a prince of the blood can e'er do ill?
It is our birthright to have power to kill.
Shall these men dare to think, shall these decide
The way to heaven, and who shall be my guide?
Shall these pretend to say that bread is bread,
[If we affirm it is a God indeed?]
Or there's no Purgatory for the dead?
That extreme unction is but common oil?
And not infallible the Roman soil?
I'll have these villains in our notions rest;
You and I say it, therefore it's the best."
Next, Painter, draw his Mordaunt by his side,
Conveying his religion and his bride:
He, who long since abjured the royal line,
Does now in Popery with his master join.
Then draw the princess with her golden locks,
Hastening to be envenomed with the p —,
And in her youthful veins receive a wound,
Which sent N II before her under ground;
The wound of which the tainted C fades,
Preserved in store for the next set of maids.
Poor princess, born under some sullen star,
To find this welcome when you came so far!
Better some jealous neighbour of your own
Had called you to some sound, though petty throne;
Where, 'twixt a wholesome husband and a page,
You might have lingered out a lazy age,
Than on dull hopes of being here a Queen,
Die before twenty, rot before fifteen.
Now, Painter, show us in the blackest dye,
The counsellors of all this villany.
Clifford, who first appeared in humble guise,
Was thought so meek, so modest, and so wise;
But when he came to act upon the stage,
He proved the mad Cethegus of our age.
He and the Duke had each too great a mind
To be by justice or by law confined:
Their boiling heads can hear no other sounds,
Than fleets and armies, battles, blood, and wounds:
And to destroy our liberty they hope,
By Irish fools, and an old doting Pope.
[Next, Talbot must by his great master stand,
Laden with folly, flesh, and ill-got land;
He's of a size indeed to fill a porch,
But ne'er can make a pillar of the church.
His sword is all his argument, not his book;
Although no scholar, he can act the cook,
And will cut throats again, if he be paid;
In the Irish shambles he first learned the trade.]
Then, Painter, show thy skill, and in fit place
Let's see the nuncio Arundel's sweet face;
Let the beholders by thy art espy
His sense and soul, as squinting as his eye.
Let Bellasis' autumnal face be seen,
Rich with the spoils of a poor Algerine,
Who, trusting in him, was by him betrayed;
And so should we, were his advice obeyed.
The hero once got honour by the sword;
He got his wealth by breaking of his word;
He now hath got his daughter great with child,
And pimps to have his family defiled.
Next, Painter, draw the rabble of the plot;
Jermyn, Fitz-Gerald, Loftus, Porter, Scott:
These are fit heads indeed to turn a state,
And change the order of a nation's fate;
Ten thousand such as these can ne'er control
The smallest atom of an English soul.
Old England on its strong foundation stands,
Defying all their heads and all their hands;
Its steady basis never could be shook,
When wiser heads its ruin undertook;
And can her guardian angel let her stoop
At last to fools, to madmen, and the Pope?
No, Painter, no! close up thy piece, and see
This crowd of traitors hang in effigy.