Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Clio Rickman.

Cedite Romani scriptores, Cedite Graïï.

Relinquish the palm, ye Greek and Roman writers: yield to a competitor who surpasses all your efforts.

As of dogg'rel and bathos one sample will do,
My friends, I'll escort Clio Rickman to view;
Whose oddities nothing on earth can surpass,
For they stamp him the head of a numerous class.
So the rest of his compeers, I now mean to quote,
Shall be tack'd to his tail in the form of a note.

This waster of ink, this defiler of paper,

Destroyer of pens, and of Grub Street true scraper;

G

This broomstick of rhymsters, by Folly full cramm'd;
This wit, by the sisters of Helicon d—mn'd;
Whose rhymes are so bad, he was never yet able
To serve as last sweeper in Pegasus' stable;
But claims, for thus proving to Folly so steady,
The station of groom to a lanky-ear'd Neddy. (i)

(2) As the mention of this long-eared beast brings to my recollection some curious facts, I shall here annex the same by way of a note, for the edification of those writers, who, like Mr. Clio, may be led to imagine that the world can be amused with Braying.

Ammonius Alexandrinus, the master of Origen, informs us of an ass that was a pattern of wisdom. Midas was honoured with the vast auricular appendages of this animal; and, in holy writ, Balaam's Ass, on the appearance of an angel, was gifted with speech. But in order to prove still further the honours conferred upon this creature, on quoting an English writer of two centuries back, in whose work the ass is made to speak, he thus expresseth himself.

This scribbler, in short, has the British press loaded With trash, that from shelves should for aye be exploded :

"As contemptible as we are, there are two of us who have a "bright place in heaven, as the constellation of Cancer will show

66

[ocr errors]

you: as contemptible as we are, some of your greatest philosophers have held grand disputes on our very shadow, and "Apuleius's golden ass makes us famous to eternity. As con

[ocr errors]

temptible as we are, the strongest man that ever was made "use of the jaw-bone of one of us, to destroy thousands of his "enemies. The Empress Poppaa used our milk to make her "skin the whiter and lastly, you know who made his entry ❝ into Jerusalem upon one of us, for which we carry the cross

[merged small][ocr errors]

upon our shoulders, as the badge of a blessing even to this

day; which made a zealous Spaniard break out in these lines upon the sight of a pageant on Palm Sunday.

Asno quien a Dios lleuays

Oxala yo fuera vos,

Supplico os Dios me hagays

Como el Asno en que vays

Y dizen que le oyd Dios.

A tissue, presenting the acmè of bad,

Leaving Science enthron'd in a Pope's Dunciad. (j)

O! happy Ass who God dost bear,
Such as thou art, O! wou'd I were.

"Tis said the man did pray so hard

That pray'r and PERSON both were heard.”

In the city of Beauvais, on the 14th of January was celebrated the Ass's Festival, or Holiday, in order to represent to the life the flight of Mary into Egypt. For this purpose the clergy of the cathedral being assembled, selected from amongst several that were presented to them the most beautiful damsel, who, being placed upon an Ass richly caparisoned, was thus conducted, as it were in triumph, from the principal church to that of St. Stephen's; where the young maid and her donkey were introduced into the chancel, and placed on the right side of the altar. In the course of the service, performed on this occasion, the chants were interrupted at intervals with an Hiu Haw, in imitation of the Ass's braying, which was loudly articulated by the whole congregation; and at the close of the mass, the deacon, instead of the accustomed Ita Missa est, uttered three loud brays, which were immediately re-echoed by his audiBut the sublimest part of this famous ceremony was the

tors.

Yet, soft! for our scribe I've a partner just fit,
Consigning to use all the reams of his wit,

hymn chanted on the occasion, which, as a great curiosity, I shall now give at full length; being handed down to posterity by Charles du Cange, the French antiquary, who preserved the extraordinary morceau from a manuscript upwards of five hundred years old.

[blocks in formation]
« FöregåendeFortsätt »