ARGUMENT.
Great Caustic, finding logic sound,
The conjuring crew will not confound,
Like an indignant hero blusters,
The MIGHTY ROYAL COLLEGE musters;
Joins to your worships’ powerful phalanx
“Death-doing” quacks, and men of all ranks!
A bolder, and more desperate host,
Than jacobinic France can boast;
Then marches to o’erturn and knock dead
Each tractoring Perkinistic blockhead;
Their INSTITUTION next attacking,
He sends them all to Satan—packing!
Our ’foresaid MANIFESTO first done,
Which shows our cause a good and just one;
The boldest sons of Galen call on,[101]
That they with fire and fury fall on!
Sound Discord’s jarring tocsin louder,
Than Howard’s fulminating powder:[102]
Then into battle like brave men go,
Who late were “kill’d off,” at Marengo.[103]
But choose a chief before you start,
A bully bold as Buonapart’;
And to make sure of well succeeding,
Another chap like Charles of Sweden.
Step forth thou POTENT PRINCE OF PUFFERS!
Thou modern Hercules of Huffers!
Whose name, as Sternhold used to say,
Will ring “for ever—and a day;”
For thou canst sound (a thing the oddest,
Since an arch quaker should be modest,
And never meddle with a strumpet[104])
Thine own great name on Fame’s brass trumpet.
And soon that name’s continuous roar
Shall roll sublime from shore to shore;
Among th’ antipodes, be known,
And blaze through either frozen zone.[105]
No more shall merciless reviewers,
Stick full of satire’s savage skewers
The mighty chief of whom I’m boasting,
As one would spit a goose for roasting.[106]
For should they raise with dire misprision,
’Gainst thee one finger in derision;
This right hand rudest doggrel’s club in,
Shall give the knaves a dreadful drubbing.
But thou, the leader of our throng,
Shalt glitter in a future song,
Which I intend to raise sonorous,
And QUACK! QUACK!! QUACK!!! shall be the chorus.
Then, had I money, I would bet some,
And faith I’ll do it (when I get some)
One half a guinea, sirs (a net sum)
They’ll fall before great doctor Lettsom.[107]
Thou too, famed KNIGHT OF HORRID FIGURE!
With wig than bushel-basket bigger;
Which, in its orbit vast, contains,
At least a thimble full of brains;
Come on, with lion heart, like Hector,
And phiz resembling monkey’s spectre;
Prepare the batteries of thy journal,[108]
In medical societies pour
Forth all thy wonted learned lore:
Tell the vile deeds by quackery done,
By every nostrum, save thine own.[109]
For thou didst play the hero rarely,
At Westminster, when routed fairly;
Thy genius show’d such vast resources,
’Gainst Belgraves, Colquhouns, Wilberforces![110]
Though hunted down, thou would’st not yield;
Though trodden on, didst keep the field.
Thus Witherington, in doleful dumps,
For lack of legs, fought stout on stumps!
And could’st thou, pertinacious Bradley,
But maul these mutton heads most sadly,
Soon might thy wig (the people staring)
All in a chariot take an airing![111]
Led on by chieftains so redoubted,
These vile Perkineans must be routed;
Then, if in future people be sick,
They’ll worship us, the gods of physic.
Why stand ye now, like drones, astounded,
The weapons of your warfare grounded?
Arm’d cap-a-pe, like heroes rush on,
And crush this reptile institution.
But first, to make the bigger bluster,
Join every quack that you can muster,
Some place in rear, and some in front on,
From Brodum down to gaseous Thornton.[112]
Now, when the foe you first get sight on,
Shout CA IRA, and then rush right on;
And make as terrible a racket,
As ever did a woman’s clack yet,
For should you sound a loud alarum,
Perhaps you may so sadly scare ’em,
Like frighted sheep, they’ll huddle right in
The Old Nick’s den, without much fighting.
Just so a gang of Indian savages,
When they set out to make great ravages,
With war-whoop fright their foes (God help ’em)
And then proceed to kill and scalp ’em.
Prudence, by Doctor Caustic’s test,
A sneaking virtue is at best,
Then drive ahead by hook and crook,
Like lions, leap before you look.
But stop, ere further we proceed,
To set forth every mighty deed,
We must exchange (tho’ horror stiffen ye)
Our Clio for a fell Tisiphone!
