Chapter VII: Book III (1)

----Nations would do well
T' extort their truncheons from the puny hands
Of Heroes, whose infirm and baby minds
Are gratified with mischief; and who spoil,
Because men suffer it, their Toy--The World.

_Tyrants deposed to preserve the Throne--In Europe--In England before the Conquest--By each other since.--No right line any where--Difference between Tyrants and Kings--Government instituted by the People for their oivn good--Tyrants treat men as cattle to be slaughtered--God decrees their fall--Ordains Revolutions by the People._

Search we the long records of ages past,
Look back as far as antient rolls will last;
Beyond what oldest history relates,
While kings had people, people magistrates;
Nations, e'er since there has been king or crown,
Have pull'd down tyrants to preserve the throne.

The laws of nature then, as still they do,
Taught them, their rights and safety to pursue;
That if a king, who should protect, destroys,
He forfeits all the sanction he enjoys.

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There's not a nation ever own'd a crown,
But if their kings opprest them, pull'd them down;
Concurring Providence has been content,
And always blest the action in th' event.

He that, invested with the robes of power,
Thinks'tis his right the people to devour,
Will always find some stubborn men remain,
That have so little wit, they won't be slain;
Who always turn again when they're opprest,
And basely spoil the gay tyrannic jest;
Tell kings--of Nature, Laws of God, and Right,
Take up their arms, and with their tyrants fight.

When passive thousands fall beneath the sword,
And freely die at the imperial word,
A stern, unyielding, self-defending few,
While they resist, will ravel all the clew;
Will all the engines of oppression awe,
And trample pow'r beneath the feet of law.

'Tis always natural for men opprest,
Whene'er occasion offers to resist;
They're traitors else to truth and common sense,
And rebels to the laws of Providence;
'Tis not enough to say, they _may_--they _must_;
The strong necessity declares it just; *
'Tis Heav'n's supreme command to man, and they
Are always blest who that command obey.

* If it be asked, Who shall be judge? it is plain that God
has made Nature judge. If a king make a law, destructive of
human society and the general good, may it not be resisted
and opposed? "No!" exclaim a junta of holy meu, "it is from
GOD!" What is _Blasphemy?_

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So France deposed the Merovingian line,
And banish'd Childrick * lost the right divine;
So Holy League their sacred Henry ** slew,
And call'd a counsel to erect a new;
For right divine must still to justice bow,
And people first the right to rule bestow:

So Spain to arbitrary kings inured,
Yet arbitrary Favila *** abjured;
Denmark four kings deposed, and Poland seven,
Swedeland but one-and-twenty, Spain eleven:
Russia, Demetrius banish'd from the throne,****
And Portugal pull'd young Alphonsus down;
Each nation that deserves the name of state,
Has set up laws above the magistrate;
Hence, when a self-advancing wretch acquires
A lawless rule, his government expires.

* Childeric I. the son of Merovius, for his lasciviousness,
was banished by the great men, and one Egidiu?, a Gaul, set
up in his stead. Childeiic II. was banished and deposed by
his subjects, and king Pepin reigned in his stead; and so
ended the Merovingian family.

** The League deposed Henry III. and declared him a tyrant,
a murderer, and incapable to reign, and held frequent
counsels with the pope's legate and the Spaniards about
settling the crown, and several proposals were made of
settling it, sometimes on the infanta of Spain, at other
times on the cardinal of Boubon, the duke de Main, and
others.

*** Favila, a cruel tyrant, was deposed by the Castilians,
who chose judges to administer the government, till they
appointed another.

**** Besides the banishment of Demetrius, the History of
Russia furnishes a sickening catalogue of the butchery of
her despots by each other. During the debate in the House of
Lords on the 19th of February, 1821, Lord Holland, observing
on the Crusade of the Holy Alliance of Despots against
Naples, said, "That objections to the freedom of political
constitutions came but ungracefully from the reigning
Emperor of Russia, who ascended a throne reeking with the
blood of his own father: and as this member of that holy
league, owed his crown to the murder of his father, it
brought to his recollection, that since the time of the Czar
Peter I. no sovereign had ascended the throne of Russia
with-out its being stained with the blood of his immediate
predecessor, or some other member of his own family."

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Explore the past, the steps of monarchs tread,
And view the sacred titles of the dead;
Look to the early kings of Britain's isle,
For _Jus Divinum_ in our _native_ style.

Conquest, or compacts, form the rights of kings,
And both are human, both unsettled things;
Both subject to contingencies of fate,
And so the godship of them proves a cheat.

The crowns and thrones the greatest monarchs have,
Were either stolen, or the people gave.

What claim had colonel Cnute, * or captain Suene?
What right the roving Saxon, pirate Dane?
Hengist, or Horsa, Woden's blood defied,
And on their sword, not right divine, relied.

* The leaders of the invading Saxons and Danes were mere
thieves and robbers, pretending to no light but that of the
sword. Hengist and Horsa were Saxon leaders, who after
conquering Kent, made themselves kings. Woden is famed to be
the first great leader of the Goths into Europe, and all
their kings affected to be thought of his predatory blood.

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The Norman Bastard, how divine his call!
And where's his heav'nly high original?
These naked nations, long a helpless prey,
To foreign and domestic tyranny;--
Their infant strength unfit to guard their name--
Was left exposed to ev'ry robber's claim,
An open prey to pirates, and the isle,
To wild invaders, grew an early spoil.

The Romans ravaged long our wealthy coast,
And long our plains fed Caesar's num'rous host.

What birthright raised that rav'nous leader's name?
His sword, and not his fam'ly, form'd his claim.

Where'er the Roman eagles spread their wings,
They conquer'd nations, and they pull'd down kings;
Caesar in triumph o'er the whole presided,
And right of conquest half the world divided.

