THOMAS GRAY
Born in Cornhill, London, December 26, 1716.
Died in Cambridge, July 30, 1771.
The following is a list of the principal poems written by Thomas Gray, upon most of which parodies will be given:
- Elegy written in a Country Church-Yard.
- Ode on the Spring.
- On the Death of a favourite Cat.
- On a distant Prospect of Eton College.
- To Adversity.
- The Progress of Poesy.
- The Bard.
- Ode for Music.
- The Fatal Sisters.
- The Triumphs of Owen.
- The Descent of Odin.
- The Death of Hoel.
- A Long Story.
——:o:——
The Elegy in a Country Churchyard was commenced by Gray in 1742, at the age of 34; it was then laid aside, to be taken up again after the death of his aunt, Mary Antrobus, in 1749. Stoke-Poges Churchyard, where this lady was buried, is the generally accepted scene of the poem, and there the poet was himself afterwards laid to rest.
The “Elegy” was completed at Stoke in June, 1750, a copy, in MS., was sent immediately by Gray to his friend Horace Walpole, and another to Dr. Wharton of Durham, which latter is now in the library of the British Museum. Another MS. is in the library of Pembroke College, Cambridge, but which was really the original MS. cannot be definitely ascertained, as Gray sent out several other copies to his friends. Hence the difficulty there is now in deciding upon the particular version of the “Elegy” which received the last finishing touches of the author, who was known to be most fastidious in the diction, and punctuation of his poems.
On the 12th June, 1750, Gray announced to Walpole that “a thing,” whose beginning he had seen long before, had at last got an end to it, “a merit,” he added, “that most of my writings have wanted and are like to want.” This “thing” was the “Elegy.” Walpole showed it about, copies were taken, and early in 1751 Gray received a letter from the editors of the “Magazine of Magazines” informing him that his “ingenious poem” was in the press, and begging not only his indulgence, but the honour of his correspondence. “I am not at all disposed,” wrote Gray, “to be either so indulgent or so correspondent as they desire.” Gray had not intended to publish the poem, but annoyed at the unscrupulous action of the proprietors of the “Magazine of Magazines,” he determined to forestall them if possible, and requested Walpole to get the “Elegy” printed without the author’s name, “in what form is most convenient to the printer, but on his best paper and character; he must correct the press himself, and print it without any intervals between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them.” Accordingly, on the 16th of February, 1751, five days after this letter was written, the first edition was printed and published by Robert Dodsley of Pall Mall. In this hasty manner, and without the author’s corrections, was issued from the press one of the most popular poems in the English language.
It also appeared in The Magazine of Magazines (London) for February, 1751, where it was introduced as having been composed “by the very ingenious Mr. Gray, of Peterhouse, Cambridge.” In this it was entitled, Stanzas written in a Country Churchyard, although it was entered in the Index as An Elegy made in a Country Churchyard. This was more modern in its orthography, and contained several variations from the authorised edition published by Dodsley.
There can be little doubt but that this pirated version of the “Elegy” was at first generally preferred to Gray’s authorised edition, in which there were some very obvious errors, due to its hasty production. Certain it is that all subsequent editions far more nearly resembled the pirated version, than that printed by Dodsley at Gray’s request.
Dodsley’s first edition was in quarto, and is now excessively rare. The following is an exact reprint of it, the original orthography and style of printing being in strict accordance with the copy now in the library of the British Museum. The only variation being that the stanzas are numbered for convenience of reference to the foot notes.
AN
ELEGY
WROTE IN A
COUNTRY CHURCH YARD.
London:
Printed for R. Dodsley, in Pall-mall; and sold by M. Cooper in Pater-noster-Row. 1751.
[Price Six-pence.]
ADVERTISEMENT.
The following Poem came into my Hands by accident, if the general Approbation with which this little Piece has been spread, may be call’d by so slight a Term as accident. It is this approbation which makes it unnecessary for me to make any Apology but to the Author: As he cannot but feel some Satisfaction in having pleas’d so many Readers already, I flatter myself he will forgive my communicating that Pleasure to many more.
THE EDITOR.
1The Curfeu tolls the Knell of parting Day,
The lowing Herd winds slowly o’er the Lea,
The Plow-man homeward plods his weary Way,
And leaves the World to Darkness, and to me.
2Now fades the glimmering Landscape on the Sight,
And all the Air a solemn Stillness holds,
Save where the Beetle wheels his droning Flight,
And drowsy Tinklings lull the distant Folds.
3Save that from yonder Ivy-mantled Tow’r,
The moping Owl does to the Moon complain
Of such, as wand’ring near her secret Bow’r,
Molest her ancient solitary Reign.
4Beneath those rugged Elms, that Yew-Tree’s shade,
Where heaves the Turf in many a mould’ring Heap,
Each in his narrow Cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the Hamlet sleep.
5The breezy Call of Incense-breathing Morn,
The Swallow twitt’ring from the Straw-built Shed,
The Cock’s shrill Clarion, or the ecchoing Horn,
No more shall wake them from their lowly Bed.
6For them no more the blazing Hearth shall burn,
Or busy Houswife ply her Evening-Care:
No Children run to lisp their Sire’s Return,
Or climb his Knees the envied Kiss to share.
7Oft did the Harvest to their Sickle yield,
Their Furrow oft the stubborn Glebe has broke:
How jocund did they drive their Team afield!
How bow’d the Woods beneath their sturdy Stroke!
8Let not Ambition mock their useful Toil,
Their homely Joys and Destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful Smile
The short and simple Annals of the Poor.
9The Boast of Heraldry, the Pomp of Power,
And all that Beauty, all that Wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable Hour.
The Paths of Glory lead but to the Grave.
10Forgive, ye Proud, th’ involuntary Fault
If Memory to these no Trophies raise,
Where thro’ the long-drawn Isle and fretted Vault
The pealing Anthem swells the Note of Praise.
11Can storied Urn or animated Bust
Back to its Mansion call the fleeting Breath?
Can Honour’s Voice provoke the silent Dust,
Or Flatt’ry sooth the dull cold Ear of Death?
12Perhaps in this neglected Spot is laid
Some Heart once pregnant with celestial Fire;
Hands that the Reins of Empire might have sway’d,
Or wak’d to Extacy the living Lyre.
13But Knowledge to their Eyes her ample Page
Rich with the Spoils of Time did ne’er unroll,
Chill Penury repress’d their noble Rage,
And froze the genial Current of the Soul.
14Full many a Gem of purest Ray serene,
The dark unfathom’d Caves of Ocean bear:
Full many a Flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its Sweetness on the desart Air.
15Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless Breast
The little Tyrant of his Fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his Country’s Blood.
16Th’ Applause of list’ning Senates to command,
The Threats of Pain and Ruin to despise,
To scatter Plenty o’er a smiling Land;
And read their Hist’ry in a Nation’s Eyes
17Their Lot forbad: nor circumscrib’d alone
Their growing Virtues, but their Crimes confin’d;
Forbad to wade through Slaughter to a Throne,
And shut the Gates of Mercy on Mankind,
18The struggling Pangs of conscious Truth to hide,
To quench the Blushes of ingenuous Shame,
Or heap the Shrine of Luxury and Pride
With Incense, kindled at the Muse’s Flame.
19Far from the madding Crowd’s ignoble Strife,
Their sober Wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d Vale of Life
They kept the noiseless Tenor of their Way.
20Yet ev’n these Bones from Insult to protect
Some frail Memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth Rhimes and shapeless Sculpture deck’d,
Implores the passing Tribute of a Sigh.
21Their Name, their Years, spelt by th’ unletter’d Muse,
The Place of Fame and Elegy supply:
And many a holy Text around she strews,
That teach the rustic Moralist to die.
22For who to dumb Forgetfulness a Prey,
This pleasing anxious Being e’er resign’d,
Left the warm Precincts of the chearful Day,
Nor cast one longing ling’ring Look behind!
23On some fond Breast the parting Soul relies,
Some pious Drops the closing Eye requires;
Ev’n from the Tomb the Voice of Nature cries
Ev’n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires.
24For thee, who mindful of th’ unhonour’d Dead,
Dost in these Lines their artless Tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall enquire thy Fate,
25Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
“Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
“Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away,
“To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn,
26“There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech,
“That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
“His listless Length at Noontide wou’d he stretch,
“And pore upon the Brook that babbles by.
27“Hard by yon Wood, now frowning as in Scorn,
“Mutt’ring his wayward Fancies he wou’d rove;
“Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
“Or craz’d with Care, or cross’d in hopeless Love.
28“One Morn I miss’d him on the custom’d Hill,
“Along the Heath, and near his fav’rite Tree;
“Another came; nor yet beside the Rill,
“Nor up the Lawn, nor at the Wood was he;
29“The next with Dirges due in sad Array
“Slow thro’ the Church-way Path we saw him born.
“Approach and read (for thou can’st read) the Lay,
“Grav’d on the Stone beneath yon aged Thorn.”
THE EPITAPH.
Here rests his Head upon the Lap of Earth
A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
Fair Science frown’d not on his humble Birth,
And Melancholy mark’d him for her own.
Large was his Bounty, and his Soul sincere,
Heav’n did a Recompence as largely send:
He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a Tear:
He gain’d from Heav’n (’twas all he wish’d) a Friend.
No farther seek his Merits to disclose,
Or draw his Frailties from their dread Abode,
(There they alike in trembling Hope repose,)
The Bosom of his Father and his God.
FINIS.
1. Curfew in later editions.
The Curfeu tolls the knell of parting day.
—— squilla di lontano
Che paia ’l giorno pianger, che si muore.
Dante, Purgat. l. 8.
And pilgrim newly on his road with love
Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far
That seems to mourn for the expiring day.
Cary’s Translation.
2. This verse seems to have strong features of similarity with the following in Collins’s “Ode to Evening:”
“Now air is hush’d, save where the weak-ey’d bat
“With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
“Or where the beetle winds
“His small but sullen horn.”
10. Another version reads;
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise.
11. Burns borrowed an idea from this verse in his epitaph on the monument to Robert Fergusson, the poet:—
No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,
No storied urn or animated bust.
This simple stone directs pale Scotia’s way
To pour her sorrows o’er her poet’s dust.
14. This beautiful comparison of the Gem and the Flower seems borrowed (but with added force and elegance) from Dr. Young:
“—— Such blessings Nature pours,
“O’erstock’d mankind enjoy but half her stores;
“In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,
“She rears her flow’rs, and spreads her velvet green:
“Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,
“And waste their music on the savage race.”
Universal Passion, Sat. V.
15. Mr. Edwards (author of the Canons of Criticism), who, though an old bachelor, like Mr. Gray, was far more attentive to the fair sex, endeavoured to supply what he thought a defect in this Poem, by introducing after this the two following stanzas:
Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charms
Shone with attraction to herself unknown;
Whose beauty might have blest a monarch’s arms,
And virtue cast a lustre on the throne:
That humble beauty warm’d an honest heart,
And cheer’d the labours of a faithful spouse;
That virtue form’d, for every decent part,
The healthy offspring that adorn’d their house.
18. After this verse, in Mr. Gray’s first MS. of the Poem, were the four following:—
The thoughtless world to Majesty may bow,
Exalt the brave, and idolize success;
But more to innocence their safety owe,
Than Pow’r or Genius e’er conspir’d to bless.
And thou who, mindful of th’ unhonour’d Dead,
Dost in these notes their artless tale relate,
By night and lonely contemplation led
To wander in the gloomy walks of fate:
Hark! how the sacred calm, that breathes around,
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whispering from the ground,
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.
No more, with reason and thyself at strife,
Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;
But through the cool sequestred vale of life
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom.
And here the Poem was originally intended to conclude, before the happy idea of the hoary-headed Swain, &c. suggested itself to him.
23.
Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires.
Ch’i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco,
Fredda una lingua, et due begli occhi chiusi
Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville.
Petrarch, Son. 169.
25. In the M.S. copy of the Elegy bequeathed by Gray to his friend Mason which is now in the possession of Sir William Fraser, Bart., the last two lines of this stanza read:—
With hasty footsteps brush the dews away
On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn.
After this stanza in the same manuscript there was the following:—
Him have we seen the greenwood side along,
While o’er the heath we hied, our labour’s done,
Oft as the woodlark pip’d her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun.
“I rather wonder (says Mr. Mason) that he rejected this stanza, as it completes the account of his whole day; whereas, this Evening scene being omitted, we have only his Morning walk, and his Noontide repose.”
29. Before the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines however are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation.
There scatter’d oft, the earliest of the Year,
By Hands unseen are show’rs of Violets found;
The Redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little Footsteps lightly print the ground.
To some readers they may appear to be an imitation of the following in Collins’s “Dirge in Cymbeline:”
“The female fays shall haunt the green,
“And dress thy grave with pearly dew;
“The redbreast oft, at evening hours,
“Shall kindly lend his little aid,
“With hoary moss and gather’d flow’rs,
“To deck the ground where thou art laid.”
Notwithstanding the want of originality in some detached passages of this “Elegy,” and the obvious truisms of many of its ideas, it is doubtless the finest poem of its kind in the language, not even excepting the beautiful, and perhaps more pathetic, “Elegy on the Death of Sir John Moore.” The best proof of its popularity is to be found in the immense number of Parodies, Imitations, and Translations to which it has given rise. In dealing with the Parodies the chief difficulty has been to decide which were worthy of preservation. To reprint all the Parodies, in full, is out of the question, yet the omission of any important or noteworthy example would destroy the utility of this Collection as a work of reference, especially in the eyes of the numerous admirers of Thomas Gray.
To readers not having access to either of our great public libraries it is the earlier parodies which are the most difficult to refer to, these will therefore be inserted complete, though it must be admitted that the first half dozen will be found rather heavy reading.
These will be followed by selections from the most amusing modern parodies, and a few of the best imitations and translations.
The earliest parody I can trace of Gray’s “Elegy” is one entitled—
AN
EVENING CONTEMPLATION
IN A
COLLEGE.
Being a Parody on the
ELEGY
IN
A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.
By another Gentleman of Cambridge.
London:
Printed for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall-mall; and Sold
by M. Cooper in Pater-noster Row. 1753.
[Price Sixpence.]
ADVERTISEMENT.
The Author of the excellent Poem on which the following Parody is built, it is hop’d will forgive this innocent Play upon it; which a sincere admiration of its beauties invited the Parodist to attempt: and if it should be thought there is any merit in this Imitation, it must be attributed in a great measure to his working after so fine an Original.
An Evening Contemplation in a College.
The Curfew tolls the hour of closing gates;
With jarring sound the porter turns the key,
Then in his dreary mansion slumb’ring waits,
And slowly, sternly quits it—tho’ for me.
Now shine the spires beneath the paly moon,
And thro’ the cloyster Peace and Silence reign;
Save where some fidler scrapes a drowsy tune,
Or copious bowls inspire a jovial strain:
Save that in yonder cobweb-mantled room,
Where lies a student in profound repose,
Oppress’d with ale, wide-echos thro’ the gloom
The droning music of his vocal nose.
Within those walls, where thro’ the glimm’ring shade
Appear the pamphlets in a mold’ring heap,
Each in his narrow bed till morning laid,
The peaceful fellows of the college sleep.
The tinkling bell proclaiming early pray’rs,
The noisy servants rattling o’er their head,
The calls of business, and domestic cares,
Ne’er rouse these sleepers from their downy bed.
No chatt’ring females crowd their social fire,
No dread have they of discord and of strife;
Unknown the names of husband and of sire,
Unfelt the plagues of matrimonial life.
Oft have they bask’d along the sunny walls,
Oft have the benches bow’d beneath their weight;
How jocund are their looks when dinner calls!
How smoke the cutlets on their crowded plate!
O, let not Temp’rance too disdainful hear
How long our feasts, how long our dinners, last:
Nor let the fair with a contemptuous sneer,
On these unmarry’d men reflections cast!
The splendid fortune and the beauteous face
(Themselves confess it, and their sires bemoan)
Too soon are caught by scarlet and by lace:
These sons of Science shine in black alone.
Forgive, ye fair, th’ involuntary fault,
If these no feats of gayety display,
Where thro’ proud Ranelagh’s wide-echoing vault
Melodious Frasi trills her quav’ring lay.
Say, is the sword well suited to the band?
Does broider’d coat agree with sable gown?
Can Dresden’s laces shade a Churchman’s hand,
Or Learning’s vot’ries ape the beaux of town?
Perhaps in these time-tott’ring walls reside
Some who were once the darlings of the fair;
Some who of old could tastes and fashions guide,
Controul the manager and awe the play’r.
But Science now has fill’d their vacant mind
With Rome’s rich spoils and Truth’s exalted views;
Fir’d them with transports of a nobler kind,
And bade them slight all females—but the Muse.
Full many a lark, high tow’ring to the sky
Unheard, unheeded, greets th’ approach of light;
Full many a star, unseen by mortal eye,
With twinkling lustre glimmers thro’ the night.
Some future Herring, that with dauntless breast
Rebellion’s torrent shall, like him oppose;
Some mute, some thoughtless Hardwicke here may rest,
Some Pelham, dreadful to his country’s foes.
From prince and people to command applause,
’Midst ermin’d peers to guide the high debate,
To shield Britannia’s and Religion’s laws,
And steer with steady course the helm of state
Fate yet forbids; nor circumscribes alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confines;
Forbids in Freedom’s veil t’ insult the throne,
Beneath her mask to hide the worst designs,
To fill the madding crowd’s perverted mind,
With “Pensions, Taxes, Marriages, and Jews;”
Or shut the gates of Heav’n on lost mankind,
And wrest their darling hopes, their future views.
Far from the giddy town’s tumultuous strife,
Their wishes yet have never learn’d to stray;
Content and happy in a single life,
They keep the noiseless tenor of their way,
Ev’n now, their books from cobwebs to protect,
Inclos’d by doors of glass, in Doric style,
On fluted pillars rais’d, with bronzes deck’d,
They claim the passing tribute of a smile.
Oft are the authors’ names, tho’ richly bound,
Mis-spelt by blundering binders’ want of care;
And many a catalogue is strow’d around,
To tell th’ admiring guest what books are there.
For who, to thoughtless Ignorance a prey,
Neglects to hold short dalliance with a book?
Who there but wishes to prolong his stay,
And on those cases casts a ling’ring look?
Reports attract the lawyer’s parting eyes,
Novels Lord Fopling and Sir Plume require;
For songs and plays the voice of Beauty cries,
And Sense and Nature Grandison desire.
For thee, who mindful of thy lov’d compeers
Dost in these lines their artless tales relate,
If Chance, with prying search, in future years,
Some antiquarian shall enquire thy fate,
Haply some friend may shake his hoary head
And say, “Each morn, unchill’d by frosts, he ran
“With hose ungarter’d, o’er yon turfy bed,
“To reach the chapel ere the psalms began.
“There, in the arms of that lethargic chair,
“Which rears its moth-devoured back so high,
“At noon he quaff’d three glasses to the fair,
“And por’d upon the news with curious eye.
“Now by the fire, engag’d in serious talk
“Or mirthful converse, would he loit’ring stand;
“Then in the garden chose a sunny walk,
“Or launch’d the polish’d bowl with steady hand;
“One morn we miss’d him at the hour of pray’r,
“Beside the fire, and on his fav’rite green;
“Another came, nor yet within the chair,
“Nor yet at bowls, nor chapel was he seen.
“The next we heard that in a neighbouring shire,
“That day to church he led a blushing bride;
“A nymph, whose snowy vest and maiden fear
“Improv’d her beauty while the knot was ty’d.
“Now, by his patron’s bounteous care remov’d,
“He roves enraptur’d thro’ the fields of Kent;
“Yet, ever mindful of the place he lov’d,
“Read here the letter which he lately sent.”
the Letter.
“In rural innocence secure I dwell,
Alike to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
Approving Conscience chears my humble cell,
And social Quiet marks me for her own.
Next to the blessings of Religious Truth
Two gifts my endless gratitude engage;
A wife—the joy and transport of my youth,
Now, with a son, the comfort of my age.
Seek not to draw me from this kind retreat,
In loftier spheres unfit, untaught to move;
Content with calm, domestic life, where meet
The smiles of Friendship and the sweets of Love.”
FINIS.
The above is an exact reprint of the very scarce first edition of this parody, which was brought out by the same publisher, and within two years, of Gray’s “Elegy.” It was published in quarto size, and in type and style closely resembled the original “Elegy.”
“An Evening Contemplation in a College” was written by the Rev. John Duncombe, M.A., of Corpus College, Cambridge, who was born in 1730 and died on January 19, 1786. He was the author of several other poems and parodies, neither of which obtained the success of the above, which has been frequently reprinted. It appears at the end of one Dublin edition of Gray’s Poems, in 12mo, 1768, and of another printed by William Sleater in 1775. A pirated quarto edition was published in London by J. Wheble in 1776, and attributed to “An Oxonian,” it was also included in the collection entitled The Oxford Sausage, and in the second volume of The Repository, London, 1777. All these reprints contain numerous verbal alterations from the original.
——:o:——
The next parody, which bears no date, was probably published only a little later than the above, as it was issued in quarto in the same general style, and by the same firm.
THE
NUNNERY.
AN
ELEGY.
In imitation of the
ELEGY in a CHURCH-YARD.
Son pittore anche io.—Corregio.
London:
Printed for R. and J. Dodsley, at Tully’s-Head, Pall-Mall.
[Price Sixpence.]
The Nunnery.
Retirement’s Hour proclaims the tolling Bell,
Each sacred Virgin follows its Decree;
With meek submission seeks her lonely Cell,
And leaves the grate to Solitude and me.
Now shows the sinking sun a fainter glare
And Silence thro’ the Convent reigns confest,
Save where some pale-ey’d Novice (wrap’d in Pray’r)
Heaves a deep groan, and smites her guiltless breast.
Save where in artless melancholy Strains
Some Eloisa whom soft Passion moves,
Absorpt in Sorrow to the night complains;
For ever bar’d the Abelard she loves.
Within those ancient walls by moss o’erspread,
Where the relenting sinner learns to weep;
Each in her narrow Bed till Mid-night laid,
The gentle Daughters of Devotion sleep.
No stings of Conscience goad their easy Breast,
No unrepented Crimes their Slumbers fright,
No mournful Dreams invade their peaceful Rest
Nor shrouded Spectres stalk afore their sight!
Th’ endearing scenes of Life They all forego
Ev’n Hymen’s Torch for Them must never blaze,
The Husband’s fond Embrace They ne’er shall know,
Nor view their Image in their Children’s Face.
Oft did they steal the flow’ry Robe of May
To deck the altar and the shrines around:
How fervent did They chant the pious Lay,
While the deep organ swell’d the sacred sound?
Let not the gay Coquette with Jest profane,
Mock their veil’d Life and Destiny severe:
Nor Worldly Beauty with a sneer disdain
The humble Duties of the Cloyster’d Fair.
The glist’ning Eye: The half seen Breast of Snow,
The coral Lip, the clear vermilion Bloom
Awaits alike th’ inexorable Foe,
The Paths of Pleasure lead but to the Tomb.
Forgive, Ye fair, whom Britain’s Sons admire,
If This her meanest Bard incur your Blame,
While He devotes not to your Praise the Lyre,
But to the convent dedicates his Theme.
Can These partake the sprightly-moving Dance?
Or in the Garb of Luxury appear?
Can These e’er pierce the Lover with a Glance?
Or grace the Tragic scene with Pity’s Tear?
Perhaps in this drear Mansion are confin’d
Some whose accomplish’d Beauty cou’d impart
The soft Desire to the severest Mind,
And wake to Extacy the throbbing Heart.
But splendid Life in each Allurement drest
Attracts Them not, tho’ flush’d with youthful Bloom:
Stern Pennance chills the Ardour of their Breast,
And buries their Ambition in his Gloom.
Full many a Riv’let steals its gentle way
Unheard, untasted, by the thirsty Swain,
Full many a Philomel attunes her Lay,
And pours her plaintive Melody in vain.
Some veil’d Eliza (like the clouded Sun)
May here reside inglorious and unknown;
Some, like Augusta, might have rear’d a Son
To bless a Nation and adorn a Throne.
From Flatt’ry’s Lip to drink the Sweets of Praise,
In Wit and Charms with other Belles to vie,
In Circles to attract the partial Gaze
And view Their Beauty in th’ Admirer’s Eye
Their Lot forbids: nor does alone remove
The Thirst of Praise, but e’en their Vices chains,
Forbids thro’ Folly’s Labyrinths to rove,
And yield to Pleasure the unheeded reins:
To raise mid Hymen’s Joys domestic Strife,
Or seek that Converse which They ought to shun
To break the sacred Ties of married Life
And give to many what they vow’d to one.
Far from the Bustle of the splendid Throng
They tread Obscurity’s sequester’d Vale,
Where the white Hours glide silently along
Smooth as the Stream, when sleeps the breezy Gale.
Yet tho’ they’re sprinkled with ethereal Dew?
With blooming Wreaths by Hands of Seraphs crown’d?
Tho’ Heav’n’s eternal Splendors burst to View?
And Harps celestial to their Ear resound?
Still grateful Mem’ry paints the absent Friend,
Not e’en the World to their Remembrance dies:
Their Mid-night Orisons to Heav’ns ascend
To stop the Bolt descending from the Skies.
For who entranc’d, in Visions from above
The Thought of Kindred razes from the Mind?
Feels in the Soul no warm returning Love
For some endear’d Companion left behind.
From Friendship’s Breast reluctant they withdrew,
And with a sigh forsook their native air:
To their fond Parents when they bad adieu
Gush’d from their Eye the tender filial Tear.
For Thee, who mindful of th’ encloyster’d Fair
Dost in these Lines their artless Tale relate,
If Chance in distant Time’s revolving Year
Some kindred Spirit shall enquire thy Fate.
Haply some aged Vestal may reply,
“Oft have we seen Him ’ere Aurora’s Ray
“Had faintly ting’d with red the op’ning Sky
“Hasten to Church, and Join the Matin Lay.
“There at the Tomb where Eloisa lies,
“He’d read th’ Inscription: and her Fate condole,
“Then in his Breast, as scenes of Grief arise,
“Sigh the kind Requiem to her gentle soul.
“Against yon Pillar careless now He’d lean,
“Smiling at what his wayward Fancy moves:
“Now drooping, wan, and pensive, wou’d be seen
“As one abandon’d by the Fair He loves.
“One morn I miss’d Him in the aweful Dome
“Along the Isle, and in the Sacristy;
“Another came, nor yet beside the Tomb,
“Nor at the Font, nor in the Porch was He.
“The next we heard, which did our wonder move,
“He was departed to return no more,
“Yet lest the sudden change we shou’d reprove,
“These Lines He sent us from Britannia’s shore.
“What time in Transport lost the Naïad Throng,
“First catch’d their Akenside’s enchanting Lay,
“And raptur’d Fancy listen’d to the Song
“Of laurel’d Whitehead, and sweet-plaintive Gray.”
The Letter.
A Vestal Fair (Her Name I mayn’t unfold)
Has planted in my Breast the pleasing Dart;
Who by relentless vows, if not controll’d,
Wou’d own, perchance, a Sympathy of Heart.
The growing Passion impotent to quell,
Severe Discretion urg’d me to retreat;
Now at my native rural Home I dwell,
Where Contemplation keeps her lonely seat.
Seek not to draw me from this still abode,
Where the kind Muses to my Aid repair,
And when the Thoughts of hapless Love corrode
Check the deep Sigh, and wipe the trickling Tear.
This is given from the original quarto; there have been numerous reprints, all containing considerable variations from the above, which it would be alike tedious and unnecessary to enumerate. One version, and perhaps the best known, is to be found in The Repository, Vol. 2, London, 1777.
——:o:——
Elegy
On the Death of
“The Guardian Outwitted.” 1764.[1]
The shrill bell rings the knell of “Curtain rise”
From the thrum’d string the scraping herd to warn
Behind the scenes the plodding snuffer hies
And leaves the stage to operas and to Arne.
Now strike the glimmering lamps upon the sight
And all the house a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the Seaman from the Gallery’s height,
For roast beef bawling, the cu’d Fiddler scolds;
Save that in yonder velvet-mantled box
A moping Countess to her Grace complains
Of macaws, monkeys, perroquets, and shocks,
And losses vaist and vaistly paltry gains.
Behind those rugged spikes that bag-wigs shade,
Where tuneful Folios lie in many a heap,
Each in his narrow line for ever laid
The embryo crotchets of the “Guardian” sleep.
The long, long trill of quaver-torturing Brent,[2]
Miss Hallam[2] twittering from her tender throat,
Thy clarion, Beard,[2] that Echo’s ear has rent,
No more shall rouze each lowly-slumbering note.
For these no more a parent’s breast shall burn;
His busy fingers ply their evening care;
Poor banish’d children! never to return,
Nor their own tender sire’s applause to share.
Oft did the City Nymph their sweetness own
Their force the stubborn sentinel has broke;
How jocund did they drive the dull farce down,
When wit and sense expir’d without a joke!
Yet let not genius mock their useless toil,
Their transient honours and their life not long,
Nor sense behold with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of a song.
The pomp of Tragedy, expression’s power,
And all that Garrick, all that Quin e’er gave,
Have found alike th’ inevitable hour,
And the Fifth Act still led them to the grave.
Forgive, ye Bards, th’ involuntary fault,
If love parental shall no trophies raise,
Where in th’ Orchestra’s low sequestered vault
The coxcomb Fidler plies his arm for praise.
Can pensive Arne, with animated strain,
Back to its audience call his fleeting Play?
Can Music’s voice the hand of death restrain,
Or soothing sounds prolong the fatal day?
Perhaps, ere this, he many an Opera made,
Which, though not pregnant with celestial fire,
Might yet, like this, its little night have sway’d,
And wak’d to extacy the living lyre.
But shrill rehearsal each unprinted page,
Lavish of grins and squalls, did n’er unroll
The hiss contemptuous and the catcall’s rage
Repress’d the great ambition of his soul.
Full many a book, of purest page serene,
The high ungenial cells of Grub-street bear;
Full many a pamphlet leaves the press unseen,
In Moorfields dangling to the desart air.
Some village * * * * * *, who a wife’s fell frown,
A vixen wife with music has withstood,
Some blind Corelli oft may scrape unknown,
Some Arne, not guilty of an Opera’s blood
Th’ applause of listening Boxes to command,
Damnation’s pain and ruin to dispise;
To scatter crotchets o’er a fidling land,
And read their influence in a lady’s eyes,
Their lot forbade; nor circumscrib’d alone
Their tuneful empire, but their pride confin’d,
Forbade pert Nonsense to usurp the throne
Of Taste, and banish genius from mankind.
Oft pilfer’d airs and borrow’d strains to hide.
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
And feed the fondness of a Fidler’s pride
With dull pretences to a Muse’s flame.
Far from the merry wake, and rustic ball,
No vain pursuits, their sober wishes led;
Along the streets and round his worship’s hall
They scrap’d the noisy tenor for their bread:
Yet still the blind from insult to protect,
Some faithful consort ever wandering nigh,
With vary’d garb, and uncouth’d pinner deck’d,
Implores the passing tribute with a sigh.
Her ditties oft, though an unletter’d Muse
The place of air and sonnet would supply;
And songs of grace at Christmas would she chuse,
Repaid with luncheons from the grey-goose pye.
For who, so much to gloominess a prey,
Whose spirits music knows not to advance?
Or who could listen to her roundelay,
Nor lift one longing, lingering leg to dance?
On some smart air the active heel relies,
Some sprightly jig the springing foot requires;
E’en to a march the moving spirits rise,
E’en in a minuet wake our youthful fires.
For Thee, who, mindful of th’ unhonour’d dead,
Dost in these lines the Guardian’s Tale relate,
If chance, by love of Elegy misled,
Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate;
Haply some antiquated Maid may say;
“Oft have we seen him at the hour of prayer
“Brushing, with hasty hand, the dust away
“From his rent cassock and his beaver bare.
“Oft by the side of yonder nodding font
“That lifts its old fantastic head so high,
“To wait the frequent christening was he wont
“And frown upon the Clerk that babbled by.
“Oft in yon pulpit, smiling as in scorn,
“Muttering his uncouth doctrines would he preach,
“Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn,
“In deep despair the Mitre’s grace to reach.
“One morn I miss’d him at the hour of prayer,
“In vain I took my spectacles to see;
“His wonted surplice did another wear,
“Nor in the vestry, nor the desk was he.
“The next with dirges due, in sad array,
“Slow through the church-way path we saw him brought,
“Approach and read (if thou canst read!) the lay
“Which his own Clerk, his Parish Clerk has wrote.”
Epitaph.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A Curate poor, to stalls and tythes unknown;
No Bishop smil’d upon his humble birth;
No Minister e’er mark’d him for his own.