For when we do these wretches batter,
’Twill be no water gruel matter;
And you’ll agree then, I assure ye,
Our muse is well changed for a fury.
Thou sprite! thou hag! thou witch! thou spectre!
Friend Southey’s crony and protector:
Who led the bard, with Joan of Arc,
Through death’s deep, dreary, dungeon dark!
Until ye were, I dare be bound,
Near half a mile down under ground;
Mid screeching ghosts and dragons dreadful,
As e’er filled dreaming madman’s head full!
And, after mighty perils past,
On Terra Firma, got at last,
Didst dub thy jacobin toad eater
The “Thalaba” of English metre.[113]
And set the bard to brew a mess
So wondrous horrible, indeed it
Might make one faint away to read it!
Thence sent him under “rooted waves”
Adown through vast Domdaniel caves,[114]
In which the metre man and Thalaba,
Had like to have been lost infallibly:
But were translated in a trice
To monsieur Mahomet’s paradise,[115]
There to enjoy, with Houri-ladies,
A whole eternity of play days.
Give me in proper tone to tell,
Between a mutter and a yell,
How best our fierce avenging choler
May do dire deeds of doleful dolor.
Come on! Begin the grand attack
With aloes, squills, and ipacac;
And then with clyster-pipe and squirt-gun,
There will be monstrous deal of hurt done!
Each wry-faced rogue, and dirty trollop,
Must well be dosed with drastic jalap,
And though their insides you should call up,
Still make the numskulls take it all up.
Cram all the ninny-hammers’ gullets,
With pills as big as pistol bullets;
And mingle mercury enough
To season well your doctor’s stuff.
Dash at them escharotics gnawing,
Their carcases to pick a flaw in;
Of nitrous acid huge carboys,
Filled to the brim, like Margate hoys.
Thus when the Greeks with their commander,
That fighting fellow, Alexander,
Set out one morning, full of ire,
To take and burn the town of Tyre;
A patriotic stout old woman
Looked out, and saw the chaps a coming;
When on a sudden she bethought her
To heat a kettle full of water;
And as they went to climb the ladder,
(Sure never vixen could be madder,
But so the historian of the fray says)
She fired her water in their faces!
But to return to our great battle;
Now rant! rave! roar! and rend! and rattle![116]
Like earth-born giants when they strove,
To pull the ears of thundering Jove!
Pelt the vile foe with weapons missile;
Make vials round their sconces whistle;
Shower on them a tremendous torrent,
Of gallipots and bottles horrent.
Make at ’em now like mad Mendozas;
With forceps pinch and pull their noses,
With tourniquet and dire tooth-drawers,
First gird their necks, then break both jaws.
But lo! they bid our dread alliance
Of doctors, quacks, and drugs defiance;
And, firm as host of cavaliers,
Convert their tractors into spears!
See host to host and man to man set!
A tractor each, and each a lancet!
Each meets his foe, so fierce attacks him!
That sure some god or demon backs him!
Fell Ate’s shriek the world alarms!
Bellona bellows “ARMS! TO ARMS!”
War’s demon dire, a great red dragon,
Drives, Jehu-like, Death’s iron wagon!![117]
Loud shouts and dismal yells arise!
Rend the blue “blanket” of the skies![118]
Grim Horror’s scream and Fury’s frantic
Howl might be heard across the Atlantic!!
Although a comet’s tail should hap
To give our globe a fatal slap,
The “crush of worlds” and “wreck of matter”
Would make ten thousand times less clatter!
Thus high in air two different kinds
Of monsieur Volney’s warring winds
Commence a most impetuous battle,
And round the Blue Ridge make all rattle.[119]
Loud, loud they bellow, blow and bluster,
With all the power that all can muster;
Harsh hurtle, howl, and hiss, but neither
Will yield his foe an inch of ether.
Now to the wretches give no quarter,
Pound them in indignation’s mortar;
Let not the women nor the men chance
To ’scape the pestle of your vengeance!
Make cerebrum and cerebellum,
To rattle like a roll of vellum,
And occiput of every numhead,
To sound as loud as kettle-drum head.
With fell trepaning perforator,
Pierce every puppy’s paltry pate, or
With chissel plied with might and main,
Punch a huge hole in pericrane.
And with a most tremendous process,
With power of elephant’s proboscis,
At once crush dura, pia mater,
As one would mash a boil’d potato!