For Liberty our sires in arms appear'd,
And in its sacred name with courage warr'd;
Made the invaders buy their conquest dear,
And legions of their bones lie buried here. *

* The hillocks or barrows still remaining in most parts of
Eng-land were the graves of the soldiers. There are four
very large ones near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, close to
the road. The plains in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire are full
of these monuments of the valorous achievements of the
Britons iu defence of their liberty.

When these their work of slaughter had fulfill'd,
And seas of British blood bedew'd the field;
Shoals of Barbarian Goths, worse thieves than they,
From Caledonian Friths, and frozen Tay,
O'erspread the fruitful, now abandon'd plains,
And led the captured victims in their chains:
The weaken'd natives, helpless and distrest,
Doom'd to be plunder'd, ravish'd, and oppress'd,
Employ new thieves from the rude Northern coast,
To rob them of the little not yet lost.

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The work once done, the workmen, to be paid,
Only demand themselves, and all they had!
In dreadful strife their freedom to maintain,
They fought with fury, but they fought in vain;
Yet, like Antaeus, every time they fell,
Their veins with rage and indignation swell;
Not for continued losses they despair,
But for still fiercer battle they prepare;
Again their blood the Saxon chariots stains,
And heaps of heroes strew th' ensanguin'd plains;
Thus, though they leave the world, they keep the field,
And thus their lives, but not their freedom yield.

Three hundred years of bloody contest past,
Plunder'd at first, and dispossest at last,
The few remains, with freedom still inspir'd,
To Western mountains, to resist retired;
Their dear abandon'd country thence they view,
And thence their thirst of Liberty renew;
Offers of peaceful bondage they defy,
What's peace to man without his liberty? *

* The Britons fought one hundred and sixty-three pitched
bat-tles. They might well be said to be conquered, for in
these prodigious straggles for their liberty they were
nearly all slain. They fought as long as there were any men
to be raised? but the Saxons swarming continually over from
vastly populous countries, the few Britons that remained,
took sanctuary in the wes-tern mountains of Wales, and from
the crags and cliffs, poor and distrest as they were, they
made constant inroads and excursions upon the Saxons; the
Saxon Annals are filled with accounts of the renewed
warfare. Even the English histories frequently mention the
incursions of the Welsh, till, at last, united to England,
they seem to be incorporated with the natives of their
ancient soil.

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The conquer'd nation--fell a dear bought prey,
And Britain's island, _Saxon_ Lords obey:
The shouting troops their victories proclaim,
And load their chiefs with royalty and fame:
The garland of their triumphs was their crown,
Mob set them up, and rabble pull'd them down!

Fighting was all the merit they could bring,
The bloodiest wretch appear'd the bravest King!
Nor did his kingship any longer last,
Than till by some more powerful rogue displaced.
In spoil and blood was fix'd the right divine.
And thus commenced the royal Saxon line:--

That sword that vanquish'd innocence in fight,
The sword that crush'd the banish'd Britons' right,
At pleasure subdivides the British crown,
And forms eight soldier kingdoms out of one.

From these we strive to date our royal line,
And these must help us to a right divine;
From actions buried in eternal night,
Priestcraft is brought, to fix the fancied right;
Priestcraft that, always on the strongest side,
Contrives, tho' kings should walk, that priests shall ride.

One master thief his fellows dispossest,
And gave, once more, the weeping nation rest;
For Egbert, * English monarchy began,
By his Almighty-sword--the Sacred man!

* Egbert came over originally from France, and was not the
successor of any prince of the West Saxon kingdom, nor of
any kingdom.

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Yet who was Egbert? Search his ancient breed;
What sacred ancestors did he succeed?
What mighty princes form'd his royal line,
And handed down to him the right divine?

A high-Dutch trooper, sent abroad to fight,
Whose trade was blood, and in his arm his right:
A supernumerary Holsteineer, *
For want of room at home, sent out to war;
A mere Swiss** mercenary, who for bread,
Was born on purpose to be knock'd in head;
A Saxon soldier was his high descent,
Murder his business, plunder his intent;
The poor unvalued, despicable thing,
A thief by nation, and by fate a king!

* The Saxons that came over were from Jutland, Holstein, &c.
The poor countries the Saxons lived in, being unable to
support the vast numbers of the people they produced, they
sought subsistence and habitations in fruitful and plentiful
lands.

** A Swiss, alludes to their being mercenaries.

To-day the monarch glories in his crown,
A soldier thief to-morrow knocks him down,
And calls the fancied right divine his own!

In the next age that 'rightful' Lord's forgot,
And rampant treason triumphs on the spot:
Success gives title, makes possession just,
For if the fates obey, the subjects must.

We should be last of all that should pretend,
The long descent of princes to defend;
Since, if hereditary right's the claim,
The English line has forty times been lame;
Of all the nations in the world, there's none
Have less of true succession in their crown.

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Britannia now, with men of blood opprest,
And all her race of tyrants lately ceased;
Ill fate prevailing, seeks at foreign shores,
And for worse monsters, ignorantly implores.

The right divine was so despised a thing,
The crown went out a begging for a king
Of foreign breed, of unrelated race,
Whore in his scutcheon, tyrant in his face j
Of spurious birth, and intermingled blood,
Who nor our laws nor language understood.

William the early summons soon obeys,
Ambition fills his sails, his fleets the seas;
By cruel hopes, and fatal valour sped,
The foreign legions Britain's shores o'erspread:
The sword decides the claim, the land's the prey,
Fated the conquering tyrant to obey.

Harold by usurpation gain'd the crown, *
And ditto usurpation pull'd him down.
Nothing but patience then could Britain claim;
Oppress'd by suff'ring, suff'ring made her tame:
She saw the tyrant William quit the throne,
And hoped for better usage from his son;
But change of tyrants gave her small relief,
She lost the lion, and receiv'd the thief.

* Harold seized upon the crown by force. He had no claim to
it, by blood or inheritance, being the son of Earl Goodwin.

Rufus, his father's ill got treasure seized,
The greedy sons of mother-church appeased;
Bought up rebellion with the cash he stole,
Secured the Clergy, and seduced the whole.

