EPISTLE TO THE REVEREND MR. CATCOTT. WHAT strange infatuations rule mankind! How narrow are our prospects, how confin'd! With universal vanity possest, We fondly think our own ideas best: Our tott'ring arguments are ever strong; We're always self-sufficient in the wrong. What philosophic Sage of pride austere Can lend conviction an attentive ear? What pattern of humility and truth Can bear the jeering ridicule of youth? What blushing Author ever rank'd his Muse With Fowler's Poet-Laureat of the Stews? Dull Penny, nodding o'er his wooden lyre, Conceits the vapours of Geneva fire. All in the language of Apostles cry, If Angels contradict me, Angels lie? As all have intervals of ease and pain, So all have intervals of being vain; But some of folly never shift the scene, Or let one lucid moment intervene; Dull single acts of many-footed Prose Their tragi-comedys of life compose; Incessant madding for a system toy The greatest of Creations blessings cloy; Their senses dosing a continual dream, They hang enraptured o'er the hideous scheme: So virgins tott'ring into ripe three score, Their greatest likeness in baboons adore. When you advance new systems, first unfold The various imperfections of the old; Prove Nature hitherto a gloomy night, You the first focus of primaeval light. 'Tis not enough you think your system true, The busy world wou'd have you prove it too: Then, rising on the ruins of the rest, Plainly demonstrate your ideas best. Many are best; one only can be right Tho' all had inspiration to indite. Some this unwelcome truth perhaps would tell, Where Clogher stumbled, Catcott fairly fell. Writers on Rolls of Science long renown'd In one fell page are tumbled to the ground. We see their systems unconfuted still; But Catcott can confute them — if he will. Would you the honour of a Priest mistrust An excommunication proves him just. Could Catcott from his better sense be drawn To bow the knee to Baal's sacred lawn? A mitred Rascal to his long-ear'd flocks Gives ill example, to his wh—s, the p-x Yet we must reverence sacerdotal black, And saddle all his faults on Nature's back. But hold, there's solid reason to revere; His Lordship has six thousand pounds a year; In gaming solitude he spends the nights, He fasts at Arthur's and he prays at White's; Rolls o'er the pavement with his Swiss-tail'd six, At White's the Athanasian Creed for Tricks. Whil'st the poor Curate in his rusty gown Trudges unnotic'd thro' the dirty town. If God made order, order never made These nice distinctions in the preaching trade. The servants of the Devil are rever'd, And Bishops pull the Fathers by the beard. Yet in these horrid forms Salvation lives, These are Religions representatives; Yet to these idols must we bow the knee — Excuse me, Broughton, when I bow to thee. But sure Religion can produce at least, One Minister of God — one honest Priest. Search Nature o'er, procure me, if you can, The fancy'd character, an honest Man (A man of sense, not honest by constraint For fools are canvass, living but in paint) To Mammon, or to Superstition slaves, All orders of mankind are fools, or knaves: In the first attribute by none surpast, Taylor endeavours to obtain the last. Imagination may be too confin'd; Few see too far; how many are half blind? How are your feeble arguments perplext To find out meaning in a senseless text? You rack each metaphor upon the wheel, And words can philosophic truths conceal. What Paracelsus humor'd as a jest, You realize to prove your system best. Might we not, Catcott, then infer from hence, Your zeal for Scripture hath devour'd your sense? Apply the glass of reason to your sight, See Nature marshal oozy atoms right. Think for yourself, for all mankind are free; We need not Inspiration how to see. If Scripture contradictory you find, Be Orthodox, and own your senses blind. How blinded are their optics, who aver, What Inspiration dictates cannot err. Whence is this boasted Inspiration sent, Which makes us utter truths, we never meant? Which couches systems in a single word, At once deprav'd, abstruse, sublime, absurd. What Moses tells us might perhaps be true, As he was learn'd in all the Egyptians knew. But to assert that Inspiration's giv'n, The Copy of Philosophy in Heav'n, Strikes at Religions root, and fairly fells The awful terrors of ten thousand Hells. Attentive search the Scriptures and you'll find What vulgar errors are with truths combin'd. Your tortur'd truths, which Moses seem'd to know, He could not unto Inspiration owe; For if from God one error you admit, How dubious is the rest of Holy Writ? What knotty difficultys fancy solves? The Heav'ns irradiate, and the Earth revolves; But here Imagination is allow'd To clear this voucher from its mantling cloud: From the same word we different meanings quote, As David wears a many colour'd coat. O Inspiration, ever hid in night, Reflecting various each adjacent light; If Moses caught thee in the parted flood; If David found thee in a sea of blood; If Mahomet with slaughter drench'd thy soil, On loaded asses bearing off thy spoil; If thou hast favour'd Pagan, Turk, or Jew, Say had not Broughton Inspiration too? Such rank absurdities debase his line, I almost could have sworn he copied thine. Confute with candour, where you can confute, Reason and arrogance but poorly suit. Yourself may fall before some abler pen, Infallibility is not for men. With modest diffidence new schemes indite, Be not too positive, tho' in