Bread was his only food, his drink the brook;
So small a salary did his Rector send;
He left his laundress all he had—a book
He found in Death, ’twas all he wish’d—a friend.
No longer seek his wardrobe to disclose,
Nor draw his breeches from their darksome cell;
There, like their master, let them find repose,
Nor dread the horrors of a Taylor’s hell.
——:o:——
An Epitaph
ON
A Certain Poet.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
One nor to Fortune nor to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frown’d not on his humble Birth,
And smooth-tongued Flattery mark’d him for her own.
Large was his wish—in this he was sincere,
Fate did a recompence as largely send,
Gave the poor C——r four hundred pounds a year
And made a dirty minister his friend.
No further seek his deeds to bring to light
For, ah! he offer’d at Corruption’s shrine;
And basely strove to wash an Æthiop white,
While Truth and Honour bled in every line!
——:o:——
An Elegy,
Written in Covent-Garden.
(Printed before 1777.)
St. Paul’s proclaims the solemn midnight hour,
The wary Cit slow turns the master-key;
Time-stinted ’prentices up Ludgate scour,
And leave the streets to darkness and to me.
Now glimmering lamps afford a doubtful ray,
And scarce a sound disturbs the Night’s dull ear;
Save where some rumbling Hack directs its way,
Or frequent tinklings rouse the tavern-bar:
Save that, at yonder iron-grated tower,[3]
The watchmen to the constable complain
Of such as, in defiance to his power,
Molest their ancient, solitary reign.
Beneath those butchers stalls, that pent-house shade,
Where rankling offals fret in many a heap,
Each in his nasty stye of garbage laid,
The dextrous sons of Buckhorse stink and sleep.
The chearful call of “Chair! your honour—chair!”
Rakes drunk and roaring from the Bedford-head,
The oaths of coachmen squabbling for a fare,
No more can rouse them from their filthy bed.
For them the blazing links no longer burn,
Or busy bunters ply their evening care;
No Setters watch the muddled Cit’s return,
In hopes some pittance of the prey to share.
Oft to their subtlety the fob did yield,
Their cunning oft the pocket-string hath broke:
How in dark alleys bludgeons did they wield!
How bow’d the wretch beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their humble toil,
Their vulgar crimes and villainy obscure;
Nor rich rogues hear with a disdainful smile
The low and petty knaveries of the poor.
The titled villain, and the thief in power,
The greatest rogue that ever bore a name,
Await alike th’ inevitable hour:
The paths of wickedness but lead to shame.
Nor you, ye proud! impute to these the fault,
If Justice round their necks the halter fix;
If, from the gallows to their kindred vault,
They ride not pompous in a hearse and six.
Gives not the lordly axe as sure a fate?
Are Peers exempt from mouldering into dust?
Can all the gilded ’scutcheons of the Great
Stamp on polluted deeds the name of Just?
Beneath the gibbet’s self perhaps is laid
Some heart once pregnant with infernal fire;
Hands that the sword of Nero might have sway’d,
And ’midst the carnage tun’d th’ exulting lyre.
Ambition to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with such monstrous crimes, did n’er unroll;
Chill Penury repress’d their native rage,
And froze the bloody current of the soul.
Full many a youth, fit for each horrid scene,
The dark and sooty flues of chimnies bear;
Full many a rogue is born to cheat unseen,
And dies unhang’d for want of proper care.
Some petty Chartres, that with dauntless breast
Each call of worth or honesty withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Wilmot[4] here may rest;
Some * * * * * * *, guiltless of his steward’s blood.
The votes of venal senates to command,
The worthy man’s opinion to despise,
To scatter mischiefs o’er a trusting land,
And read their curses in a nation’s eyes,
Their lot forbad; nor circumscrib’d alone
Their groveling fortunes, but their crimes confin’d;
Forbad with libels to insult the throne,
And vilify the noblest of mankind.
The struggling pangs of conscious guilt to hide,
To bid defiance to all sense of shame;
Their bleeding Country’s sorrow to deride,
And heap fresh fuel on Sedition’s flame;
To such high crimes, such prodigies of vice,
Their vulgar wishes ne’er presum’d to soar;
Content at wheel-barrows to cogg the dice,
Or pick a pocket at a Play-house door.
Yet e’en these humbler vices to correct,
Old Tyburn lifts his triple front on high;
Bridewell, with bloody whips and fetters deck’d,
Frowns dreadful vengeance on the younger fry.
Their name, their years, their birth and parentage,
(Though doubtful all) the Ord’nary supplies;
Points out what first debauch’d their tender age,
And with what words each ripen’d felon dies.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
When to the dreadful tree of death consign’d,
But yearns to think upon the fatal day
That first seduc’d to sin his pliant mind?
No soul so callous but remorse may wring,
No heart so hard but grief may teach to sigh;
Contrition forces heartfelt tears to spring,
And melts to tenderness the sternest eye.
For him, the master of the pilfering herd,
Whom certain punishment attends, though late;
If, when his wretched carcase is interr’d,
Some curious person should enquire his fate;
Haply some hoary-headed thief may say,
“Oft have I seen him with his lighted link
“Guide some unwary stranger cross the way,
“And pick his pocket on the kennel’s brink.
“There, at the foot of yonder column stretch’d,
“Where Seven Dials are exalted high,
“He and his Myrmidons for hours have watch’d,
“And pour’d destruction on each passer-by.
“Hard by yon wall, where not a lamp appears,
“Skulking in quest of booty would he wait;
“Now as a beggar shedding artful tears,
“Now smiting with his crutch some hapless pate.
“One night I miss’d him at th’ accustom’d place,
“The seven-faced Pillar and his favourite wall:
“Another came, nor yet I saw his face;
“The post, the crossings, were deserted all.
“At last, in dismal cart and sad array,
“Backward up Holborn-hill I saw him mount:
“Here you may read (for you can read, you say)
“His Epitaph in th’ Ord’nary’s Account.”
The Epitaph.
Here festering rots a quondam pest of earth,
To virtue and to honest shame unknown;
Low-cunning on a dung-hill gave him birth;
Vice clapp’d her hands, and mark’d him for her own.
Quick were his fingers, and his soul was dark;
In lucky knavery lay all his hope;
No pains he spar’d, and seldom miss’d his mark,
So gain’d (’twas what he merited) a rope.
If further you his villainies would know,
And genuine anecdotes desire to meet,
Go read the story of his weal and woe,
Printed and sold by Simpson, near The Fleet.
The exact dates of the first appearance of this and the following parody are unknown, but they were both included in Vol. 2 of “The Repository; a Select Collection of Fugitive Pieces of Wit and Humour.” London, 1777.
——:o:——
An Elegy.
Written in Westminster Hall during the long Vacation.
(Printed before 1777.)
The courts are shut—departed every judge,
Each greedy lawyer gripes his double fee:
In doleful mood the suitors homeward trudge,
And leave the hall to silence and to me.
Now not a barrister attracts the sight,
And all the dome a solemn stillness holds,
Save at the entrance, where with all her might,
The Quean of Apples at the porter scolds:
Save that at fives a group of wrangling boys
At intervals pursue the bounding ball,
Make Henderson,[5] the studious, damn their noise,
When battering down the plaister from the wall
From every court, with every virtue crown’d,
Where many get, and many lose their bread,
Elsewhere to squabble, puzzle, and confound,
Attornies, clerks, and council—all are fled.
Contending fools too stubborn to agree,
The good fat client (name for ever dear!)
The long-drawn brief, and spirit-stirring fee
No more, ’till Michaelmas shall send them here.
’Till then, no more th’ Exchequer[6] nymphs shall run
To fetch their wigs, and giggling stroke the tail,
Or dressy orange-wenches ply their fun
And offer their commodities to sale.
With these the Templar oft has stopped to chat,
And tipped them sixpence for each cake he broke;
How jocund did they give him tit for tat!
And bonnily return’d him joke for joke!
Let not droll Peter[7] look with eyes askew,
Nor envy them the profits of the hall;
Let him not think that with a spiteful view,
They mean to draw the custom from his stall.
The cinder-wench in dust-cart seated high,
With arms begrim’d, and dirty as her sieve,
The ragged trulls, who, sprats and herrings cry,
The meanest trollops, have a right to live.
Nor you, ye belles! impute the fault to these,
If at the glittering ball they not appear,
Where music has a thousand charms to please,
And with its sweetness almost wounds the ear.
Will Almack, or the goddess of Soho,
Inlist these misses in their brilliant train,
Admit them e’en to see the puppet-show,
To take one peep and light them out again?
Perhaps in their neglected minds were sown
The seeds of worth from Nature’s large supply;
The seeds of worth, which might in time have grown,
And flourish’d lovely to the ravish’d eye.
But the calm sun-shine of a parent’s care,
With one warm ray their bosom’s ne’er imprest;
Ill-usage drove the wretches to despair,
And check’d each growing virtue of the breast.
Full many a rural lass in Britain’s land
The vile unwarrantable brothels hold;
Full many a town-bred damsel walks the Strand,
And trucks her beauty for a piece of gold.
Some ghost of Jefferies will this floor parade,
Some daring Pettifogger, stern of brow,
Who might have done due honour to the spade,
Whirl’d the tough flail, or grasp’d the peaceful plough.
This upstart thing some useful trade to learn,
By far more suited to his shallow head,
Some trade, by which he might have known to earn
With honest industry, his daily bread,
False pride forbade; nor to himself alone,
Confines his views, but to his son extends;
Forbade the youth, to quirks already prone,
To mind the means, so he could gain the ends.
Forbade to bind him ’prentice to a trade,
Behind the compter all the day to stand,
His birth by work mechanic to degrade,
Or wait on customers with cap in hand,
Far from the worthy members of the law,
A rogue in grain, he ever kept aloof;
From learn’d bum-bailiffs learn’d his briefs to draw,
And where he could not find, he coin’d a proof.
Yet doth this wretch, illiterate as proud,
With low-lif’d homage low-lif’d business meet,
And pick the pockets of th’ unhappy crowd,
Moor’d in th’ Compter, Newgate, and The Fleet.
Bound by their creditors in durance fast!
In plaintive murmurs they bewail their fate,
And many an eager, wishful eye they cast,
Whene’er the turn-key opes and shuts the gate.
For who to dull imprisonment a prey,
The pleasing thoughts of freedom e’er resign’d,
From home, from wife and children dragg’d away,
“Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind!”
Some sharp attorney must the captive hire,
Who knows each secret winding of the laws;
Some previous fees th’ attorney will require
Before he ventures to conduct his cause,
For you, who traverse up and down this shrine,
And lounge and saunter at your wonted rate,
If in some future chat, with arch design,
Some wag should ask this Pettifogger’s fate;
In sneering mood some brother quill may say,
“I’ve seen him oft at ale-house table sit,
“Brushing with dirty hands, the crumbs away,
“And eye the mutton roasting on the spit.
“There in the snug warm corner of the bench,
“Part stain’d with grease, and part defil’d with beer
“His thirst with cooling porter would he quench,
“And bend his noddle o’er the Gazetteer.
“Hard by yon steps, now grinning as in scorn,
“Muttering his oaths and quibbles he would stand;
“Now hanging down his pate like one forlorn,
“As if some dread commitment was at hand.
“One morn I miss’d him in this custom’d hall,
“And at the Oak,[8] where he was wont to be,
“His clerk came down, and answered to my call,
“But by me stepp’d, nor at the Oak was he.
“The next I heard (oh, melancholy tale!
“On our profession was a foul reproach!)
“That he for forgery was confin’d in jail,
“And dragg’d (oh, shameful!) there without “a coach.”
His Character.
Vulture, the arrant’st rascal upon earth,
At length is caught, and into Newgate thrown.
Fair Honesty disclaim’d him at his birth,
And Villainy confess’d him as her own.
Grown old in sin, at no one crime dismay’d,
’Gainst nature’s cries he arm’d his callous heart,
For when his father was to death convey’d,
He growl’d, and damn’d the slowness of the cart.
Jack Ketch, to shew his duty to his friend
Will soon confirm it with the strongest tie;
But on such ties what mortal would depend?
A rogue he liv’d, and like a rogue he’ll die.
Now prest with guilt, he feels its sharpest sting,
Great his transgressions, and but small his hope,
He gave the Sheriff (all he had!) a ring,
He gain’d from justice (all he fear’d!) a rope.
No farther seek his vices to disclose,
But leave the culprit to his dark abode;
There let him rest, till, breaking his repose,
The hangman summons him to Tyburn-road.
——:o:——
An Elegy written in St. Stephens.
Gazettes now toll the melancholy knell,
Of Statesmen fallen from their high degree;
Whitehead disdains to ring their passing bell,
And leaves the task to Printers and to me.
Now fades Ambition’s landscape on the sight,
Mock-patriot faces marks of sadness hold,
Dire Disappointment hides his head in night,
But Faction wakes to pen Addresses bold.
In yonder stately rook’ry (Brookes’s fane)
Nothing is heard but rout and wild uproar;
Th’ affrighted Rooks forsake their wonted reign,
Tables are turn’d, and hazard is no more.
Beneath this dome, where dwells St. Stephen’s shade,
And benches rife in many a verdant bed,
No seats are occupied, no motions made,
The quondam Treas’ry Members all are fled.
The early call of incense-breathing tools,
The Council’s summons thund’ring at their door;
The Levee’s courtly pomp (the pride of fools)
Shall rouze them from their privacy no more.
For them no more shall Council dinners smoke,
Or City feasts display their sumptuous fare;
No needy hangers-on retail each joke,
No parasites the flatt’ring smile prepare.
Some time they reap’d the harvest of the feats
Full many an act they plann’d, debated well;
Their chariots rattled thro’ Augusta’s streets,
And loud they laugh’d, whilst public credit fell.
Yet let not future statesmen mock their toil,
Their strange connection, and their means obscure;
Nor grandeur look with a disdainful smile,
Because, beside their faults, these men were poor.
Not all the wealth that either India brings,
Not all those arts which fell corruption tries,
Can buy the best prerogative of Kings
To listen to an injur’d people’s cries.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the blame,
That mem’ry, o’er their fall, no trophies raise;
Those men had better die without a name,
Who merit infamy instead of praise.
Perhaps, amidst this band, have sunk in night,
Some hearts once pregnant with celestial fire,
Hands that might well have done their country right,
Or wak’d to extacy the Muse’s lyre.
But Science, tho’ she led their early youth,
Beheld her power to politics give way;
Accurst self-int’rest hid the face of truth
And party zeal assum’d unrivall’d sway.
Perhaps some Calvin, in whose restless brain
Things call’d Reform Bills lurk’d, (a specious brood,)
Perhaps some Catiline might head their train,
Some Cromwell yet unstain’d with legal blood.
The votes of venal Senates to command,
To break the Constitution’s strongest ties;
To seize the sacred charters of the land,
And on the ruins of her commerce rise,
Their lot forbade, nor circumscrib’d alone
Their views tow’rd India, but their plots unplanned,
Forbad to chain their sovereign on his throne
And ride triumphant o’er th’ insulted land.
Far from their Monarch’s sight, the senate’s strife,
These madd’ning Patriots now shall learn to stay.
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
Unplac’d, unpension’d, unlamented, stray.
From The History of the Westminster Election. London, J. Debrett. 1784.
——:o:——
Elegy,
Written in a Grub street Garret.
Now sinks the sun within the azure main,
The dirty walls assume a darker hue;
Each brother Poet racks his muddy brain
To write fresh strictures on the fighting Jew.
Now the whole house a solemn stillness holds,
Save from the staircase head, with noisy tongue,
My landlady inexorably scolds,
And with shrill clamours interrupts my song.
Beneath a heap of rude waste paper plac’d,
(Alas that Grub-street Bards so soon should die!)
The writings of my brethren are disgrac’d,
Or, doom’d to chandlers-shops, neglected lie.
Fresh oysters, chaunted with melodious voice,
Or Printers’ Devils ever hasty tread,
Shall nought avail to make these men rejoice,
Or rouse those writings which to fame are dead.
For these no more the ceilings shall be swept,
Or spiders driven from their dreary dens,
Who twice ten months have unmolested slept
And brav’d the fury of succeeding pens.
Oft did the actors tremble at their power,
When rang’d in dread array along the pit,
To hiss the varied fictions of each hour,
Supreme in judgment, arbiters of wit.
Let not rich aldermen the feasts deride
To which necessity the Poet calls;
For Nature, bounteous parent, can provide
Delicious fare apart from Gilded Walls.
Faint are the joys which Ven’son can bestow,
Faint is the pleasure Turtle can impart;
By sad experience we are taught to know,
These aching limbs succeed, with anguish’d heart.
Nor you, thrice happy few! whose writings please,
Contemn the Bard whom Fame disdains to crown,
Or scorn the wretch, whose vain attempts to seize
The Laureat Wreath, are sadly overthrown.
Can pompous dedication’s splendid line,
Or praises on rich Lords profusely poured,
Make Envy her dire qualities resign,
Or empty fame satiety afford?
Perhaps in this sad garret once has lodged
Some vent’rous Knight, well skill’d to cog the die,
Who dextrously the Bailiffs oft has dodged,
Or made the sleepy watchmen nimbly fly.
Some sturdy Humphries, that with brawny fists,
Well skill’d in Boxing’s scientific lore,
Defied the Sons of Israel to the lists,
And beat their champion till he rose no more.
Some Peter Pindar here has tun’d his lyre,
Or some sagacious Pig here learn’d to read;
Some Juggler chewed a stone, or swallowed fire;
Or here to eat live cats ’twas first decreed.
Yet e’en their fame from Malice to defend,
Unhappy Poets shall essay to write,
With labour’d lines and verses badly penn’d,
Whate’er the God of Dulness may recite.
Their Names and Portraits on the dusty walls,
With ballads setting forth their high renown,
In rural cottages, or servants halls,
Shall gratify the gaping country clown.
For what incurious mind could e’er resign
The busy bustling pleasures of the town;
Who could the joys of London e’er decline,
Unless deterr’d by Poverty’s sad frown.
On some gay scene, by flattering Fancy dress’d,
The visionary mind still loves to dwell;
And Sadler’s Wells, or Lord Mayor’s gaudy vests,
Delight the village beau, or rustic belle.
For thee, who, mindful of the Scribbler’s lot
Dost in these lines their ill success relate,
If chance, when in the world thy name’s forgot,
Some kindred Poet should enquire thy fate?
Haply some tavern waiter may declare,
“Oft have we seen him at the hour of ten
Sipping his coffee, with a mournful air,
Or holding sage discourse with learned men.
In yonder box, now moisten’d as with tears,
Conning his wayward verses he would sit;
Now sooth’d with hope, and now depress’d with fears,
He pour’d the wild effusions of his wit.
One morn we miss’d him at the ’custom’d place,
Nor at the bar, nor in the room was he:
Another came, who had not seen his face,
In the King’s Bench, or Fleet, or Marshalsea.
Him next, in sad procession borne along,
We saw proceeding through the churchyard’s gloom
Affliction had abridg’d his mournful song,
And wrote this sad inscription on his tomb.”
Epitaph.
Here rests his head, six feet beneath the earth,
An hapless youth, to hunger often known;
The Grub-street Muses frown’d not at his birth,
But mark’d the scribbling infant for their own.
Tho’ in his breast each virtue made abode,
The Public never recompensed his lays;
He gave the King—’twas all he could—an ode—
The King refus’d his only wish—the Bays.
No further seek his errors to reveal,
Or scrutinise his wit with envious eye
Oblivion’s hand his writings shall conceal,
And with the Poet all his works shall die.
From The Literary Magazine, and British Review, London, September, 1789.
——:o:——
Elegy.
Written in Bartlemy Fair at five o’clock in the morning.
The clock bell tolls the hour of early day,
The lowing herd their Smithfield penance drie,
The watchman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the fair—all solitude to me!
Now the first beams of morning glad the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds;
Save when the sheep dog bays with hoarse affright,
And brutal drovers pen the unwilling folds.
Save that where sheltered, or from wind or shower,
The lock’d out ’prentice, or frail nymph complain,
Of such as, wandering near their secret bower,
Molest them, sensible in sleep, to pain,
Beneath those ragged tents—that boarded shade,
Which late display’d its stores in tempting heaps;
There, children, dogs, cakes, oysters, all are laid,
There guardian of the whole, the master sleeps.
The busy call of care-begetting morn,
The well-slept passenger’s unheeding tread;
The showman’s clarion, or the echoing horn,
Too soon must rouse them from their lowly bed.
Perhaps in this neglected booth is laid,
Some head volcanic, oft discharging fire!
Hands—that the rod of magic lately sway’d;
Toes—that so nimbly danc’d upon the wire.
Some clown, or pantaloon—the gazers’ jest,
Here, with his train in dirty pageant stood:
Some tired-out posture master here may rest,
Some conjuring swordsman—guiltless of his blood!
The applause of listening cockneys to command,
The threats of city-marshal to despise;
To give delight to all the grinning band,
And read their merit in spectators eyes,
Is still their boast;—nor, haply, theirs alone,
Polito’s lions (though now dormant laid)
And human monsters, shall acquire renown,
The spotted Negro—and the armless maid!
Peace to the youth who, slumbering at the Bear,
Forgets his present lot, his perils past:
Soon will the crowd again be thronging there,
To view the man on wild Sombrero cast.
Careful their booths, from insult to protect
These furl their tapestry, late erected high;
No longer with prodigious pictures deck’d,
They tempt the passing youth’s astonish’d eye.
But when the day calls forth the belles and beaux,
The cunning showmen each device display,
And many a clown the useful notice shows,
To teach ascending strangers—where to pay.
Sleep on, ye imps of merriment, sleep on!
In this short respite to your labouring train;
And when this time of annual mirth is gone,
May ye enjoy, in peace, your hard-earned gain!
From The Morning Chronicle. 1810.
Bartholomew (or Bartlemy) Fair, was formerly held in Smithfield on September 3rd, unless that day fell on a Sunday. Of later years it became an intolerable nuisance in the city, the shows were discontinued in 1850, and the Fair was proclaimed for the last time in 1855. A very interesting account of the old customs attending it will be found in Hone’s “Every Day Book.”
——:o:——
Elegy,
Written in Drury Lane Theatre.
The prompter rings the lofty curtain down,
The gaping audience leave the pit with glee,
Homeward in troops returns the weary town,
And leaves the house to emptiness and me.
Now fades each glimmering candle to the sight,
And thro’ the air a smoky silence reigns,
Save where some lobby hero seeks the fight,
And bravely gets a beating for his pains:
Save that to scare Piazza-haunting flocks,
The moping watchman does in oaths complain,
Of such as, wandering near his secret box,
With clamour loud intrude on his domain.
Their parts perform’d, behind that curtain’s shade,
Where stretch the scenes in many a motley heap,
Each in his humble lodging quiet laid,
The chorus-singing tribe securely sleep.
The summons of rehearsal-bringing morn,
The prompter whispering from his wooden shed,
The trumpet, hautboy, clarionet, and horn,
Shall rouse each man to-morrow from his bed.
And yet for them no opera pours its rhyme;
No loud encore rewards their evening care;
No children run to hail their pantomime,
Or crowd the box, the envied laugh to share.
As sailors oft they hail’d Britannia’s shore;
As forty thieves they spurn’d the Sultan’s yoke;
Their shoulders oft Peruvian Rolla bore;
How bow’d their heads when mighty Bluebeard spoke.
Let not tragedians mock their useful toil,
Their russet boots by hundreds worn before;
Nor fashion hear, with a disdainful smile,
The lowly annals of our Thespian corps.
The dice of Beverley, the straw of Lear,
And all that Hamlet, all Macbeth e’er gave,
In the fifth act conclude their high career—
For tragic glory leads but to the grave.
Nor you, rich actors, lay on these the blame,
If their poor names no daily journals raise,
Where, thro’ the long-drawn column, bent on fame,
The editor resounds the note of praise.
Can studied puffs an actor’s fame decide,
Or to a throne a mute attendant carry?
Can praise give pow’rs that nature has denied,
Or make Beau Clincher equal to Sir Harry?
Perhaps in these neglected ranks has stray’d
Some swelling bosom, fraught with tragic fire;
Tongues that Othello’s vengeance might have stay’d,
Or base Iago prov’d a living liar!
But authors to their eyes their ample plays,
Rich in fine acting parts did never bring;
The manager repress’d their mental blaze,
And pent them up in chorusses to sing.
Of sonnetteers, full many a rhyming moan,
The monthly magazines, unread, contain;
Full many a joke is cut to die unknown,
Lost in the echoing dome of Drury Lane.
Some unknown Garrick, with advent’rous wing,
Clipp’d by the shears of want and melancholy;
Some low, inglorious Braham here may sing,
Some Betty, guiltless of a nation’s folly!
Th’ applause of wondering boxes to attract,
Their face engraved in public shops to boast,
T’ ensure a full box-book whene’er they act,
And read their history in the Morning Post,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib’d alone,
Their growing talents, but their faults unseen
T’ omit the author’s jest, insert their own
Or woo the boxes while they slight the scene.
By mummery the writer’s text to hide,
Their influence o’er the galleries to boast,
Or mar the play, and decency deride,
With nonsense purchas’d at the muse’s cost.
Far from the rattling squares and Fashioned sport,
Their small finances rather bade them stay
In Russell Street, Long Acre, Martlet Court;
Convenient spots contiguous to the play!
Yet e’en these names from Lethe to protect,
Some lengthen’d play-bill still erected there,
With letters of all sorts and sizes deck’d,
Implores the passing tribute of a stare!
Their names, their characters, a motley pack;
Great heroes first, and mute attendants last:
Robbers and senators, in red and black,
To show the public how the parts are cast.
For who, to careless nonchalance a prey,
Of self-importance never gave one hint,
Pass’d idly by the red bills of the day,
Nor cast one look to see himself in print?
Ambition on our mimic stage will rise,
Trueman survives, when Barnwell yields his breath,
Emilia raves, when Desdemona dies;
The bleeding captain emulates Macbeth.
For thee, who mindful of thy brethren dead,
Dost in these lines their useful toils relate,
If chance by curiosity misled,
Some gentle critic shall enquire thy fate,
Haply the leader of the band may say:
“Oft have I seen him standing there aloof,
“Eager to write, as well as act a play,
“And wooing Phœbus frowning on the roof.
“There on the boards he often play’d his part
“Up to his ears in business of the stage;
“He ey’d the boxes oft with aching heart,
“And trembling, strove their favor to engage.
“Fronting the audience, in a double mood,
“Muttering his dialogue, now brisk, now sad:
“Sometimes, as actor, tolerably good,
“Always, as bard, intolerably bad.
“One night they hiss’d him in the accustom’d scene,
“I thought the play was damn’d—ah, woe is me!
“Another came, with scarce a pause between,
“They hiss’d again—in doleful plight was he.
“The third with dirges due, in sad array,
“The prompter’s sheep-bell rang our poet’s knell,
“Approach and read (none else will read) the play,
“If not, the epilogue may do as well.”
The Epilogue.
Here rests his head upon prompter’s shelf,
A bard to wisdom and to wit unknown;
Thalia smil’d not on the scribbling elf,
But gentle dulness mark’d him for her own.
Coy from his suit the Muses turn’d away,
“A Day in London” ill his toil requites;
He gave the town, t’was all he had—a play;
The town denied his only wish—nine nights!
No further seek his writings to deride,
Nor try to mend what sentiment has marr’d,
Oblivion’s veil his comedy shall hide,
And shroud in night the actor and the bard.
From The British Minerva. Printed in Hamburgh. 1818.
——:o:——
Elegy,
Written at a Christmas Feast in the country.
The clock proclaims the welcome dinner hour,
The guests are met—and ev’ry brow unbent,
Swift circles round the draught of potent power,
Inspiring mirth, and banishing restraint.
Now crowd the Christmas dainties on the sight,
And all the room is hush’d in silence deep;
Save where the plates with jarring sounds unite,
And busy jaws a ceaseless murmur keep.
Save that from yonder bench, with hollow groan,
The faithful Tray does to himself complain
Of those that, mindful of themselves alone,
Allow him not a portion to obtain.
Around that friendly board, with plenty spread
Where rise the bones in many a greasy heap,
Each in his easy chair supinely laid,
The Sons of toil their annual revel keep.
The forest moaning hollow in the gale;
The cold and cheerless winds surcharg’d with snow;
The headlong torrent rushing down the vale;
Compel them not their banquet to forego.
For them no far-fetcht luxuries are spread,
Nor costly Burgundy their care beguiles:
Yet Peace and Plenty at their table-head
Are seen, with all their family of smiles.
Oft did they fast throughout the by-gone year,
Their looks confirm the truth of what I say;
How patiently they bore their lot severe!
How did they welcome this auspicious day!
Oh! let not Lux’ry mock their diet plain,
Their flowing can, and toasts of pretty maids;
Nor titled Pride behold, with proud disdain,
The poor, but neat, repast, that Labour spreads.
The crowd, that forms sweet smiling Pleasure’s train,
And all that fickle fortune’s favours share,
Confess alike the iron sway of pain;
The paths of power are but the paths of care.
Nor you, ye rich! account it as a fault,
Though at their board no chosen wines are plac’d
Where the inspiring quintessence of malt,
Lulls every sorrow, every care to rest.
Can luxury’s sons in bloom, or vigour, vie
With those of industry and toil severe?
Can creams and jellies taste like yonder pye;
Or claret string the nerves like nappy beer?
Perhaps at this carousal might be found,
Some heart that oft has bled at Mis’ry’s cry;
Hands that could hurl oppression to the ground,
Or wipe the falling tear from Sorrow’s eye.
But these hard times a cheerless gloom have thrown
O’er all their smiling prospects of delight;
Chill Penury, with heart-apalling frown,
And hollow eye, now stands before their sight.
Full many a tear bedims Misfortune’s eye,
And, streaming from its source, unseen descends.
Full many a sad and unavailing sigh
Is breath’d in secret—and with ether blends.
Some unknown Howard, that, with pity smit,
Has oft explor’d Affliction’s sad retreat;
Some poor unhonour’d Nelson here may sit;
Some Burns, that sings and struggles with his fate.
Th’ applause of jolly topers to obtain,
At feasts to crack a bottle with Lord May’r;
To scour the watch along some dirty lane,
And rend with loud huzzas the midnight air,
Fortune forbids.—Nor circumscribes alone
Their pleasures, but their sorrows too confines;
Forbids in private sadly to bemoan
The gout and all the ills debauch combines;
The treach’rous perfidy of friends to prove,
To lose at play a fortune, madly driven;
Or, for some loose-rob’d wanton strumpet’s love,
Risk life, and all their future hopes of heav’n.
Far from the hamlet, where their fathers grew,
The sons have never wish’d nor sought to stray;
Fortune their humble dwelling never knew,
And Science there ne’er shed her piercing ray.
Yet, e’en their welcome holiday they keep,
A smile of pleasure sparkles in their eyes;
Drest in their Sunday’s suits, and drinking deep,
They draw the smile and pity of the wise.
Their wants, their woes, without disguise made known,
The void, in conversation oft supply:
And many saving maxims are laid down,
That teach the poor, lank hunger to defy.
For who, to penury and grief a prey,
At Christmas-tide no signs of pleasure shows?
Flies from the scenes of happiness away,
Nor casts one wistful glance where plenty flows?
At that glad time the face in smiles is drest,
And ev’ry honest heart around is gay;
E’en the poor lab’ror strives to have a feast,
E’en the sad widow wipes her tears away.
For thee who, mindful of this festal day,
Dost try in rhyme its pleasures to relate,
If chance, when Reason shall regain her sway,
Some boon companion should enquire thy fate,
Haply some near-observing friend may say,
“When all was o’er, we saw him scour along,
Splashing through every puddle in his way,
In hopes to gain his home e’er morning sprung.
“There in yon stream, that slowly wanders down
The silent vale, remote from care and strife,
His listless length at midnight hour was thrown,
And ’scap’d, by chance, with scarce a sign of life.
“Along yon trackless heath, his dreary way,
Mutt’ring ten thousand curses, he explor’d:
Now starting, wild with terror and dismay,
Now dreading yet th’ unfathomable ford.
“That morn we missed him ope his cottage door,
Within the barn, and on the bowling green;
Another fill’d his chair at dinner hour:
Nor at the sports, nor ale-house was he seen.
“At night, by friends and neighbours homeward borne,
We saw him pillow’d on the couch of rest,
Approach and hear his faithful Mary mourn,
And mark the throbbings of the anxious breast.”
The Soliloquy.
Here rests his head, now free from care or mirth,
A man for drinking and misfortunes known;
Cold poverty presided at his birth,
And ever since has mark’d him for her own.