So brib'ry first with robbery combined
To ride before, and treason rode behind.

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Ambition, and the lust of rule prevail'd,
And Robert's right, on Rufus' head entail'd. *

Beau-Clerk next grasp'd his elder brother's crown,
And, by his sword, maintain'd it was his own:
The second ** Henry fights, and fighting treats,
To own the prince's title he defeats;
Consents to mean conclusions of the war,
And stoops to be a base usurper's heir;
Accepts the ignominious grant, and shows
His right's as bad as Stephen's that bestows:
The royal tricksters thus divide the prey,
And helpless crowds the jugglers' swords obey. ***

Then John, **** another branch of Henry's line,
Jumps on the throne, in spite of Right Divine,
Turn we to mighty Edward's deathless name;
Or to his son's, whose conquests were the same;
That mighty hero of right royal race,
His father still alive, usurp'd his place. (v)

* They were both usurpers, for the true right of descent was
in Edgar Atheling. of the race of Edmund Ironside.

** Henry II. was obliged to compromise the dispute with his
competitor Stephen; a prudent agreement, but in defiance of
hereditary right.

*** As at the death of Henry I. the main line of Normandy
ended, so the succession has ever since proved so brittle,
that it never held to the third heir in a right descent
without being put by, or receiving some alteration by
usurpation, or extinction of the male blood.--Churchill's
Divi Britannici, p. 207.

**** King John was the youngest son of Henry II., who had
his eldest line deposed. Henry was the son of a usurper, a
usurper himself, and the murderer of his own brother's son.

(v) Edward III. reigned, his father, Edward II. being a
prisoner, and was afterwards murdered.

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As Edward on his parent's murder stood,
So Richard's tyrant reign was closed in blood:
Deposed and murder'd, Edward's father lies;
Deposed and murder'd--thus the grandson * dies.

Lancastrian Henry from his feeble head,
The bauble wrench'd, and wore it in his stead;
Three of his name by due succession reign,
And York demands the right of line in vain.

Thro' seas of slaughter, for this carnaged crown
Edward, not went, but waded to the throne **
Three times deposed, three times restored by force,
Priest-ridden Henry's title*** yields of course.

Short lived the right the conquering king enjoy'd,
Treason and crime his new-crown'd race destroy'd;
As if the crimson hand of Power pursued
The very crown, and fated it to blood,
Richard by lust of government allured,
By double murders, next that crown procured;
For silent records trumpet-tongued proclaim
The jails and graves of princes are the same.

At Bosworth field, the crookback was dethroned;
Slain in the fight, and then the victor own'd! ****

* Richard II.

** Edward IV.

*** Henry VI.

**** Richard III. was succeeded by Henry VII. who had
clearly no claim to the crown from blood. After him it still
devolved with irregularity, although uuder the Tudors, the
doctrine of hereditary right was as vaguely maintained as
before. Thus, a Parliament granted to Henry VIII. the power
of regulating the succession by will, and it was by
pretending to exercise a similar power under an alleged will
of Edward VI. that the unprincipled Northumberland sought
the establishment of Lady Jane Grey. Elizabeth, on the same
ground, was importuned to appoint a suc-cessor, at
intervals, during the last twenty years of her reign; and
finally, named the King of Scotland in her last moments.
These are strange incidents for the advocates of Divine
Right! The fact is, this wretched theory was never formally
advocated until the days of James I.; and it may be
considered to be one of the precions fruits of that settled
connexion between Church and State, of which the Despot,
Henry VIII., laid the foun-dation. Yet no Despot ever
supported himself steadily on an English throne; and what is
there to prove, that such men ever can? Look at King
Richard II., he was a finished gentle-man, possessed some
taste for literature, and shewed himself as. fond of finery
as need be; but he waged war with the common sense of the
realm and the rights of the people,--and finally, by
entrusting his power to weak, inefficient, and corrupt
ministers, roused the anger of a distressed and overtaxed
community. Moral--They were beheaded, and he was dethroned.

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So men of blood, incited by its taste,
By lust of rule urged on, laid England waste;
Oppression then upon oppression grew,
One royal wretch another overthrew;
They made a football of the People's crown,
And brother-tyrant brother-king pull'd down,
Succeeding robberies revenged the past,
And every age of crime outdid the last.

Look on once more--the tangled line survey,
By which kings claim to bind men to obey.

In the right line they say their title lies:
But if its twisted?--then the title dies.
Look at it!--knotted, spliced in every place!
Closely survey the intersected race--
So full of violations, such a brood.

Of false successions, spurious births, and blood;
Such perjuries, such frauds, to mount a throne,
That Kings might blush their ancestors to own!

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Oh! but Possession supersedes the Line!

Indeed!--then king, as king, has Right Divine;
And, coy Succession fled from majesty,
Makes Usurpation as divine as he;
_De Facto is de Jure_, and a throne,
To every dog that steals it is his bone!

Hence tyrants--and from these infected springs,
Flows the best title of _the Best of Kings!_ *

* The Best of Kings (Court slang) the King for the time
being.--Many a king has been the worst man of his age, but
no king was ever the best. In 1683, the very year of Charles
the Second's reign, in which Lord William Russel and
Algernon Sydney were murdered under the forms of law, by
packed juries, and the king's passive obedient judges--when
the throne floated in blood, and the king's manners were
notoriously and disgust-ingly sensual and dissolute--in that
year, J. Shnrley, M. A. in his 'Ecclesiastical History
Epitomised,' gives Charles the title of "the best of kings!"
calls his life and reign virtuous! and prays that his days
may be as the days of Heaven!--This loyal author calls
himself, The Christian reader's "beloved Brother in Christ!"
Of the same king, Charles II., Horace Walpole (Lord Orford)
gives this character in his Epistle from Florence:--
(Dodsley's Collection, vol. iii. p. 92.)

Fortune, or fair, or frowning, on his soul
Could stamp no virtue, and no vice controul!

