With secret triumph now elate, His grinning Rival 'gan to prate. Oh, fie! my friends; upon my word, You're too severe: he should be _heard_; For _Mind_ can ne'er to glory reach, Without the usual aid of _speech_. If thus howe'er, you seal his doom, What hope have I unknown to Rome? But since the _truth_ be your dominion, I beg to hear your just opinion. This picture then--which some have thought By far the best I ever wrought-- Observe it well with critick ken; 'Tis Daniel in the Lion's Den.-- 'Tis flesh itself! exclaim'd a Critick. But why make Daniel paralytick? His limbs and features are distorted. And then his legs are badly sorted. 'Tis true, a miracle you've hit, But not as told in Holy Writ; For there the miracle was braving, With _bones unbroke_, the Lion's craving; But yours (what ne'er could man befall) That he should _live with none at all_.-- And pray, inquir'd another spectre, What Mufti's that at pious lecture? That's Socrates, condemned to die; He next, in sable, standing by, Is Galen[5], come to save his friend, If possible, from such an end; The other figures, group'd around, His Scholars, wrapt in woe profound.-- And am I like to this portray'd? Exclaim'd the Sage's smiling Shade. Good Sir, I never knew before That I a Turkish turban wore, Or mantle hemm'd with golden stitches, Much less a pair of satin breeches; But as for him in sable clad, Though wond'rous kind, 'twas rather mad To visit one like me forlorn, So long before himself was born. And what's the next? inquir'd a third; A jolly blade upon my word!-- 'Tis Alexander, Philip's son, Lamenting o'er his battles won; That now his mighty toils are o'er, The world has nought to conquer more. At which, forth stalking from the host, Before them stood the Hero's Ghost-- Was that, said he, my earthly form, The Genius of the battle-storm? From top to toe the figure's Dutch! Alas, my friend, had I been such, Had I that fat and meaty skull, Those bloated cheeks, and eyes so dull, That driv'ling mouth, and bottle nose, Those shambling legs, and gouty toes; Thus form'd to snore throughout the day,-- And eat and drink the night away; I ne'er had felt the fev'rish flame That caus'd my bloody thirst for fame; Nor madly claim'd immortal birth, Because the vilest brute on Earth: And, oh! I'd not been doom'd to hear, Still whizzing in my blister'd ear, The curses deep, in damning peals, That rose from 'neath my chariot wheels, When I along the embattled plain With furious triumph crush'd the slain: I should not thus be doom'd to see, In every shape of agony, The victims of my cruel wrath, For ever dying, strew my path; The grinding teeth, the lips awry, The inflated nose, the starting eye, The mangled bodies writhing round, Like serpents, on the bloody ground; I should not thus for ever seem A charnel house, and scent the steam Of black, fermenting, putrid gore, Rank oozing through each burning pore; Behold, as on a dungeon wall, The worms upon my body crawl, The which, if I would brush away, Around my clammy fingers play, And, twining fast with many a coil, In loathsome sport my labor foil.