ROBERT POLLOK. 



163 



parody of a modern opera, intro- 

 ducing sailors and their claptraps, 

 rustics, &c., and making the poet 

 and his supposed flame the hero 

 and heroine. 



He parodied music as welt as 

 words, giving us the most received 

 cadences and flourishes, and calling 

 to mind not without some hazard 

 to his filial duties the common- 

 places of the pastoral songs and 

 duets of the last half century ; so 

 that if Mr. Dignum, the Damon of 

 Vauxhall, had been present, he 

 would have doubted whether to 

 take it as an affront or a compli- 

 ment. 



Campbell certainly took the 

 theme of the parody as a compli- 

 ment ; for having drunk a little 

 more wine than usual that evening, 

 and happening to wear a wig on 

 account of having lost his hair by 

 a fever, he suddenly took off the 

 wig, and dashed it at the head of 

 the performer, exclaiming, " You 

 dog ! I'll throw my laurels at you." 



SWIFT AND MU. SERGEANT BETTES- 

 WO11TH. 



The following lines on Sergeant 

 Bettesworth, which Swift inserted 

 in one of his poems, gave rise to a 

 violent resentment on the part of 

 the barrister : 



" So at the bar the booby Bettesworth, 

 Though half-a-crown o'crpays his 



sweat's worth, 



Who knows in law nor text nor mar- 

 gent, 

 Calls Singleton his brother sergeant." 



The poem was sent to Bettesworth 

 at a. time when he was surrounded 

 with his friends in a convivial party. 

 He read it aloud till he had finished 

 the lines relative to himself. He 

 then flung it down with great vio- 

 lencetrembled and turned pale 

 and after some pause, his rage for 

 a while depriving him of utterance, 

 he took out his penknife, and open- 

 ing it vehemently, swore, " With 



this very penknife I will cut off his 



rs." 



He then went to the dean's house, 

 and, not finding him at home, fol- 

 lowed him to the house of a friend, 

 where being shown into a back 

 room, he desired the doctor might 

 be sent for ; and on Swift entering 

 the room, and asking what were 

 his commands, " Sir," said he, " I 

 am Sergeant .Bettesworth." 



" Of what regiment, pray, sir ? " 

 said Swift. 



" O, Mr. Dean, we know your 

 powers of raillery you know me 

 well enough ; I am one of his ma- 

 jesty's sergeants-at-law, and I am 

 come to demand if you are the 

 ^author of this poem, [producing it,] 

 and these villanous lines on me." 



" Sir," said Swift, " when I was 

 a young man, I had the honour of 

 being intimate with some great 

 legal characters, particularly Lord 

 Somers, who, knowing my propea- 

 sity to satire, advised me, when I 

 lampooned a knave or fool, never to 

 own it. Conformably to that ad- 

 vice, I tell you I am not the author." 



EGBERT POLLOK. 



Robert Pollok, a.uthor of the 

 Course of Time, while a student of 

 theology, once delivered a trial dis- 

 course before the Secession Divinity 

 Hall, Glasgow, the subject of which 

 was Sin. His manner of treating 

 it, in the opinion of his fellow- 

 students, was rather turgid ; and 

 at those passages which they con- 

 sidered to be particularly outrage- 

 ous, they did not scruple to give 

 audible symptoms of the amuse- 

 ment they derived from Mr. Pollok's 

 highflown phrases. At last one 

 flight was so extravagant that the 

 professor himself was fairly obliged 

 to give Wc'iy and smiled. 



At this moment the young 

 preacher was just upon the point 

 of a climax expressing the dreadful 

 evils which sin had brought into 

 the world, and he closed it with the 