Honour or morals, gratitude or truth,
Nor taught his ripen'd age, nor knew his youth!

The care of nations left to whores or chance,
Plund'rer of Britain, pensioner of France;
Free to buffoons, to ministers denied,
He lived an atheist, and a bigot died!

All kings have parasites and praise; the Press records their
actions; and Posterity gives their characters.

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_Right of Succession_, or what other claim
Of right to rule, by whatsoever name
Or title call'd, by whomsoever urged,
Is in the people's right of choosing merged.

The right's the People's, and the People's choice
Binds kings in duty to obey their voice;
The Public Will, the only Right Divine,
Sanctions the office, or divides the line;
Topples the crown from off the tyrant's head,
And puts a king to govern in his stead.

Tyrant and king are vastly different things--
We're robb'd by tyrants, but obey'd by kings!

If it be ask'd, how the distinction's known,
Oppression marks him out--the nations groan,
The broken laws, the cries of injur'd blood,
Are languages by all men understood! *

* Tyrants lose all respect for humanity, in proportion as
they are sunk beneath it; taught to believe themselves of
a different species, they really become so; lose their
participation with their kind; and, in mimicking the God,
dwindle into the brute! Blind with prejudices as a mole,
stung with truth as with scorpions, sore all over with
wounded pride like a boil, their minds a heap of morbid
proud flesh and bloated humours, a disease and gan-grene in
the state, instead of its life-blood and vital principle--
foreign despots claim mankind as their property. They regard
men crawling on the face of the earth as we do insects that
cross our path, and survey the common drama of human life as
a fantoccini exhibition got up for tlieir amusement. It is
the over-weening, aggravated, intolerable sense of swelling
pride and ungovernable self-will that so often drives them
mad; as it is their blind fatuity and insensibility to all
beyond themselves, that, transmitted through successive
generations, and confirmed by regal intermarriages, in time
makes them idiots.

Hazlitt's Political Essays, p. 341.

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Just laws and liberty make patriot kings;
Tyrants and tyranny are self-made things. *

* Though a Despot be transformed into a limited king, he is
in heart and purpose still a despot. He feels duress; he is
not at liberty to oppress at his pleasare; and he awaits an
opportnnity to exercise 'the Right Divine of Kings to govern
wrong;' for he holds the doctrine that "oaths are not to be
kept with subjects." In the reign of Richard II. the Duke of
Norfolk apprised the Duke of Hereford, that the King
purposed their destruction:--

Hereford.--God forbid!--He has sworn by St. Edward, to be a
good Lord to me and the others.

Norfolk.-- So has he often sworn to me by God's Body: but I
do not trust him the more for that!

Every restored despot has become an unblushing and shameless
perjurer; where is there in history an instance to the con-
trary?--Once a Despot, and always a Despot.

Alfred the Great is the only King in our annals who being
guilty of misgovernment, and seeing its evils had the high
courage to acknowledge his crime by amendment. At the
commencement of his reign he seemed to consider his exalted
dignity as an emancipation from restraint, and to have found
leisure, even amidst his struggles with the Danes, to
indulge the irapetuosity of his passions. His immorality and
despotism provoked the censure of the virtuous; he was
haughty to his subjects, neglected the administration of
justice, and treated with contempt the complaints of the
indigent and oppressed. In the eighth year of his reign he
was driven from the throne by the Danes. Narrowly escaping
death and enduring many hardships, adversity brought
reflection. According to the piety of the age, instead of
tracing events to their political sources, he referred them
immediately to the providence of God; and considered his
misfortunes as the instrument with which Divine Justice
punished his past enormities. By his prudence and valour he
regaiued the throne, and drew np a code of laws by which he
ordained the governmeat should be administered. Magistrates
trembled at his stern impartiality and inflexibility. He
executed forty-four judges in one year for their informal
and iniquitous proceedings. Hence their survivors and
successors were careful to acquire a competent degree of
knowledge, and their decisions became accordant to the law.
Discovering that the only real foundation of national
happiness is in the enlightenment of the people, he
instructed them himself by his writings, endowed
establishments for the promotion of Education, and became
the guardian and benefactor of his country.*--His virtues
were the fruit of early instruction. When he was a child,
his mother, Osburga, awakened in him a passion for learning
aud knowledge. Holding in her hand a Saxon poem, elegantly
written and beautifully illnminated, she offered it as a
reward to the first of her children whose proficiency should
enable him to read it to her. The emulation of Alfred was
excited: he ran to his master, applied to the task with
diligence, performed it to the satisfaction of the queen,
and received the prize of his industry. His mind thus opened
by this excellent woman, she dropped in the seeds of
knowledge; by careful culture they grew into wisdom, and
Alfred is one of the most illustrious instances of the
endless blessings conferred upon man by Education.

From the banks of the strong hold of Corfe Castle, in
Dorsetshire, near Wareham, formerly a station of the Danish
barbariaus, one of their successors making good his lodgment
in a nameless House denies the justice of Universal
Education, forgetful, perhaps, that the benighted savages,
his predecessors, were finally expelled by Alfred; that it
was the triumph of Knowledge and Liberty over Ignorance and
Selfish power; and that Alfred, disdaining to use the
advantage whick Education gave him over the rest of the
people, othirwise than for their welfare, incessuntly
laboured to dispense its benefits to All.

* _Lingard's History of England, vol. i. c. 4._

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As government was ever understood
To be a measure for the people's good;
So when perverted to a wrong intent,
It's stark oppression, not a government.

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Blest are the days, and wing'd with joy they fly,
When kings protect the people's liberty;
When settled peace in stated order reigns,
And, nor the nation, nor the king complains;
If kings may ravish, plunder, and destroy,
Oppress the world, and all its wealth enjoy;
May harass nations, with their breath may kill,
And limit liberty by royal will;
Then was the world for ignorance design'd,
And God gave kings to blast the human mind;
And Kings but general farmers of the land;
And men their stock for slaughter at command;
Mere beasts of draught, to crouch and be opprest,
Whom God, the mighty landlord, form'd in jest.