Large were the draughts he quaff’d, by passion driv’n,
And reason’s power was lost amid the flow;
He gave his sorrow to the winds of heaven,
And snatch’d a short oblivion to his woe.
No further seek his frailties to disclose,
Or tell each little failing of his life,
Here they, forgot in silence, should repose—
The bosom of his confidant and wife.
From The Pleasures of Nature; or, the Charms of Rural Life. With other Poems. By David Carey. London: Vernon and Hood. 1803.
(D. Carey also published “Reign of Fancy, with Lyrical Tales,” 1804. “Craig Phadric; Visions of Sensibility, with Legendary Tales,” Printed at Inverness for the Author, 8vo., 1811. Carey was the son of a manufacturer in Arbroath, Forfarshire, where he was born in 1782. He edited The Inverness Journal for five years, and died at Arbroath, October 4th, 1824.)
——:o:——
Elegiac Stanzas,
On returning at Day-break, through an Alley
in London, from a Ball at Lady Dash’s.
The Watchman drawls the hour of dawning day,
The breakfast booth is set with smoking tea,
The dancers homeward wind their weary way,
And leave the streets to morning and to me.
Now brighter beams upon the pavement dart,
Though yet a gen’ral silence holds the air,
Save where some gard’ner drives his early cart,
Or drowsy milkmen clank along the square:
Save that, disguised with liquor and with paint,
The fragile fair complains of some mishap,
From rough patroles, who, stern and ungallant,
Molest her chill and solitary nap.
Beneath these humble roofs, these broken tiles,
Blown from their lay’rs when April winds were high,
On beds uncurtain’d, and in crowded files,
This narrow alley’s lab’ring tenants lie.
The pealing knocker at the pompous porch,
The fretful gabble of the elbow’d guest,
The clattering carriage, or the flaring torch,
Has never robb’d them of their lowly rest.
For them no dame shall plan the brilliant ball,
Nor Mr. Speaker ply his evening care:
No lacqueys bow before them through the hall,
Nor scream their titles up the crowded stair.
Oft does the dray their sturdy strength invite,
Their harden’d hands oft haul the stubborn rope,—
How jocund do they shut their shops at night!
How smirk their chins beneath the Sunday soap!
Let not nice Nugent mock their useful toil,
Their ill cut raiment, or their homely food,
Nor the Black Dandy[9] hear with scornful smile,
The early hours of that unpolish’d brood.
The pomp of liv’ries and the whirl of wheels,
And all that Hoby,[10] all that Dyde[11] e’er gave,
Are random toys that Fortune blindly deals,—
Grave to the fool, but foolish to the grave.
Nor you, ye fair, contemn their lowly doom,
If fops for them no rapt’rous plaudits raise;
While in the buzz of many a scented room,
Your voice, your dancing swell the note of praise.
Can animating reel, or melting waltz,
Teach you to thread the giddier maze of life?
Can D’Egville’s skill redeem one step when false?
Or Cramer lull the jars of man and wife?
Perhaps in yon dark garret may repose
Eyes, of fair Castlereagh’s celestial fire;
Hands that, like Congreve’s, had consumed our foes,
Or swept, like Southey’s, o’er the laureat lyre;
But Fashion to their eyes her fruitful store
Of gay accomplishment did ne’er unroll:
Chill penury repressed each livelier pow’r,
And nipp’d the tender flow’rets of the soul.
Full many a Luttrell’s mental ray serene
The wide uncultured bogs of Erin bear:
Full many a Hope is born to blush unseen,
Or waste her sweetness at a village fair.
Some nameless Ward, whose master-wit repress’d
The alehouse patriot’s dull disloyal arts,
Some bright untoasted Hertford here may rest—
Some Jersey, guiltless of our broken hearts.
The Morning Post’s applause to bear away,
To tease the envious mob of aping cits,
To scatter plenty at a fête ornée,
To learn of Statesmen, and to live with wits,
Their lot forbade: a power supremely wise
Their fate, their fashion, and their faults confin’d:
Forbade, to deal destruction with their eyes,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind:
The modest throes of struggling truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenious shame,
To vie with demireps in paint and pride,
And swell the calendar of evil fame.
Far from St. James’s, far from all the Squares,
Their vulgar footsteps never learn’d to stray;
About St. Martin’s Lane, or Lambeth Stairs,
They keep the noisy tenor of their way.
Yet, that ev’n these may taste their due delights,
Some Evening Tea-garden with holly fence,
From caxon’d quizzes, and from flounce-cloak’d frights,
Obtains the tribute of their eighteen pence.
Their cakes, their ale, brought by a tidy maid,
The place of venison and champagne supply:
And cocks and hens are clipp’d from yew-tree shade,
That meet their taste for rural scenery.
For who, in Nature’s favourite month of June,
Seeks not the velvet of some verdant sod?
Feels the warm ray of Sunday afternoon,
Nor casts one restless, roving look abroad?
Tax’d carts unnumber’d roll through Bethnal Green,
By Hatchett’s door a knot of coaches wait:
On Greenwich Hill are some smart ankles seen,
Even at the Horns some fearless husbands bait.
For thee, who, mindful of a friendless race,
Dost in these rhymes their little lives define,
If chance, when years have sped their silent pace,
Some kindred spirit shall enquire of thine,
Haply, some gentle dowager may say,—
“Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,
“Kicking from painted floors the chalk away,
“While sleepy chaperons would sit and yawn.
“There, where the Palace fronts St. James’s Street,
“And rears its old fantastic tow’rs so high,
“The rattling carriages he loved to meet,
“And gossip with the folk that babbled by.
“From rout to rout, now laughing at the tricks
“Of wayward jilts and dandies he would rove:
“Now deeply wrapt in chit chat politics,
“Or slyly jesting on some corner-love.
“One morn I miss’d him in th’ accustom’d walks
“Along the Park, and near his fav’rite trees;
At night he sate not in my opera box,
“Nor came to sup at Lady ——’s.
Next morn I heard that, just two days before,
With a loved bride from busy Town he went:
Sit down with patience a few moments more,
And read a letter that he lately sent:
The Letter.
Here lives, retired from all the haunts of men,
A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
The muses frown’d not on his early pen,
But Disappointment mark’d him for her own.
His heart was warm, and his ambition high,
But Heav’n decreed a safer, stiller life:
He gave to pomp and pow’r a parting sigh:
He gain’d from Heav’n a fond and faithful wife.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Nor wake his wishes for a world forgot:
Here, in his rustic home he finds repose,
And love and letters bless his lonely cot.
From Posthumous Parodies and other Pieces, composed by several of our most celebrated Poets. London. John Miller, 25, Bow Street. 1814.
——:o:——
The Last of the Lotteries.
(Public Lotteries were abolished by Act of Parliament in 1826, and the last was drawn on October 18, 1826.)
The Chancellor has passed the stern decree,
The daily press rings out the doleful knell,
Warning each old adventurer, that he
Must now of Lotteries take a last farewell!
Dismay and wonder now pervade Cornhill—
The printers, too, are in a dismal rout,
Swearing they ne’er shall print another bill,
When those for whom they puffed are thus puffed out.
O Fred’rick Robinson, thou man of death!
Our scanty pittance why should you begrudge it?
Why—oh! why thus in dungeon stop our breath,
And shut us cruelly from out thy budget?
What was it seem’d offensive in thine eyes,
And gave thine act a plausible pretence?
Say—didst thou think the selling a large prize
Was in itself a capital offence?
Whatever be the cause, the effect is sad;
Since thou must close his well-known lucky wicket,
Bish, our Leviathan, is gone half mad,
And looks as dismal as a blank-drawn ticket.
Carrol—alas! his carols, turned to sighs,
Seem to his cheerful name to give the lie;
Hazard, with fear of death before his eyes
Declares he’ll stand the “hazard of the die.”
Swift, of the Poultry, too, is ill at ease,
His grief breaks forth in this pathetic swell—
I go to pine on wretched bread and cheese,
For, ah! to poultry I must bid farewell!
Martin complains his rapid flight is checked,
And doth the ruin of his house deplore,
Wond’ring that martin’s nests don’t claim respect,
As they were wont to do in times of yore.
Richardson says the world will teem with crimes,
And woe and misery pervade the state;
For what can prosper in those hapless times,
When Good-luck is proscribed, and out of date?
The web of death encircles J. D. Webb,
The common ruin on him too hath landed;
Him, too, must reach this melancholy ebb,
And all the fortunes of the Strand be stranded.
Pidding, who did his corner much enjoy,
Says, while he contemplates the prospect dim,
“How oft I’ve hung out my gay blue-coat boy—
Now I must hang myself instead of him!”
Happily, next year, some friend shall say and weep,
As up Cornhill he takes his lonely way—
“Where are the harvests which I used to reap,
Beneath the sickle of each drawing day?
“Ah! where is Sivewright? where is Eyton now?
Where are the placards, which so lately told
The clustering congregation when and hew
The thirty thousands were all shared and sold?
“Where dwelt activity there reigneth gloom:
My well-known friends have lost their public rank:
The Lottery has pass’d into the tomb,
And left tse world an universal blank.”
From The Literary Gazette.
——:o:——
An Elegy,
Written in the King’s Bench Prison.
The turnkey rings the bell for shutting out,
The visitor walks slowly to the gate;
The debtor chum-ward hastes in idle rout,
And leaves the Bench to darkness, me, and fate.
Now fades the high-spiked wall upon the sight,
And all the space a silent air assumes!
Save where some drunkard from the Brace[12] takes flight,
And drowsy converse lulls the distant rooms.
Save that from yonder Strong Room,[13] close confined,
Some noisy wight does to the night complain,
Of Mister Jones, the marshal, who, unkind
Has, by a week’s confinement, check’d his reign.
Within those strong-built walls, down that parade,
Where lie the stones all paved in order fair,
Each in his narrow room by bailiffs laid,
The new-made pris’ners o’er their caption swear.
The gentle morning bustle of their trade,
The ’prentice, from the garret overhead,
The dapper shopman, or the busy maid,
Will never here arouse them from their bed.
For them no polish’d Rumfords here shall burn,
Nor wife uxorious ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their dad’s return,
Or climb his knees, the sugar-plums to share.
Oft did the creditor to their promise yield,
As often they that solemn promise broke;
How jocund did they drive the duns afield!
’Till nick’d at last within the bailiff’s yoke!
Let not ambition mock their heedless fate,
And idly cry, their state might have been better;
Nor grandeur hear with scorn while I relate
The short insolvent annals of the debtor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
All wealth procures, its being to entrench,
Await alike the writ’s appointed hour:
The paths of spendthrifts lead but to the Bench.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
That they are here, and not at large like you,
That they have bills at tailor’s, and wine vault
Bills that, alas! have long been overdue.
Can story gay, or animated tale,
Back from this mansion bid us freely run?
Can honour’s voice o’er creditors prevail,
Or flatt’ry soothe the dull cold ear of Dun?
Perhaps in this confined retreat is shut
Some heart, to make a splash once all on fire:
Skill, that might Hobhouse to the rout have put,
Or loyally play’d Doctor Southey’s lyre.
But prudence to their eyes her careful page,
Rich in pounds, shillings, pence, did ne’er unroll.
Stern creditors repress’d their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of their soul.
Full many a blood, in fashion an adept,
The dark, lone rooms of spunging-houses bear
Full many a fair is born to bloom unkept,
And waste her sweetness, none know how or where.
Some cockney Petersham, that with whisker’d cheek
Once moved in Bond Street, Rotten Row, Pall Mall,
Some humble Mrs. Clarke[14] for rest may seek,
Some Burdett, guiltless quite of speaking well.
The applauses of admiring mobs to gain
To be to threats of ruin, prison, lost;
To see they have not spent their cash in vain,
And read their triumph in the Morning Post.
That lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone
Their growing follies, but themselves confined;
The bailiff grimly seized them for his own,
And turnkeys closed the gates on them behind.
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
The King’s Bench terribly pulls down our pride
For high or lowly born, ’tis all the same.
Far from the city’s mad ignoble strife
They still retain an eager wish to stray;
They hate this cool sequester’d mode of life,
And wish at liberty to work their way.
And on those walls that still from duns protect
Those fire-proof walls, so strongly built and high,
With uncouth rhymes and mis-spelt verses deck’d,
They ask the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their names, their years, writ by th’ unletter’d muse
The place of fame and brass plate fill up well;
And many a lawyer’s too the stranger views
With pious wishes he may go to hell.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
His pleasing anxious liberty resign’d,
To Banco Regis bent his dreary way,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind.
On some one out, the prisoner still relies,
Some one to yield him comfort, he requires;
E’en from the Bench the voice of nature cries,
E’en though imprison’d, glow our wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of the debtor’s doom,
Dost in these lines their hapless state relate;
If chance by writ or capias hither come,
Some kindred spirit may inquire thy fate.
Haply, some hoary bailiff here may say,
“Oft have we watch’d him at the peep of dawn,
But, damn him, still he slipped from us away,
And when we thought we had him, he was gone.
“Where Drury Lane erects its well-known head,
And Covent Garden lifts its domes on high,
Morning and noon and night we found him fled,
Most snugly poring on us passing by.
“On Sundays, ever smiling as in scorn,
Passing our houses, he would boldly rove;
We gave his case up as of one forlorn,
And for his person pined in hopeless love.
“One morn we track’d him near th’ accustom’d spot
Along the Strand, and by his favourite she—
Another came; yet still we caught him not,
But on the third, we nabb’d a youth,—’twas he.
“The next, with warrant due, we brought our man,
Snug to the Bench, here all the way from town,
Approach and read the warrant (if you can),
You may a copy get for half-a-crown.”
The Warrant.
Here rests his head, in “seventeen” and one,
A youth to fortune and to fame well-known.
But tradesmen trusted and began to dun,
And Mister Sheriff marked him for his own.
Great were his spendings, he naught put on shelf,—
To send a recompense law did not fail:
He gave his cred’tors, all he had—himself
He gain’d from them (all he abhorred) a gaol!
No further seek his doings to disclose,
Or draw his follies from this dull abode,
(Here he’ll at all events three months repose),
Th’ Insolvent Act may open then a road.
This Parody was published anonymously in a little work, entitled, “Prison Thoughts,” by a Collegian. London, John Lowndes, 1821. It was afterwards reprinted in “Doings in London, or Day and Night Scenes in the Metropolis,” by George Smeeton, which was published about 1828. In this it is said that the above Parody of Gray’s Elegy was written by a favourite dramatist, but it does not give his name.
——:o:——
Another parody, with a somewhat similar title, was published, in quarto, in 1790, of which the following is an exact reprint, omitting an advertisement, a list of subscribers, a dedication to Sir Martin Stapylton Bart, and some rather tedious footnotes:—
AN ELEGY.
In Imitation of Gray.
Written in
The King’s Bench Prison.
By a Minor.
Printed for the Author; and sold by R. Lea, Greek Street,
Mdccxc.
The surly crier rings his nightly knell,
The willing guest departs his weary way,
And hears with joy the lonely Prison-bell,
Nor wishes with his wretched friend to stay.
Now rest the noisy racket-playing cry,
And rattling balls against the dreary wall;
To them succeed the ruin-hurling die,
And bawling Potmen’s never ceasing call.
Within these narrow cells, in durance vile,
Where lurid Vengeance holds its baleful reign,
Where awful Ruin hovers ’round the pile,
Th’ inglorious captives ev’ry grief sustain.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn
Gives not its wonted joy unto their shed,
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn
No more entices from their lowly bed.
Here dwells the rustic, who with thoughtless zeal
The petty tyrant of his fields defied,
Doom’d, by some lordly Villain’s frown, to feel
The tedious malice of hard hearted Pride.
Here too, in long captivity remain
The hardy warrior, and the nobly brave,
Who dar’d their Country’s battles to sustain
Their honor’d Country’s Liberty to save
But oh! despise not their ignoble toil,
Their loss of Liberty and Life obscure,
Nor proudly hear with a disdainful smile
The dull complaint of the imprison’d poor.
On those who boast of Heraldry and Pow’r
Or all that Pomp and sordid wealth e’er gave,
The angry storms of Fortune soon may lour
A wretched Prison may precede the grave.
Not ev’n can Virtue’s sacred name defend;
For round the good, and near the bad await,
The one t’afflict, the other to amend,
The never-failing ministers of Fate.
Perhaps within this sad abode may pine,
A heart once pregnant with Celestial fire,
Souls, that to warlike deeds do still incline,
And hands, that still might wake the living lyre:
But Liberty to them, by cruel fate,
Is now denied the panting heart to warm;
Chill Penury confines their low estate,
And Life’s to them devoid of ev’ry charm.
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Within these hated walls do they remain;
With patience drink the bitter dregs of Life,
And the dire load of misery sustain.
Their hopes, their wishes, and the chance of fate,
The place of certainty, or truth supply;
They still would triumph o’er the proud one’s hate,
Nor yet despairing wildly wish to die.
For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
A miserable being e’er resign’d,
Left the dull precincts of the doleful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling’ring look behind?
Still on some breast does ev’ry soul rely,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires,
For distant friends we breathe th’impassion’d sigh,
To tears of Sympathy each wretch aspires.
But here, entomb’d within this living grave,
Too many sink beneath their wretched fate,
No more have Friends the pleasing pow’r to save,
And long-delay’d assistance comes too late.
While some, alas! neglected by each friend,
The world despising, by the world forgot,
With jovial riot their dull hours defend,
And drown with sparkling wine their hapless lot.
The sumptuous feast, and ev’ry sensual joy,
With noisy mirth each gloomy night infest;
Still must Reflection’s piercing dart annoy,
And such vile pleasures but disturb their rest.
And yet some tutors with a scanty fare
Advise a Prison, venial faults to mend:
But Ah! they little know the anxious care,
And less the danger which such schools attend.
Can prudent maxims to a conscious mind
Supply the place of Honor’s gentler sway?
Or can the dear-bought knowledge of mankind
The loss of Virtue’s gen’rous flame repay?
Many, by fond credulity betray’d,
Their happiness on other’s honor stake;
The faithless friends the angry laws evade,
And honest friendship suffers for the rake.
The sober citizen, whose hard-earn’d wealth,
Is lost by sad vicissitude of trade,
With heartfelt sorrow undermines his health
While Prudent Friends his losses still upbraid.
Then by a cruel false deceiver led,
Wearied with mis’ry, frantic with despair,
The blooming Partner of his marriage bed,
Adds Jealous anguish to his wretched care.
For thee, who mindful of thy own mischance,
Dost in these lines an artless tale relate;
Some kindred spirit, or some friend perchance,
In future times may mourn thy hapless fate.
And when with dirges due, in sad array,
Slow thro’ the church-way path thy corpse be borne,
May these few lines compose the parting lay,
Grav’d on a stone beneath an aged thorn.
The Epitaph.
Here rest his cares within the friendly earth,
A Youth to fortune and to fame unknown;
Some Dæmon frown’d upon his humble birth,
And cheerless mis’ry marked him for her own.
When youthful, virtues glow’d within his breast,
Allur’d by Passion, by Example led,
With Folly’s children he too warmly prest,
And idle joys their baleful influence shed.
But soon succeed these pleasures of the town,
Th’ unfeeling persecution of the proud,
With black misfortune’s sad terrific frown,
And hard neglect of the unthinking crowd.
Deserted by his friends, by all mankind,
With silent anguish long he mourn’d his fate,
With joyful hope his willing breast resign’d
In expectation of an happier state.
Around his grave the cypress wreath entwine,
The Yew Tree’s shade shall add its solemn gloom;
The tender fair to pity will incline,
And drop a tear upon his early Tomb.
——:o:——
Epitaph on a Late Administration.
Here rest their Heads in Power’s and Honour’s grave,
A band to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
Fair Science never smil’d on their conclave,
And Scorn and Weakness mark’d them for their own.
Large were their means, yet constant their defeat,
And France, deriding, mock’d their wild intentions;
They gave to England, all they could—a debt;
They gain’d from England, all they wish’d—their Pensions.
Seek not (vain hope) their merits to disclose,
Nor paint their faults to sadden their condition;
These let them try with trembling hope t’ expose,
And those defend—on bench of Opposition.
From The Morning Chronicle (London). Jan. 18, 1811.
——:o:——
An Elegy in a London Churchyard.
Great Tom now sounds the close of busy day,
The weary dray horse rests from labour free,
From town, till morn, the merchant speeds his way,
And London leaves to tumult and to me.
Now stars terrestrial glimmer through each street,
Thro’ all the air a din confus’d is spread,
Save where perchance some list’ning crowd you meet,
By nightly songsters’ strain discordant led;
Save that from yonder watch-box standing near,
The old night-guardian tells his wonted tale;
Or urged by outrage dire to timely fear,
Makes his loud rattle sound upon the gale.
On cobbler’s stall, or screen’d by friendly shed,
Full many a maid once breath’d her nightly woes;
Yet here from chill misfortune ever fled,
The houseless wand’rers of the street repose.
The noisy call of Smithfield’s early train,
The sweep’s shrill matins from the chimney stack,
The dustman’s bell, or post-boy’s piping strain,
No more shall call their fleeting spirits back.
(Eight verses omitted)
* * * * *
Full many a forest oak of stately size
To menial purpose bends it’s lofty head;
Full many a treasure undiscover’d lies
Beneath the passenger’s unconscious tread.
Some latent Wren, who up the scaffold high,
Obedient hasten’d to the bricklayers call:
Some poor harmonic Tinker here may lie,
Some Statesman guiltless of his country’s fall.
The Virtuoso’s praises to command,
The soul to lift with transports to the skies,
To scatter mis’ry o’er a smiling land,
And fruitless schemes of conquest to devise.
Their lot forbade:—nor yet did fortune frown,
But equally their crimes and fame confin’d;
Forbade to wade thro’ folly to renown
And gain the execration of mankind.
(Seven verses omitted)
* * * * *
Haply some cit may say:—“The crowd among
“Oft have we seen him at the close of day,
“Bustling with hasty foot-steps thro’ the throng,
“To gain his fav’rite seat at some new play.
“There, in the midway region of the pit,
“Where Critics oft their arts malignant ply,
“Near to the orchestra, sedate he’d sit,
“And pore upon the scene with curious eye.
“Beneath yon elm, that each new loit’rer wooes,
“He lov’d to sit, absorbed in musings deep;
“Then up the Green-Park, or by Chelsea-Mews,
“He’d briskly run; or, tir’d, would slowly creep.
“One eve I miss’d him on th’ accustom’d way:
“Along the park, and near his fav’rite tree,
“Another came—I sought him at the play,
“Nor in the pit, box, nor gallery, was he
“The next in dreary hearse, with sad array,
“Slow to th’ uncypress’d church-yard he was borne,
“Approach and read (if thou hast time) the lay,
“Grav’d on the stone, that no proud lies adorn.”
EPITAPH.
Here rests his head upon a folio terse,
An Author, once to wits and patrons known;
The Critics frown’d not on his humble verse,
Nor did the world his labours quite disown.
Large his editions, but his readers few;
Fate did a recompence as largely send,
He wisely bade to Booksellers adieu,
And (in their stead) each Chandler found a friend.
No longer now pil’d up in useless state,
His pages freely circulate thro’ town:
Perhaps, at last, doom’d by capricious fate
To kindle pipes, or curl some crazy crown.
From The Morning Post and Gazetteer:
Thursday, November 28, 1799.
——:o:——
Nightly Thoughts in the Temple.
St. Dunstan’s bells proclaim departing day,
The weary hacks slow drag the axle-tree,
The ’prentice homeward runs his hasty way,
And leaves the Town to dulness and to me.
Now fades the glimm’ring lamps upon the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds;
Save where the watchman bawls “A cloudy night,”
And tipsy rev’ller the shut tavern scolds.
Save that yon victim of a ruffian’s pow’r
Does loudly to the street-patrole complain
Of such, as lurking at this silent hour,
Molest the king of midnight’s ancient reign.
Within those gates that iron strong has made,
Where rooms o’er rooms arise in many a heap,
Each in his chamber on a pillow laid,
The law-learn’d Benchers of the Temple sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twitt’ring from the straw-built shed,
The sheriff’s trumpet, or the postman’s horn
No more shall rouse them from their feather bed.
In them no more the muse’s fire shall burn,
Or metaphysics be their ev’ning care;
No school-boy’s classic triumphs shall return,
Or dulness pine the envied praise to share.
Oft did the grammar to their patience yield,
The Latin oft and stubborn Greek they spoke;
How jocund hied they to the cricket field!
How flew the ball before their sturdy stroke!
Let not a Wakefield mock their plodding toil,
Their text corrupt and pedagogue obscure;
Nor Porson hear, with a disdainful smile,
What stripes a slow-pac’d tyro must endure.
The boast of critic skill may worms devour,
And all that study, all that wit e’er gave,
Await alike th’ inevitable hour:
The backs of Russia cannot always save.
Nor you, ye fam’d, impute to these the fault
If learning o’er those shelves no volumes raise,
Where oft the book-collector loves to halt
And Lackington[15] yet swells with his own praise.
Can hot-press’d page, or mezzotinto bust,
Back to an author call th’ expended sum?
Can honour’s voice engage the printer’s trust,
Or flat’ry sooth the dull, cold debtor’s room?
Perhaps in those muse-slighted courts are laid
Some hearts once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of Thespis might have sway’d,
Or wak’d the modern Pindar’s laughing lyre,
But Themis to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of clients did unroll;
Chill penury repress’d their classic rage
Or beauty warm’d the current of the soul.
Yet many a term, a Lawyer, too serene,
The briefless bag to Westminster may bear,
Yet many a Lover’s born to sigh unseen,
Or waste his rhet’ric on th’ obdurate fair.
Some Nash, that had alike with dauntless breast
The little tyrant, or the great withstood
Some mute, inglorious Erskine there may rest;
Some Scott, ne’er thirsting for a patriot’s blood.
Th’ applause of list’ning juries to command,
The cause of Hardy and of Tooke to gain
To scatter pamphlets o’er their native land,
And read their praises from a foreign pen,
Their lot forbade; nor circumscrib’d alone
Their growing merit, but their faults confin’d;
Forbade to raise the persecutor’s throne,
And shut the gates of freedom on the mind.
The gentle charms of Christian truth to hide,
To wake her blushes of ingenuous shame,
Heaping the shrine of bigotry and pride,
With incense kindled at her sacred flame.
Far from the wrangling Bar’s high purchas’d strife,
On a back seat they mark the wordy fray;
Along the circuit to the vale of life,
They keep the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet e’en their heads from eave-drops to protect
Some frail umbrella still upheld on high
The uncouth wig, as Cloudesley Shovell’s deck’d,
Declare a councillor is passing by.
Their names, their years, spelt falsely in the news,
The place of fame and Marlborough supply;
And many a line around the Printer strews,
That teach how Barristers may wed and die.
But who, to dull law precedents a prey,
The pleasing cares of science e’er resign’d,
Left the warm novel or the well-wrought play,
Nor cast one longing, ling’ring look behind.
On summer’s pleasure the fagg’d clerk relies,
Some rural ease the pleader’s health requires;
E’en from the bench the Chief for leisure sighs,
E’en on Welch mountains seeks his wonted fires.
Henry, for thee, who now to science dead,
Dost on law folios rent thy classic pate;
If chance, by friendly recollection led,
Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate,
Haply some Drama-loving wight may say—
“Oft have we seen him at the hour of five,
“Brushing, with hasty steps the dust away,
“For Drury’s pit, and a front seat to strive.
“There, where a whisper from the stage can reach,
“Though for the gaudy Pantomime too nigh,
“At pompous nothings would he yawn and stretch,
“But mark the eloquence of Siddons’ eye.”
Hard by yon band, now fiddling as in scorn,
Musing on Godwin would his fancy rove:
Now, drooping, when he thought of men forlorn,
For public weal now slighting private love.
One eve I miss’d him o’er th’ accustom’d pit,
Along the Critics’ seat, near twiddle dee;
Another came, nor where the Gods do sit,
Nor up the slips, nor at half price was he.
Next morn, ’twixt lawyers two, in black array,
Slow through the hall of Rufus was he borne;
Approach and read (if thou can’st read) the lay
Engrav’d on parchment from an old deed torn.
The Epitaph.
Here rests his head upon a page of Coke,
A youth, to foplings and to flirts unknown;
Fair science frown’d not on the words he spoke,
And metaphysics mark’d him for their own.
Sound was his judgment and his soul sincere,
Fortune a recompense did largely send;
He wrote at Colchester full many a year,
He gain’d from Witham, all he wish’d—a Friend.
Nor Patisson, his civic faith disclose,
Nor draw his frailties in a wordy brief;
For you, alike in trembling hope repose,
To be admitted by my Lord the Chief.
J. T. R. 1806.
——:o:——
Nocturnal Contemplations in
Barham Downs Camp.
The moon slow setting sends a parting ray,
The topers to the mess-room march with glee;
To bed the sober shape their quiet way,
And leave the lines to pensiveness and me.
Now scarce a candle glimmers on the sight,
And o’er the camp at length soft stillness reigns;
Save where the dice are dash’d with desp’rate might,
Or braying asses wake the distant plains.
Save that from yonder show’r-sheltering box,
The sentry’s rough voice does the ear assail
Of such who, trusting to the gloom of Nox
Steal to the well-known booth to tipple ale.
Within each tent of flimsy canvas made,
Where knapsacks rise in many a scatter’d heap,
Twelve men on narrow beds, till morning laid,
Refresh their senses with the dews of sleep.
The cannon’s roar that through the vale resounds,
The reveillée’s harsh echoing in their ears,
The sergeant’s voice that ever rudely sounds,
Again shall wake them to their humble cares.
For them again the kitchen fires shall burn,
And busy matrons their saloop prepare,
The butcher’s loaded wain from town return,
And quarter-masters loaves and mutton share.
Oft do their hardy hands the hatchet wield,
And vig’rous knees the stubborn faggot break;
How steadily they tread the rugged field,
How quick a column, or a square they make!
Let not lac’d loungers mock their thankless toil,
Their homely meals and toilets thrifty plan;
Nor ’broider’d gen’rals hear with scornful smile
The simple annals of a private man.
The salutations which to rank are due,
And all that gold e’er bought, or favor gave,
Cannot the worn-out wheels of life renew,
Promotion’s high way leads but to the grave.
Nor you, ye beaus, forget that they are men,
If no white dust their soapy locks disguise;
If on their brawny limbs coarse cloth you ken,
And from their cloaths no musky scent arise.
Can kerseymere, or scarlet bought on trust,
Compel the lungs to stay the fleeting breath?
Can fun’ral vollies wake the slumb’ring dust,
Or gleaming gorget ward the dart of death?
Perhaps on tatter’d pillow now is laid,
Some head by nature fashion’d for command,
Whose solid sense in council might have sway’d,
And led to victory a num’rous band.
But science from their mind, with piercing rays,
The fogs of ignorance did ne’er dispel,
Mechanic toil consum’d their youthful days,
And scarcely left them time to scrawl or spell.
Full many an acre of uncultur’d land
Fertility within its womb contains,
Full many a rugged mass of sordid sand
Conceals of virgin gold the latent grains.
Some Wolfe that ne’er shall see pale Gallia fly,
Nor in bright victory’s arms resign his breath,
Some Marlb’rough inglorious here may lie,
Some Coote unskilful in the art of death.
Th’ applause of hoary vet’rans to command,
The bribes and threats of monarch’s to despise,
To raise the glory of their native land,
And read their praises in an army’s eyes,
Their lot forbids;—nor circumscribes alone
Their martial genius, but their crimes restrain,
Forbids to place a tyrant on a throne,
And forge for free-born men dire slav’ry’s chains.
Unmov’d to mark the frantic widow’s woe,
And hear her orphans wail their slaughter’d sire,
Or swell of guiltless blood the crimson flow,
With fury kindled by ambition’s fire.
Fix’d in the fav’rite seat of noise and strife,
They never can enjoy one tranquil day,
Along the rough walk of an irksome life
They keep the restless tenor of their way.
Yet from grave thoughts their feelings to protect,
Frail temporary huts erected nigh,
With uncouth phrase and wretched daubing deck’d,
Invite their lips a cordial draught to try.
Their mantling mug, their song’s sonorous swell,
The place of port and repartee supply;
And many a smutty tale around they tell
That teach the social hour with speed to fly.
For who, within the ranks by reason led,
The joys of Bacchus to his soul denies,
Treads the gay precincts of a sutler’s shed,
Nor cast upon the door his longing eyes?
On some base hearts gold has a sov’reign sway,
Some pious minds delight in sighs and tears,
Fame can the poet’s midnight toil repay,
But ale and brandy sooth a soldier’s cares.
