A few weeks after The Ridotto of Bath Sheridan wrote, with the same haste but with greater accomplishment, another piece with the title of Clio’s Protest, or the Picture Varnish’d. This has a curious history, even more curious, it seems, than has hitherto been suspected. It is a reply to some verses— “doggerel,” says Mr. Sichel, “balderdash,” says Mr. Iolo Williams — with the title of The Bath Picture; “or a Slight Sketch of its Beauties in 1771.” The author of this poem exerted himself to compliment the ladies who had assembled for the Bath Season in the autumn of that year. It was, no doubt, a hasty and headlong piece of versification, in which was achieved the distinction of some of the world’s worst verses. For the moment two Stanzas will suffice. The one celebrated the graces of two sisters, Lady Margaret Fordyce and Lady Ann Lindsay:
Remark, too, the smile,
Lady Marg’ret’s fair countenance wears;
And Lady Ann, whom so beauteous we Stile,
As quite free of affected fine airs.
The other, following a compliment to Miss Waller, a singer, was intended as a tribute to Elizabeth Linley:
We can boast of one other beside
Who’s a mistress of harmony too;
She’s well-tempered and void of all pride,
The whole family’s equally so.
Despite Mr. Sichel, neither this Picture nor Sheridan’s answer, are to be found in “Crutwell’s newspaper” The Bath Chronicle — at least by my seeking. But in its columns there appeared these notices:
November 21ft, 1771. ‘“The Picture was received too late for this day’s paper.”
December 5th, 1771. “The Bath Picture, or a Slight Sketch of its Beauties in 1771, a Ballad, may be had at Crutwell’s Printing-Office. Price 2d.
Where may be had Clio’s Protest; or, the Picture Varnished. Addressed to the Lady M — rg — r — t F — d — ce. Price 6d....
And the Poetical Panegyrick of the Ridotto of Bath. Price id.
It would seem that Crutwell had handed The Picture to the young author of The Ridotto of Bath, who in ten days at the most, improvised his reply, which was published simultaneously with the Ballad. Collusion between the authors seems to have been impossible, for Sheridan misunderstood the allusion to Elizabeth Linley, which he thought was intended for the other singer, writing:
Waller, could I say more of thee —
But soft — here’s all your family:
A compliment — that none may grumble,
They’re all, it seems, extremely humble.
“With more of the tact of the man of the world than the ardour of a poet,” says Moore, Sheridan “dismissed the object of his heart with the mere passing gallantry of a compliment”:
O! should your genius ever rise,
And make you Laureate in the skies,
I’d hold my life, in twenty years,
You’d spoil the music of the spheres.
— Nay, should the rapture-breathing Nine
In one celestial concert join,
Their sovereign’s power to rehearse,
— Were you to furnish them with verse,
By Jove, I’d fly the heavenly throng,
Tho’ Phoebus play’d and Linley sung.
But the finest lines in Clio’s Pro tell are those which embody the graceful anacreontic that was to become a favourite song, “Mark’d you her eye?”:
But hark — Did not our Bard repeat
The love-borne name of Margaret?
And could you really discover,
In gazing those sweet beauties over,
No other charm, no winning grace,’
Adorning either mind or face,
But one poor dimple to express
The quintessence of Loveliness?
— ‘Marked you her cheek, of rosy hue?
Marked you her eye of sparkling blue
That eye in liquid circles moving!
That cheek, abashed at man’s approving!
The one... Love’s arrows darting round;
The other... blushing for the wound:
Did she not speak... did she not move....
Now Pallas... now the Queen of Love!
O that the Muse... I mean, that you,
With such a model in your view,
Should prove so weak, so very simple,
To mock us with an idle dimple!
Nor ought you, Pindar, to accuse
The absence of your favourite Muse;
Her flight is here no palliation:
The ‘Theme itself was inspiration.
Apparently The Bath Picture had been signed “Pindar,” and not as Mr. Sichel says “Clio” — a mistake which seems due to the presence of the catchword “Clio” at the foot of an edition. Sheridan used the pseudonym of “Asmodeo,” derived from Cumberland’s epilogue to The Maid of Bath, Foote’s play about Elizabeth Linley. The author of The Bath Picture is described in the edition of 1819 as “a wretched scribbler named Fitzpatrick” by which, despite the Editors, can scarcely have been supposed to mean so distinguished a person as General Richard Fitzpatrick, the author of the prologue to The Critic. Moore identified the author as Miles Peter Andrews. It would be kinder to leave the “Bath Pindar” to languish undetected in his chosen pseudonym.
Clio’s Protest is essentially occasional verse, but it is well-turned, witty, and melodious, and memorable (at all events) for its well-known epigram: —
You write with ease, to show your breeding;
But easy writing’s vile bard reading,
which is not less effective because of its echo of Pope’s contemptuous phrase, “the mob of gentlemen who writ with ease.”