Yet who believes that Heaven in vain creates,
And gives up what it loves to what it hates;
That man's great Maker call'd him into birth,
To be destroy'd by tyrant-fiends on earth;
That nations are but footstools to a throne,
And millions born to be the slaves of one?

Priestcraft! search Scripture, shew me God's decree,
That crime shall rule by his authority.

Kingcraft! search Scripture too, and from it prove
Thy right to ravage from the God of Love. *

* Priestcraft and Kingcraft are partners in the same firm.
They trade together. Kings and conquerors make laws, parcel
out lands, and erect churches and palaces for the priests
and dignitaries of religion. In return, Priests anoint kings
with holy oil, hedge them round with inviolability, spread
over them the mysterious sanctity of religion, and, with
very little ceremony, make over the whole species as slaves
to these Gods upon earth by virtue of Divine Right!

Hazlitt's Political Essays, p. 303.

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No! He has issued no such foul command,
But dooms down Despots by the People's hand;
Marks tyrants out for fall in every age,
Directs the justice of the people's rage;
And hurling vengeance on all royal crimes,
Ordains the Revolutions of the times!

A thing of no bowels-- '
--from the crown to the toe, topfull
Of direst cruelty.--His Realm a slaughter-house--
The swords of soldiers are his teeth--
Iron for Naples, hid with English gilt.

Shakspeare.

The End.

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A SLAP AT SLOP AND THE BRIDGE-STREET GANG

With Twenty-seven Cuts.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY AND FOR WILLIAM HONE,

46, LUDGATE HILL.

Half a-Crown.

{193}

TO THE READER.

The Slap, at first arranged in the manner, and in every respect in imitation, assumed the appearance of a newspaper, except that the columns were broken by _cuts_. It was a crown broadside, and the agreeable appearance of the stamp was preserved by the subjoined diagram being placed at the corner.

Doubtless every one who entered into the design, was satisfied with the original form of the publication; yet the author has been perplexed by numerous applications for an edition in this size. He finds it as difficult to account for want of taste as for it; but it being the fashion for the minority to be polite to the majority, he bends at last to the too general request, and submits The Slap, with a broken spirit, to go down, bound, with his other little pieces.

45, Ludgate Hill,

1822

{194}

Original Address

A Bag of political nuts ready cracked, is not only rather dangerous fare to serve up, but a man who takes the trouble to crack them, will find the kernels cleaner and sweeter for his pains. Though they who run may read the greater portion of the present sheet, yet there are a few articles that require attention, and two or three arc designed for those only who alone can understand them.

My first intention was to parody Slop's paper, 'The Slop-tail,' or 'Much Times,' throughout. But he is as vapid as the Marquess of Lunnunderry. * What could I do with thoughts as unquotable, as confused, as ill conceived, as ill expressed, as that _puissante_ ** Lord's --without depth or originality--as plentiful and superficial as duck-weed.

I found not a sparkle of talent in any of Slop's lean 'leaders' to re-pay me the trouble of wearisome reading. Under the 'stringent necessity' of varying my original plan, yet loth to abandon it altogether, I have parodied some of the features common to the Slop-pail, and supplied the department I had allotted to an imitation of his mindless verbiage with a sketch of his Life--filling the remainder of the sheet in my own way. There are discrepancies inseparable from this course, but I write to good-humoured readers, who have no objection to see the mind as well as the person of a friend in undress, and who take as little interest in the decision of the High Court of Criticism on things of this sort, as they took in the decision of the 'Court of Claims' concerning the 'imposing' ceremony of the coronation, and things of that sort.,

The drawings are, as usual, by Mr. George Cruikshank, whose able pencil has had greater scope here than in a pamphlet; that size would have entirely excluded Dr. Southey's Vision, the

Jack-in-the-Green, and the masterly representation of the Bridge-street gang destroying a Free Press, and suspending Liberty, while Slop is working his Press to distort and torture Truth.

* The Marquess calls London, 'Lunnun.'

** A Marquess is styled 'a most puissant Prince!'

*** For this constipating phrase, see Slop Pail, July 26, 1821

{195}

THE LIFE OFbDOCTOR SLOP,

AND THE ORIGIN OF THE BRIDGE-STREET GANG.

The origin and the end of this man are alike uncertain. He was sent to Oxford when young, as a student destined for holy orders, under the patronage of the Bishop of Durham.

'Go thou and seek the house of prayer:

I to the woodlands bend my way,

And meet Religion there;

She needs not haunt the high-arch'd dome to pray,

Where storied windows dim the doubtful day;

With Liberty she loves to rove'----

These lines, in Mr. Southey's lyric poem, '_written on Sunday Morning_,' * express the thoughts of Slop when a college youth.

* Southey's Minor Poems, vol. i. p. 1S7.

At {196}that time he had a sort of conscience; for, in consequence of an honest course of reading, he refused to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. Thus disqualifying himself from being a candidate for the 'imposition of hands' by the Bishop, he for ever relinquished the prospect of entrance into the church, and cultivated his mind by reading Paine's _Rights of Man._