For thee who by thy natal stars compell’d,
Dost touch with artless hand the warbling lyre,
If chance, by friendship’s soft regard impell’d,
Some kind companion shall thy fate inquire;
Haply some brother sub, shall smiling say:
“Oft in his tent retir’d the youth was seen,
“Scribbling with hasty hand a hum’rous lay,
“To fill a page in Urban’s magazine.
“There in that field, beside that holy pile,
“That rears his Gothic steeple to the sky
“Each noon beneath those elms he mus’d awhile,
“Then por’d upon a book with greedy eye.
“Along the mazes of yon murm’ring stream,
“With pensive pace at ev’ning would he stray,
“’Till wrapt in wand’ring fancy’s airy dream
“He mutter’d metre to the lunar ray.
“One morn I sought him vainly through the line,
“Among the elms and o’er the verdant lea,
“Another came, nor near the house divine,
“Nor by the stream, nor in his tent was he.
“The next he wrote that, prompted by his muse,
“In rural mansions Pegasus he pac’d,
“To camps and courts had made his last adieus,
“And o’er his antique gate these verses trac’d.”
The Inscription.
Here let me rest in this sequester’d cell,
Where pomp and noise and riot are unknown,
Where raptur’d Contemplation loves to dwell,
And whose low roof Contentment calls her own.
Large splendid halls where gold and silver glare,
My mind’s undazzled eye would never please;
Here am I freed from all that vex’d me—care,
And bless’d with all I wish—poetic ease.
No more blind folly my desires shall raise,
Nor draw my footsteps from this lov’d abode;
Here will I breathe the remnant of my days,
And court the favors of the tuneful god.
H. 1806.
——:o:——
Elegy on a Pair of Breeches,
Thrown upon a Dust-heap by a Miser.
Here rest my breeches on the lap of earth
By Time destroyed, by Pride now cast away;
Whose waistband never knew the stretch of mirth,
Whose lining long ere this had felt decay.
Oft has the needle tried its skill in vain,
Patch over patch full oft their knees have borne,
Oft have their rents my bosom doom’d to pain,
That sympathiz’d with them when they were torn.
Not half so tough the hide of roasted pig,
Not more ambrosial was the damask rose;
Not half so comely was the parson’s wig,
As ye my Breeches—best of all my clothes!
’Till Time’s unpitying hand (by fate design’d),
Your stitches, strength, and youth, hath from you borne
So falls the flow’r before the ruthless wind,
So from its mate the guiltless turtle’s torn,
Here, while ye lie upon the teeming earth,
Altho’ no shell your funeral pomp displays,
Far from your grave shall fly the rebel Mirth,
And dust and ashes serve instead of bays.
Thomas Brand,
From The British Minerva, printed in Hamburgh. 1818.
——:o:——
Elegy,
Written in a College Library.
The chapel bell, with hollow mournful sound,
Awakes the fellows, slumbering o’er their fires;
Roused by the ’custom’d note, each stares around,
And sullen from th’ unfinish’d pipe retires.
Now from the common hall’s restriction free,
The sot’s full bottles in quick order move,
While gayer coxcombs sip their amorous tea,
And barbers’ daughters soothe with tales of love.
Through the still courts a solemn silence reigns,
Save where the broken battlements among
The east wind murmurs through the shatter’d panes,
And hoarser ravens croak their evening song.
Where groan yon shelves beneath their learned weight,
Heap piled on heap, and row succeeding rows,
In peaceful pomp and undisturb’d retreat,
The labours of our ancestors repose.
No longer sunk in ceaseless, fruitless toil,
The half-starved student o’er their leaves shall pore,
For them no longer blaze the midnight oil,
Their sun is set, and sinks to rise no more!
For them no more shall booksellers contend,
Or rubric posts their matchless worth proclaim;
Beneath their weight no more the press shall bend,
While common sense stands wondering at their fame.
Oft did the Classics mourn their Critic rage,
While still they found each meaning but the true;
Oft did they heap with notes poor Ovid’s page,
And give to Virgil words he never knew:
Yet ere the partial voice of critic scorn
Condemn their memory, or their toil deride,
Say, have not we had equal cause to mourn
A waste of words, and learning ill applied?
Can none remember? Yes: I know all can—
When readings against different readings jarr’d,
While Bentley led the stern scholastic van,
And new editions with the old ones warr’d.
Not ye, who lightly o’er each work proceed,
Unmindful of the graver moral part,
Condemn these works, if, as you run and read,
You find no trophies of the engraver’s art.
Can Bartolozzi’s all-enrapturing power
To heavy works the stamp of merit give?
Could Grignion’s art protract oblivion’s hour,
Or bid the epic rage of Blackmore live?
In this lone nook, with learned dust bestrew’d,
Where frequent cobwebs kindly form a shade,
Some wondrous legend, fill’d with death and blood,
Some monkish history, perhaps, is laid!
With store of barbarous Latin at command
Though arm’d with puns, and jingling quibble’s mights
Yet could not these soothe Time’s remorseless hand
Or save their labours from eternal night.
Full many an Elegy has mourn’d its fate,
Beneath some pasty cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d;
Full many an Ode has soar’d in lofty state,
Fix’d to a kite, and quivering in the wind.
Here too perhaps, neglected now, may lie
The rude memorial of some ancient song,
Whose martial strains and rugged minstrelsy
Once waked to rapture every listening throng.
To trace fair Science through each wildering course,
With new ideas to enlarge the mind,
With useful lessons, drawn from classic source,
At once to polish and instruct mankind,
Their times forbade: nor yet alone repress’d
Their opening fancy; but alike confined
The senseless ribaldry, the scurvy jest,
And each low triumph of the vulgar mind.
Their humbler science never soar’d so far,
In studious trifles pleased to waste their time.
Or wage with common sense eternal war,
In never ending clink of monkish rhyme.
Yet were they not averse to noisy fame,
Or shrank reluctant from her ruder blast,
But still aspired to raise their sinking name,
And fondly hoped that name might ever last.
Hence each proud volume, to the wondering eye,
Rivals the gaudy glare of Tyrrel’s[16] urn;
Where ships, wigs, Fame, and Neptune blended lie,
And weeping cherubs for their bodies mourn.
For who with rhymes e’er rack’d his weary brain,
Or spent in search of epithets his days,
But from his lengthen’d labours hoped to gain
Some present profit or some future praise?
Though folly’s self inspire each dead-born strain,
Still flattery prompts some blockhead to commend;
Perhaps e’en Timon hath not toil’d in vain,
Perhaps e’en Timon hath as dull a friend.
For thee, whose muse with many an uncouth rhyme
Dost in these lines neglected worth bewail,
If chance (unknowing how to kill the time)
Some kindred idler should enquire thy tale;
Haply some ancient Fellow may reply—
“Oft have I seen him, from the dawn of day,
E’en till the western sun went down the sky
Lounging his lazy listless hours away:
“Each morn he sought the cloister’s cool retreat;
At noon at Tom’s he caught the daily lie,
Or from his window looking o’er the street
Would gaze upon the travellers passing by;
“At night, encircled with a kindred band,
In smoke and ale roll’d their dull lives away;
True as the college clock’s unvarying hand,
Each morrow was the echo of to-day.
“Thus, free from cares, and children, noise and wife,
Pass’d his smooth moments; till, by Fate’s command,
A lethargy assail’d his harmless life,
And check’d his course, and shook his loitering sand.
“Where Merton’s towers in Gothic grandeur rise,
And shed around each soph a deeper gloom,
Beneath the centre aisle interr’d he lies,
With these few lines engrav’d upon his tomb”—
The Epitaph.
Of vice or virtue void, here rests a man
By prudence taught each rude excess to shun;
Nor Love nor Pity marr’d his sober plan
And Dulness claim’d him for her favorite son,
By no eccentric passion led astray,
Not rash to blame, nor eager to commend,
Calmly through life he steer’d his quiet way,
Nor made an enemy, nor gain’d a friend.
Seek not his faults—his merits—to explore,
But quickly drop this uninstructive tale!
His works—his faults—his merits—are no more,
Sunk in the gloom of dark oblivion’s veil.
Sir J. H. Moore.
From Elegant Extracts from the British Poets. 1824.
Elegy on the Death of Bow-Fair, 1823.
(Bow Fair was instituted by Charles II. in 1664.)
The Bow-bell tolls the knell of Bow-fair fun,
And Richardson winds slowly out of town;
Poor old “young Saunders” sees his setting son,—
And Gyngell pulls his red tom-tawdry down.
Now three cart-horses draw the caravan,
O’er smooth MacAdams, to provincial fairs,
And pining showmen, with companions wan,
Make dreary humour, while the hawbuck stares!
No more shall cockneys don their Sunday coats,
Stepney, Brook-green, or brighter Bow to fill,
No folk shall row to Greenwich Hill in boats,
And roll in couples adown One Tree Hill!
Girls shall no longer dance in gingham gowns,
Nor monkeys sit on organs at the door,
Gongs shall be turn’d to frying-pans; and clowns
Take to the country, and be clowns no more!
No learned pig, no veal, no mutton pie,—
No heads be crack’d, no under garments won,—
No giants twelve no dwarfs just three feet high—
No calves with two heads, shown to calves with one
At Scowton’s dire destruction will be seen!
The trumpet will give up its tragic truths!
The magistrate desiring to be Keen,
Will put an end, as usual, to the Booths.
No lucky bags, no drums, no three-hand reels,
No cocks in breeches, no tobacco-sots!
No more shall Wapping learn to dance quadrilles,
Or shake a hornpipe ’mid the pewter pots!
No more the Fairing shall the fair allure,
For fairs no more the fairing may expose;
In pleasure-lovers, work shall work a cure;
And Sundays only show the Sunday clothes!
The magistrates decree that “fair is foul,”
And put a stop to profitable sport;
They exercise the Lion’s shilling howl,
And cut the Irish giant’s income short.
No more the backy-box, in dark japan,
Shakes on the stick, and lures the rabble rout;
No more the lemon, balanced by the man,
Flies at the touch and flings its toys about;
Take warning then, ye fair! from this fair’s fall!
One Act (the Vagrant Act) has been its ruin!
Listen, oh listen, to Law’s serious call,
For fun and pleasure lead but to undoing!
From The Mirror. 1823.
——:o:——
The Long Vacation.
My Lord now quits his venerable seat,
The six clerk on his padlock turns the key,
From business hurries to his snug retreat,
And leaves vacation, and the town to me.
Now all is hush’d, asleep the eye of care,
And Lincoln’s Inn a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the porter whistles o’er the square,
Or Pompey barks, or basket woman scolds,
Save that from yonder pump, and dirty stair,
The moping shoe-black and the laundry-maid,
Complain of such as from the town repair,
And leave their little quarterage unpaid.
In those dull chambers where old parchments lie,
And useless drafts in many a mouldering heap,
Each for parade to catch the client’s eye,
Salkeld and Ventris in oblivion sleep.
In these dead hours what now remains for me,
Still to the stool and to the desk confined,
Debarr’d from Autumn shades, and liberty
Whose lips are soft as my Cleora’s kind.
Hail, beauteous nymph! How does thy presence gild
The brow of care, and mitigate my pains!
With thee (such ecstacy thy beauties yield)
Bondage is free, and hugs thy pleasing chains.
Blest in thy love, sincerely I despise
The quibble, warmly urged with many a frown,
Hear each opinion of the learn’d and wise,
Nor envy Cato’s wig, or Tully’s gown.
W. R.
From The Mirror. 1823.
Part of this parody was quoted in Doings in London, 1828; and also in The Mirror, May 28, 1831.
——:o:——
The following parodies of The Elegy may also be found in early volumes of The Mirror:—
Lucubrations in an Apothecary’s Shop.
The twilight curtains round the busy day,
The sliding shutters close the tradesman’s shop,
The street lamp now emits its useful ray,
And homeward speeds the bustling Doctor Slop, &c.
The Mirror. Vol. 4, p. 459.
Elegy.
The pealing clock proclaims the close of day,
The attorney’s clerk goes slowly to his tea;
And mine begins to plod his weary way,
And leave my rooms to solitude and me, &c.
The Mirror. Vol. 5, p. 131.
——:o:——
Alas! Poor Fallen Sir Francis![17]
Elegy written in Westminster Hall.
The Judges toll the knell of Burdett’s fame,
The rabble-rout disperse with lack of glee;
The counsel homeward plod just as they came,
And leave the Hall to darkness and to me.
Now fades each fairy prospect on my sight;
All nature now appears to make a pause,
Save where the wits the Chronicle who write
Weave drowsy paragraphs to patch my cause.
Beneath these ancient walls, once vocal made
By vote of thanks, which late I found so cheap,
Indignant Justice bids my laurels fade,
The dull co-partners of my folly weep.
For me no more the flaming press shall teem,
Nor busy printers ply their evening care;
No patriots flock to propagate my theme,
Nor lick my feet the ill-got wreath to share.
The fulsome strain of incense-breathing puff,
The snuffman bawling to the throng misled;
Cobbett’s foul Register, nor all the stuff
Of weekly scribes, can raise my drooping head.
Oft did the thoughtless to their judgments yield,
Their railings oft disloyal rage provoke;
How jocund each his secret soul reveal’d,
How laugh’d the crowd at ev’ry hackney’d joke
Now you, ye loyal, fix on them the fault,
If memory to my name no trophies raise
Where in the ample page, with zeal unbought,
The pen historic gives the meed of praise.
Can golden box,[18] though worth a hundred pounds,
Back to poor Burdett bring his forfeit fame?
Can honour’s voice now on his side be found,
Or flattery shield him from contempt and shame?
The boast of popularity’s short hour,
And all that faction gains by means most base,
Await alike exposure, dreaded power!
The paths of folly lead but to disgrace.
Yes; still my name to rescue from neglect,
Some frail memorial that on bookstalls lie,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,
Implore the passing tribute of a sigh.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
Such pleasing transient laurels e’er resign’d,
Left his proud height, the idol of a day,
Nor cast one longing, ling’ring look behind?
On some frail prop sedition still relies,
Some pious souls its frustrate arm admires,
E’en from the grave its fetid stench will rise,
E’en in its ashes live its wonted fires.
For ye, who mindful of my honours dead,
Do in your lines my hapless tale relate,
If by kind feeling to your office led,
Some crazy patriot shall inquire my fate,
Ah, woe is me! some wicked wit will tell,
“Oft have we seen him, ere the evening fall,
Brushing with hasty steps along Pall Mall,
To meet Lloyd Wardle at the House’s call.
“There to the nodding members, luckless wights!
In hackney’d strains, till midnight would he preach
’Bout Magna Charta, and the Bill of Rights,
And prate of things far, far, beyond his reach.
“To prison sent, he swore they us’d him ill,
The room[19] was powerless, as all should see.
The trial came, and British Judges still
Refused to change the House’s just decree.
“And now with judgment due, in sad dismay,
He sees himself consign’d to public scorn;
Approach and read, if thou can’st read, the lay
Penn’d in the Post, to Jacobins a thorn;
Epitaph.
“Here hides his head, now humbled to the earth,
A man to John Horne and his Faction known;
Fair talents never smil’d upon his birth,
And Disappointment mark’d him for her own.
“Large were his wishes, but his lot severe;
To Tooke he ow’d his fortune and reverse:
He gain’d from John, ’twas all his portion—shame;
John gain’d from him, ’twas all he wish’d—his purse.
“No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode;
Where they have met the awful test he chose,
The judgment of his country and his God.”
Alfred.
From The Morning Post. London. May 20, 1811.
——:o:——
The Pettifogger,
Written in Westminster Hall, during the long Vacation
of 1812, and addressed to a
Little Attorney!
The courts are shut, departed every Judge,
Each greedy lawyer gripes the double fee,
In doleful mood, the suitors homeward trudge,
And leave the hall, to silence, and to me.
Now, not a Barrister attracts the sight,
And all the dome, a solemn stillness holds,
Save, at the entrance, where with all her might,
The Barrow-wheeler at the Porter scolds.
From every court, with ev’ry virtue crown’d!
Where numbers gain, and numbers lose their bread,
Elsewhere to squabble, puzzle and confound,
Attornies, clerks, and counsel—all are fled.
Contending fools! too stubborn to agree,
The good warm client, name for ever dear
The long-drawn brief, the spirit-stirring fee,
No more till Michaelmas, shall send them here.
’Till then, no more the orange nymphs shall ply,
Their ripen’d fruit, all glossy as their cheek;
Nor strive, with jest, and sportive leering eye,
The custom of the youthful clerk, to seek.
Let not the pedlar, frown with eyes askew,
Nor envy them the profits of the hall;
Let him not think, that with a spiteful view,
They mean to draw the custom from his stall.
The cinder wench, in dust-cart seated high,
With hands begrim’d, and dirty as her sieve;
The ragged sluts—who sprats and herrings cry—
The meanest wenches, have a right to live!
Nor you, ye Belles! impute the fault to these,
If at the glittering ball they don’t appear,
Where music hath a thousand charms to please,
And with its sweetness, almost wounds the ear,
Perhaps in their neglected minds, were sown
The seeds of worth, from nature’s rich supply;
Such seeds of worth, as might in time have grown,
And flourish’d lovely, to the ravish’d eye.
Full many a rural lass in Britain’s land,
The vile unwarrantable b——s hold;
Full many a town-bred damsel walks the Strand,
And barters beauty—for a piece of gold.
The daring Pettifogger, stern of brow,
Who might have done due honor to the spade,
Whirl’d the tough flail, or grasp’d the peaceful plough,
Presumes, the Courts of Justice to parade.
This upstart thing some useful trade to learn,
By far more suited to his shallow head,
False pride forbade, nor suffer’d him to earn,
By honest industry his daily bread!
Far from the worthy members of the law,
A rogue in grain, he ever kept aloof;
By low Jew Bailiffs taught his brief to draw,
And where he couldn’t find, he coin’d a proof.
Yet doth this wretch, illiterate as proud,
With low-life-homage, low-life business meet,
And pick the pockets of th’ unhappy crowd
’Mur’d in the Bench, the Counters, and the Fleet.
Bound by the creditors, in durance fast,
In plaintive murmurs, they bewail their fate,
And many an eager, wistful eye they cast,
Whene’er the turnkey opes, and shuts the gate.
For who to dull imprisonment a prey,
The pleasing thoughts of freedom e’er resign’d?
From home, from wife—from children—dragg’d away,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind;
For you, who traverse to and fro this shrine,
And lounge, and saunter, at your wonted rate,
If in some future chat, with arch design,
Some wag should ask—the Pettifogger’s fate
In sneering mood, some brother quill, will say,
“I’ve seen him oft at tavern table sit;
“Brushing with dirty hands, the crumbs away,
“And eye the joint, just taken from the spit,
“One morn I miss’d him in this ’custom’d hall,
“And at the room, where he was wont to be,
“His boy I saw, who register’d my call;
“But by yon steps—nor at his desk was he.
“The next I learnt (O melancholy tale),
“On the profession, what a foul reproach!
“That his deserts had sent him to a jail,
“Where he was dragg’d (O shame!) without a coach!
His Character.
“Vulture! the arrant’st cormorant on earth,
“At length is caught, and into Newgate thrown;
“Fair honesty disclaim’d him at his birth,
“And villainy confess’d him for her own!
“Grown old in sin, at no one crime dismay’d,
“’Gainst nature’s cries, he arm’d his harden’d breast;
“For when his parents were to earth convey’d,
“He smil’d and spurned compassion, as a jest.
“Now press’d with guilt, he’ll feel its sharpest sting;
“Great his transgressions, and but small his hope;
“He’ll give the Sheriff (all he’ll have) a ring,
“And gain from Justice, all he fear’d—a rope!
“No farther seek his vices to disclose,
“But leave the wretch unpitied to deplore
“His ill-spent life, till breaking his repose,
“The turnkey leads him to the Debtors’ Door.”
J. B. Fisher.
This parody originally appeared in a publication called Town-Talk, but was afterwards reprinted in a scarce little volume of poems entitled “Plaintive Tales,” by a Comedian. Published by W. Tilley, Chelsea, London, in 1819. This book is now principally sought after by collectors because it has an early illustration by George Cruikshank, on which the name is incorrectly spelt Cruikshanks.
——:o:——
An Elegy
Written in the Long Vacation.
The vacant streets proclaim the ‘parting day,’
The loaded coaches setting off, you see,
The Gownsman homeward bends his joyous way,
And leaves the college and the town to me.
No wine, no supper-parties glad the sight,
O’er all the court a solemn stillness reigns;
Save where some gambling Gyps o’er skittles fight,
When Fortune robs them of their easy gains.
Save that at intervals from yonder tow’r
You hear some moping Questionist complain,
Condemn’d to toil thro’ many a weary hour
O’er Newton, Smith, and ‘Calculus’ again.
(Haply the Porter or some Gyp may say,
“Oft have we seen him at the break of dawn,
Brushing with hasty steps the dew away,
And take his seedy walk across the lawn.”)
All else is hush’d!—the Spider here has made
His web o’er books in many a mould’ring heap;
And on the shelf till next October laid
Euclid and Wood and Aristotle sleep!
Togatus.
The Gownsman. Cambridge, January 7, 1831.
Woes of Change,
or
The Lachrymatory Lament
of
Laudator Temporis (et Rerum) Acti.
By Thomas Dibdin, Esq.
Improvement tolls the knell of what, of yore,
We loved, and May-day garlands have gone by;
And Charleys on their posts now sleep no more,
But hourly weep the hours they used to cry!
No more grim heads, each stuck upon a pike,
On lookers up from Temple Bar look down;
The strikers at St. Dunstan’s cease to strike,
They gave a quarter’s notice, and left town.
(And, could St. Dunstan’s club-mates club to dine,
Their “marble jaws” would make a curious clatter;
Clay goblets would contain their wall-fruit wine,
And all their pastry would be “stony batter!”)
The Strand’s so changed, they’ve left no ‘Change at all,
Where beasts and beefeaters once held their sway;
Exeter ’Change is turned into a hall,
And operas that ran have run away!
If many a coach, to omnibus enlarged,
Takes, for a tizzy, Dandyzettes or drabs,
By such a fare the fair are fairly charged,
Yet why have chariots dwindled down to cabs?
Who but for Porridge Island sheds a tear,
Its sav’ry steam’s to ev’ry nose a loss!
Shops in arcades to buyers may be dear!
But will they give us back one golden cross?
All is changed round where King Charles the First
Rears his dark motionless Equestrian phiz;
That, could he speak, he’d say, “May I be curst
If my poor girthless steed knows where he is!”
Water in wooden pipes, ran under ground,
They’re iron now, and fire runs by their side;
And, could but fairy laundresses be found,
We might below get iron’d, wash’d, and dried!
Stout oars and swelling sails we once did deem
Sufficient in a boat for tide and wind;
Now only boiling water we esteem,
And all, though right before is left behind!
Horses were changed, en route to Gretna Green,
And “first pair out!” would landlords loudly bawl;
But “Polly put the kettle on,” I ween,
Will greet us when for horses there’s no call!
Three theatres, C. G., D. L., H. M.
Were thought enough, but now no limit bars
Some three-and-thirty, while the most of them
Exist on moonshine to support the stars!
Velocipedes have hurried quickly past,
Kaliedescopes have changed this many a day,
While, o’er McAdam’s dust, wheels slow or fast
Maintain the “noiseless tenor of their way.”
Churches increase, and chapels ten times more,
But, most of all, in streets, and rows, and ranks,
Do gin shops grow with temp’rance clubs next door,
And lovely little hells and saving banks!
With penny periodical reviews;
Halfpenny prints precede Old Ladies Mags.,
And coffee shops present their farthing news,
With crumpets, cream, and kidneys done to rags!
Thus things will change as long as time doth move!
And now upon the humble lay I sing
A veto let me lay, lest it should prove
The Comic Magazine’s a serious thing!
The Comic Magazine, Volume 1. 1832.
——:o:——
The Gambler.
The lamps refract the gleam of parting day,
The weary vulgar hail the friendly night,
The Gamester hies him to his darling play,
And leads the way to deeds that shun the light.
Now reigns a dreary stillness in each street,
And mortal feuds are hush’d in breathless calm,
Save where the votaries of Hodges meet,
And springing rattles sound the shrill alarm.
Save that from yonder lantern lighted walk,
The drowsy watchman bawls with clam’rous din,
At such as stopping in the streets to talk,
Omit the tribute of a glass of gin.
Beneath the roof, that ruin fraught retreat,
Where beams the fanlight o’er the guarded door,
Each wedg’d by numbers in his narrow seat,
The faithless gamblers chink their current ore.
The triste entreaties of impassion’d grief,
The piteous tale of family distressed,
The stranger’s ruin, or the friend’s relief,
No more shall raise compassion in their breast.
For them no more the midnight rush shall burn,
Or wearied menial be detain’d from bed;
No wives expectant watch for their return,
Or anxious listen to each passing tread.
Oft do the purses of the victims fail,
Their fury oft on box and dice they wreak
How jocund look they if their luck prevail!
How grand their manner when they deign to speak!
Let not the legislator deem it harm
That others trifle with the laws he breaks;
Nor rich knaves hear, with counterfeit alarm,
That men distress’d will often make mistakes.
The boast of honesty, the laws dread power,
And all that pride of feeling can achieve,
Await alike the inevitable hour,
The rage for gaming leads us all to thieve.
Nor scorn, ye rulers of the states’ finance,
The prompt expedients of these pilfering scenes,
Where thro’ the aid of rapine they enhance
The scanty budget of their ways and means.
Can stories sad, or supplicative grief,
Back to the owner bring his valued dross?
Can blunt rebuffs administer relief,
Or aidless pity compensate his loss?
Perhaps, amidst that motley group there stand
Some who once graced far other scenes of life;
Dupes, that have mortgaged the last rood of land,
Or lost the fortune of some hapless wife.
But rife examples, which bid wisdom think,
Their frantic folly never can appal,
Blind avarice leads them to the ruin’s brink,
And dark despair accelerates their fall.
Full many a trinket, pledged for half the cost,
Hath raised the means of venturing once more;
Full many a watch is destined to be lost,
And run its time out in some broker’s store.
Some fancy shirt-pin that hath deck’d the breast,
On plaited cambric, starch’d in spruce array;
Some ring, memento of a friend at rest,
Some seal, or snuff box, of a better day.
The servile tongues of borrowers to command,
The tributary dues of boxes to evade,
To spread the paper’d plunder in the hand,
And read their consequence in homage paid,
Their luck forbids; nor circumscribes alone
To them its evils, but its range extends;
Forbids the needful purchases at home,
And shuts the door of welcome on their friends.
The petty processes of law to stop,
To prove how groundless are the landlords fears;
Or gain fresh credit at the chandler’s shop,
By paying off the grocery arrears.
Far from all dreams of splendid opulence,
Their wish is answered if their way they clear;
Well can they dine for twelve or thirteen pence,
Including waiter, and a pint of beer.
Yet e’en their painful efforts to exist,
Some Knaves in heart, as yet unskilled to cheat,
With secret whisper when a piece is missed,
Will strive from pique, or envy, to defeat.
Their names, their means, on which at large they dwell,
Invade at intervals the startled ear,
And many an anecdote in point they tell,
That teaches gaping novices to fear.
For who, to damn’d fatality a prey,
Gives his last piece, without concern or pain,
Leaves the warm circle of the crowded play,
Nor asks the table if a chance remain?
To some staunch friend is the decision left,
Some sturdy swearing the event requires,
E’en the chous’d fools are conscious of the theft,
E’en on their oaths would not believe such liars!
For thee, who, absent from the wonted game,
Dost think these lines some pointed truths relate,
If, when is heard the mention of thy name,
Some fellow-sufferer shall ask thy fate:
Haply some wight loquacious may reply,
“Oft-times we met him at approach of night,
“Brushing with haste along the streets hard by,
“As if all matters were not going right.
“There, in some house where charges are not high,
“And penny candles shed a glimm’ring light,
“He give the maid some cheap-bought scrap to fry,
“Of which he’d eat with ravenous delight.
“There in some corner shunning to be seen,
“He’d draw his hat down o’er his prying eyes,
“Or with a handkerchief his visage screen,
“Like one who fear’d a capture by surprise.
“One night we miss’d him in his usual seat,
“We searched both kitchen and the scullery;
“We search’d again, nor in his old retreat,
“Nor at the Tun, nor at the Bell was he.
“At length a letter to discovery led,
“With separate notice serv’d at each friend’s door
“Reminding his creditors he was not dead,
“But meant to live to owe them something more.”
The Letter.
Here rots in jail, with scarce one hope on earth,
A wretch that’s sacrificed to love of play;
Success, at first to golden dreams gave birth,
And fortune flatter’d only to betray.
Large were his Losses, yet no loss deterr’d,
Those mischiefs followed, such as seldom fail:
He gave his friends (t’was all he’d left) his word,
He gained by Hazard (as most do) a Jail!
Seek not his future projects to reveal,
Nor draw conclusions to prejudge the fact;
In anxious dread (which most of you must feel),
He waits the benefit of the Insolvent Act.
From Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports. 1832.
——:o:——
Dry Goods: An Elegy.
A Manchester Parody.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The trading herd wind slowly to their tea,
The buyers Inn-ward wend their weary way,
And leave the street to darkness and to me.
Now roll the bleachers’ waggons from my sight,
“The market” now a solemn stillness holds,
Save where some straggler piles a dizzy height
Of “Blackburn seventies,” in unnumber’d folds.
Save that some Charley hoarsely bawls the hour,
Proves all the padlocks, or may chance complain
To such as, wand’ring near his nightly bower,
Molest his vigilant and virtuous reign.
Beneath their dimities the men of trade,
’Till rainy day upon their eye-lids peep,
(Each in his narrow crib in comfort laid,)
The clerk and master innocently sleep.
The smoky call of sooty-breathing morn,
The servants stirring just above their head,
The milk-man’s whistle, or a mail-guard’s horn,
Shall soon arouse them from their feather bed:
For they no more will risk “another turn,”
But to their former posts with haste repair,
To greet some cousin-German’s safe return,
And of his orders crave the bliss—a share.
(Thirteen verses omitted here.)
Whoe’er to torpid indolence a prey,
His busy cares in trade hath oft resign’d;
Quitted the race of fortune for a day,
Is left by jostling brothers far behind.
Thus on the game of chance the soul relies,
’Till fading nature peace and rest requires;
’Till from the tomb are heard death’s warning cries,
To join in partnership with buried sires.
For thee, who patiently thus far hast read
These faithful memoirs of thine humble state,
If chance (when thou art number’d with the dead)
Some wag, like me, enquire into thy fate,
Haply some hoary hooker-in may say,
“Oft have we seen him as the clock struck eight,
Bending his steps with eager haste away,
On new-come customers intent to wait.
“There at the end of yonder spacious street,
By time and usage nominated ‘High,’
Some few ‘choice spirits’ of his kin he’d meet,
To pounce upon the buyers passing by.
“Hard by yon Inn, yclep’d the ‘Mosley Arms,’
To circulate his cards he’d daily rove;
Now drooping, woeful man, with strange alarms,
And craz’d with care that goods he could not move.
“One morn I miss’d him at the ’custom’d post,
Along the street, and near his fav’rite Inn;
Another came,—I thought him surely lost,—
’Twas ten o’clock, and he had never been!
“The next, with coaches two, in sad array,
Slow to the ‘Rushholme Ground,’ I saw him borne;
Go there, and read the plain, but honest lay,
Grav’d on the stone above this wight forlorn.”
Epitaph.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth respected, and in town well known;
But fortune smil’d not on his humble birth,
Though many merchants sought him for their own.
Large was his knowledge, and his soul sincere,
But they a paltry recompense did send;
They gave him only eighty pounds a year,
And never paid him till its very end.
No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from the silent tomb;
There they alike in trembling hope repose,
Till he receives his solemn, final doom.
From “Gimcrackiana, or Fugitive pieces on Manchester Men and Manners.” By Geoffrey Gimcrack. Manchester. 1833.
——:o:——
Meditations on Mr. Barry’s New Houses of Parliament.
Written on Board the “Lily” Steamboat.
The wharf-bell tolls the knell of starting steam
The jostling crowd pours quickly o’er the pier;
The ladies forward rush with timid scream,
And leave the stern to Punch, and bottled beer.
Now fades each public building from the sight,
As on her course the Lily steamer holds,
Till new St. Stephen’s rears its moderate height,
Which many a tier of scaffolding infolds.
Beneath those beams; those yet unfinished towers,
At present echoing with the workman’s clang:
Upon their legs, perchance, for weary hours,
Shall Britain’s future Senators harangue.
Full many a Whig of coldest heart serene,
Shall broach his philosophic nonsense there;
Full many a Tory, born abuse to screen,
Shall waste his humbug on the midnight air.
