SIR.

TO DAVID POLHILL, ESQ.

When you put this satire into my hand, you gave me the occasion of employing my pen to answer so detestable a writing; which might be done much more effectually by your known zeal for the interest of his Majesty, your counsels and your courage employed in the defence of your king and country. And since you provoked me to write, you will accept of these efforts of my loyalty to the best of kings, addressed to one of the most zealous of his subjects, by, Sir, Your most obedient servant, I. W.

WRITTEN BY A NAMELESS AUTHOR, AGAINST KING WILLIAM III. OF GLORIOUS MEMORY. 1698.

PART I.

AND must the hero that redeem'd our land,
Here in the front of vice and scandal stand?
The man of wondrous soul, that scorn'd his ease,
Tempting the winters, and the faithless seas,
And paid an annual tribute of his life

To guard his England from the Irish knife,

And crush the French dragoon? Must William's

name,

That brightest star that gilds the wings of fame, William the brave, the pious, and the just,

Adorn these gloomy scenes of tyranny and lust?

Polhill, my blood boils high, my spirits flame; Can your zeal sleep, (or are your passions tame?) Nor call revenge and darkness on the poet's name? Why smoke the skies not? Why no thunders roll, Nor kindling lightnings blast his guilty soul? Audacious wretch! to stab a monarch's fame, And fire his subjects with a rebel flame; To call the painter to his black designs, To draw our guardian's face in hellish lines. Painter, beware! the monarch can be shown Under no shape but angel's, or his own, Gabriel, or William, on the British throne.

Oh, could my thought but grasp the vast design, And words with infinite ideas join,

I'd rouse Apelles from his iron sleep,

And bid him trace the warrior o'er the deep:
Trace him, Apelles, o'er the Belgian plain;
Fierce, how he climbs the mountains of the slain,
Scattering just vengeance thro' the red campaign.
Then dash the canvas with a flying stroke,
Till it be lost in clouds of fire and smoke,
And say, 'Twas thus the conqueror through the
squadrons broke.

Mark him again emerging from the cloud,

Far from his troops; there like a rock he stood,

His country's single barrier in a sea of blood.
Calmly he leaves the pleasure of a throne,
And his Maria weeping, whilst alone

He wards the fate of nations, and provokes his own:
But heaven secures its champion; o'er the field
Paint hovering angels; though they fly conceal'd,
Each intercepts a death, and wears it on his shield.
Now, noble pencil, lead him to our isle.
Mark how the skies with joyful lustre smile!
Then imitate the glory; on the strand
Spread half the nation, longing till he land.
Wash off the blood, and take a peaceful teint,
All red the warrior, white the ruler paint;
Abroad a hero, and at home a saint.
Throne him on high upon a shining seat,
Lust and profaneness dying at his feet,

While round his head the laurel and the olive meet,
The crowns of war and peace: and may they blow
With flowery blessings ever on his brow.

At his right hand pile up the English laws,
In sacred volumes; thence the monarch draws
His wise and just commands. .

Rise, ye old sages of the British isle,

On the fair tablet cast a reverend smile,

And bless the piece: these statutes are your own, That sway the cottage and direct the throne; People and prince are one in William's name, Their joys, their dangers, and their laws the same. Let liberty and right, with plumes display'd, Clap their glad wings around their guardian's head,

Religion o'er the rest her starry pinions spread.
Religion guards him; round the imperial queen
Place waiting virtues, each of heavenly mien :
Learn their bright air, and paint it from his eyes;
The just, the bold, the temperate, and the wise,
Dwell in his looks; majestic, but serene;
Sweet, with no fondness; cheerful, but not vain :
Bright, without terror; great, without disdain.
His soul inspires us what his lips command,
And spreads his brave example through the land.
Not so the former reigns.

......

Bend down his ear to each afflicted cry,

Let beams of grace dart gently from his eye.
But the bright treasures of his sacred breast
Are too divine, too vast to be exprest:
Colours must fail where words and numbers faint,
And leave the hero's heart for thought alone to
paint.

PART II.

Now, Muse, pursue the satirist again, Wipe off the blots of his envenom'd pen. Hark, how he bids the servile painter draw, In monstrous shapes, the patrons of our law; At one slight dash he cancels every name From the white rolls of honesty and fame. This scribbling wretch marks all he meets for knave, Shoots sudden bolts promiscuous at the base and brave,

And with unpardonable malice sheds
Poison and spite on undistinguish'd heads.
Painter, forbear; or if thy bolder hand
Dares to attempt the villains of the land,
Draw first this poet, like some baleful star,
With silent influence shedding civil war;
Or factious trumpeter, whose magic sound
Calls off the subjects to the hostile ground,
And scatters hellish feuds the nation round.
These are the imps of hell, that cursed tribe
That first create the plague, and then the pain
describe.

Draw next above, the great ones of our isle,
Still from the good distinguishing the vile;
Seat them in pomp, in grandeur, and command,
Peeling the subjects with a greedy hand;

Paint forth the knaves that have the nation sold,
And tinge their greedy looks with sordid gold.
Mark what a selfish faction undermines
The pious monarch's generous designs,
Spoil their own native land as vipers do,
Vipers that tear their mothers' bowels through.
Let great Nassau, beneath a careful crown,
Mournful in majesty, look gently down,
Mingling soft pity with an awful frown.
He grieves to see how long in vain he strove
To make us blest, how vain his lahours prove,
To save the stubborn land he condescends to love.