He is now remembered
mainly for his spirited war-song, and for such pointed lines in his
satire on Edward Howard, the notorious author of 'British Princes,' as
the following:--
'They lie, dear Ned, who say thy brain is barren,
When deep conceits, like maggots, breed in carrion;
Thy stumbling, foundered jade can trot as high
As any other Pegasus can fly.
So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud
Than all the swift-finned racers of the flood.
As skilful divers to the bottom fall
Sooner than those who cannot swim at all,
So in this way of writing without thinking,
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.'
This last line has not only become proverbial, but forms the distinct
germ of 'The Dunciad.'
SONG.
WRITTEN AT SEA, IN THE FIRST DUTCH WAR, 1665,
THE NIGHT BEFORE AN ENGAGEMENT.
1 To all you ladies now at land,
We men at sea indite;
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write;
The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you,
With a fa, la, la, la, la.
2 For though the Muses should prove kind,
And fill our empty brain;
Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind,
To wave the azure main,
Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships at sea.
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