Some future Duncombe, there, with dauntless breast,
The tyrant of his diocese shall twit;
Some mute, good-humoured Brougham contented rest—
Some Sibthorp, guiltless of his country’s wit.
Mourn not the Houses burnt some years ago:
No vain regrets the ruin’d pile requires.
E’en from its dust a voice exclaims “Oh! oh!”
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.
Punch, 1844.
——:o:——
Elegy in a London Theatre.
The curtain falls, the signal all is o’er,
The eager crowd along the lobby throng,
The youngsters lean against the crowded door,
Ogling the ladies as they pass along.
The gas lamps fade, the foot-lights hide their heads,
And not a soul beside myself is seen,
Save where the lacquey dirty canvas spreads,
The painted boxes from the dust to screen.
Save that, in yonder gallery enshrined,
Some ragged girl complains in angry tone
Of such as, sitting in the seat behind,
Had ta’en her shawl in preference to their own.
There where those rugged planks uneven lie,
There on those dirty boards—that darken’d stage
Did Kean and Kemble fill the listener’s eye,
And add a lustre to the poet’s page.
But they are gone—and never, never more
Shall prompter’s summons, or the tinkling bell,
Or call boy crying at the green-room door,
“The stage waits, gentlemen!” their dreams dispel.
For them no more the coaches of the great
Shall stop up Catherine Street—for them, alas!
No more shall anxious crowds expectant wait,
Or polish up the gilded opera glass.
Oft did the vicious on their accents hang,
Their power oft the stubborn heart hath bent,
And, whilst the spacious house with plaudits rang,
They sent the harden’d homewards to repent.
There, in that empty box, perchance hath swell’d
A heart with Romeo’s burning passion rife,
Hands that “poor Yorick’s” skull might well have held,
Or clutch’d at Macbeth’s visionary knife.
But unto these the bright and glorious stage
Full in their face its holy portals slamm’d,
Harsh managers repressed their noble rage,
And told them, ungenteelly, they’d be “damned.”
Full many a pearl of purest ray serene
The rugged oyster-shell doth hold inside,
Full many a vot’ry of the tragic queen,
The dingy offices of London hide.
Some Lear, whose daughters never turn’d his head,
Nor changed to gall the honey of his life;
Some white Othello who with feather bed
Had smothered not, his unoffending wife.
The applause of listening houses to command,
The critics smile and malice to despise,
To win reward from lord and lady’s hand,
And the approval of the thundering skies,
Their parents hindered, and did thus o’erthrow
The brilliant hopes that in their bosom rose
To tear Macready’s laurels from his brow,
And put out Charley Kean’s immortal nose.
Of one of these I heard a drummer say,
“Oft have I seen him from the muddy street,
Across the crimson benches make his way,
To gain his well-loved and accustomed seat,
“There, where yon orchestra uprears its rail,
On which I hang my drumsticks, many a night
I’ve seen him with a dirty shirt, and pale,
Watching the motley scene with wild delight.
“There, upon yonder seat, which now appears
To have rent its robe for grief he is not here,
Oft have I seen him sit, dissolved in tears,
Veiling his grief in draughts of ginger beer.
“One night I missed him from his favourite seat.
I wondered strangely where the boy could be.
Another night—I gazed—in vain my gaze—
Nor in the pit, nor in the house was he!
“Come here! I saw him carried to that tomb,
With drunken mutes, and all their mock parade,
Just read—I’ve left my spectacles at home—
The Epitaph a friend has kindly made.”
The Epitaph.
“Here lieth one beneath the cold damp ground,
A youth to London, and the stage unknown,
Upon his merits stern Macready frowned,
And ‘Swan and Edgar’ marked him for their own.
“Large was his bounty, unto aught wherein
The stage did mingle, and the cost was sweet,
He gave the drama all he could—his ‘tin,’
And gained—’twas all he could—his favourite seat.
“No father had he who could interfere
To check his nightly wanderings about,
And from the best authority we hear,
His mother never dreamt that he was out!”
Hotspur.
From Bentley’s Miscellany. 1843. This parody was afterwards republished, with alterations, and omissions, in The Bentley Ballads.
Night Thoughts.
Saint Martin tolls the hour of long past day,
The gas-lights glimmer through deserted streets,
The drunkard staggers on his homeward way,
And runs his head against each post he meets:
In every house they’ve now put out the light,
Save where a rushlight burns with feeble shine,
Gin palaces have shut up for the night,
And I’m watched closely by B, 59.
Here, as I stand, pond’ring on this and that,
A cabman pulls his horse up with a “Wo!”
And looks me in the face, to touch his hat,
While hoarsely asking “Vere I’d wish to go?”
To-night invited to a small carouse,
I’ve stayed much later than I meant to be,
In vain I’ve sought admission to my house,
My wife won’t rise, and I forgot the key.
To-morrow morning when my spouse shall wake,
To mark my absence, wondering what it means,
Some rude strange hand shall rouse me with a shake
In Covent Garden, slumbering on the greens.
From The Man in the Moon, Volume 2 (About 1848.)
——:o:——
An Elegy, Written in a London Churchyard.
By a Tradesman in the vicinity.
The sexton tolls the knell till parting day,
The latest funeral train has paid its fee,
The mourners homeward take their dreary way
And leave the scene to Typhus and to me.
Now fades the crowded graveyard on the sight,
But all, its air who scent, their nostrils hold,
Save where the beadle drones, contented quite,
And drowsy mutes their arms in slumber fold.
Save where, hard by yon soot-incrusted tower,
A Reverend Man does o’er his port complain,
Of such as would, by sanitary power,
Invade his ancient customary gain.
Beneath those arid mounds, that dead wall’s shade,
Where grows no turf above the mouldering heap,
All in their narrow cells together laid,
The former people of the parish sleep.
The queasy call of sewage-breathing morn,
The ox, urg’d bellowing to the butcher’s shed,
The crowd’s loud clamouring at his threatening horn,
No more shall rouse them from their loathly bed.
For them no more the chamber-light shall burn,
The busy doctor ply his daily care,
Nor children to their sire from school return,
And climb his knees the dreaded pest to share.
Good folks, impute not to their friends the fault,
If memory o’er their bones no tombstone raise;
Where there lie dozens huddled in one vault,
No art can mark the spot where each decays.
No doubt, in this revolting place are laid,
Hearts lately pregnant with infectious fire;
Hands, by whose grasp contagion was conveyed,
As sure as electricity by wire.
Full many a gas of direst power unclean,
The dark o’erpeopled graves of London bear,
Full many a poison, born to kill unseen,
And spread its rankness in the neighbouring air.
Some district Surgeon, that with dauntless breast
The epidemic ’mongst the poor withstood,
Some brave, humane Physician here may rest,
Some Curate, martyrs to infected blood.
To some doom’d breast the noxious vapour flies,
Some luckless lung the deadly reek inspires,
Ev’n from the tomb morbific fumes arise,
Ev’n in men’s ashes live Disorder’s fires.
For thee, who, shock’d to see th’ unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines their shameful plight relate
If, chance, by sanitary musings led,
Some graveyard-gleaner shall inquire thy fate.
Haply some muddle-headed clerk will say,
“We used to see him at the peep of dawn,
Shaving with hasty strokes his beard away,
Whene’er his window-curtains were undrawn.
“There would he stand o’erlooking yonder shed,
That hides those relics from the public eye,
And watch what we were doing with the dead,
And count the funerals daily going by.
“One morn we miss’d him, in the ’custom’d shop;
Behind the counter where he used to be,
Another serv’d; nor at his early chop,
Nor at the “Cock,” nor at the “Cheese,” was he.
“The next, by special wish, with small array,
To Kensall Green we saw our neighbour borne,
Thither go read (if thou canst read) the lay
With which a chum his headstone did adorn.”
The Epitaph.
Here rest with decency the bones in earth,
Of one to Comfort and to Health unknown,
Miasma ever plagued his humble hearth,
And Scarlatina mark’d him for her own.
Long was his illness, tedious and severe,
Hard by a London Churchyard dwelt our friend;
He follow’d to the grave a neighbour’s bier,
He met thereby (’twas what he fear’d) his end.
No longer seek Corruption to enclose
Within the places of mankind’s abode;
But far from cities let our dust repose,
Where daisies blossom on the verdant clod.
(Published during the dreadful Cholera Visitation, when attention was being called to the danger of burials in the crowded churchyards of the City of London.)
Punch. September 15, 1849.
——:o:——
Elegy written in a London Churchyard.
St. Clement’s tolls the knell of parting day
The gaudy shops their portals ’gin to close;
The wearied workman homewards wends his way,
And leaves the town to silence and repose.
Now fades the glare of business from our sight,
And o’er the air a solemn stillness rests,
Save yon gin-palace’s unholy light,
Save yonder crowd’s obscene and drunken jests;
Save where the houseless wanderer, forlorn,
Casts on yon steeple clock his hopeless eye,
Counting the dull, slow hours, until the morn—
Another day to suffer, or to die.
Beneath that steeple clock, beneath those stones,—
Beneath that earth piled up in many a heap,
Scarce covering their poor dishonour’d bones,
Past generations of our fathers sleep.
Sleep! do we mock the word? This crowded tomb,
In which this morn those hallow’d ashes lay,
Must be to-night re-open’d to make room
For others who have died since yesterday.
No rest is there. Within that narrow space
Full—hideously full long years before,—
Still day by day must those now there give place;
Still day by day must room be found for more.
Yet e’en these bones from insult to protect,
Is not the end and object of our song,
No, ’tis that others may with us reflect
On their sad fate who dwell these graves among.
Death in the midst of life! the vapours dank
Of churchyards mingling with our every breath;
Dead men subduing with their poisons rank
Men yet alive! Death propagating Death!
Full many an exhalation cursed, unclean,
The damp unhallow’d graves of London bear;
Full many a poison, virulent and keen,
To spread disease upon the wings of air.
Then who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
Can cease this crying wrong to bear in mind,
And suffer those already pass’d away
To slay by thousands those still left behind?
For thee, unmindful of this horror dread,
Nor caring the foul nuisance to abate,
If chance by lonely contemplation led,
Some fellow-shopkeeper shall ask thy fate.
Haply some ancient citizen may say,
“Oft have I seen him at the peep of dawn,
Putting his shop in order for the day,
Dusting the muslins, doing up the lawn.
“There, in the heat of yonder stifling shop,
Breathing yon crowded graveyard’s fatal airs;
Still trying not the hideous wrong to stop,
Intent on nothing but to sell his wares.
“One morn I miss’d him from th’ accustomed till,—
Another victim had that churchyard slain;
And yet another, and another still;
‘’Twill slay as long as suffer’d to remain.’”
But there are vested rights! these graveyards pay!
Although the nation be by them disgraced;
And so more men are murder’d every day;
And this the epitaph above them placed:
Epitaph.
Here rest in heaps, scarce cover’d by the earth,
A lot of bones unhonour’d and unknown,—
Men doom’d to slaughter at their hour of birth,
And graveyard jobbers mark’d them as their own.
Diogenes. February 5, 1853.
——:o:——
There was another short parody in Diogenes entitled—
Elegy on a Betting Office.
Remove the lists, take down the green baize board,
Shut up the shop (the landlord takes the key);
Fate lays such heavy odds, that I am floor’d;
The Act has made the pace too strong for me.
No more behind my office-rail shall I
Watch greenhorns, on a chance of gain intent,
Into the changes of the market pry,
Or commune with a friendly sporting gent:
No more for me the pleasing sight remains
Of those who thought a fortune here to make,—
The waiter hastening with his daily gains,
And shop-boys raising from the till their stake.
The cabman oft would loiter at my door,
To glean the tout’s last information there;
Invest what he had earned the hour before,
And trust to Fortune for another fare,
And if some wight a heavy stake should claim,
More than I could conveniently drop,
I donn’d a wig and whiskers, changed my name,
And open’d, two streets off, another shop,
Another shop awaits me now no more—
The Finish of my Race arrived, I see;
On a Walk-over though I won before,
This time I’m done, and Luck walks over me.
Diogenes. 1853.
——:o:——
Elegy.
Written in a Railway Station.
The Station clock proclaims the close of day;
The hard-worked clerks drop gladly off to tea;
The last train out starts on its dangerous way,
And leaves the place to darkness and to me.
Now fades the panting engine’s red tail-light,
And all the platform solemn stillness holds,
Save where the watchmen, pacing for the night,
By smothered coughs announce their several colds.
Behind that door of three-inch planking made,
Those frosted panes placed too high up to peep,
All in their iron safes securely laid,
The cooked account-books of the Railway sleep.
The Debts to credit side so neatly borne,
What should be losses profits proved instead;
The Dividends those pages that adorn
No more shall turn the fond Shareholder’s head.
Oft did the doubtful to their balance yield,
Their evidence arithmetic could choke:
How jocund were they that to them appealed!
How many votes of thanks did they provoke!
Let not Derision mock King Hudson’s[20] toil,
Who made things pleasant greenhorns to allure;
Nor prudery give hard names to the spoil
’Twas glad to share—while it could share secure.
All know the way that he his fortune made,
How he bought votes and consciences did hire;
How hands that Gold and Silver-sticks have swayed
To grasp his dirty palm would oft aspire,
Till these accounts at last their doctored page,
Thanks to mischance and panic did unrol,
When virtue suddenly became the rage,
And wiped George Hudson out of fashion’s scroll.
Full many a noble Lord who once serene
The feasts at Albert Gate was glad to share,
For tricks he blushed not at, or blushed unseen,
Now cuts the Iron King with vacant stare.
For those who, mindful of their money fled,
Rejoice in retribution, sure though late—
Should they, by ruin to reflection led,
Ask Punch to point the moral of his fate,
Haply that wooden-headed sage may say,
“Oft have I seen him, in his fortune’s dawn,
When at his levees elbowing their way,
Peer’s ermine might be seen, and Bishop’s lawn.
“There the great man vouchsafed in turn to each
Advice, what scrip or shares ’twas best to buy,
There his own arts his favourites he would teach,
And put them up to good things on the sly.
“Till to the House by his admirers borne,
Warmed with Champagne in flustered speech he strove,
And on through commerce, colonies, and corn,
Like engine, without break or driver, drove.
“Till when he ceased to dip in fortunes’s till,
Out came one cooked account—of our M. P.;
Another came—yet men scarce ventured, still,
To think their idol such a rogue could be.
“Until those figures set in sad array
Proved how his victims he had fleeced and shorn—
Approach and read (if thou canst read) my lay,
Writ on him more in sadness than in scorn.”
The Epitaph.
Here lies, the gilt rubbed off his sordid earth,
A man whom Fortune made to Fashion known;
Though void alike of breeding, parts, or birth,
God Mammon early marked him for his own.
Large was his fortune, but he bought it dear;
What he won foully he did freely spend.
He plundered no one knows how much a year,
But Chancery o’ertook him in the end.
No further seek his frailties to disclose:
For many, of his sins, should share the load:
While he kept rising, who asked how he rose?
While we could reap, what cared we how he sowed?
Punch. February 26, 1853.
——:o:——
Elegy.
Written near a Suburban Station House.
By a Ticket-of-Leave-Man.
The muffin-bell proclaims the parting day,
The City clerks wind, weary, to their tea,
The Crusher cookwards plods his steady way,
And leaves the streets to Bill Sykes and to me.
Now far and wide there’s not a Blue in sight,
Like harmless loungers, safe our watch we hold,
Save that we grasp the life-preserver tight,
And the garotte arrange in artful fold.
Meanwhile from yonder station-house the snore
Of sleeping Crushers makes it very plain,
That Blues who snooze when they the streets should scour,
Will ne’er molest our solitary reign.
Within those well-warmed rooms Inspectors paid
Out of the parish rates the peace to keep,
Each in his watch-coat warm and snugly laid—
The mild protectors of the public—sleep.
The choking call of passengers forlorn,
With the garotte twitch’d dext’rous o’er their heads,
Cries of “Police!” and “Murder!” faintly borne,
No more will rouse them from their cosy beds.
For them at morn no pompous beak shall turn
To the charge-sheet made out so neat and square,
No prisoner nabb’d shall swell the night’s return,
Or grace the hand-cuffs o’er the Inspector’s chair.
Oft did the cook-maid to their flatt’ries yield,
Their fast how oft the rabbit-pie hath broke;
How many an area’s been their triumph’s field,
How much cold meat fall’n ’neath their sturdy stroke!
Let not harsh censure mock their nightly toil,
Their stolen chats and area conquests sure;
Nor Richard Mayne with too much strictness spoil
The short and simple suppers they procure.
Nor you, householders, fix on them the fault,
If no cold joint e’er lasts its second day,
While through the cupboard-shelf and pantry-vault
The hungry household cat is free to stray.
Can mild reproof, or anger’s hasty gust
Back to its dish the rabbit-pie restore?
Can master’s threats recall the flaky crust,
Or wipe the mopped-up beer from off the score?
Perhaps in some neglected spot is laid
A heart, well stuffed, brown from the kitchen fire,—
Meat, that to water hermit’s chops had made,
Or waked a vegetarian’s desire!
Say, if it goes, can nought your wrath assuage?
No hint of area-sneaks or cats that stroll?
Must Missus with the Cook fly in a rage,
And the Police still come in for the whole?
Full many a gem of the Em’rald Isle so green,
The dark ungarnished Crusher’s coat may wear;
Can you expect such flowers to blush unseen,
Or fill their stomachs with the chill night air?
Some village Lovelace, whom with dauntless breast.
Rustic Clarissa painfully withstood;
Some mute inglorious Dando here may rest;
Some Soyer, with a genius for food.
The smiles of real ladies to command,
Glances to win from more than cookmaid’s eyes,
Dinners and suppers in good style to stand,
And area-snacks and broken meat despise,
Their means forbade—nor circumscribed alone,
Their loves and pockets, their beats, too, confined:
Forbade to make the pot-house chair their throne,
And floor their glass like truncheonless mankind.
Far from the dangerous scenes of London life—
Garottes and Life-Preservers—let them stay,
And past the area-railings, free from strife,
Pursue the harmless tenor of their way.
For me, who for the Crusher snoring laid,
Do in these lines obvious excuses state—
If ever to the Hulks or Portland led
Some pal should kindly ask about my fate—
Haply may some grey-headed warder say,
“Oft have we seen him, in the convict rank,
Brushing with measured steps the dust away
From off the mill, or working at the crank.
“There in the school-room where the boys they teach,
The Chaplain he would queer, upon the sly;
Glib texts would quote, or contrite mug would stretch,
Tipping the wink to pals that sniggered by.
“When, in the chapel, duller rogues would scorn,
The Parson’s pains that to convert them strove;
He still would sigh both afternoon and morn,
And in his tearless eye his knuckles shove.
“One morn I missed him on the ’customed mill,
Nor at the crank, nor oakum room was he,
Another came his vacant cell to fill,
His game had proved the ticket—he was free.
“And in our Office here the other day,
Upon the prison-books I found him borne,
As one who, with his ticket sent away,
Would any station (house) in life adorn.”
Moral.
If Life-Preserver or Garotte you’re worth,
O youth, to Portland and the Hulks though known,
The capital you’ll find the snuggest berth,
Its wide unguarded suburbs all your own.
Long though your sentence and your task severe,
The pious dodge a ticket soon will send:
You give the Chaplain all he asks, a tear,
You’ll find the Crusher (all you wish) a friend.
No farther seek the system to expose,
Or stop the ticket Colonel Jebb bestowed;
To spoil the child the British public chose,
And on the grown-up Convict spares the rod.
Punch. November 29, 1856.
A Lunatic Parody.
The curlew rolls amidst the darting spray,
And showy birds ride boldly o’er the sea,
Striving the foaming clods to clear away,
And leave the earth to chaos and to me.
The glades are simmering in the red moonlight,
And Hanwell all a solemn stillness holds;
Nay, e’en the beadle feels the moaning light,
And jelly sparkles in the glistening moulds.
There on the jagged shells ’neath beauty’s shade,
Where melancholy watch the mole doth keep,
Each in his waistcoat straight for ever laid,
The well-bred lunatics of Hanwell sleep.
Haply, some keeper, hard-hearted, may say,
Oft have we seen him calling to the moon,
Beck’ning, with hasty thumb, the stars away,
To meet the sun when he comes out at noon.
There at the foot of yonder nodding tower,
That breathes so bold beneath the azure sky,
He’d form himself of oyster-shells a bower,
And pour his look on all that travelled by.
One noon we missed him, as about we dodged,
He drew his breath, but nothing could we see;
Another came—we had him safely lodged
In the asylum of Colwell Hanley.
Fun. April 1, 1865.
——:o:——
Elegy,
Written in the House of Commons.
The big clock tolls the knell of parting day,
The tired Whips clubward now do adjourn to tea,
The Speaker homeward plods his weary way.
And leaves the House to darkness, and to me.
Now fade the Treasury Benches on the sight,
The mace no more my languid eye beholds;
No longer Whalley wheels his drony flight;
No longer Gladstone eloquently scolds.
Only from yonder gilt and fretted tower
Big Benjamin doth to the night complain,
Recording mournfully the passing hour,
And pealing forth his mellow-toned refrain.
Unnoticed now beneath the gallery’s shade,
Where the mice gambol, and the beetles creep,
Prone on the floor-cloth worn and half-decayed,
The Echoes of Reform are laid to sleep.
The freezing chill of Cranbourne’s bitter scorn,
Hope blundering hopelessly through what he said,
Sarcastic jibes and platitudes well worn,
No more shall rouse them from their dusty bed.
For them no more the fierce Debate shall burn,
Nor shrewd reporters ply their evening care;
No clamour for return upon return
Shall change their weary longing to despair.
Oft did the Commons to their influence yield,
The new-elected ne’er escaped their yoke;
Locke-King and Baines through them obtained a field,
Administrations fell beneath their stroke.
Let not the Upper House disdain the toil,
Nor by inaction rouse the slumbering storm;
Nor Bishops hear with a disdainful smile
Their proud position threatened by reform.
The boast of Birmingham may make them cower,
And all that Palmerston or Derby gave
May yield alike to Nonconformist power,
Nor even Shaftesbury his creatures save.
Nor you, Reformers, lay to us the fault,
If rotten boroughs still their prices raise;
If greedy agents still their victims salt,
And foul corruption shines with sugary glaze.
Can Ballot-urn, where venal voters thrust
Their tickers, compensate for perjured breath?
Can candidates escape “down with the dust?”
As well might mortals hope to cheat grim Death.
Perhaps in yonder corner may be laid
Some tattered fragments of a former Bill;—
Dizzy’s, with fancy franchises o’erlaid,—
Or last year’s, which Adullamites did kill.
Full many a traitor, outwardly serene,
That dark, mysterious cave, Adullam, bore;
Full many a plot was hatched, by Brand unseen,
Combining men who ne’er combined before.
The stalwart Elcho, that with dauntless breast
The tyrant of the Treasury withstood;
E’en mute inglorious Doulton did his best;
And Horsman braved the vengeance dire of Stroud.
The applause of listening Tories to command,
The threats of Beales and Dickson to despise,
To foster agitation through the land,
And read their speeches interspersed with lies,
Their lot was this; this their reward alone:
To Opposition Benches still confined;
The Russell Ministry by them o’erthrown.
To join the Tories they had not the mind.
Far from desirous of avoiding strife,
They for official spoils ne’er cared to play;
But in the feuds of senatorial life
Pursued their own, their independent way.
Their names, their deeds, writ in the Daily News,
The place of power and salary supply;
On them Reform Leaguers shower their foul abuse,
And Telegraph and Star their ribaldry.
Free was their action—let us hope, sincere,
The League a recompense as freely sends;
Of “hard and fast lines” they confess a fear;—
The League declares they are not Freedom’s friends.
No further seek their motives to disclose,
Nor cull from speeches phrases undefined;
Leave them among the shadows to repose,
And in Reform a hopeful future find.
From Echoes from the Clubs. July 24, 1867.
——:o:——
An Elegy on Cremation.
Above yon mantel, in the new screen’s shade,
Where smokes the coal in one dull smouldering heap,
Each in his patent urn for ever laid,
The baked residua of our fathers sleep—
The wheezy call of muffins in the morn,
The milkman tottering from his rusty shed,
The help’s shrill clarion, or the fish-man’s horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lofty bed.
For them no more the blazing fire grate burns,
Or busy housewife fries her savory soles,
Though children run to clasp their sires’ red urns,
And roll them in a family game of bowls.
Perhaps in this deserted spot is laid,
Some heart once pregnant with terrestrial fire,
Hands that the rod paternal may have swayed,
And waked to ecstasy the living liar.
From Scribner’s Monthly. July, 1875.
——:o:——
Lament of the Eminent One.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The city clerk from daily toil is free,
Play-goers t’wards the Strand now wend their way,
And throng the theatre “Macbeth” to see.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Are seated round at this momentous hour,
Waiting to hear the Thane of Cawdor rave.
The curtain rises, and reveals to sight
The scenes all have assembled to behold;
But, long before the witching hour of night,
The public are convinced they have been sold.
Let not Ambition mock my fruitless toil,
My stagey gasp and readings most obscure;
I saw, alas! from their disdainful smile,
The critics thought Macbeth’s performance poor.
(Three verses omitted here.)
Haply some hoary-headed scribe[21] may say:
“Oft have I seen his ‘Hamlet’ and the ‘Bells.’
He is the greatest actor of the day,
The idol of our most fastidious swells.”
Thus does he seek my merits to disclose,
And leaves my frailties to the world unknown;
And thus I find things quite couleur de rose
Since the Lyceum marked me for its own.
From The Figaro. October 6, 1875.
——:o:——
Elegy.
Written in Rotten Row by a Disconsolate Swell.
The Park proclaims the season’s had its day,
The “upper ten” are wending towards the sea;
My friends are gone—such as could get away,
And leave the town to emptiness and me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape from the sight
In picture galleries—solemn stillness holds
Where lately Fashion kept its droning flight,
And pull-back skirts extended lengthy folds.
From Westminster’s electric-lighted tower,
Still drowsy M. P.’s to the moon complain
That dull debates outlast the midnight hour—
’Tis ever so when ancient Tories reign.
The applause of listening Senates to command
Some late-elected Member vainly tries,
Brings in his Bill, and faltering takes his stand,
But reads his fate in every Member’s eyes.
Full many a Bill with confidence serene
Such Members to the House of Commons bear—
Full many a Bill thus brought them dies unseen
In wasted talking on St. Stephen’s air.
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
The few remaining Members crave to stray;
And hints of cool, sequestered vales are rife.
Or mountains, seas, and foreign cities gay.
Beneath these Hyde Park elms, this chestnut’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a flower-clad heap
(Haply the brightest effort Lennox made),
I muse, or smoke, or read, or softly sleep.
Though uncouth squares, with shapeless sculpture deck’d,
I pass and give the tribute of a sigh—
Don’t care a pin what R. A.’s they elect,
Nor head the feud of Mapleson and Gye.
No more doth Beauty curl her lip in scorn
When the waltz-measure daintily we tread;
The four-horse Ascot drag with echoing horn
No more awakes me early from my bed.
I trust to dumb forgetfulness a prey
This smoky city soon will be resigned,
That for a season I may pass away,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind.
Funny Folks. August 12, 1876.
——:o:——
Elegy.
Written in a Country Rink.
The church clock strikes the knell of parting day,
And all the world is going home to tea,
The skater homewards takes his weary way,
And leaves the rink to solitude and me.
Now darkness o’er the scene a mantle flings,
And peace and silence through the air do float
Save where the band are packing up their things,
And the French horn emits a farewell note.
Save too, from yonder corner grumbling steals,
The fitter-on does to his mate complain,
Of such as coming there to mount their wheels
From liberal favours zealously abstain.
’Tis here beneath the bright and azure sky,
The rough-laid asphalte seems to rise and sink,
Where, under many a sharp maternal eye,
The youths and maidens of the village rink.
For them no more will croquet have delight,
The simple shuttlecock they will despise,
No more they’ll watch the winged arrow’s flight,
Nor draw the bow in quest of archer’s prize.
Let not ambition mock their simple style,
Nor from their thoughtless recreation shrink.
Nor Grandeur turn with half contemptuous smile
From these short simple annals of the Rink.
P’r’aps in this quiet spot we may descry
Some rinker pregnant with emotions grand;
This one, may be, will fill some office high,
This the applause of list’ning crowds command.
That youth we saw with hands upheld on high,
With form erect, pursue his eager way,
Though now in rinking lets his time go by,
May be the Gladstone of a future day.
That youth who “loathed melancholy” dreads,
Some mute inglorious Milton doubtless he;
While this who binds his fallen comrades’ heads,
In him a guiltless Cromwell we may see.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
Beneath the ocean’s depth is known to shrink,
So many a damsel’s born to skate unseen,
And waste her grace upon a village rink.
There was a youth to whom I once did give
Attention, though from notice he would shrink,
Some people told me that he rink’d to live,
Though others said he merely lived to rink.
Each morn his matutinal meal he’d eat,
And then be seen both out of breath and hot,
Rushing with eager steps along the street
To meet his comrades at the much-loved spot.
Then with his skates upon his feet fast strapp’d
He’d rink and rink through all the livelong day;
Now seemingly in meditation wrapp’d,
Now urged by eager thoughts and fancies gay.
At first some figure would he deftly trace,
Anon the wide-spread eagle would essay,
Then madly rush round and around the place,
Or in the outside edge his skill display.
One morn I miss’d him from his fav’rite spot
(The night before he fell and seemed in pain);
Another’ morn, but with it he was not,
Alas! alas! he never came again.
His comrades sore lamented him I fear,
For some at least upon his skill did dote,
And having dropped a sympathetic tear,
This was the epitaph they calmly wrote.
The Epitaph.
Here rests from skating, by his much loved ground,
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown
Science and Learning on him grimly frown’d
And Rinking only mark’d him for her own.
His birth was simple, and his ending sad,
His understanding and his means were small;
He gave to rinking all the cash he had,
And gain’d, his friends said “Serve him right,” a fall.
No father had he to direct his course,
Nor e’en from such a dismal fate to save,
For skaters own with pensive face, perforce,
The paths of rinking lead but to the grave.
From Idyls of the Rink, by A. W. Mackenzie. Second Edition. London. Hardwicke and Bogue, 1877.
——:o:——
Cremorne: An Elegy.
[An application being made for the renewal of the license, it was stated that the proprietor had decided to have the ground built on. The counsel then said nothing remained but to put up a tombstone, and write the epitaph of Cremorne Gardens.]
The builder tolls the knell of Cremorne’s day
The navvy’s spade uproots each flower and tree,
Dumb waiters from their tables slink away,
And leave the spot to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glittering rocket from the sight,
And every nook a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the hodman climbs the scaffold’s height,
Or tinkling trowel the dabby mortar moulds.
The waltz and galop on the breezes borne
From orchestra with blazing lamps o’erhead,
The cornet, fiddle, flute, and echoing horn
No more will keep the Cockney from his bed.
For him no more will sparkling firework burn,
Or busy waiter ply his evening care,
No acrobat a somersault will turn,
Or from the trapeze leap into the air.
Let not North Woolwich mock while they despoil
Cremorne’s quaint temples, grots, and glades obscure,
Some day the builder, with disdainful smile,
Will, too, its leafy avenues secure.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to Baum the fault,
If Chelsea triumphs while Cremorne decays;
And tipplers elsewhere seek their grog and malt,
And Canon Cromwell swells the note of praise.
Can photograph or picture from the dust
The glories of a Ranelagh bequeath?
Like Highbury and Vauxhall, Cremorne must
The auctioneer’s dread hammer fall beneath.
Oft have stern magistrates, in angry tone,
Its garish gaiety and “larks” maligned,
Forbade its reckless frolics with a groan,
And shut the gates of Cremorne on mankind.
For oft the madding crowd, in midnight strife,
From sober wisdom straying, hither came,
Threading the fevered paths of modern “life,”
While sleepy Chelseaites were loud to blame.
Alas! to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
Cremorne will to the builder be resigned;
The bard who sees it rudely swept away
Yet casts one longing, lingering look behind.
The Epitaph.
Here lies a garden, famous in its birth,
And once among the festive haunts of town;
But magistrates have frowned upon its mirth,
And Speculation marked it for her own.
From Funny Folks. 1878.
Cremorne Gardens were closed in 1877. These gardens had had a long and chequered career, and the ground they stood on has since been entirely built over. Elderly people can remember that fifty years ago a certain Count de Berenger started an Institution called “The Stadium,” or British National Arena, in the grounds of Lord Cremorne. Here archery, riding, swimming, and gymnastics were taught, but the venture did not succeed. The lighter, and more frolicsome, entertainments of Cremorne Gardens were tried instead.
——:o:——
Circuit Elegy.
By the late Lord Chelmsford.