Fascinated by the writings of Mrs. Mary Wollstoncrofft, more especially by her celebrated '_Vindication of the Rights of Woman,_' he assiduously sought that lady's acquaintance, and having obtained the desired honour, cultivated her intimacy with passionate admiration. On the appearance of Mr. Godwin's '_Inquiry concerning Moral and Political Justice_,' he read and studied it with doting enthusiasm; the chapters on _Property_, and on _the Sexual Intercourse_, were particularly to his taste--the chapter on _Sincerity_, not so much. Hungering for a personal friendship with the author of the _Political Justice_, who became the husband of Mrs. Wollstoncrofft, he humbled himself before him, beseeching permission to consider that philosopher as his Gamaliel, and to sit at his feet as the least of his disciples. This was granted, and in that school he commenced an intimacy with Mr. Thomas Holcroft and his friends. That gentleman had just been released from imprisonment, under indictments for high treason, with Messrs. Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwall, who were tried and acquitted of the charge; and at this time Slop's political fervor rose above the temperament of the most hot-blooded among the patriots he associated with. It had been fashionable to wear the hair long and. tied; he thought this aristocratic, cut his hair off to look like a democrat, became a _round-head_, and was called _Citizen S_. At length he was marked out from his fellows by the distinguishing appellation of '_the Jacobin_,' and he became a _Leveller_. Affixing to the words 'Liberty and Equality,' an interpretation of his own, he contended with the _Spenceans_, that there could be no real Liberty without Equality so he preached the doctrine of _all things in common_; and prevailed on a young man who had imbibed some of his notions, to aid him in proving its advantages. In an attic chamber in the Temple they founded a _community of goods_--lived on short commons --and waited on each other. Here Slop lighted the fire, and fetched water from the Temple pump for their joint use, till, tired of the pitcher-duty, he proposed {197}transferring the undignified office to his companion, who declined to accept it; and a fierce quarrel arising in this 'perfect state of society,' concerning rights and duties, the Commonwealth of two ceased to exist.

In this exigency, moderation, which at one time he seems to have thought criminal, became expedient on many accounts. About 1796 he visited Scotland, with letters of recommendation to respectable society; yet his wild opinions on religion and politics caused him to be disliked by some of the most respectable students who held Whig principles, and who, still holding them, dislike and shun him now for his extreme violence in another direction. When at Edinburgh, he affected singularity of habit as well as thought, and paraded the streets, especially the Leith-Walk, in a drab dress of romantic simplicity. On his return from Scotland, he employed himself in writing for the booksellers. In 1798 he translated the play of Don Carlos, from the German of Schiller, and presented his friend, Mr. Holcroft, with a copy, who says, that 'he executed his task respectably.' * On the 5th of August, in that year, he dined with Mr. Godwin and Mr. Parry (the Republican Editor of the Courier Newspaper when it was conducted on democratic principles), at the house of Mr. Holcroft, where, according to that gentleman's diary, ** he was, 'as usual, acute; but pertinacious and verbose. On the 25th of November, he wrote to Mr. Holcroft, complaining of neglect, *** who answered by denying such intention; and indeed his intimacy with the _coterie_ at Mr. Holcroft's, was of the closest nature, and his attachment to that philosopher's principles and person so strong, that he proposed intermarriage with his family, which was declined. He remained ardently devoted to the new philosophy, long after Mr. Holcroft's death, and until Mr. Godwin found it convenient to decline his wearisome acquaintance. Fickleness and obstinacy, and the exercise of a faculty for incessant disputation, rendered his society very tedious to the philosophers. Fruitless attempts to repress or soften his pugnacious turn, exhausted their patience. In defence of themselves, they disregarded and finally cut him;--so {198}that it became the _New Times_ with him in philosophy.

* Holcroft's Life, vol. ii. p. 269.

** Ibid. vol. iii. p. 32.

*** Ibid. p. 76.

He rambled to conceal his discontent, and to get fresh notions and fresh friends. A pedestrian tour through Scotland, with letters of recommendation, and a pliability of manner accommodated to his new views, effected both. He published his _Tour_ in 1801. It is written with extreme caution. His real opinions are kept out of the book as much as possible; yet they occasionally peep forth; for instance, he says, 'We seem inspired with enthusiasm to fall down and worship the golden image of commerce; let us not wholly submit our feelings to our purses, and counters, and ledgers--we may be very rich in products, and manufactures, and population, and very poor in the spirits and minds of men!' *--he dare not put that in his Slop-pail. In the _Tour_, he speaks in praise of the Rev. Sir Henry Moscreiff

Wellwood, a Scottish Baronet of Whig principles, whose daughter he afterwards married, whether from _innate love of legitimacy_, or what, is unknown. Before he wrote the _Tour_, he procured the degree of LL.D. (as the Laureate has done since), and the philosopher, who had refused subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles to the Church of England, and had been in turn a Republican, a Jacobin, a Leveller, and a Spencean, became a Doctor of Laws, and sunk into the wig and gown of an advocate in the Ecclesiastical Court! Resuming an intimacy with some young men of his own stamp, who knew him at college, they obtained a place for him--he was made king's advocate at Malta. So fell Slop. Here ended his career of what he called Patriotism. He mistook passionate heat for the enthusiasm of genius, a habit of loud talking for talent, a ranting way of writing for reasoning, and pertinacity of manner for firmness of character. His vain disputations occasioned him to be noticed, and this he thought equal to being admired. Conceit of ability rendered him covetous of distinction; he acquired it--

'The Court's a golden, but a. fatal circle,
Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils,
In crystal forms sit tempting innocence,
And beckon early virtue from its centre.'--

Stoddart's Tour, vol. i. p. 12.

The {199}smirks and smiles of courtiers, the tinsel and glitter of embroidered coats and waistcoats, the hum and sops- of office, hurried him into the train of ministerial menials, as easily as a beggar's hungry brat is seduced by the finery of gilt paper, and the sound of the shovel and brush, to follow the chimney-sweepers on May-day, through the dirty alleys of St. Giles's. His artificial wants were too many to be gratified by an even walk in the path of rectitude. When he saw that 'public principle' was an obstacle to the gratification of his vulgar vanity, he suppressed it--

'He was no Patriot then, nor gave his breath
Bravely to speak his mind, and venture death:--
For'twas his judgment then--though not in youth--
One grain of ease was worth a world of Truth'

Watts.

Notwithstanding this, he remained, secretly, a correspondent to the _Monthly Magazine_, and wrote for Sir Richard Phillips.

