The English Spy: An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous.: Comprising Scenes And Sketches In Every Rank Of Society, Being Portraits Drawn From The LifeWestmacott, C. M. (Charles Molloy)
General
The English Spy: An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humorous.: Comprising Scenes And Sketches In Every Rank Of Society, Being Portraits Drawn From The Life
Westmacott, C. M. (Charles Molloy)
England -- Social life and customs; Satire, English; University of Oxford -- Anecdotes
When the tumult subsided, and peace 'gan to follow,
Goddard enter'd the room, with three cards for Apollo,
And some papers which, hardly five minutes before,
Three respectable gownsmen had left at the door.
With a smile of good humour the god look'd at each,
For he found that they came from Blunt, Chapman, and Neech.{7}
Blunt sent him a treatise of science profound,
Showing how rotten eggs were distinguish'd from sound;
Some "Remarks on Debates," and some long-winded stories,
Of society Whigs, and society Tories;
And six sheets and a half of a sage dissertation,
On the present most wicked and dull generation.
From Chapman came lectures on Monk, and on piety;
On Simeon, and learning, and plays, and sobriety;
With most clear illustrations, and critical notes,
On his own right exclusive of canvassing votes.
From Neech came a medley of prose and of rhyme,
Satires, epigrams, sonnets, and sermons sublime;
But he'd chosen all customs and rules to reverse,
For his satires were prose, and las sermons were verse.
Phoebus look'd at the papers, commended all three,
And sent word he'd be happy to see them to tea.
The affairs of the morning thus happily o'er,
Phoebus pull'd from his pocket twelve tickets or more,
Which the waiters were ordered forthwith to disperse
'Mongst the most approved scribblers in prose and in verse:
'Mongst the gentlemen honor'd with cards, let me see,
There was Howard, and Coleridge, and Wood, and Lavie,
The society's props; Curzon, major and minor,
7 Principal contributors to the Etonian.
~94~~
Bowen, Hennicker, Webbe, were invited to dinner:
The theologist Buxton, and Petit, were seen,
And philosopher Jenyns, and Donald Maclean;
Bulteel too, and Dykes; but it happen'd (oh shame!)
That, though many were ask'd, very few of them came.
As for Coleridge, he "knew not what right Phobus had,
d--n me, To set up for a judge in a christian academy;
And he'd not condescend to submit his Latinity,
Nor his verses, nor Greek, to a heathen divinity.
For his part, he should think his advice an affront,
Full as bad as the libels of Chapman and Blunt.
He'd no doubt but his dinner might be very good,
But he'd not go and taste it--be d--d if he would."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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