On the occasion of a dinner given by the Bar Mess to Lord Justice Bramwell and Mr. Justice Denman, at Maidstone, on July 12, 1881, Mr. Justice Denman rose and remarked that amongst some old papers he had found a MS. by the late Lord Chelmsford, being a parody on Gray’s ‘Elegy;’ he then read it, and afterwards offered it to the Mess.
Mr. Day, Q.C., moved that it be accepted and entered in the Minute Book, and that copies should be printed and sent to the members of the Bar Mess.
The motion was carried unanimously.
The trumpets sound the coming of the Judge;
The anxious crowd rush wildly o’er the way:
The bustling clerks, well-laden, court ward budge
And leave the streets to dulness for the day.
Now eager necks are straining for a sight,
And all the Court a solemn stillness holds,
Save when the crier bawls with all his might
Or drowsy pleadings some dull voice unfolds.
Save that from yonder silky mantled seat
Some solemn owl does to the Judge complain
Of such as, wandering in with noisy feet,
Disturb the home-spun labours of his brain.
Beneath those rugged wigs, uncomely shade,
Where books and bags lay strewed in many a heap,
Each in a narrow space on elbow laid,
The lazy Juniors of the Circuit sleep.
A breeze between the Council and my Lord,
The tittering laugh at something idly said;
The voice of many attuning sweet accord,
Can scarcely raise a single heavy head.
For their approach no heated suitors burn,
Nor briefs delivered task their evening care;
No! children run indeed where’er they turn,
Or scrambling climb at wig and gown to stare.
Oft to their sophistry the sessions yield
Their labours oft have set at large a thief;
How jocund do they drive to such a field,
How bow their heads, when they receive a brief.
Let not their seniors mock this humble toil,
Which some regret that they can share no more;
Nor fain to treat with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple cases of the poor.
The boast of sergeantry the leaders’ power,
And all that purple, all that silk e’er gave,
Alike at sessions wait but for that hour
When profits path is opened—to the grave!
Nor yon, ye crowd, impute to these the fault,
If none in aught but stuff his form displays,
While o’er the long-drawn ranks incessant vault,
Some whom mere chance, and some whom hugging raise.
Can well-stored mind, and animated face
Call to their lodgings one attorney’s Clerk?
Can honor’s course advance a silent race,
Or flattering prospects open in the dark?
Perhaps neglected in this Court is laid
Some, who with fluent art a speech could fire
Many whose talent, were it only paid,
Might wake to emulate each living liar.
But none before their eyes that ample page,
Rich with its strong marked fees did e’er unrol.
Briefless they come—repressed their noble rage,
And frozen all their energy of soul.
Full many a mind of purest ray serene
To distant climes th’ unfathomed ocean bears;
Full many a man is born to live unseen—
And eat his fingers—up three pair of stairs.
Some village lawyer,[22] who, with dauntless breast
The Squire or Parson manfully withstood,
Might, perhaps, have drawn one from the inglorious rest,
And flushed his talent with a client’s blood.
The applause of listening juries to command,
The threats of angry judges to despise,
To scatter humour through a smiling band
And give their speeches to the public eyes
Their fates forbid; nor yet alone restrain
Their growing genius: but their dulness find,
Forbid to some to show their want of brain,
And shut their mouths in mercy to mankind.
The struggling pangs of still-born speech to bear,
To find no thought will come, and wonder when;
To load a cause, which prudence asks and care,
With nonsense borrowed from the Attorney’s pen.
Far from the hope of sharing in the strife,
Their wearied minds to other objects stray
To that glad moment when with fork and knife,
They keep their eager jaws at last in play.
Yet e’en in court, some slight relief to gain,
Small slips of paper, torn from foolscap nigh,
Which wretched rhymes and pointless puns contain,
From hand to hand across the table fly.
A name—a verse unsanctioned by the muse,
The place of wit and poetry supply,
And jingling jests which sound with sense confuse,
Will make the wags almost with laughter die.
For who to dumb attentiveness a prey,
This pleasing power of folly e’er resigned,
Kept the warm precincts of the court all day,
Nor cast one lagging, lingering joke behind?
In some fond jest the weary soul relies,
Some tinkling thought, the closing eyes require
E’en labouring dulness against nature tries,
And rakes the ashes of its brain for fire.
For thee who mindful of the briefless crew
Dost in these lines their hopeless cause relate,
If one perchance with nothing else to do
Should feel disposed to ask thy after fate.
Haply, some stuff-clad rusty sage may say,
“Oft have we seen his tall and lanky form
Brushing with hasty steps to court away
To take his place where all the idle swarm.
Then, in the midst of some dull nodding speech,
While Gurney all their mirth to hush would try;
His listless mind in verse and puns he’d stretch,
And pour them on the crew which babbled by,
Unchecked his aim by gravity, or scorn,
Mustering his scattered forces he would sit,
Now drooping woeful at a jest still-born,
Now worn with care in trying for a hit.
One circuit missed him (’twas the one in Lent)
From all the places where he used to be;
Another came, nor yet in Hertford, Kent,
In Essex, Sussex, Surrey, e’en was he.
The next we heard his country he had fled,
And died an exile under distant skies;
Approach and read—for it may well be read
This Epitaph which Bolland’s muse supplied.”
Epitaph.
Here rests his body in Australia’s land,
A youth to naval glory not unknown;
But e’er promotion shook him by the hand,
The Palace Court had marked him for its own.
Large was his practice, as his age could reach,
And large his recompense, as well could be;
He gave to juries all he had—a speech,
He gained from clients all he wished—a fee.
No longer seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his blunders from this prison dark;
Where cheek by jowl, they lovingly repose,
The bosoms of the Attorney and his clerk.
——:o:——
Elegy.
On a favourite Washerwoman, Mrs. Bridget Mulligan.
Farewell old friend and memory ever dear,
Thy earnest labour at the tub is o’er,
Let every friend to merit, shed a tear,
For Biddy Mulligan is now no more.
In peaceful cot she passed a busy life,
Secluded from the world, and all its ills;
A tender mother—a deserted wife,
And matchless in her doing up of frills.
Oft have I marked her on a summer’s day,
Prone o’er her tub, regardless of the heat
With sleeves tuck’d up, she’d stand and scrub away,
And then from lines suspend her work so neat.
Each closing week at eve, she took the road,
With vests, with shirts, with handkerchiefs, and frills
Collars and socks, in parcels neatly stowed,
Pinned to the parcels were her little bills.
One winter’s day I passed her cottage by,
And wondered where the worthy dame could be,
I saw a heap of clothes disordered lie,
Nor at the tub, nor at the lines was she!
The piercing cold had laid her low at last,
Her busy nimble hands are now at rest,
They’re bleaching in the chilly northern blast,
Pale as the shirts their skilful fingers press’d.
Adieu! ye spotless vests of white Marseilles,
So white ye gave me pleasure to put on;
Ye snowy bosomed shirts, a long farewell;
Alas! poor Biddy’s occupation’s gone.
No laundress of the vulgar sort was she,
(Cruel the fate which thus could snatch her from me,)
A faithful soul, and from pretence so free,
It went against her grain to wash a “Tommy.”
Full many a worshipper at Fashion’s shrine,
Owed half his neatness to her starch and iron;
From swells who sport their shirts of cambric fine,
To dandy boys with collars à la Byron.
Not all the symmetry of well made suits,
Nor hats of silk, so exquisitely glossed,
Nor spicy ties, nor jetty varnish’d boots,
Console me for the treasure I have lost!
Oh! Mulligan, thy shirts perfection were,
Now I ne’er put one on but feeling pain,
And buttoning close my waistcoat in despair,
Feel I can never show their like again!
Nymphs of the tub attend the fun’ral throng,
Plant mangle wortzel near where she is laid,
And scatter snowdrops as ye press along,—
Fit emblems of the whiteness of her trade.
Let no bombastic lines be carved in stone,
No fulsome epitaph, no flattering hope,
Be this the plain inscription—this alone—
“She never yet was badly off for soap.”
C. E. Tisdall, D.D. Dublin,
The Elocutionist. July 15, 1882.
——:o:——
Gray’s Elegy.
(In an Irish Prison.)
They think to toll the knell of prisoned Gray,
The servile herd who bend to law the knee!
Pooh, Pooh! the slaves will soon be “out of play,”
And leave the game to Davitt and to me!
Vile Saxon scum! a Sheriff held in thrall!
(It moves my soul of flame to noble fury)
Because he uttered what they choose to call
Injurious remarks about a jury.
* * * * *
Punch. September 2, 1882.
——:o:——
The S. K. Ring’s Requiem.
The turret-clock proclaims the hour eleven;
Sir Francis Bolton[23] from his tower descends;
The last illumined shower drops from heaven,
And so the much-bepuff’d “Colinderies” ends.
Now fade the glimm’ring lamps amongst the trees,
And all seems dismal now, and dark and dead,
Save where the crowds still t’wards the station squeeze,
And through the Subway plod with weary tread.
And save where in a snug official room
The members of the S. K. Ring have met
To talk of things that in the future loom,
And the conclusion of their “Shows” regret.
Sad were their faces as they sat and heard
The clock strike out the Exhibition’s close,
And gloomily together they conferr’d
As to the Epitaph they would propose.
After conferring for some time, the following, it is agreed, shall be the
Epitaph on the “Colinderies.”
Here ends a Show which, started with high aim,
Was soon for its degenerate features known,
And an apotheosized Cremorne became,
Which reckless Folly quickly made her own.
Large were its profits, and its crowds immense;
But larger still the expenses it defrayed,
Thanks to the notable munificence
With which its lavish staff it overpaid.
Of such gross jobbery it was the spring,
So big the perquisites which it did rain,
That much we fear, as an official Ring,
We ne’er shall look upon its like again.
Truth, November 11, 1886.
——:o:——
Parnell-egy
Written in a Westminster Palace-yard.
The clock-tow’r tolls the bell of coming day,
The Saxon herd departs ere stroke of three,
The cabman homeward whips his wheel-y way,
And leaves the “Yard” to Denning, and to me.
Now fade the gibbering Tories on the sight,
Against no form the watchful peeler rubs
Where, just before, men filed to left, or right,
And lobby tinklings stirred the distant clubs.
* * * * *
“The catty “call”—of incensed breathing born,
The shallow tittering from the empty head,
The “cock-a-doodle-do,” the nasal horn,
No more are heard—their authors are a-bed.
Oft did the Commons to our pickle yield,
Our guffaw oft some stubborn speech has broke,
How jocund did we bring our team afield!
How bow’d the Whips beneath our sturdy stroke!
Let not Refinement mock abuse-ful toil,
Unceasing “jaw,” and ancestry obscure,
Nor Breeding hear, with a disdainful smile,
The sharp and shady annals of “the flure.”
The “cheek” of Harr—n, the rant of Power,
And all that Bunkum, all that stealth e’er gave,
Await alike th’ unenviable hour,
The ways of Sexton lead to much that’s grave.
Nor you ye Times, impute to me the fault
And—in fac-simile—your trophies raise,
Where, ’neath the book-stall’d station’s grimy vault,
The steaming engine swells the note that brays.
Can story’d speech or animated bust
Back to their cerements conjure wraiths that lurk;
Can B—kle’s voice avenge the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Burke?
* * * * *
The scorn of Saxon senates to command,
The threats of Peel and Balfour to despise
To scatter terror o’er a suff’ring land,
And blend our history in a nation’s cries
Our lot requires; nor circumscribed we feel
By growing numbers, or by crimes confined,
We have to march through rapine to repeal,
And shut the mouths of protestant mankind.
Our names, our deeds, spelt by the daily Muse
The place of Fame and Elegy supply,
And many a nasty gibe around she strews
That cause the Irish moralist to shy.
The Epitaph.
Here lies, his head upon a lump of clay,
A man, to Hansard and to Dod well known;
Fair Science had not much was in his way,
But Disaffection marked him for her own.
Large was his satire, and his purpose clear,
Egan did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Loy’lty—all too bad—a sneer,
He gain’d in Egan,—well, not quite a friend.
No farther seek his secrets to disclose,
Or draw his frailties, in these faltering rhymes,
From where they—some of them, ’tis said—repose—
The sanctum of his Walter and his Times,
Moonshine. April 30, 1887.
DETACHED FRAGMENTS
OF
PARODIES ON THE “ELEGY.”
Epitaph on “The Pic-Nic.”
Written in a Newsman’s Shop.
Here lie, enwrapt within a dirty sheet,
Pic-Nics unsold—of course to fame unknown;
Fair Fashion’s patronage they did not meet,
And Grenville still may claim them for his own.
Large were its pages, and its type most clear,
Its price t’ ennoble did as largely tend:
But fourteen numbers clos’d its bright career;
It found thus soon (what all must find) an end.
No farther seek its merits to disclose,
Or o’er its faults one briny tear let drop;
Here they alike on dusty shelf repose,
To add fresh lumber to the newsman’s shop.
The Morning Post. 1803.
——:o:——
Epitaph on a Noted Highwayman.
Here, high suspended on a gibbet hangs
A youth to ev’ry crime and plunder prone;
’Till caught at length, by law’s resistless fangs,
The gaping gallows seiz’d him as its own.
Bad were his sentiments, his actions worse;
And when he mounted Newgate’s fatal drop,
He gave the hangman a tremendous curse,
And got from him—what he deserv’d—a rope.
The Spirit of the Public. Journals, Volume X. 1806.
——:o:——
A Political Parody.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea;
Now to the Lords, see Jenky take his way,
And leaves the House of Commons unto me.
* * * * *
Full many a country gentleman and squire,
The hinder seats and those back benches bear;
Full many a one who represents a shire,
There wastes his sweetness on the desert air:
Some city member, with his meal opprest,
May there, perhaps, in sleep digest his food;
Some mute inglorious Alderman may rest,
Some grocer, guiltless of his country’s good.
For knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne’er enroll;
Fair Science smil’d not on their early age,
Nor Genius gave an impulse to the soul.
Their names, their merits in the Morning Post,
The place of honest eulogy supply,
With many an idle tale, and many a boast,
And many a silly speech, and many a lie.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
A place or pension ever yet resigned,
Quitted the Court, like Canning, as they say,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?
This parody (consisting of thirty-two verses in all) originally appeared in The British Press of September 14, 1812; it was afterwards reprinted in The Spirit of the Public Journals, Volume XVI. 1813.
——:o:——
Elegy in St. Stephen’s Chapel.
The candles tell the close of parting day,
The members bor’d wind slowly up to tea,
Some few to dinner plod their hungry way.
And leave the House to Dyson and to Ley.
Now fades in slow debate the lingering night,
And each dull speech in solemn stillness ends,
Save where Bragge-Bathurst wheels his droning flight,
Or drowsy Hiley cheers his stammering friends;
Save that, from yonder nook with placemen stor’d,
Old Rose doth to the Treasury Bench complain
Of such as wandering near the Navy Board,
Molest his ancient pensionary reign.
Beneath that gallery’s height, that pillar’d shade,
Where heave those seats with many a slumbering heap,
Each, in his narrow row, supinely laid,
A silent band, the Country Members, sleep.
The pettish call of nonsense-breathing Pole,
Vansittart, tittering o’er his boxes red,
The shrill Charles Yorke, Sir Joseph, livelier soul,
No more can rouse them from their rugged bed.
Oft did the question to their influence yield;
Their vote, full oft, the Court’s designs hath broke;
How jocund was the Income-Tax repeal’d!
How bow’d the Malt-tax to their sturdy stroke!
Let not proud office mock their useful toil,
Their votes, though silent, and career obscure;
Nor grandeur mock, with a disdainful smile,
The “ignorant impatience” of the poor[24].
The boast of place, of interest, and of power,
Of all that worth can claim, or gold can buy,
Must yield alike, in dread division’s hour,
To Country Gentlemen’s majority.
Nor you, ye Whigs, impute to these the blame,
If some faint cheer its puny homage pays,
While, through some long drawn speech, in periods lame,
A stammering placeman courts their lingering praise.
* * * * *
Yet, chance, in that sequester’d spot is laid
Some heart well fram’d for ministerial hire,
Hands that for Treasury job had well been paid,
Or wak’d to fame some Admiralty lyre[25].
But Treasury to their eyes the ample page,
Rich with a people’s spoil, did ne’er unrol;
Some puny job must fire their noble rage,
And ope the loyal current of their soul.
Full many a Castlereagh, with hands yet clean,
The hinder benches on his side may bear,
Full many a sad Fitzgerald blush unseen,
And waste his diffidence on desert air.
Their names, their numbers, to the public gaze,
May show as fair as some of nobler note,
And many a holy hint Charles Long conveys,
To teach the rustic senator to vote.
For he (division’s stern demand to meet),
His custom’d place and company resign’d,
Oft leaves the precincts of his Treasury seat,
To coax some longing lingering lout behind.
On helps like these each pension’d soul relies,
Such aid each new-rais’d salary requires,
Though from the press the voice of Croker[26] cries,
Though in the Courier live his wonted fires.
And thou who, mindful of that honour’d scribe,
Dost for a salary like Croker’s wait,
If, chance, by kindred calculation led,
Of his four thousand pounds you ask the fate.
Haply some Admiralty Clerk may say,
“Oft have we seen him, at the morning’s call,
Brushing, with hasty step, on quarter day,
To meet his salary near fair Whitehall.
“Then, at the lower end of yonder Board,
He’d hold his vain fantastic head so high,
You’d think the Regent had made him first Lord,
And put his duller master, Melville, by.
“Oft to the Courier Office, as in spite,
Muttering half-form’d, half-witted squibs, he’d rove,
Now all the Quarterly’s worst trash indite,
Now woo th’unwilling Grub Street Muse to love.
“One eve we miss’d him on his custom’d round,
Nor at the Board, nor at the House, was he;
Nor ’mid the Courier’s devils was he found,
Nor was he scribbling for the Quarterly.
“The next, to condign doom in due debate,
His annual thousands came, a sad display!
Approach and read, where all may read, their fate,
In all the papers of the following day.”
Epitaph.
Here rests his pension, strangled in its birth,
His name to merit, as to praise, unknown;
Yet Fortune frown’d not on his little worth,
For Castlereagh had mark’d him for his own.
Large was his impudence, nor small his gains,
For well such talent did its master grace;
He gave the Court, a sorry gift, his brains;
The Court gave him, ’twas all he wished, a place.
No farther seek his merit to disclose,
Or draw the annual increase to his pelf;
Hopeless alike his fame and pence repose,
Lost to the Court, the office, and himself.
From The New Tory Guide. London. J. Ridgway, 1819.
——:o:——
Elegy.
(For the “Mirror,” 1825.)
The pealing clock proclaims the close of day,
Th’ attorney’s clerk goes slowly to his tea;
And mine begins to plod his weary way,
And leave my rooms to solitude and me.
Now fades the glitt’ring river on my sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness feels;
Save when some rake wheels round his rapid flight,
And drowsy watchmen follow at his heels.
Save, that from yonder darkly shaded tow’r,
The moping sage does solemnly complain
Of such, as wandering near his lonely door,
Molest his quiet, unassuming reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that old tree’s shade,
Where ancient seats in many a mould’ring heap
Spread out, where in repose you may be laid,
Most sweetly to enjoy the balm of sleep.
Whilst the mild beams which ev’ning does adorn,
The gay young student laughing at your head;
The Postman’s bell, or th’ echoing horn,
Rouse you no longer from your lowly bed.
For you, the blazing hearth ne’er does burn;
Or, busy housewife ply her ev’ning care,
Or children run to lisp their sire’s return,
And climb your knees the envied kiss to share.
But still thy juniors to thy learning yield,
When you put on the stately law peruke,
To prove their arguments are all afield
And make them bow at your hard stroke.
* * * * *
Yet do not think thy wig so sprucely deck’d,
Will ne’er entice a brief that’s straying by:
Whose strange and uncouth words its nonsense do protect
And for it gain the tribute of a sigh.
Thy name, thy years, thy thin and wrinkled face,
Insure success: thy fame will then supply
A stream of briefs, your fortune to replace,
And wealth, and peace, await you ere you die.
And you, whom dumb forgetfulness and care,
T’anxiety and bitter want resigned;
Will hail with joyous look and altered air
Th’ increasing strength and vigour of your mind.
* * * * *
Elegy written in a Town Church Yard.
The church-bells peal the message—“Come and pray!”
The gay-dressed crowd appear, to bend the knee,
The shabby, poor man turns another way
And leaves the church to Dives and to me.
Now fades the noisy stir of weekday sights,
And all around a Sabbath stillness dwells,
Save where a doctor from his trap alights,
And merry tinklings sound from tramcar bells;
Save that, as if to make display of power,
An army howls, while marching to the strains
Of noisy bands, regardless of Nott-Bower,
And blocks the passage of our streets and lanes.
Beneath those railway lines that man hath made,
Where slabs lie prone upon the embankment’s heap,
Each sacrificed to compensation paid,
Our Leeds forefathers down by Kirkgate sleep.
The snorting puff of carboniferous smoke,
The engine clattering from the loco-shed,
The whistle’s shrieking, and the piston’s stroke
No more shall rouse them, though they mock the dead.
For them, if chance the hearts of loved ones yearn,
No weeping mourners tend the grave with care,
No children to this spot their footsteps turn
To seek the dead ’mid desolation bare.
Oft did the town of Leeds their labours know,
Their efforts oft the way to progress cleared;
How lie they now, forgotten, cold, and low!
How is a patriot townsman’s name revered!
Let not ambition seek for the cold clay
A homely tomb from sacrilege secure;
Nor grand men seek when they have passed away
A safer six feet title than the poor.
The mighty alderman, the men of power,
And all our beauties, all of wealth the slaves,
Must take their chance that there may come an hour
When railroad sleepers share their quiet graves.
(Fourteen verses omitted).
For thee, who, mindful of the thus outraged dead,
Dost in these lines set down their graveyard’s state,
If chance, by their perusal, some be led
To test the truth of what thou dost relate,
Haply some ancient Kirkgate dame may say,
“Methinks I’ve seen him here at eve and morn,
As past the Parish Church he’s made his way
I’ve watched his look,—half pity and half scorn.
“Here, near the base of yonder noble tower,
That stands with venerable head so high,
Repose the dead, neglected hour by hour,
Unheeded by the crowd that passes by.
“Round through yon bridge upon his journey borne,
By some strange fancy led he seemed to stray,
Then on the other bank he’d gaze forlorn,
Then looking disappointed turn away.
“One morn I saw him on the railway’s side,
Among the slabs, some broken, some moss-grown;
Once more he came: he looked again, he sighed,
Then ceased the search for the forgotten stone.
“And then I saw that ere he went away
One little leaflet from a book he tore,
On which he wrote this simple poet’s lay,
Which some one found attached to yonder door.”
An Epitaph.
Here rest, on either side this mound of earth,
Neglected dead, forgotten and unknown,
Ere science learnt the iron horse’s worth
The grave had marked them and had claimed its own.
True to their country, to their town sincere,
Thus does posterity their deeds commend,
And takes their graves to make a railroad here,
For fear their usefulness with life should end.
No farther seek fresh merits to impose,
Let the poor battered stones sink in the sod,
Where rich and poor in trembling earth repose,
To wait, ’mid engine shrieks, the trump of God.
From The Yorkshireman’s Comic Annual. 1885
——:o:——
Newall’s Buildings.
The clanging crow-bar rings the pile’s decay
The busy labourers make their work complete
Daily the well known buildings glide away,
And space and brightness grow upon the street.
This was the first verse of a long parody which appeared in the “Free Lance” a paper published in Manchester, many years ago. A celebrated chop house stood in Newall’s Buildings, and the parody describes its principal frequenters, but the allusions are too local to be of any general interest.
——:o:——
The Scales.
The piano sounds the knell of parting day;
Next door the singing pupil shrieks high C;
The cornet practices across the way,
And gives the night to anguish and to me.
“Full many a man, who now doth cheat the printer,
Will waste his voice upon the heated air,
And vainly sigh for cooling breeze of winter
When he is punished for his sins down there.”
From Quads.
Passage from Lord Grey’s Elegy.
Rads toll the knell of England’s passing day:
The low dull herd will land her “up a tree.”
Why will they not send Gladstone’s gang away,
And leave the world to Whigdom and to Me?
Punch. September 10, 1881.
A Perversion.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its fragrance on the desert air;
Full oft, the filthy oleomargarine
Is served as premium butter from a fair,
The Author.
No longer seek his failings to disclose,
Nor on his faulty readings rudely press;
But leave the jurist to his deep repose,
Safe in the bosom of his loved MS.
Pensive in a Boneyard.
A Fragment.
Perhaps in this selected spot are laid
Some legs once regnant on bicyclic wire,
Hands that the rod of riding may have swayed,
And waked to parody the rotal lyre.
Lyra Bicyclica. By J. S. Dalton, 1885.
——:o:——
IMITATIONS OF GRAY’S ELEGY.
Imitations of Gray’s “Elegy” are not only numerous, but are, as a rule, both long and dull. It is not, therefore, advisable to reprint them in this collection, but for the sake of completeness, some of the best must be enumerated.
William Mason, the poet, and biographer of Gray, ventured to write an imitation, entitled “An Elegy in a Churchyard in South Wales.”
Mason said his desire was to describe a day scene, so as to contrast it with the twilight scene of Gray’s “Elegy.”
But Mason’s presumption and self-sufficiency were extreme, not only could he venture to put forth this mawkish elegy, written in a churchyard by day, as a companion-piece to the far-famed twilight scene; but he also had the effrontery to tack a paltry tail-piece to Gray’s exquisite fragment on “Vicissitude,” and even believed himself capable of improving Gray’s epistolary compositions, although Gray was known to be one of the most fastidious, and most correct of writers. Mason’s tampering with Gray’s letters has been repeatedly exposed, and his imitations of Gray’s poetry now rest in merited oblivion. Another author, with almost equal temerity, ventured to publish a
SUPPLEMENT
to
Gray’s Elegy in a Church Yard.
“The celebrated elegy in a Church Yard, by Gray, is well known, and justly admired by every one who has the least pretensions to taste. But with all its polish, and deep poetic beauty and feeling, it always appeared to me, to be defective, and I have met with a remark in Cecil’s Remains, to the same effect. Amid a scene so well calculated to awaken in a pious mind reflection on the sublime truths and inspiring hopes of Christianity, Gray, with the exception of two or three somewhat equivocal expressions, says scarcely a word which might not have been said by one who believed that “death was an eternal sleep,” and who was disposed to regard the humble tenants of these tombs as indeed “Each in his narrow cell for ever laid.” With these views I have regretted, that sentiments similar to the following had not sprung up in the heart, and received the exquisite touches of the classic pen of Gray. They might with great propriety have followed the stanza beginning, “Far from the madding crowds’ ignoble strife.”
No airy dreams their simple fancies fired,
No thirst for wealth, nor panting after fame;
But truth divine, sublimer hopes inspired,
And urged them onward to a nobler aim.
From every cottage, with the day arose
The hallowed voice of spirit-breathing prayer;
And artless anthems, at its peaceful close,
Like holy incense, charmed the evening air.
Though they, each tome of human lore unknown,
The brilliant path of science never trod,
The sacred volume claimed their hearts alone,
Which taught the way to glory and to God.
Here they from truth’s eternal fountain drew
The pure and gladdening waters day by day,
Learnt, since our days are evil, fleet and few,
To walk in wisdom’s bright and peaceful way;
In yon lone pile, o’er which hath sternly passed
The heavy hand of all-destroying Time,
Through whose low mouldering isles now sighs the blast,
And round whose altars grass and ivy climb:
They gladly thronged, their grateful hymns to raise,
Oft as the calm and holy Sabbath shone;
The mingled tribute of their prayers and praise,
In sweet communion rose before the throne.
Here, from those honored lips, which sacred fire
From Heaven’s high chancery hath touched, they hear
Truths which their zeal inflame, their hopes inspire,
Give wings to faith, and check affliction’s tear.
When life flowed by, and, like an angel, Death
Came to release them to the world on high,
Praise trembled still on each expiring breath,
And holy triumph beamed from every eye.
Then gentle hands their “dust to dust” consign;
With quiet tears, the simple rites are said,
And here they sleep, till at the trump divine,
The earth and ocean render up their dead.
These lines, which originally appeared anonymously in an American Newspaper, are quoted in Relics of Literature. by Stephen Collett, A.M. London. Thomas Boys, 1823.
(“Stephen Collett” was said to be a name assumed by Thomas Byerley.)
The Foundlings.
An Elegy.
Far from the madding Tumults of the Town,
Which where bright thought should reign usurp the seat;
Far from those Tempests which Reflection drown,
I seek with breathless Haste a calm Retreat.
* * * * *
An anonymous imitation, published in quarto, by William Flexney, London. 1763.
An Evening Contemplation
in a French Prison:
Being a humble Imitation of Gray’s Elegy in a Country
Church Yard.
By H. P. Houghton,
Now an English Prisoner at Arras in France.
London. J. Burditt. 1809.
The Sun’s bright orb, retiring, dimly glares,
In strict compliance with the law of power;
Each pris’ner to his cheerless roof repairs;
And I, in thought, amuse the vacant hour.
Now sable Night, o’er all her mantle throws,
And solemn silence reigns throughout the yard;
Save where yon vet’ran to his station goes,
A poor, disabled, solitary guard!
Save that from yonder room in mournful strains,
With melancholy tone, and plaintive air,
Some tender Father, to the Night complains
Of children left without a parent’s care.
Within these ramparts, by fam’d Vauban made,
Where hapless youths for Freedom learn to weep,
On beds of humble straw, till morning laid,
The brave and dauntless Sons of Neptune sleep.
* * * * *
An Elegy
Wrote under a Gallows.
Dun-vested Twilight now along the sky,
With tardy moving pace, begins to creep;
Towards their solemn gloom wrap’d mansions fly
The ebon rooks, spread o’er the mountain steep.
Where this bald barren spot of earth expands,
Deck’d with no shade of plant, or flow’rets smile,
Rear’d by some skill-conducted artist’s hands,
A gallows frowns a terror striking pile!
* * * * *
By Hugh Downman, A.B. Printed in Edinburgh, 1768.
Lord Mayor’s Day.
A Mock Elegy.
The sun creeps slowly o’er the eastern hills,
The lazy pacing hours attend his way,
Thro’ the thick fog the scarce pervading beam,
Gives London’s Lord his gorgeous gaudy day.
Now the grim’d scavenger his besom plies,
And whistles at his work, unwonted glee,
The streets look decent, ev’n in courtier’s eyes,
While the wretch sweeps for dirtier soil than he.
And now the city bells, in many a peal,
Bursting at once upon the vacant ear,
Bid the glad freemen from their counters steal,
And hail the day to beef and pudding dear.
Nor pass we by the capon and the chine,
Nor heedless, leave the turkey’s praise unsung!
The many-mixtur’d punch, th’ inspiring wine,
Joy of each heart, and theme of every tongue.
The feasting o’er, the ball, the sprightly dance,
With jocund glee beguile the night away;
The crowds retire when Sunday hours advance,
“And eat, in dreams, the custard of the day.”
From The New Foundling Hospital for Wit.
Vol. V. London, 1786.
Elegy.
Written at the Hotwells, Bristol, July, 1789.
By the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Published by Cadell and Davies, Strand, London. It commences as follows:—
The morning wakes in shadowy mantle grey,
The darksome woods their glimmering skirts unfold,
Prone from the cliff the falcon whirls her way,
And long and loud the bell’s slow chime is tol’d.
The redd’ning light gains fast upon the skies,
And far away the glist’ning vapours sail,
Down the rough steep th’ accustom’d hedger hies,
And the stream winds in brightness thro’ the Vale.
Elegy.
Written in Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey.
Now sinks the hum confus’d of busy care,
And solemn Eve begins her placid reign;
Mild contemplation muses on the air,
And silence bends before her vestal train.
* * * * *
There are fifteen verses in this imitation, it is given in full in The Spirit Of the Public Journals. Volume VI. 1803.
The Nunnery.
Now pants the night breeze thro’ the darken’d air,
And silence soothes the vestal world to rest,
Save where some pale fac’d novice (wrapt in pray’r)
Heaves a deep moan, and smites her guiltless breast.
* * * * *
From an anonymous imitation.
Elegy.
Supposed to be written on a Field of Battle.
The wrathful storm hath swept along the dale;
The madd’ning fury of the fight is o’er;
Discord’s loud notes have ceas’d upon the gale—
The clang of arms, and pealing cannon’s roar;
The doubling drum; the trumpet’s brazen sound;
The yell of onset and the piercing groan;
The squadron’s charge, that shook the trembling ground;
The steed’s proud neigh; the long and dying moan.
* * * * *
These are the first two verses of a long anonymous poem, published by J. and A. Arch, Cornhill, London, 1818.