Pelt, pulverize the rogues with shocks
Like those from moon-disploded rocks,
Sent from that mischief-making planet,
Huge, hissing hot, and hard as granite.[120]
Now, with harsh amputating saw,
Slash frontal os from under jaw;
And make a wound, by cutting slant down,
For doctor Tasker to descant on.[121]
Attack Medulla, hight Spinalis,
From where the head to where the tail is;[122]
Till every bone displays a fracture
Of scientific manufacture.
Thus Virgil tells of sturdy fellows,
Dares ycleped, and old Entellus,
Who, with a pair of iron mittens,
Attack’d each other, like true Britons.
Entellus, stout as Hob the giant,
Made horrid work, you may rely on’t;
Exceeding mightiest verse or prose deed,
Knock’d out two teeth, and made his nose bleed!
And now, with desperate trocar,
Urge on the dreadful “tug of war;”
And, having punch’d them in the crop, say
You meant to tap them for the dropsy.
With burning lapis infernalis,[123]
Convince them human nature frail is;
And taunting, tell them they’re afflicted,
Because they are to sin addicted.
With scalprum scrape off epidermis
And cuticle (I think the term is)
And all the nerves and muscles various,
Because, say you, their bones, are carious.
Thus rocks of primitive creation
Are worn down by disintegration,
Until the mountain mass is brought
To 99 times less than 0.
And when reduced to that condition,
By some additional attrition,
They furnish, by their aggregation,
The pabulum of vegetation.
With antimonials make them sweat away;
Cram each snout full of asafœtida:
Then tell them that their case you fancied
Required some castor oil, so rancid.
And though the drug seem somewhat baleful
Give each a dose of half a pailful;
Then thank them not to make wry faces,
For mild cathartics suit their cases.
Dash at them nitrate, hight argentum,
And tell them, though it does torment ’em
That papists say that purgatory
Is but a passport into glory.
Thus monsieur Satan was quite merry,[124]
When erst, in Heaven, he raised old Harry;
With jokes and cannon, in terrorem,
Rush’d on and drove ’em all before him.
Stick your keen penetrating probes
Through right and left hepatic lobes;
And though you pierce the diaphragm,
You need not care a single d—n.
So Indians, when a captive’s taken,
And they resolve to fry his bacon,
Their savage torture to refine,
First stick him full of splinter’d pine.
Dissect a rogue or two alive,
For thus your worships may contrive
To trace the vital springs in action
Of nature’s movements to a fraction.
In fine, your worships will contrive
To leave not one vile wretch alive,
Except those dirty sons of witches,
Whom nature meant to dig in ditches.
But all who would not make most topping
Fellows to work in docks at Wapping,
Some way or other, sirs, I’d have ye
Give a quick passport to old Davy.
But if with all this blood and thunder,
The stubborn blockheads won’t knock under,
And e’en old women bravely wield
Their jordans like Achilles’ shield;
No more with these our weapons dabble,
But raise a Lord-George-Gordon rabble;
Pour on the rogues, that they be undone,
The whole mobocracy of London!
Go, when I bid you, order out
From dirty lane and alley dark
From Poplar corner to Hyde Park.
Come on, brave fellows, quick surround ’em;
With canes and cudgels punch and pound ’em;
Brick-bats and broom-sticks, all together,
Like coblers hammering sides of leather.
Brave Belcher, Lee, Mendoza, Bourke,
Let loose your fists in this great work!
Here’s fine amusement for your paws,
Without the dread of police laws.
Let not one Perkinite be found
Encumbering our British ground;
But keep on pelting, banging, mauling,
Until old Beelzy’s den they’re all in.
And I’ll be there and blow war’s trumpet:
Or with death’s kettle-drum will thump it,
Till all’s “confusion, worse confounded”
Than erst in Milton’s hell abounded.
Thus, when the Spartans were in trouble,
Tyrteus help’d them through their hobble,
By singing songs, to raise their courage,
All piping hot, as pepper-porridge.
These are the methods of “dead doing,”
By which to work the wizard’s ruin;
And when with Satan all such trash is,
We’ll rise, like Phenix, on its ashes.
Now, sirs, consent to my PETITION,
And send these varlets to perdition;
So for your weal and welfare, post hic,
Will ever pray—
CHRISTOPHER CAUSTIC.