Sketch in Verse, Inscribed to the Right Hon. C.
The poem proposes to sing of the confused mixtures within human nature: wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, genius and fiction, rule and contradiction. The speaker dismisses critics and seeks a patron whose name will honour the subject, addressing C. J. Fox as pre-eminent in eloquence and wit, endowed with immense knowledge, powerful judgment, potent passions, and bright imagination. Yet Fox’s very abundance of qualities makes him paradoxical: enough knowledge and judgment would keep any man from going wrong, while enough passion and fancy would keep him from going right. The speaker reflects that Man, despite seeming simple, is so full of “hooks and crooks,” depths, shallows, good, and evil that he perplexes even the devil. He rejects the idea that a single ruling passion can explain a person, criticizing Sir Pope’s system as elegant but untrue to the complexity of mankind. Nor can human qualities be neatly sorted into fixed kinds, because each person contains further unexpected traits, as one drunken companion may reveal the nature of the others. Human beings resist definitions, and possession of one virtue, or even one shade of a virtue, does not guarantee possession of any related quality. Turning from abstraction, the speaker urges Fox to leave his contests with “Billy” over laurels. He warns that Fox displays more courage than prudence in competing with Squire Billy, who will obtain the laurels by honest dealing if possible, but by smuggling or stealing if necessary. Fox cannot equal such feats; the real challenge is not to outdo him, but to out-thieve him.
By Robert Burns · First published 1793 · Genre: Satirical Poetry, Political Satire, Epistolary Poetry · 697 words
First lines
Inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox.
How wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite, / How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white, / How Genius, th' illustrious father of fiction, / Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction, / I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle, / I care not, not I-let the Critics go whistle!
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Genres
- Satirical Poetry — The verse uses irony, exaggeration, comic insult, and pointed social observation to ridicule critics, political rivalry, philosophical systems, and William Pitt ('Squire Billy').
- Political Satire — Addressed to Charles James Fox, the poem comments on contemporary British political conflict and mocks Fox's opponent William Pitt through accusations of ambition, manipulation, and opportunism.
- Epistolary Poetry — The work is framed as a verse address or dedication to a named recipient, Charles James Fox, directly apostrophizing him as patron and political figure.
- Occasional Poetry — Its subject matter is tied to the immediate political and intellectual circumstances of Burns's period, especially the Fox-Pitt rivalry and public debate about character and power.
Tags
satirical verse · Augustan satire · human nature · moral complexity · wisdom and folly · virtue and vice · contradiction · ruling passion · critique of Alexander Pope · criticism of abstract systems · individual character · psychological complexity
What this Textopian page supports
Sketch in Verse, Inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1793 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Burns
- Date: 1793 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Satirical Poetry, Political Satire, Epistolary Poetry, Occasional Poetry, Mock-Panegyric
- Length: 697 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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