As a politician too, Gibbon was attacked. He is said to have publicly declared, that it was necessary for the safety of the country that half a dozen of the members of the cabinet should be executed; and yet within a few weeks of this declaration, he accepted (1779) the office of one of the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, worth about £700 per annum. Upon this an epigram appeared, which has been ascribed to Charles James Fox (" Notes and Queries," 1st S. VIII. 312), but upon insufficient authority: King George in a fright Lest Gibbon should write Than to give the historian a place. But his caution is vain, That his projects should never succeed; His book well describes O'erthrew the great empire of Rome; A degeneracy there, Which his conduct exhibits at home. SHEEPSHANKS.-SHELFORD. ("Notes and Queries," 2nd S. XII. 98.) Mr. William Sheepshanks, tutor of Jesus College, Cambridge (who took his degree in 1814), wrote satyrs instead of satires in giving an exercise from Horace or Juvenal. This produced the following epigram, which was fastened on the door of the tutor's room, The satyrs of old were satyrs of note, With the head of a man, and the shanks of a goat; This is ascribed to Mr. H. A. Wedgwood, who graduated at Jesus College in 1821. The same wit embalmed Shelford of Corpus, who was public examiner in 1821, and noted for plucking men. Shelford fen is near Cambridge: I've seen a man pluck geese on Shelford fen, And now I've seen a Shelford goose pluck men. SUPPLEMENT OF MODERN EPIGRAMMATISTS. SIR JOHN SUCKLING Was born at Whitton, in Middlesex, in 1609. He was a man of fortune, and spent his time and his money amongst the wits of the age. In the civil war he espoused the royal cause, and raised a troop of horse for the King. He died in 1641. The following pieces, though strictly admissible into this collection, are, like some by Sir Charles Sedley, on the border-land between epigrams and vers de société, and may be called by either name. They are taken from Tonson's edition of Suckling's Works, 1709. WHY SO PALE? Why so pale and wan, fond Lover? Will, when looking well can't move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee why so pale? Why so dull and mute, young sinner? Will, when speaking well can't win her, Saying nothing do't? Prithee why so mute? Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move, This cannot take her; If of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her : The devil take her. George Wither, who was contemporary with Suckling, writes in tho same strain. The following is the first of several stanzas (Ellis' "Specimens of the Early English Poets," 1803, III. 83): Shall I, wasting in despair, Be she fairer than the day, What care I how fair she be? Lord Nugent has an epigram on the happy effects of a lady's disdain when constantly shown (Dodsley's "Collection of Poems," 1782, IL 244): Since first you knew my am'rous smart, And now, thank heav'n! to break my chain. All that rigour gives me peace. Possibly, however, Suckling's heroine was not indifferent, but carried too far the advice given by a lady in the following lines, and lost her lover by over anxiety to keep him (“The Grove," 1721, 56): She, that would gain a constant lover, Must at a distance keep the slave, Not by a look her heart discover, Men should but guess the thoughts we have. Whilst they're in doubt, the flame increases, When we're possess'd, their transport ceases, Had it any been but she, There had been at least, ere this, Sir Charles Sedley, in an epigram "To Celia," acknowledges that, like Suckling, he would not be constant for an hour together, were not the object of his love the most charming of her sex (Sedley's "Poetical Works," 1707, 7): Not, Celia, that I juster am Or better than the rest; For I would change each hour, like them, But I am tied to very thee, All that in woman is adored For the whole sex can but afford Why then should I seek farther store, When change itself can give no more The ladies to whom these poets professed such constancy, must have been the equals of her on whose girdle Waller wrote his elegant stanzas, the last of which forms in itself a beautiful little epigram; A narrow compass! and yet there Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair: LOVE TURNED TO HATRED. I will not love one minute more I swear, Thou gett'st from me, or one kind look agen, Tho' thou should'st court me to 't, and would'st begin. Of debts and sins, and then I'll curse thee too: |