the right. What man of sense would value vulgar praise, Or rise on Penny's prose, or duller lays? Tho' pointed fingers mark the Man of Fame, And literary Grocers chaunt your name; Tho' in each Taylors book-case Catcott shines, With ornamental flow'rs and gilded lines; Tho' youthful Ladies who by instinct scan The Natural Philosophy of Man, Can ev'ry reason of your work repeat, As sands in Africa retain the heat: Yet check your flowing pride: Will all allow To wreathe the labour'd laurel round your brow? Some may with seeming arguments dispense, Tickling your vanity to wound your sense: But Clayfield censures, and demonstrates too, Your theory is certainly untrue; On Reason and Newtonian rules he proves, How distant your machine from either moves. But my objections may be reckon'd weak, As nothing but my mother tongue I speak; Else would I ask; by what immortal Pow'r All Nature was dissolv'd as in an hour. How, when the earth acquir'd a solid state, And rising mountains saw the waves abate, Each particle of matter sought its kind, All in a strata regular combin'd? When instantaneously the liquid heap Harden'd to rocks, the barriers of the deep, Why did not earth unite a stony mass; Since stony filaments thro' all must pass? If on the wings of air the planets run, Why are they not impell'd into the sun? Philosophy, nay common sense, will prove All passives with their active agents move. If the diurnal motion of the air, Revolves the planets in their destin'd sphere; How are the secondary orbs impell'd? How are the moons from falling headlong held? 'Twas the Eternal's fiat you reply; And who will give Eternity the lie? I own the awful truth, that God made all, And by his fiat worlds and systems fall. But study Nature; not an atom there Will unassisted by her powers appear; The fiat, without agents, is, at best, For priestcraft or for ignorance a vest. Some fancy God is what we Nature call, Being itself material, all in all. The fragments of the Deity we own, Is vulgarly as various matter known. No agents could assist Creations birth: We trample on our God, for God is Earth. 'Tis past the pow'r of language to confute This latitudinary attribute. How lofty must Imagination soar, To reach absurdities unknown before? Thanks to thy pinions, Broughton, thou hast brought From the Moons orb a novelty of thought. Restrain, O Muse, thy unaccomplish'd lines, Fling not thy saucy satire at Divines; This single truth thy brother Bards must tell; Thou hast one excellence, of railing well. But disputations are befitting those Who settle Hebrew points, and scold in prose. O Learning, where are all thy fancied joys Thy empty pleasures and thy solemn toys? Proud of thy own importance; tho' we see We've little reason to be proud of thee: Thou putrid foetus of a barren brain, Thou offspring illegitimate of Pain. Tell me, sententious Mortals, tell me whence You claim the preference to men of sense? — wants learning; see the letter'd throng Banter his English in a Latin song. Oxonian Sages hesitate to speak Their native Language, but declaim in Greek. If in his jests a discord should appear, A dull lampoon is innocently clear. Ye Classic Dunces, self-sufficient fools, Is this the boasted justice of your schools? — has parts; parts which would set aside The labour'd acquisitions of your pride; Uncultivated now his Genius lies, Instruction sees his latent beauties rise; His gold is bullion, yours debas'd with brass, Imprest with Folly's head to make it pass. But — swears so loud, so indiscreet, His thunders rattle thro' the list'ning street: Ye rigid Christians, formally severe, Blind to his charities, his oaths you hear; Observe his virtues: Calumny must own A noble soul is in his actions shown; Tho' dark this bright original you paint, I'd rather be a — than a Saint. Excuse me, Catcott, if from you I stray, The Muse will go where Merit leads the way; The Owls of Learning may admire the night, But — shines with Reason's glowing light. Still Admonition presses to my pen, The infant Muse would give advice to Men. But what avails it, since the man I blame Owns no superior in the paths of fame? In springs, in mountains, strata's, mines, and rocks, Catcott is every notion Orthodox. If to think otherwise you claim pretence, You're a detested heretick in sense. But oh! how lofty your ideas roar, In shewing wond'ring Cits the fossile store! The Ladies are quite ravish'd, as he tells The short adventures of the pretty shells; Miss Biddy sickens to indulge her touch, Madam more prudent thinks 'twould seem too much; The doors fly open, instantly he draws The sparry lood, and wonders of applause; The full dress'd Lady sees with envying eye The sparkle of her di'mond pendants die; Sage Natural Philosophers adore The fossil whimsys of the numerous store. But see! the purple stream begins to play, To shew how fountains climb the hilly way. Hark what a murmur echoes thro' the throng. Gods! that the pretty trifle should be wrong! Experience in the voice of Reason tells Above its surface water never swells. Where is the priestly soul of Catcott now? See what a triumph sits upon his brow: And can the poor applause of things like these, Whose souls and sentiments are all disease, Raise little triumphs in a man like you, Catcott, the foremost of the Judging few? So at Llewellins your great Brother sits, The laughter of his tributary wits; Ruling the noisy multitude with ease, Empties his pint and sputters his decrees.