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The critic first possess'd the earth,
And by his rules gave authors birth.
You may be ancient: critic, hark!
Were you with Noah in the ark?
In what compartment were you seen?
'Mongst creatures clean, or the unclean?
The critic, sir's, the natural father
Of every snifling, snufling author;
And when you nod or snore or sleep.
We slily on posteriors creep,
And rouse you to a bright exertion,
And rouse your faculties; you whoreson.
How can there be idea of beauties,
Unless the critic genius shew't-us?
The angle of the sight obtuse,
Can see no more than doth a goose,
Whilst we with microscopic eye,
Examine as you would a fly,
See through the crevices of fancy,
As far as human eyesight can see,
Tell where there is or is not Grammar;
What phraseology wants hammer--
Or file to make the verse run smoother,
Where sound is harsh, or term uncouther.
I grant you see defects and errors,
Of those in genius your superiors:
The skin however smoothly curried,
To a flea's eye is deep and furrowed.
His optics may perceive a wart,
That grows upon the unseen part,
But for the beauty of the frame,
It is above the ken of them--
Thus critics tell that bard divine
Has a rough word in such a line,
Or that the sacred poem scarce,
Can bear the trot of such a verse,
That feeble author in such sentence
Has not the vis, the spirit intense,
That Pegasus was lame when he rode,
Over this or that dull period:
They tell, but never felt the force,
Of genius his rapid course.
What? did not Quintilian fully,
Develope all the praise of Tully?
And 'monst the Greeks, the great Longinus,
Who may be justly stil'd his highness,
With critic judgment join the fire,
Of Heaven itself? Who can go higher?
From your vile accusation who's safe?
Not even the elder scaliger Joseph,
Who had a mind as big's a mountain,
Could all defects, and beauties contain,
And shew'd that Homer was inferior,
And Virgil but perfection nearer,
Have you the assurance sir to speak,
Against the Roman worth and Greek?
So much we hear I believe that no man's
Tongue is still of Greeks and Romans;
For if dispute should rise past curing,
Which way 'tis best to make our urine,
And each should argue stiffly his way,
All must give up, the Greeks piss'd this way.
But there in modern times is Bently,
Who sung of Richard Blackmore daint'ly,
I grant it, critic, there's a thousand;
The list beginning has nor know end.
They swarm in millions from the flood--
The Hebrew critics first drew blood;
And this is what is meant by Babel
Where all were critics that were able.
The Rabbin and the Talmudist,
Fought hand to hand, and fist to fist,
About the pentateuch of Moses;
Their tales, the wildest stuff, God knows is.
If there has been some Grecian critic,
Above the offspring of a seed tic;
Yet where is one in modern days
Who can deserve that share of praise.
For metamorphos'd down to vermin,
Who can the various shapes determine.
And small and great are prone to mischief,
And every clan and sect has his chief.
They swarm like Caledonian cluster,
When the MacNeils and Camrons muster;
Or as when house wife spreads her sugar,
With water mix'd, each insect bugar,
Relinquishes pots, tubs and pails,
And for the booty spreads his sails
Thus all the race of critics gather,
Around the footsteps of an author,
Bite through his overalls and stocking,
And biting shins, you know's no joking.
Who now a days sits down to write
Uninterrupted by a bite?
Unless he takes good care and puts on,
A pair of leggins, or has boots on.
They say of Reynard who loves geese,
That when oppress'd with swarm of fleas
He takes in's mouth a lock of wool,
And gradually retires to pool;
The fleas by secret instinct led,
Fly from the tail and trunk to head,
With speed each mother's son of them goes
To seek the promontory of nose,
And when no more remains abaft,
Fox shakes his head and leaves the raft.
Who could find out by book or sermon,
An equal way t'allude the vermin,
Would merit a rich premium more,
Than vers'd in philosophic lore,
The member who dissects a glow-worm,
To see if 'tis a beast and no worm,
I with some virtuoso wou'd,
Who natural history understood,
Dissect a critic, shew his jaw teeth,
Whether they are quite smooth or saw-teeth,
Resembling butterfly or asp,
Or sharp and pointed like a wasp;
And by the grinders edge determine,
Corn-eating or carnivrous vermin.
I'd give, myself, a golden medal,
To know if't has a brown or red tail,
And whether when it moves goes on
An hundred feet or half a dozen;
But many glasses must be ground out,
Before these mysteries can be found out.
I leave it to some great Linaeus,
Who may by this be fam'd as he was.
Hugh Henry Brackenridge penned the above as a response to critics of his writing. Take the introduction(2) which preceded the poem as a measure of his writing and judge for yourself if the critic’s words were justified. While possessing a keen intellect, Brackenridge seemed to be able to raise the ire of his fellow citizens and because he waffled on issues (maybe because he saw both sides and was unable to decide where he in fact stood, a true mugwump in the sense of the word), the political life he sought was short lived.
Modern Chivalry begins as an attempt to put Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in a modern (1800) setting and while possessing much of interest is for the most part, far too long to maintain the reader’s interest. Mixing the story line with countless interruptions to “explain” wears on the reader and finally succeeds in returning Hugh Henry Brackenridge to the book shelf for another hundred years or so.
n.b. The poem has been reformatted to four line stanzas after the method of Thomas Green Fessenden who wrote Hudibrastic poetry in the same period as Brackenridge (and was equally critical of the Government, especially Thomas Jefferson, et.al.) and in his work used this format, begging the reader to accept this presentation as he felt it to be more easily read and remembered.
(1) Hugh Henry Brackenridge did not intend this to be an ode, but rather just a piece within his major work, Modern Chivalry. However it is best directed to the critics whoever, where ever and when ever they are.
(2) “I have said that I was happy to find that these have had the good taste to find out what I myself had thought of the composition. But as I wish at all times to let the reader, into a knowledge of my real sentiments, I will confess that these are merely words of course with me, and that I was not happy to find my work praised in any respect; because I wished to have a quarrel with the critics; and this not because I love war, abstractedly considered; but because in this case I should have had an opportunity of shewing my polemic talents. Nay, expecting an attack, I had prepared a number of good thoughts in my mind, to be used in my contest with them. What is more I had actually written a copy of verses in the Hudibrastic rhyme and manner, for their use, in which I considered them as muskitoes, or flies of some kind, that were troublesome to men; and though the occasion fails, yet there can be no impropriety in giving to the public those strokes of satire which lay dormant in my mind as these would apply more particularly to an attack upon me; yet the essay being in general terms, it may appear without a particular circumstance to call it forth; merely as a specimen of what I could do had there been occasion for it. And the insertion will be excuseable, when it is considered how painful it is to be frustrated in what we propose as our pleasure. I have known a good man wish to have bad news true, merely because he had related them: and we may conceive a saint vexed at not finding a man dead, when he had digested a funeral sermon in his mind, and was ready to bury him....”
pp 164, Modern Chivalry, American Book Company, New York, 1937.
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