Vacating his place at Malta in favour of his brother-in-law, and coming back to seek his fortune, he scrambled about during a year and a half, in Doctors' Commons and among the booksellers, in search of employment, till he procured an engagement from the proprietors of _The Times_ as a writer in that journal. His labours in this way were ardent, but profitable to nobody but himself. On the return of Napoleon from Elba, the _ex-republican_ became an admirer of privileged orders, and 'the right divine of kings to govern wrong'--glorified the thrones of the allied despots--fell flat on his face in worship of legitimacy--and affected a beatific vision of the political millenium in the restoration of the Bourbons. He soon honoured Napoleon with all the obnoxious designations the language could supply. He called him 'a villain, a wretch, a rebel, a brigand, a traitor, a fiend, a felon, an incendiary, an impostor, an assassin, a viper, a demon, a fool, a living Moloch, a bloody dog, and a blackamoor.' * To these and hundreds of other names, he prefixed innumerable epithets expressive of disgust and hate. Every one but himself saw that such a course must shortly end. The {200}writer of this article being forcibly reminded of the cursing of Trim in _Tristram Shandy_, ridiculed Slop's _Execratory_, in a little piece intituled 'Buonaparte -phobia; or, _Cursing made Easy, &c_. by Dr. Slop.' * It not only insured to him the name of SLOP for ever, but hastened what was neither intended nor anticipated, his dismissal from _The Times_.

* See the Tract, intituled '_The Origin of Dr. Slops, Name._'

The persecution of the French Protestants on the restoration of Louis XVIII. and their massacre at _Nismes_, occasioned the English Protestants to interest themselves heartily for their relief. The Committee of Dissenters at Dr, Williams's _Library in Red-Cross-street_ inquired into the facts, published a verifying Report, and took measures for sending pecuniary succours. Seeking to earn the wages of his prostitution by slavering the hoof of tyranny, and maddened that Bourbon bigotry should be obstructed in its operation, Slop denied the truth of the statements, vilified the whole body of English Dissenters, imputed their humanity to unworthy and scandalous motives, and threw as many daring fabrications as his mercenary pen could create in the way of their efforts. With undaunted audacity he gave the lie direct to his father-in-law, Sir Henry Moncreiff Wellwood, who, in the kindness and courage of his heart, became President of a Public Meeting at Edinburgh, and inspirited the Protestants of Scotland to co-operate in a national subscription for the persecuted. When Slop's slanders were successfully repelled, and his artful falsehoods exposed, he withdrew without evidencing any other regret than what arose from his having been unable to effect his unhallowed purposes.

*****

His first exploit after his expulsion from _The Times_ was, an attempt to delude the public by engrafting himself upon a _quacking_ newspaper, now known, like himself, by a two-fold name, it being indiscriminately called 'The Muck Times,' and 'The Slop Pail.' The imposition succeeded only with a few. His writing gave the lie direct to his puffing pretensions, and his falsehoods were exposed in the paper from which he had been discharged. * He knows full well,' says _The Times_ ( in February, 18]7) that 'his articles were rejected {201}from our columns on account of the virulence and indiscretion with which they were written; and that, for more than twelve months preceding, whatever articles attracted notice by their merit, were exclusively the productions of other gentlemen.--_There are in the office, sacks full of his rejected writings_; which, if they were published, would exhibit an accurate criterion of his puffed-off abilities; _the sale of our Journal increased the more, the less he wrote; and since he has ceased from writing altogether, has extended with a rapidity of which we have known no example, since we have had the management of it_. This and other statements were stunning blows to him, and remained unnoticed, because they were unanswerable.

* This squib is reprinted entire in a pamphlet, intituled
'The Origin of Dr. Slops Name.'

His overweening pride received another shock through his new friends the _legitimates_. He went to Paris, and applied to be introduced at court; but 'The Bourbon' refused to receive him! Yes! refused to receive him--Slop; that Slop who, to gain the favour of his Most Christian Majesty, when he was in England, had 'tainted himself with the plague-spot of Legitimacy, till he was leprous all over; in whose inmost soul it had fixed its mortal sting, and, like an ugly spider, entangled him in its slimy folds, brooding on him as on its own poison.' ** He--who had abandoned principle, was abandoned by friends, had incurred the world's contempt, and had sold himself to the devil in the service of legitimacy--_he_ to be refused permission to bow over the hand of Louis XVIII!--_he_ to be despised and rejected by that same Louis who had received Mr. Street, the late Editor of the _Courier_, with open arms, and conferred on him the order of the _Lys!_--this was the unkindest cut of all! He returned to England in the last stage of mortification--a bye-word--a reproach--a laughing stock!

* See also 'The Origin of Dr. Slop's Name.'--Preface

** Hazlitt's Political Essays.--Preface.

Harnessed with other hacks to the machine of tyranny, he must answer to the lash of the driver, and drag it along, or be trampled over. Smack went the whip, and on went Slop. To support the new order of things in France, it was necessary, in addition to the bayonets of foreigners, that the press there should be put under a censorship, and that the _free_ press of England should make {202}a monstrous experiment to write up the advantages of a shackled press in France. Dr. Slop undertook the task, and joining to himself another Doctor, the Poet Laureate, they united with persons of similar qualifications in France, and commenced operations by announcing a publication called the '_Correspondent_,' which was to appear at London in the English, and at Paris in the French language on the same day. It was conducted on the plan of a 'Class-meeting' among the Methodists, where each relates his 'experience.' But neither the French nor the English cared a _sous_ about the political 'experience' of Doctor Slop, Doctor Southey, or the mad Viscount Chateaubriand. Besides, the Poet Laureate, instead of telling his own 'experience,' told, a long story about the Rev. John Wesley's, while Slop came 'lumbering like a bear up,' and Chateaubriand illustrated the affairs of Europe with tales about the city of Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, and the Crown of Thorns. The 'Correspondent' fell still-born amid the laughter of the few people of both nations who knew of its coming forth, and perhaps there are only five persons in England who remember it even by name--Messrs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, who had the honour of the profit and loss account.