Elegy, Written in a City Churchyard.
Away from care—apart from earthly toil,
Let’s court the stillness of the silent grave,
Where dwell—within the death-encumbered soil,
The ashes of the fair—the gay—the brave!
How many trophies mark the hallowed ground!
Vain mock’ry of the sad and peaceful tomb!
How many fabrics cast their shade around!
Emblems of death! of man’s unerring doom!
* * * * *
From a long imitation, signed M. W. H., which appeared in Hood’s Magazine. June, 1848.
TRANSLATIONS
OF
The Elegy.
The Elegy has been translated into nearly every European language, whilst numerous Greek and Latin versions have also been printed.
It would be foreign to the objects of this collection to include these translations, but some bibliographical notes may be given which will enable students, and admirers of Gray, to obtain the works, in the Library of the British Museum, or in either of the other great public Libraries in Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, or Dublin.
| Greek Versions of Gray’s Elegy. | ||
| J. Norbury. | Eton. | 1793. |
| Professor Cooke. | Cambridge. | 1785. |
| C. Coote. | London. | 1794. |
| B. E. Sparke. | ” | ” |
| S. Weston. | ” | ” |
| E. Tew. | ” | 1795. |
| J. Plumtre. | ” | 1795. |
| Hon. G. Denman. | Cambridge. | 1871. |
| ——:o:—— | ||
| Latin Versions. | ||
| Christopher Anstey. | Cambridge. | 1762. |
| (This was in quarto, other editions have since beenpublished.) | ||
| R. Lloyd. | 1774. | |
| G. Costa. | Padua. | 1772. |
| Benio. | Verona. | 1817. |
| Barbieri. | Verona. | 1817. |
| C. C. Colton (author of “Lacon”). | 1822. | |
| Rev. William Hildyard. | London. | 1839. |
| J. H. Macaulay. | 1841. | |
| H. S. Dickenson. | 1849. | |
| James Pycroft, B.A. | Brighton. | 1879. |
| In Latin Elegiacs. Anonymous. | London. | 1876. |
| In Latin Elegiacs, by G. H., a countryman of George Buchanan. | 1877. | |
| Munro. In the Ovidian measure. | 1880. | |
| ——:o:—— | ||
| French Versions. | ||
| M. J. de Chenier. | Paris. | 1805. |
| J. Roberts. | London. | 1875. |
| Madame Necker. | ||
| Adrien Sarrasin. | ||
| ——:o:—— | ||
| Russian Version. | ||
| Joukovsky. | Moscow. | 1802. |
| ——:o:—— | ||
| Italian Versions. | ||
| M. Cesarotti. | Padua. | 1772. |
| J. Giannini. | London. | 1782. |
| G. Torelli. | Parma. | 1793. |
| ——:o:—— | ||
| Phonographic Version. | ||
| Corresponding style. Interlinear translation. London. F. Pitman. | (About 1866.) | |
——:o:——
In the Library of the British Museum there is a volume entitled: “Elegia di Tommaso Gray, sopra un cimitero di Campagna, tradotta dall’ Inglese in piu lingue con aggiunta di varie cose finora inedite per cura dell dottore Alessandro Torri. Veronese. Livorno Tipografia Migliaresi. 1843. This contains the original Elegy in English, followed by twelve Italian translations in different metres, five in Latin, one in Hebrew, six in French, one in German prose by William Mason, and three in German verse, or twenty-eight translations in all, and it mentions others which are not included. There are also copious notes, and a biography of Thomas Gray. The press mark in the B. M. Library of this very curious volume is 1465 K.
——:o:——
In 1839, a Polyglott edition of Gray’s Elegy was published by Mr. John Van Voorst, of Paternoster Row, London. This charming little volume contains some of the finest specimens of modern wood engraving, in which the artists have admirably succeeded in realising the spirit of the poem. The text consists of the original poem, with Greek, Latin, German, French, and Italian translations. The Greek translation was by Thomas J. Mathias, author of “The Pursuits of Literature,” the Latin by Rev. William Hildyard, the Italian by Guiseppe Torelli, and the German by F. G. Gotter. The French version is ascribed to M. Le Fourneur, whose verses are of very unequal merit; in a few cases he compresses the sense of a verse into two lines, in others he spreads it over six lines, whilst some of Gray’s most poetical ideas and images are entirely omitted.
The second verse:—
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the Beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
he renders
“Du soleil expirant la tremblante lumière
Délaisse par degrés les monts silencieux;
Un calme solennel enveloppe les cieux.”
thus altogether losing the beautiful description contained in the last two lines of the original.
——:o:——
A scarce little pamphlet published at Chatham in 1806, (kindly lent by Samuel Timmins, Esq.,) contains some imitations of the Elegy which have already appeared in this Collection, together with an excellent French translation which is worthy of preservation. The Title page runs thus:—
| GRAY’S ELEGY in a Country Church Yard; with a Translation in French Verse By L.D. To which are added, The following imitations: | |
| Nocturnal Contemplations in Barham Downs Camp. | The Nunnery and |
| Evening Contemplations in a College. | Nightly Thoughts in the Temple. |
| with Anecdotes of the Life of Gray, and Some Remarks in French; By the Editor. | |
| Chatham. Printed by C. & W. Townson, Kentish Courier Office. | |
| 1806. | |
Élégie.
Le rappel[27] a marqué le jour en son déclin,
Les troupeaux lentement quittent le pâturage,
Le laboureur courbé suit son triste chemin,
Laissant la sphère obscure à moi seul en partage.
Le paysage au loin passe et s’évanouit,
Un silence profond règne dans la nature,
Hormis où l’escarbot son vol bruyant poursuit,
Et le ruisseau lointain endort par son murmure.
Hors que, de cette tour que le lierre embellit,
Le nocturne hibou pousse une plainte amère
Quand quelque voyageur, approchant son réduit,
Vient troubler, par hazard, son règne solitaire.
A l’ombre de ces ifs, sous ces ormeaux noueux,
Où la terre en monceaux au passage s’oppose,
Renfermé pour toujours dans son caveau poudreux,
Le rustique habitant du village repose.
Le souffle parfumé du zéphir matinal,
Le moineau gazouillant sur leur paisible asyle,
Le chant perçant du coq, le cor aux cerfs fatal,
Ne les tireront plus de leur couche d’argile.
Ah! ils ne verront plus le fagot pétiller,
A leur donner ses soins l’active ménagère,
De chers enfans grimper pour saisir un baiser,
Bégayant à l’envi le tendre nom de père.
Souvent le champ céda ses moissons a leurs faulx,
Et leur soc entrouvrit la glèbe limoneuse,
Comme ils siffloient gaiement en menant leurs chevaux
Comme le bois plioit sous leur main vigoureuse.
Grands, ne méprisez point leurs soins industrieux,
Leurs plaisirs innocens et leurs destins sans gloire;
Orgueilleux, reprimez ce souris dédaigneux,
Au récit peu connu de leur obscure histoire.
Tous ces titres pompeux, ce pouvoir imposant,
Les dons de la beauté, les ris de la fortune,
Ne peuvent exempter du terrible moment;
Le chemin des honneurs mène à la fin commune.
Et vous, ambitieux, ne les accusez point
Si leurs simples tombeaux nul ornement ombrage,
Dans les murs révérés de cet asyle saint,
Où des chants vers les cieux s’élèvent en hommage.
Des faits sur l’urne inscrits, des bustes animés,
Peuvent ils rappeller le souffle irrévocable?
L’honneur peut-il toucher des corps inanimés,
Ou l’encens appaiser la mort inexorable?
Peut-être un cœur rempli jadis d’un feu divin,
Se trouve renfermé dans ce lieu de tristesse,
Un bras propre à régler d’un peuple le destin,
Ou sonner à ravir la lyre enchantéresse.
Mais loin d’eux la science éloigna son trésor,
Des dépouilles du tems amplement enrichie;
L’affreuse pauvreté retint leur noble essor,
En sa source glaça le courant du génie.
Maint et maint beau rubis aux rayons lumineux,
Dans les gouffres profonds du vaste océan brille;
Mainte fleur crôit, fleurit, passe et échappe aux yeux,
Exhalant dans les airs un parfum inutile.
Un Condé de hameau dont le cœur courageux
Brava souvent des loups la sauvage furie,
Un Racine ignoré peut-être est dans ces lieux,
Un Mayenne, innocent du sang de sa patrie.
Par la mâle éloquence étonner un sénat,
Répandre dans l’état la riante abondance,
Affronter les périls, la mort dans le combat,
Être d’un peuple entier la joie et l’ésperance,
Jamais ne fut leur lot; car le sort obstiné
Dans le germe étouffa leurs vertus et leurs crimes,
Défendit, de souiller un trône ensanglanté
Pour régner sans pitié sur de tristes victimes.
Non, ils n’eurent jamais, à réprimer l’ardeur
Des remords dévorans, d’une flamme honteuse,
A prodiguer au vice, au luxe, à la grandeur
L’encens prostitué d’une Muse flatteuse.
Loin du fracas bruyant, des soins tumultueux,
Compagnons assidus des habitans des villes,
Retirés, sans désirs, satisfaits et heureux,
Ils coulèrent sans bruit des jours longs et utiles.
Des insultes pourtant leurs os sont préservés!
On élève près d’eux une pierre rustique,
Où des vers sans mesure, ignoramment gravés,
Arrachent au passant un soupir sympathique.
Leurs noms, leur age inscrits, sans nul ordre arrangés,
Leur tiennent lieu d’honneurs, leur servent d’élégie;
Et des écrits divins, les textes révérés,
Peignent la vanité des grandeurs de la vie.
Car quel est le mortel assez insouciant,
Pour quitter d’un beau jour l’agréable lumière,
Résigner les douceurs d’ici bas au néant
Sans jetter tristement un regard en arrière.
A notre dernière heure il est doux de penser
Que des amis sur nous des larmes vont répandre;
Oui, du fond du tombeau notre esprit sait parler,
Le feu qui brule en nous vit encore dans nos cendres.
Toi, qui ces morts obscurs sans cesse révéras,
Toi, qui peins en ces vers leur innocente image,
Si quelque ame sensible ici portant ces pas,
Demandait aux échos quel sort fut son partage;
Quelque berger en pleurs peut-être lui dira:
“Souvent nous l’avous vu, dès la brillante aurore,
“Fouler les prés fleuris, s’avancer à grand pas
“Vers ce sommet riant, que le soleil colore.
“Là, sous l’ombrage frais de ce hêtre incliné
“Dont les pieds tortueux se jouent sur la verdure,
“Au bord de ce ruisseau tout de son long couché,
“Il sembloit méditer au bruit de son murmure.
“Tantôt près de ce bois il erroit isolé,
“Avec un ris moqueur insultant la fortune
“Tantôt pâle, abattu, comme un être effaré:
“Malheureux en amour, plongé dans l’infortune.
Un jour sur la colline en vain je le cherchai,
“Dans les prés émaillés, sous le paisible ombrage,
“Un autre succéda-mais je ne le trouvai,
“Ni près du clair ruisseau, ni près du bois sauvage.
“Bientôt au bruit des chants, des soupirs, des sanglots,
“Nous le vimes porté sans vie au cimetière,
“Sous cette épine antique, approche et lis ces mots,
“Qu’une main bienfaisante a gravés sur la pierre:”
L’Épitaphe.
Sur le sein de la terre, abandonné, sans biens,
Un jeune infortuné repose ici la tête;
La science en naissant le prit parmi les siens,
Et la mélancolie en fit lors sa conquête.
Son âme fut sincère et son cœur généreux,
Le ciel en récompense le tira des alarmes,
Sa pitié consolante offrit aux malheureux
Tout ce qu’il possédoit—hélas! c’étoit des larmes.
Ne cherche pas plus loin, et laisse ses vertus,
Ses faiblesses aussi reposer en silence
Dans le sein de son Dieu, qui, parmi ses élus,
Un jour doit l’appeler en sa sainte présence.
——:o:——
Legs in Tattersall’s Yard.
The dustman tolls the coming of the morn
Of Monday, big with business and noise;
The coach-guard gaily blows his patent horn,
Delighting all the little girls and boys.
Now briskly move along the well-pav’d street
Tradesmen of ev’ry grade on bus’ness bent;
Merchants and stockbrokers on eastern beat
Their minds on funds and barter most intent.
Now fam’d St. James’s Street is dreary grown,
And left in melancholy desert state,
Save where some guardsman paces up and down
From Hoby’s boot shop to the Palace gate.
Save that at Fenton’s doorway there appears
Some carriage lading to go out of town
Or drayman laying in a stock of beer
To wash the fricassies and good things down.
Moving tw’rd’s Hyde Park Corner in the west,
With steady pace and fashionable swing,
Are seen young sprigs of fortune gaily dress’d,
To lounge an hour in the betting ring.
Beneath yon gateway, Tattersall’s fam’d yard,
Where nags are bought and sold both strong and fleet,
Each with the betting book, and pencil hard,
The legs and sporting men are wont to meet.
Oft does the betting to their cunning yield,
Their craft has many a fav’rite horse thrown back
Then knowingly at odds they back the field,
And turn their certain hundreds in a crack.
Let not morality decry their game,
Their heavy bets and calculations clear
For Justice self has patronised the same
Although to Justice many have paid dear.
Nor you, ye tradesmen, murmur or complain,
If when ye ask for cash, ye’re told to wait,
Nor dare to dun, nor importune again,
Tho’ ’twere to save you from starvation’s fate.
Shall the great Derby or the Oaks give place
To ordinary calls at tradesmen’s wills?
Shall bets of honor lost upon a race
Be left unpaid for shopmen’s dirty bills?
Perhaps amidst the motley group you’ll see
Some youth just jump’d into a peer’s estate,
Some halfpay Captain M—, or Colonel D—
Much worse than nothing or by legging great.
Some lucky pugilist whose prowess great
All other heroes of his day withstood,
Some thick-scull’d horsedealer, who owes to fate
More than to head and brains he ever could.
Full many a flat and fortune favour’d youth,
The east and western parts of London hold
Full many a peer can testify the truth,
That many men possess less brains than gold.
Their names, their years, by folly written down,
A lengthen’d list of dupes would well supply,
And many a leg might in the list be shown,
Who carries now his head amazing high.
For thee who knowing not the term of leg
Dost in these lines mysterious language find,
And would thereof an explanation beg
To quench the sturdy wonder of thy mind.
Haply at Tattersall’s Subscription Room,
They’ll tell thee that, by modern definition
A Leg’s a Lord, a Captain, or a Groom,
Or one whose betting keeps him in condition
For thee, who paramount of Legs the head,
Dost herein recognize thine own estate,
If chance, in after days by fancy led,
Some sporting novice shall enquire thy fate.
Haply some aged Jockey may reply
Oft have we seen him on Newmarket course,
With steadfast gaze and scrutinizing eye
Watching the trial of some fav’rite horse.
One morn we miss’d him on the accustom’d spot
Just by the ditch, (the meeting week was near,)
The races came but we beheld him not,
At length to church-yard move we saw his bier.
Epitaph.
Here rests his head upon a lap of earth
A Leg at Epsom and Newmarket known,
He made a handsome fortune on the turf,
That turf, alas, now claims him as its own.
From The Spirit of the Age Newspaper. 1828.
An Elegy
on
The Departed Season.
The Porter tolls the bell on starting day,
The blowing heard is pent-up steam let free,
The lengthy train winds out its hissing way,
And leaves the town to dulness and to me.
Now fades the glittering season from the sight—
Belgravia a solemn stillness holds;
The “families” from their mansions take to flight,
And holland, glazed, the furniture enfolds.
“The ring,” deserted, leaves Hyde Park in gloom,
No carriage, phaeton, brougham, four-in-hand;
No dashing cab, no top boot dapper groom,
No haughty coachman, no tall footman bland.
The well-dressed men who lean about the rail,
Who lift the hat so gracefully, and bow
To carriage beauties, languishing and pale,
Who wearily respond—where are they now?
Where is the prancing “life” of Rotten Row—
High blood of palaces, or clerk from marts?
Where the fair Amazon, dashing to and fro—
She who breaks horses—eke awhile breaks hearts?
Where are the gentle connoisseurs of flowers—
The languid saunterers through Covent Garden?
Off to their Continental homes and bowers—
Spain—Paris—Italy—Spa—Baden-Baden.
Dark is the Opera—“in silent tiers;”
Just now in jewelled beauty all ablaze.
How short the flitted season past appears!
Singers, and ballet, too, how short their stays!
Closed are the halls of fashionable shows—
The “R.A.” masterpieces, and the smudges—
“King Charles and Sunday”—“Venus” without clothes,
That shocked the prudish, and amazed the judges.
The Parliament—its grand defeats and glories—
Its orators profound, and twaddling bores—
The fiery democrats—the Whigs—the Tories—
Ah! blessed fate that gave them to the Moors!
Full many a swell whose way is “all serene,”
Luxurious yachts across the ocean bear;
Full many a gent, too, makes a rush unseen,
To taste the sweetness of the desert air.
Ah you, ye proud of independent wealth,
That boast of heraldry, and power, and pomp!
Ye’re off to some sea coast, recruiting health—
To shooting, angling, county ball, or romp.
But here the milkman calleth every morn,
The sparrows twitter, seeking to be fed;
The maid’s shrill signal, then is ruthless torn,
The man of business from his downy bed.
Come then, thou frequent, fast suburban train—
The river steamer, wherry, gig, or horse—
Let us enjoy the grassy open plain,
And cultivate our cricket, or “La Crosse;”
Or seek beneath the Hyde Park elms a shade
Where patriots, assembled in a heap,
But now the ghost of interdiction laid:
The rude foregatherings of Reform may sleep.
Let not ambition mock that useful toil
By hardy hands and characters obscure,
Nor grandeur think with a disdainful smile
Of such an entry-forcible yet sure.
From Banter. Edited by George Augustus Sala. September, 1867.
The whistle shrieks the knell of parting day,
The humming engine coughs along the lea,
The driver lets the steam puff forth its way
And leaves the world to ugliness and me.
* * * * *
See “The Miz-Maze,” by Miss Yonge. London. Macmillan & Co.
——:o:——
Mr. Elliot Stock published an illustrated edition of the Elegy, containing a facsimile of the fair copy of the poem in Gray’s hand writing, (which is in Pembroke College, Cambridge,) together with notes of the principle variations in different copies of the Elegy preserved in other collections.
The following articles also contain information on Gray’s poems, and more especially concerning the Elegy.
The Quarterly Review, London, December, 1853.
Walford’s Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer for November and December, 1883.
In 1884, Mr. K. L. Munden issued a prospectus of a proposed work, intended to contain Parallel Poems, Parodies, and Imitations of Gray’s Elegy. The book was to have been in quarto, and issued at the price of one guinea, but it does not appear in the British Museum Catalogue, so it is probable that it was not published.
In a small publication entitled Edgbastonia for November, 1884, there appeared an article on Parodies, and imitations of Gray’s Elegy, signed by K. L. Munder, probably a misprint for Munden. This contained very little additional information to that previously given in the two admirable articles in Walford’s Antiquarian Magazine above named.
A subscriber to this Collection writes that a parody entitled “An Elegy written in a London Churchyard” appeared in “The Literary Sketch Book,” for 1825, London. No such work however appears in the catalogue of the British Museum Library, the parody mentioned cannot therefore be included.
Dr. Tisdall, of Dublin, has courteously written to point out a few errors which occurred in his parody, The Elegy on Mrs. Mulligan, as it originally appeared in The Elocutionist, as well as in the reprint of it on [page 37] Parodies. The corrections are as follows:—
Verse 2, line III. A tender mother—a devoted wife.
Verse 4, line II. With vests, he-mises, with handkerchiefs, and frills.
Verse 12, line III. And scatter snowdrops as ye pass along.
Verse 13, line II. No fulsome epitaph, no flattering trope.
This concludes the Parodies, Imitations, and Translations of Gray’s Elegy in a Country Church Yard. Such a collection has never before been attempted; every endeavour has been made to gather materials from all available sources, and it is believed that no parody of any interest, or merit, has been omitted. Should, however, attention be drawn to any omission, mention will be made of it in a future issue.
ODE ON THE SPRING.
[The title originally given by Mr. Gray to this Ode was “Noontide.”]
Lo! where the rosy-bosom’d Hours,
Fair Venus’ train, appear,
Disclose the long-expected flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckow’s note,
The untaught harmony of Spring:
While, whisp’ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro’ the clear blue sky
Their gather’d fragrance fling.
Where’er the oak’s thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where’er the rude and moss-grown beech
O’er-canopies the glade,
Beside some water’s rushy brink
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclin’d in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the Crowd,
How low, how little are the Proud,
How indigent the Great!
Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how thro’ the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o’er the current skim,
Some shew their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.
To Contemplation’s sober eye
Such is the race of Man:
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the Busy and the Gay
But flutter thro’ Life’s little day,
In Fortune’s varying colours drest:
Brush’d by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill’d by Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:
Poor Moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glitt’ring female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic while ’tis May.
Thomas Gray.
Ode on the Spring
By a Man of Fashion.
I.
Lo! where party giving dames,
Fair Fashion’s train, appear,
Disclose the long-expected games,
And wake the modish year.
The opera-warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the actor’s note,
The dear-bought harmony of Spring;
While, beaming pleasure as they fly,
Bright flambeaus through the murky sky
Their welcome fragrance fling.
II.
Where’er the routs full myriads close
The staircase and the door,
Where’er thick files of belles and beaus
Perspire through ev’ry pore;
Beside some faro-table’s brink,
With me the Muse shall stand and think,
(Hemmed sweetly in by squeeze of state,)
How vast the comfort of the crowd,
How condescending are the proud,
How happy are the great!
III.
Still is the toiling hand of Care,
The drays and hacks repose;
But, hark, how through the vacant air
The rattling clamour glows!
The wanton Miss and rakish Blade,
Eager to join the Masquerade,
Through streets and squares pursue their fun;
Home in the dusk some bashful skim;
Some lingering late, their motley trim
Exhibit to the sun.
IV.
To Dissipation’s playful eye,
Such is the life for man,
And they that halt and they that fly
Should have no other plan:
Alike the busy and the gay
Should sport all night till break of day,
In Fashion’s varying colours drest;
Till seiz’d for debt through rude mischance,
Or chill’d by age, they leave the dance,
In gaol or dust—to rest.
V.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
Some sober quiz reply,
Poor child of Folly! what art thou?
A Bond-Street butterfly?
Thy choice nor Health nor Nature greets,
No taste hast thou of vernal sweets,
Enslav’d by noise, and dress, and play;
Ere thou art to the country flown,
The sun will scorch, the Spring be gone,
Then leave the town in May.
From The Fashionable World Displayed.
By John Owen. London, 1804,
Ode on the Closing of the House of Commons,
By George, Prince Regent, in 1816.
Lo! where the scarlet-bosom’d band,
The Regent’s pomp, appear;
Lo! where the Commons crowding stand,
The Session’s close to hear!
The spangled Ruler pours his throat,
Responsive to the Speaker’s note,
Well-prim’d his part to play;
While Placemen, Pensioners, and Peers,
By listening with attentive ears,
Their ready tribute pay.
Where the old tapestry figures stretch
Their cobwebs round the throne;
Where note-takers contrive to catch
No meaning but their own;
Viewing the Regent’s well-plum’d head,
Some time I stood, then whisp’ring said,
As much I marvell’d at his hat—
How true to Nature is his wig;
What beaux, what triflers are the big!
What Dandies are the fat!
The Treasury tribe is on the wing,
Eager to end their troubled Spring,
And bask them in the Summer noon;
Some prosing in the lobby wait,
Some show their star-bedizen’d state,
Or Cossack pantaloon.
To Contemplation’s sober eye,
Such is the race of man;
And they that speak, and they that try,
Must end where they began.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
Some holder of a place—
“Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A patriot in disgrace!
“Thy hand no gracious Regent meets,
No hive hast thou of pension sweets—
No stars, no riband to display;
In rebel speech thy hope is flown;
Thy name is up, thy party known—
We pocket while we may.”
From The New Tory Guide.
London: Ridgeway, 1819.
——:o:——
ODE ON THE DEATH of a FAVOURITE CAT.
Drowned in a Tub[28] of Gold Fishes.
’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,
Where China’s gayest art had dy’d
The azure flowers, that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclin’d,
Gaz’d on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declar’d;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purr’d applause.
Still had she gaz’d; but ’midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide[29]
The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue
Thro’ richest purple to the view
Betray’d a golden gleam.
The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretch’d, in vain, to reach the prize,
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat’s averse to fish?
Presumptuous Maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch’d, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smil’d)
The slipp’ry verge her feet beguil’d,
She tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood,
She mewed to every watery God,
Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred,
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard:
A Fav’rite has no friend.
From hence, ye Beauties, undeceived,
Know one false step is ne’er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wondering eyes,
And heedless hearts is lawful prize,
Nor all that glistens,[30] gold.
Thomas Gray.
Ode
On the death of a favourite,
who was nearly drowned in the River Thames.
’Twas in a new-constructed boat,
Which Acre’s hero set afloat
The Treasury Bench to show,
Demurest of the placeman kind,
The gentle Castlereagh[31] reclin’d,
Gazed on the Thames below
His tail, which he so lately turn’d,
The face which ne’er with shame had burn’d.
His powerful grasp of paws!
The coat which he had often chang’d
His ears still left, and eyes which rang’d
He saw, and smil’d, applause.
Still had he gaz’d; but ’midst the tide
Some Downshire voters seemed to glide,
With aspect sweet and mild:
Their lists of freeholds in their hand
With names of those they could command,
Betray’d this ardent child.
The hapless youth with transport saw;
A prosing speech, and then a claw,
To gain the sturdy race
He stretch’d in vain to reach the prize;
Nor could he well such fish despise,
Who is so fond of Place.
Presumptuous youth! with looks intent,
Again he stretched, again he bent,
Nor saw the gulf between:
Malignant Fate sat by and smil’d
The slippery verge his feet beguil’d,
He tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the Thames,
He call’d his messmates by their names,
Some speedy aid to send:
No Phipps, no Long, no Premier heard,
(Because he slept), nor Mulgrave stirr’d—
A fav’rite has no friend.
From hence, ye placemen, undeceiv’d,
Know, one false step is ne’er retriev’d;
Be warn’d by this sad hour;
Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
And hearts corrupt, is lawful prize,
Nor all within your pow’r.
From The Spirit of the Public Journals.
1805. James Ridgway. London.
Parody of Gray’s Ode.
On a Cat drowned in a tub of Gold Fishes.
’Twas on the pavement of a lane,
Where a hard shower of soaking rain
Had made a pretty mess;
A buck advanc’d with careful strut,
For fear a sprinkle from the rut
Should soil his lily dress.
His powder’d head, his silken hose,
The dashing buckles on his toes,
Seem’d suited for a court;
The muslin round a pudding roll’d
In which he kept his chin from cold,
Was of the finest sort.
He trod on slow; but ’midst the tide
A brewer’s dray was seen to glide—
Unmindful of the mud;
Before which stalked, with steps quite bold,
Two high-fed steeds of beauteous mould—
The pride of Whitbread’s stud.
The splashing made on every side
The lane, which was not over wide,
Quite terrified the elf:
He saw the careless steeds come on,
But dar’d not stand, nor dar’d to run—
Lest he should splash himself.
At length, poor youth! he made a stop,
And would have got into a shop—
But, ah! the door was shut!
When lo! th’ advanc’d procession greets
The hapless beau with all the sweets
Collected in the rut!
He swore, and call’d the drayman wight
Untaught, unlearn’d, and unpolite,
And said he’d thrash the blade;
But he did not—good reason why;
Alas, no Hercules was nigh,
To give Narcissus aid!
Then, all ye bucks who walk the street,
So spruce, so buxom, and so neat,
Learn this sad tale by reading,
To keep at home on rainy days
Lest you should meet with any drays—
For draymen have no breeding!
The Morning Chronicle. 1800.
A parody, entitled “Ode on the amputation of a Cat’s Tail,” was published by B. Flower, Cambridge, 1795, in a pamphlet entitled “Scraps and Essays, by a Cantab.”
There is no merit in the parody to atone for the choice of such a disgusting theme for an ode.
Another political imitation of this ode appeared in The St. James’s Chronicle relating to John, Earl of Bute, the Prime Minister in 1762, who was so bitterly attacked by Junius, and John Wilkes. This nobleman, who had been tutor to George III., was nicknamed “Jack Boot,” and in the popular caricatures of the day was represented as a large jack boot surmounted by his head.
The parody possesses little interest, it commences thus:—
’Twas on the lofty Treasury’s side
Where Walpole’s basest arts had tried
The wistful Briberies that flow;
Most ambitious of the Plaidy kind,
The upshot Bute reclined,
Gazed on the gold below.
His country’s hopes his joy declared,
His freckled face, his grizzled beard,
The talons of his paws,
His Plaid, that with the Rainbow vies,
His downcast looks, and jaundiced eyes,
He said, and hummed applause.
* * * * *
——:o:——
ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.
[This was the first English production of Mr. Gray that appeared in print, and was published in folio, by Dodsley, in 1747.]
Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat’ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry’s holy shade[32];
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor’s heights th’ expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way:
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields belov’d in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray’d,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to sooth,
And, redolent of joy and youth
To breathe a second spring.
Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green
The paths of pleasure trace;
Who foremost now delight to cleave,
With pliant arm, thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle’s speed,
Or urge the flying ball?
While some on earnest business bent,
Their murm’ring labours ply
’Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.
Gay hope is theirs by Fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast;
Theirs buxom Health, of rosy hue,
Wild Wit, Invention ever-new,
And lively Cheer, of Vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th’ approach of morn.
Alas! regardless of their doom
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see, how all around ’em wait
The Ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murd’rous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!
These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy, with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visag’d comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow’s piercing dart.
Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness’ alter’d eye,
That mocks the tear it forc’d to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil’d,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.
Lo, in the Vale of Years beneath,
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their Queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age.
To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan;
The tender for another’s pain,
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since Sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their Paradise,
No more;—where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.
Thomas Gray.
Ode on Ranelagh.[33]
Addressed to the Ladies.
Ye dazzling lamps, ye Jocund fires,
That from yon fabric shine,
Where grateful pleasure yet admires
Her Lacy’s great design:
And ye who from the fields which lie
Round Chelsea, with amazement’s eye,
The gardens and the dome survey,
Whose walks, whose trees, whose lights among,
Wander the courtly train along
Their thought-dispelling way.
Ah splendid room! Ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, walks belov’d in vain,
Where oft in happier times I stray’d,
A stranger then to pain:
I feel the gales, which from you blow
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
They seem to sooth my famish’d soul
And, redolent of tea and roll,
To breathe a second spring.
Rotunda, say, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
In thy bright round with step serene,
The paths of pleasure trace:
Who chiefly now delight to lave
Green hyson, in the boiling wave,
The sable coffee, which distil?
What longing progeny are found
Who stroll incessant round and round
Like horses in a mill?
While some on earnest business dream:
And, gravely stupid, try
To search each complicated scheme
Of publick policy:
Some ladies leave the spacious dome
Around the garden’s maze to roam,
And unknown regions dare descry;
Still as they walk they look behind,
Lest fame a secret foe should find
From some malicious eye.
Loud mirth is theirs, and pleasing praise,
To beauty’s shrine address’d:
The sprightly songs, the melting lays,
Which charm the soften’d breast!
Theirs lively wit, invention free,
The sharp bon mot, keen repartee,
And ev’ry art coquets employ!
The thoughtless day, the jocund night,
The spirits brisk, the sorrows light,
That fly th’ approach of joy.
Alas! regardless of their doom
The lovely victims rove;
No sense of sufferings yet to come
Can now their prudence move:
But see! where all around them wait
The ministers of female fate,
An artful, perjur’d, cruel train;
Ah! show them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey, the faithless band
Of false, deceitful men!
These shall the lust of gaming wear
That harpy of the mind,
With all the troop of rage and fear,
That follows close behind:
Or pining love shall waste their youth,
Or jealousy, with rankling tooth,
That gnaws bright Hymen’s golden chain,
Who opens wide the fatal gate,
For sad distrust and ruthless hate,
And sorrow’s pallid train.
Ambition this shall tempt to fix
Her hopes on something high,
To barter for a coach and six
Her peace and liberty.
The stings of scandal these shall try,
And affectation’s haughty eye
That scowls on those it us’d to greet,
The cutting sneer, the abusive song
And false report that glides along,
With never-resting feet.
And lo! when in the vale of years
A grisly tribe are seen;
Fancy’s pale family of fears,
More hideous than their queen:
Struck with th’ imaginary crew
Which artless nature never knew,
These aid from quacks, and cordials beg,
While this, transform’d by folly’s hand,
Remains awhile at her command
A tea-pot, or an egg.