Devoid of political principle, Slop's real source of action is pure selfishness. His end and aim are antisocial, because his _Slop-pail_ can only exist during political strife. He would inflame the passions of ministers and their minions, to vex and to harass the people, that the people may be irritated into resistance against persecution. He and his fellow-laboureres vilified and goaded whole communities of starving manufacturers. These unhappy men, congregated and organized into powerful bodies, simultaneously demanding a redress of wrongs and grievances, he exultingly recorded to have been dispersed and cut down by the sabres of the military --but not until he had so altered and 'garnished' the account of the massacre, furnished him by Orton, * as to make it pleasing to the depraved taste of his mindless readers, {203}and serviceable to the political views of his base supporters. This was his harvest; but he has reaped that, and is sowing another.

* Henry Orton, not Horatio Orton the Informer to the Gang,
but his brother. This Henry Orton was a witness for the
Prosecu-tion against Mr. Henry Hunt and others, at York; and
when cross-examined by Mr. Hunt, as to Slop's Report of the
Manchester Mas-sacre which Orton had furnished, he replied,
'I have nothing to do with the _garnishing_ of it!'--See the
Trials at York.

Pending the prosecution of the Queen, the Rev. Solomon Piggott, Curate of St. James's, Clerkenwell, and St. Antholin's, Watling-Street, a man of weak and restless mind, conceived the idea of publishing Caricatures, by Public Subscription, in ridicule of her Majesty and her supporters. He communicated this design to Dr. Slop, who engaged heartily in the plan. Subscribers were advertised for, and were formed into a body, called 'The Loyal Association,' and Mr. Charles Bicknell, of No. 3, Spring Garden Terrace, the Solicitor to the Admiralty, was the Treasurer. Piggott wrote maudlin prose and wretched verse, and illustrated his unintellectual labours with coloured caricatures. These were issued to the world through a Publisher of Obscenity, while they were powerfully puffed by Slop in his Slop-pail, and Piggott himself cringed, his way to Court, and presented the talentless trash to his Majesty in person, who received it most graciously; and, as an encouragement to his labours, subscribed for forty sets of one of his works at a guinea each. But the public judgment refused the rinsings of the sycophant parson's brain; and the united efforts of 'the Loyal Association' being inadequate to produce a single article of ability from the press, they turned their thoughts towards an attack upon the Press itself. They were deplorably 'poor in the spirits and minds of men,' but 'their purses, and counters, and ledgers,' were productive, and at one of their meetings they abandoned the project of a Series of Publications, and determined to commence a Series of Prosecutions. The notorious John Reeves, a plentifully-endowed placeman, who had thrown the country into a state of alarm by a Loyal Association in 1793, entered into these views; but, as the term Loyal had acquired an unfavourable odour, they changed their name from 'the Loyal Association,' to 'the Constitutional Association.' Piggott's Treasurer, Mr. Bicknell, with John Reeves (both lawyers), got Sir John Sewell (also a lawyer), a pensioner in the Red Book, to become the president of the confederacy. They appointed Charles Murray (another lawyer), their 'Honorary Secretary', a very acceptable post to a hungry attorney, who had quartered part of his family in public situations. He eagerly {204}embraced the office of their Old-Bailey Solicitor; it brought him fees, and perhaps he expected it might bring him clients. They were joined by Longueville Clarke (also a lawyer), and the son of a person holding an appointment in a Government Establishment. John Poynder (also a lawyer) resident in Bridewell, to which, as well as Bethlem (two other Government Establishments), he is Clerk and Attorney, had been compelled to resign his office of Secretary to the Bible Society, and was at full leisure to become an active confederate. Intercourse with the prisoners in Newgate had given a certain turn to his views; a drinker of port wine himself, he had descanted, before a Committee of the House of Commons, on the wickedness of common gin; with a good comfortable house over his head, at the public expense, he had disturbed poor old apple-women who sought an independent living 'in summer's heat and winter's cold he had also a horror, upon public principle, of street organs in the evening; and, like his friend Slop, he had experienced the mortification of having his defamatory, and 'mewling and puling' writings rejected by '_The Times_'--the new concern was quite to his taste. Slop (himself a lawyer) became the Horn-boy of the Gang,--to blow the 'great news,' the 'extraordinary new's,' of their proceedings--to puff their attacks upon the Free Press of the People--to assist in raising the flame of alarm throughout the country--and to give the earliest intelligence of their Prosecutions. This paid Slop well, for the trouble he had with Parson Solomon, in laying the Plot; for, as the adherents to it increased, they took especial care to give their support and influence to the hireling paper, from whence Slop derives the means of supporting his tawdry existence. By these measures, the weak-minded were terrified out of subscriptions for anti-social objects; and the selfish crew having gathered around them the chief priests, and the pharisees, and some of the fattest amongst the placeholders, pensioners, and tax-eaters, who exist upon the people's labour, they fitted up an office at Walker's Hotel, No. 6, New Bridge Street, Blackfriars, for the purpose of more conveniently carrying on the imposture. From this 'Den' they put forth a specious Address, which is rendered into pretty intelligible language in subsequent pages of this publication. *

* Pages 22-4.

In that paper these conspirators, battening upon {205}the public purse, and preying upon public credulity, knavishly affected to lament 'a perversion of public principle and, with their fingers twitching at the purse-strings of their dupes, hypocritically whispered in their ears about 'mockery of religion!'--like the hacknied procuress who, to effect her designs upon innocence, pretends an extraordinary affection for virtue. What shameful pimping to the whiffling understandings of the timid! What artful pandering to pampered bloatedness! What an insolent appeal from the minions of power, and the overgorged feeders upon the public wealth, to their fellow parasites and gluttons! How dare they to talk of 'public principle? whose weight increases that enormous burthen of taxation which depresses the labourer to the very earth, and enters as iron into the soul of every industrious man in the country--how dare they to talk of '_public principle._' Then as to their cant about 'mockery of religion'--suppose the writer of this article had published at his house, 45, Ludgate-hill, the following--

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BILL FOR REPAIRS OF PAINTINGS.