To each her suff’rings: all must grieve,
And pour a silent groan,
At homage others charms receive,
Or slights that meet their own:
But all the voice of truth severe
Will suit the gay, regardless ear,
Whose joy in mirth and revels lies!
Thought would destroy this paradise.
No more!—Where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.
Anonymous. 1775.
The eminent, but eccentric architect, Sir John Soane, was satirised in Knight’s Quarterly Magazine (No. 4, 1824), in an article by a witty critic, who, speaking of Dulwich College, said, “It is a fine specimen of Soane’s own original and best style,” and thus addresses it, in a parody of Gray:—
“Ye vases five, ye antic towers,
That crown the turnpike glade,
Where art, in dingy light adores
Her Bourgeois’ ochrey shade;”
The poet then apostrophises the Superior of the College, who, by the will of its founder, Allen, must always bear the same name as himself:—
“Say, Master Allen, hast thou seen
The connoisseuring race,
Breathless, amazed, on Dulwich-green,
My lines of beauty trace?
Who foremost now delights to stop
To look at God’s Gift[34] picture shop;
Is’t Nash, or Smirke, or Gwilt?
Do not the knowing loungers cry,
‘My eye!’ at my sarcophagi,
And guess by whom ’twas built!”
* * * * *
Ode on the Distant Prospect of a Good Dinner.
Ye distant dishes, sideboards blest
With Halford’s peptic pill—
Where grateful gourmands still attest
Illustrious Robert’s skill;
And ye that, girt with legumes round,
Or in the purest pastry bound,
On silvery surface lie;
Where pâté—salmi—sauce tomate,
Fricandeau framed with nicest art
Attract the glist’ning eye.
Ah! richest scent! perfume beloved!
Blest odours breathed in vain—
Where once my raptured palate roved,
And fain would rove again.
I feel the gales that now ascend,
A momentary craving lend—
As curling round the vapours seem
My faded faculties t’excite,
Restore my long-pall’d appetite,
And soothe me with their steam.
Say, Monsieur Ude, for thou hast seen
Full many a jovial set
Discoursing on la bonne cuisine,
In social union met—
Who foremost now prepare to pray
Des cotelettes à la chicorée?
Sauté de saumon—qui l’attend?
What young Amphitryons now vote
Nothing like pigeons en compote,
Or taste the vol-au-vent?
While some at lighter viands aim,
And towards digestion lean,
Poularde aux truffes, or à la crème,
Or agneau aux racines;
Some hardier epicures disdain
The distant chance of doubtful pain,
And queue d’esturgeon try;
Still as they eat they long to cease,
They feel a pang as every piece
Passes their palate by.
But lo! the entremets are placed
To greet the gourmand’s nose,
Bedeck’d with all the pride of paste,
Confective prowess shows.
One earnestly devotes his praise
To beignets a la lyonnaise,
Others survey with mix’d delight
Gelées d’orange—de marasquin;
While some, with looks ecstatic, scan
The soufflé’s buoyant height.
Best fair is theirs by —— fed,
Less pleasing to digest;
The taste soon gone, and in its stead,
Oppression on the chest.
Theirs joyous hours, and jocund nights,
Wit’s playful sallies, fancy’s flights,
And goodly cheer as e’er was seen—
The aged Hock—the Champagne bright,
Burgundia’s best, and Claret light,
The vintage of nineteen.
Alas! regardless of their doom
Each rich ragout they take,
No sense have they of pains to come,
Of head, or stomach-ache.
Yet see how all around them press,
Th’ attendants of each night’s excess;
Fell Indigestion’s followers vile:
Ah! show them where the hateful crew
Scoff calomel and pills of blue,
Ah! tell them they have bile.
These shall the Gout tormenting rack,
The Vampire of the toes,
Night-mare, Lumbago in the back,
And Cholic’s painful throes;
Or languid liver waste their youth,
Or caries of a double tooth,
Its victim’s nerves that nightly gnaws.
Vertigo—Apoplexy—Spleen,
The feverish hand—the visage green,
The lengthen’d lanthorn jaws.
This, a consommé, precious prize!
Is tempted now to try;
To restless nights a [sacrifice],
And dire acidity.
Till throbs of heart-burn—ague’s pangs,
And Cholera’s fiercely fixing fangs,
Have left him, liverless, to moan,
The bloated form—the pimpled face,
The tottering step—th’ expiring trace
Of good digestion gone.
To each his twitches, all are men,
Condemned to pick their bone;
The poor man in another’s den,
The rich man in his own.
Yet, why should I of torments treat?
Since we were made to drink and eat,
Why should I prophesy their pain?
Stomachs were form’d for holding food—
No more—while our digestion’s good,
’Tis folly to abstain.
From Blackwood’s Magazine, May, 1828.
Ode on a Prospect of the Abolition
of Eton Montem.
Ye distant spires, ye antique tow’rs.
That crown the wat’ry glade,
Where Aristocracy’s young flowers
Bless Henry’s holy shade,
For culture which the monarch meant
For scholars poor and indigent;
Unable for their lore to pay—
Some grumbling churls, in language strong,
Pronounce this change a wicked wrong,
No matter what they say!
Ah hapless tow’rs! ah luckless spires!
Ah statutes shirk’d amain!
That high-born sons of noble sires
Might learning gratis gain;
The gales that from your quarters blow
Oppress me with a sense of woe;
For they a horrid rumour bring
That Eton Montem is to be
At length abolish’d—Goodness me!
Oh what a shocking thing!
Say, Hill of Salt, for thou hast seen
Full many a noble race
Do what might be considered mean
In any other case—
With cap in hand, and courtly leg,
Waylay the traveller, and beg;
Say, was it not a pleasing sight
Those young Etonians to behold,
For eleemosynary gold,
Arrest the passing wight!
Whilst some, of more excursive bent,
Their vagrant arts to ply,
To all the various places went,
That in the neighbourhood lie;
To Datchet, Slough, or Horton they,
Or e’en to Colnbrook, took their way,
Or ancient Windsor’s regal town;
Stopp’d everybody they could meet,
Knock’d at each house in every street,
In hopes of half-a-crown.
Gay clothes were theirs, by fancy made;
Some were as Romans drest,
Some in the Grecian garb array’d,
Some bore the knightly crest;
Theirs was attire of every hue,
Of every fashion, old or new,
Various as Nathan’s ample store:
Angelic beings! Ladies! say,
Will ye let these things pass away?
Must Montem be no more?
Alas! our institutions old
Are going, one by one;
The work of innovation bold,
With Montem has begun;
Next flogging it will overthrow,
And fagging, too, of course will go,
And then farewell the good old school
Science with Latin and with Greek
To mix e’en now Reform would seek
Ah, tell her she’s a fool!
To all their likings, and their taste,
Their fancies and their qualms;
Some gentlemen may feel debased
By sons who ask for alms;
Yet youthful Lord, and stripling Duke,
To beg for salt, without rebuke,
At Montem always were allowed:—
What argument can answer this?
No more—where beggary is bliss,
’Tis folly to be proud.
Punch. December, 1846.
Ode on a Close Prospect of Eton College.
(By a Gray-Headed Wet Bob.)
Ye crumbling spires, ye antique towers,—
What, if ye were decayed!
What, if your fragments fell in showers
On Henry’s holy shade!
And what, if o’er your cloister walls
Vague pencilled ornamental scrawls
Afforded mute display;
Should Vandals, who all things renew,
Be down upon thy records too,
And sweep them clean away!
But, there!—with taste he calls “correct,”
’Mid scenes of vanished days
Your gay restoring Architect
The very dickens plays!
Yet, as his brand-new work he vaunts,
He gives us for our treasured haunts
Red brick—and nothing more!
Which drives Wet Bob to stick to this,
“Where crumbling memories are bliss,
’Tis folly to restore!”
Punch. August 5, 1882.
——:o:——
THE BARD.
A Pindaric Ode.
[This Ode is founded on a Tradition current in Wales, that Edward the First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the Bards that fell into his hands to be put to death. But this Tradition has long been known to be destitute of any reliable historical foundation.]
I.
“Ruin seize thee, ruthless King
Confusion on thy banners wait;
Tho’ fann’d by Conquest’s crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor Hauberk’s twisted mail[35]
Nor e’en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria’s curse, from Cambria’s tears!”
Such were the sounds that o’er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter’d wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon’s shaggy side[36]
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Glos’ter stood aghast[37] in speechless trance
To arms! cried Mortimer[38] and couch’d his quiv’ring lance.
II.
On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o’er old Conway’s foaming flood,
Rob’d in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream’d, like a meteor, to the troubled air)
And with a Master’s hand, and Prophet’s fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre,
“Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert-cave,
“Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath!
“O’er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave,
“Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
“Vocal no more, since Cambria’s fatal day,
“To high-born Hoel’s harp, or soft Llewellyn’s lay.
III.
“Cold is Cadwallo’s tongue,
“That hush’d the stormy main:
“Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
“Mountains, ye mourn in vain
“Modred, whose magic song
“Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topp’d head.
“On dreary Arvon’s shore they lie,
“Smear’d with gore, and ghastly pale:
“Far, far aloof th’ affrighted ravens sail;
“The famish’d Eagle screams, and passes by
“Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
“Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes
“Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
“Ye died amidst your dying country’s cries—
“No more I weep. They do not sleep.
“On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,
“I see them sit, they linger yet,
“Avengers of their native land:
“With me in dreadful harmony they join,
“And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.
IV.
“Weave the warp, and weave the woof
“The winding sheet of Edward’s race
“Give ample room, and verge enough
“The characters of hell to trace.
“Mark the year, and mark the night,
“When Severn shall re-echo with affright
“The shrieks of death, thro’ Berkley’s roof that ring,
“Shrieks of an agonizing King[39]
“She-wolf of France[40], with unrelenting fangs,
“That tear’st the bowels of thy mangled Mate,
“From thee be born, who o’er thy country hangs
“The scourge of Heaven. What Terrors round him wait!
“Amazement in his van, with Flight combin’d,
“And Sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind.
V.
“Mighty Victor, mighty Lord,
“Low on his funeral couch he lies![41]
“No pitying heart, no eye, afford
“A tear to grace his obsequies.
“Is the sable Warrior fled?[42]
“Thy son is gone. He rests among the Dead.
“The Swarm, that in thy noon-tide beam were born.
“Gone to salute the rising Morn.
“Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the Zephyr blows
“While proudly riding o’er the azure realm
“In gallant trim the gilded Vessel goes;
“Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;
“Regardless of the sweeping Whirlwind’s sway,
“That, hush’d in grim repose, expects his evening-prey.
VI.
“Fill high the sparking bowl
“The rich repast prepare,
“Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
“Close by the regal chair
“Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
“A baleful smile upon their baffled Guest.
“Heard ye the din of battle bray
“Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
“Long years of havock urged their destin’d course,
“And thro’ the kindred squadrons mow their way.
“Ye Tow’rs of Julius,[43] London’s lasting shame,
“With many a foul and midnight murder fed,
“Revere his Consort’s faith[44], his father’s fame[45]
“And spare the meek Usurper’s holy head[46]
“Above, below, the rose of snow,[47]
“Twin’d with her blushing foe, we spread:
“The bristled Boar[48] in infant-gore
“Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
“Now, Brothers, bending o’er th’ accursed loom,
“Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.
VII.
“Edward, lo! to sudden fate
“(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.)
“Half of thy heart we consecrate[49]
“(The web is wove. The work is done.”)
“Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn
“Leave me unbless’d, unpitied, here to mourn:
“In yon bright track, that fires the western skies,
“They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
“But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon’s height
“Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll?
“Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!
“Ye unborn Ages, crowd not on my soul!
“No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.
“All-hail, ye genuine Kings, Britannia’s Issue hail.[50]
VIII.
“Girt with many a Baron bold
“Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
“And gorgeous Dames, and Statesmen old,
“In bearded majesty appear.
“In the midst a Form divine!
“Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-Line;
“Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face
“Attemper’d sweet to virgin-grace.
“What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
“What strains of vocal transport round her play!
“Hear from the grave, great Talliessin, hear;
“They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
“Bright Rapture calls, and, soaring as she sings,
“Waves in the eye of Heav’n her many-colour’d wings.
IX.
“The verse adorn again
“Fierce War, and faithful Love,
“And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest.
“In buskin’d measures move
“Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
“With Horror, Tyrant of the throbbing breast.
“A voice, as of the Cherub Choir,
“Gales from blooming Eden bear;
“And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
“That lost in long futurity expire.
“Fond impious Man, think’st thou yon sanguine cloud,
“Rais’d by thy breath, has quench’d the Orb of day?
“To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,
“And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
“Enough for me: With joy I see
“The different doom our Fates assign.
“Be thine Despair, and sceptred Care,
“To triumph, and to die, are mine.”
He spoke; and headlong from the mountain’s height
Deep in the roaring tide he plung’d to endless night.
Thomas Gray.
The Bard.
A Covent Garden Ode.
“Ruin seize thee, ruthless John,[51]
Confusion on thy banners wait;
Though bless’d with all the smiles of ton,
They mock the air with idle state:
Helm nor hauberks twisted mail,
Nor e’en thy sister’s[52] acting, shall prevail,
To save thy soul from nightly fears,
From O.P.’s curse, from O.P.’s cheers.”
Such were the sounds that from the gallery’s height
Roll’d thundering to the pit below;
Rous’d slumbering Uproar from her seat,
And wak’d the yell of clamorous Row:
Fierce Wienholt stood aghast in speechless trance;
To arms! Fitzgerald cried, and shook the sconce:
Perch’d on a box, with haughty brow,
Flush’d with the purple stream, in angry mood,
Rob’d in his soldier’s garb, he stood
Prepar’d the loose placard to throw.
With haggard eyes, surcharg’d with blood,
Shatter’d his garments, torn his hair,
His arms wide sprawling to the air,
With hurried voice and accent loud,
Thus bellow’d to the rebel crowd:
“Hark how each private box’s desert cave
Sigh’s to the torrent’s voice beneath—
Our fierce battalions deafening clamours breathe,
And high in air their hundred arms they wave,
Swearing they’ll not an added ducat pay,
For high born Shakspeare’s harp, or softer Otway’s lay.”
Stopp’d is the Bank Clerk’s prattling tongue.
That rous’d the stormy scene,
Brave Cowlam sleeps upon a craggy bed,
O.P.’s ye mourn in vain;
Clifford, whose lawless bold harangue
Made lofty Graham bow his crested head;
In dreary Rufus’ Hall[53] they lie,
Struck with dismay, and ghastly pale,
Far, far aloof, the promis’d witness fail,
The Attorney-General screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of the noisy art,
Dear as the ruddy drops that glad my eyes;
Dear as the hopes that lately fed my heart,
When first I saw the daring conflict rise.
No more I weep, they do not sleep;
In yonder hall, a grisly band
I see them sit, they linger yet,
And only wait a rallying hand.
With me in dreadful harmony to join,
And howl destruction to the Kemble line.
Peering high, and near the roof,
Pale Confusion showed her face;
In accents wild, and sharp reproof,
Thus addressed her fallen race:—
Mark the hour, and mark the night,
When Thames shall echo with delight;
And to your ears the dreadful verdict bring:
When Henry’s antique towers shall ring
With shouts that strike Thames Ditton with affright.
The wolf of law, with unrelenting fangs,
Tearing the bowels of our mangled mate;
Fell conviction, hovering o’er us, hangs;
The scourge of Justice, ah! what ills await;
Amazement in the van, and fear combined,
And poverty and cold imprisonment behind.
What tho’ Clifford, daring chief,
Has gained, by chance, a short lived fame,
That will to us bring no relief,
Who fed the fire and fann’d the flame;
From us the gallant hero’s dead,
And Wienholt too has veil’d his head.
The swarms that in the Statesman’s beams were born.
The public taste has laughed to scorn,
And all our efforts overwhelm;
In easy sail their new built vessel goes,
Shakespeare at the prow, and Kemble at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,
That, hurl’d in dread repose, has lost its evening prey.
Lo! They fill the tragic bowl,
A rich repast prepare;
Reason’s feast and flow of soul
Again will triumph here;
While punishment and vengeance scowl
A baleful frown upon our baffled host.
Late we heard their battle bray,
Arm to arm and force to force;
Thro’ hours of havoc urg’d the course,
And thro’ all Bow-street squadrons mow’d their way.
These hours are gone, and gone our fame,
And nearly sunk is O.P.’s name.
Judgment suspended o’er their head,
Above, below, they deal the blow,
And o’er the plain our flying squadrons spread;
The brothers, smiling at our dismal doom,
Deep stamp their vengeance strong, and dark’ning terrors gloom.
But stay, ah! stay, nor thus forlorn
Leave me unbless’d, unaided here to mourn.
In yon dark cloud, that skirts the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes;
But, ah; what dazzling scenes on Kemble wait!
Descending slow, their glittering skirts unroll;
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!
Ye crowded houses, rush not on my soul;
No more their long-lost Shakespeare they bewail,
The flash of his far-beaming eye they hail,
And with him Otway, Southerne, Rowe,
Sublime, their starry frontlets rear.
And gorgeous dames in gallant show
In mimic majesty appear;
In the midst a form divine,[54]
Her port proclaims her of the Kemble line;
Her light’ning eye, her awe-commanding face,
Attemper’d sweet to ev’ry grace.
What sounds of acclamation fill the air!
What strains of trembling rapture round her play;
Hear from thy grave, immortal Shakespeare, hear;
She breathes a soul to animate thy clay;
Bright nature calls, and, soaring as she sings,
Waves, in the eye of Heaven, her many-colour’d wings.
Lo! they adorn again
Fierce war and faithful love,
And truth, in fairy fiction dress’d.
In buskin’d measures move
Pale grief and pleasing pain,
With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
And, hark, a cherub choir;
Gales of harmony, that bear,
Sounds that my very heart-strings tear;
Their horrid warblings pain my startled ear,
That, lost in Melody’s soft notes, expire.
Vain was our hope that deem’d the sanguine cloud
Rais’d by my breath would quench the orb of day;
To-morrow he repairs his golden flood,
And warms the nation with redoubled ray,
Enough for me, with dread I see
The different doom our fates assign;
Yours is despair and legal care,
Sorrow and defeat are mine.”
She spoke, and headlong from the gallery’s height,
Deep in the roaring pit she plunged to endless night.
Falkland.
The Morning Post. December 8, 1809.
This parody was also included in The Covent Garden Journal, 1810, which contains the history of the notorious O.P. Riots at Covent Garden Theatre, when John Philip Kemble was manager.
The Union.
[A celebrated Debating Society in Cambridge, composed entirely of Members of the University, where political subjects were discussed, which the Master of St. John’s suppressed during his Vice-Chancellorship in 1817; on which occasion the following Parody on The Bard, by Mr. Marmaduke Lawson, M.P., for Boroughbridge, and Fellow of Magdalen College, made its appearance.]
I.
“Ruin seize thee, senseless prig!
Confusion on thy “optics” wait!
Though prais’d by many a Johnian pig,
They crowd the shop in fruitless state.
Hood, nor Doctor’s scarlet gown,
Nor N—th, nor P—th shall win renown;
Nor save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
The Union’s curse, the Union’s tears.”
Such were the sounds that o’er the pedant pride
Of W—d, the Johnian, scatter’d wild dismay,
As down the flags of Petty-cury’s[55] side,
He wound with toilsome march his long array,
Stout T-th-m stood aghast with puffy face,
“To arms!” cried Beverly,[56] and couch’d his quiv’ring mace.
II.
At a window, which on high
Frowns o’er the market place below,
With trousers[57] on, and haggard eye,
A member stood immersed in woe,
His tatter’d gown, and greasy hair,
Stream’d like a dishclout to the onion’d air.
And with a voice that well might beat the cryer,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre:—
“Hark! how each butcher’s stall, and mightier shops
Sighs to the market’s clattering row beneath;
For thee the women squall, the cleavers chop,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe,
Vocal no more since Monday’s fatal night,
To Thirlwall’s[58] keen remark, or Sheridan’s[58] wild flight.
III.
Mute now is Raymond’s tongue,
That hushed the club to sleep;
The patriot Whitcombe now has ceased to rail;
Waiters in vain ye weep.
Lawson,[58] whose annual song,
Made the Red Lion[59] wag his raptur’d tail.
Dear lost companions in the spouting art,
Dear as the commons smoking in the hall,
Dear as the audit ale that warms my heart
Ye fell amidst the dying Union’s fall.
IV.
Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Jemmy’s race;
Give ample room and verge enough
To mark revenge, defeat, disgrace.
Mark the month and mark the day
The Senate widely echoing with the fray;
Commoner, Sizar, Pensioner, and snob,
Shouts of an undergraduate mob.
V.
Master of a mighty college,
Without his robes behold him stand,
Whom not a Whig will now acknowledge,
Return his bow, or shake his hand.
Is the sable Jackson fled?
Thy friend is gone he hides his powder’d head.
The Bedells, too, by whom the mace is borne,
Gone to salute the rising morn.
Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows,
While gently sidling through the crowded street
In scarlet robe, Clare’s[60] tiny master goes.
Ware[61] clears the road, and Gunning[61] guides his feet,
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway
That, hush’d in grim repose, marks Jemmy for its prey.
VI.
Fill high the Audit bowl!
The feast in hall prepare!
Reft of his robes, he yet may share the feast,
Close by the Master’s chair,
Contempt and laughter scowl
A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,
Gown to gown and cap to cap?
Hark at the Johnian gates each thund’ring rap,
While thro’ opposing Dons they move their way,
Ye Johnian towers, old W—d’s eternal shame,
With many a midnight imposition fed,
Revere his algebra’s immortal fame,
And spare the meek mechanic’s holy head.
Each bristled boar will bear no more,
And meeting in the Combination Room,
They stamp their vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.
VII.
Jemmy, lo! to sudden fate,
(Pass the wine—the liquor’s good)
Half of thy year we consecrate:
The web is now what was the wood,
But mark the scene beneath the senate’s height
See the petition’s crowded skirts unroll;
Visions of glory spare my aching sight,
Unborn commencements crowd not on my soul,
No more our Kaye,[62] our Thackeray[62], we bewail;
All hail! thou genuine Prince,[63] Britannia’s issue, hail!
VIII.
Heads of houses, Doctors bold,
Sublime their hoods and wigs they rear;
Masters young, and Fellows old,
In bombazeen and silk appear.
In the midst a form divine,
His eye proclaims him of the British line
What cheers of triumph thunder thro’ the air.
While the full tide of youthful thanks is pour’d.
Hear from your chambers Price[64] and Hibbert,[64] hear;
Th’ oppressor shrinks, the Union is restor’d.
The treasurer flies to spread the news he brings,
And wears, for triumph’s sake, yet larger chitterlings.
IX.
Fond, impious man, think’st thou thy puny fist,
Thy “Wood-en sword” has broke a British club?
The Treasurer soon augments our growing list,
We rise more numerous from this transient rub,
Enough for me: with joy I see,
The different doom our fates assign;
Be thine contempt and big-wigged care,
To triumph and to die are mine.”
He spoke, and headlong from the window’s height
Deep in a dung-cart near, he plung’d to endless night.
“This Society is now happily restored, and is supported by men of every standing. The Debates, however, are restricted to events previous to 1800: and no new subject is allowed to be introduced after 10 o’clock.” So says the “Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, or New University Guide to the Academical Customs, and Colloquial or Cant terms peculiar to the University of Cambridge,” written by a Brace of Cantabs, and published by John Hearne, London, 1824. The parody is taken from that amusing volume, it may also be found in Facetiæ Cantabrigiensis (London: Charles Mason, 1836), an anonymous collection of anecdotes and smart sayings written by, or relating to, celebrated Cantabs.
The Barber.
The following imitation of “The Bard” is ascribed to the Hon. Thomas Erskine (afterwards Lord Erskine) who wrote it when a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. Having been disappointed of the attendance of his college-barber, at his lodgings over the shop of Mr. Jackson, an apothecary, he was compelled to forego his commons in hall. Determined to have his revenge, and to give his hairdresser a good dressing he composed the following “Fragment of a Pindaric Ode” wherein he poured forth his curses upon the whole race of barbers, predicting their ruin in the simplicity of style to be adopted by a future generation. The exact date of the parody is not known, part of it is quoted in the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, which was published in 1824, it is also given in full in Oxford and Cambridge Nuts to Crack. A. H. Baily & Co., 1835. London.
“Ruin seize thee, scoundrel Coe!
Confusion on thy frizzing wait,
Hadst thou the only comb below,
Thou never more should’st touch my pate.
Club nor queue, nor twisted tail,
Nor e’en thy chattering, barber! shall avail
To save thy horsewhipped back from daily fears,
From Cantabs’ curse, from Cantabs’ tears!”
Such were the sounds that o’er the powder’d pride
Of Coe the barber scatter’d wild dismay,
As down the steep of Jackson’s slippery lane
He wound with puffing march his toilsome tardy way.
In a room where Cambridge town
Frowns o’er the kennels’ stinking flood,
Robed in a flannel powdering gown,
With haggard eyes poor Erskine stood!
(Long his beard, and blowzy hair,
Stream’d like an old wig to the troubled air);
And with clung guts, and face than razor thinner,
Swore the loud sorrows of his dinner.
Hark! how each striking clock and tolling bell,
With awful sounds, the hour of eating tell!
O’er thee, oh Coe! their dreadful notes they wave,
Soon shall such sounds proclaim thy yawning grave;
Vocal in vain, through all this lingering day,
The grace already said, the plates all swept away.
“Cold is Beau**** tongue,
That soothed each virgin’s pain;
Bright perfumed M** has cropp’d his head:
Almacks, you moan in vain!
Each youth whose high toupee
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-capp’d head
In humble Tyburn-top we see;
Esplash’d with dirt and sun-burn’d face;
Far on before the ladies mend their pace,
The Macaroni sneers, and will not see.
Dear lost Companions of the coxcomb’s art,
Dear as a turkey to these famish’d eyes,
Dear as the ruddy port which warms my heart,
Ye sunk amidst the fainting misses’ cries—
No more I weep—They do not sleep:
At yonder ball, a slovenly band,
I see them sit; they linger yet
Avengers of fair Nature’s hand;
With me in dreadful resolution join
To crop with one accord, and starve thy cursed line.
“Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding sheet of barber’s race,
Give ample room and verge enough
Their lengthen’d lanthorn jaws to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When all their shops shall echo with affright,
Loud screams shall through St James’s turrets ring,
To see, like Eton boy, the King!
Puppies of France, with unrelenting paws
That scrape the foretops of our aching heads,
No longer England owns thy fribblish laws,
No more her folly Gallia’s vermin feeds.
They wait at Dover for the first fair wind,
Soup-meagre in the van, and snuff roast beef behind.
“Mighty barbers, mighty lords,
Low on a greasy bench they lie!
No pitying heart or purse affords
A sixpence for a mutton pie!
Is the mealy ’prentice fled?
Poor Coe is gone all supperless to bed.
The swarm that in thy shop each morning sat,
Comb their lank hair on forehead flat:
Fair laughs the morn, when all the world are beaux,
While vainly strutting through a silly land,
In foppish train, the puppy barber goes,
Lace on his shirt, and money at command,
Regardless of the skulking bailiff’s sway,
That hid in some dark court expects his evening prey.
“The porter mug fill high,
Baked curls and locks prepare;
Reft of our heads, they yet by wigs may live!
Close by the greasy chair
Fell thirst and famine lie,
No more to art will beauteous nature give.
Heard ye the gang of Fielding say,
Sir John,[65] at last we’ve found their haunt
To desperation driven by hungry want,
Through the crammed laughing Pit they steal their way.
Ye towers of Newgate! London’s lasting shame,
By many a foul and midnight murder fed,
Revere poor Mr. Coe, the blacksmith’s[66] fame,
And spare the grinning barber’s chuckle head.
“Rascals! we tread ye under foot,
(Weave we the woof; the thread is spun):
Our beards we pull out by the root:
(The web is wove; your work is done).”
Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn,
Leave me uncurl’d, undinner’d here to mourn.
Through the broad gate that leads to College Hall,
They melt, they fly, they vanish all.
But oh! what happy scenes of pure delight,
Slow moving on their simple charms unroll.
Ye rapturous visions, spare my aching sight,
Ye unborn beauties, crowd not on my soul!
No more our long-lost Coventry we wail:
All hail, ye genuine forms; fair Nature’s issue, hail!
“Not frizz’d and fritter’d pinn’d and roll’d,
Sublime their artless locks they wear,
And gorgeous dames and judges old
Without their têtes and wigs appear;
In the midst a form divine,
Her dress bespeaks the Pennsylvanian line:
Her port demure, her grave religious face
Attemper’d sweet to virgin grace.
What sylphs and spirits wanton through the air,
What crowds of little angels round her play.
Hear from thy sepulchre, great Penn! Oh hear!
A scene like this might animate thy clay.
Simplicity now, soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of Heaven her Quaker-colour’d wings.
“No more toupees are seen
That mock at Alpine height,
And queues with many a yard of ribbon bound;
All now are vanish’d quite.
No tongs or torturing pin,
But every head is trimm’d quite snug around:
Like boys of the cathedral choir,
Curls, such as Adam wore, we wear,
Each simpler generation blooms more fair,
’Till all that’s artificial shall expire,
Vain puppy boy! think’st thou yon essenced cloud,
Raised by thy puff, can vie with Nature’s hue,
To-morrow see the variegated crowd
With ringlets shining like the morning dew!
Enough for me: with joy I see
The different dooms our fates assign!
Be thine to love thy trade and starve;
To wear what Heaven bestow’d be mine!”
He said, and headlong from the trap-stairs’ height,
Quick through the frozen street he ran in shabby plight.
Thomas Erskine.
——:o:——
“THE WORLD” PARODY COMPETITION.
The first prize for a composition on “Mr. Gladstone in Midlothian,” in the style of Gray’s Pindaric ode, “The Bard,” was awarded to Etonensis; the second to Apis Matina.
First Prize.
“Ruin seize thee, ruthless Earl!
Confusion on thy banner fall,
Though courtly gales its silk unfurl
Above St. George’s fretted stall.
Coronet, nor Garter’s twist,
Nor e’en thy works of fiction, novelist,
Shall purge thy conscience from election fears,
From Scotia’s curse, from Scotia’s tears!”
Such were the strains of wild Homeric war
That struck down England’s Premier with dismay.
From market-hall they came, from Pullman car,
From every vantage-ground on William’s way.
Stafford turned pale; but Salisbury’s sterner mood
Couched in his mind some ultimatum rude.
“Weave the warp and weave the woof,
Lord Beaconsfield to bury in;
Give ample room and verge enough
To trace the Treaty of Berlin.
Mark the year and mark the night
When Westminster reëchoes with affright;
Shrieks of defeat from every poll that ring,
And fagot votes in anguish sputtering.
O Torydom, with unrelenting fangs,
Thou tear’st the bowels of this mangled State;
A Turnerelli wreath above thee hangs,
And Cyprian flowers; but; O, what terrors wait!
Afghanistan, with massacre combined,
And Cetewayo’s form, and all the Boers behind.
Fill high the loving bowl,
The turtle-soup prepare;
Reft of majority, he shares the feast:
Close by the Lord Mayor’s chair
The civic magnates scowl
A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
A voice as of a financier
Gales from blooming Budgets bear;
And distant surpluses thrill on my ear,
And lost in long futurity expire.
Fond impious man, think’st thou thy sanguine cloud
Has blurred the Liberal programme from the skies?
To-morrow rises its resistless flood
Round fleet and army, church and colonies.
Enough for me; with joy I see
The different doom our fates assign—
Be thine Despair and Gartered care;
To translate and to hew are mine.”
Thus spake the Bard; and, from the mountain’s brow,
Swinging his axe, he vanished in the snow.
ETONESIS. (The Rev. J. S. Vaughan.)
Second Prize.
“Ruin seize thee, reckless guide,
All nations’ scourge, thy country’s shame,
Though folly, greed, and senseless pride
Combine to glorify thy name:
Hedging speech, nor specious phrase,
Nor all thy followers’ boasts and fulsome praise,
Shall shield thy whitening locks from vengeance dire:
From Erin’s curse, from Albion’s ire.”
Such were the sounds that through the serried ranks
Of Jingo’s henchmen, winged with hatred, thrilled;
Rolled the harsh words on Lothian’s braes and banks,
Spread as they rolled, and Britain’s boundaries filled.
Sly Beaconsfield looked on with pitying smile;
“Revenge!” wild Cranbrook cried, and conned a speech the while.
On a stump, whose leafy crown
Had erst Dalmeny’s wood adorned,
Wrapt in an agèd Ulster brown,
Tireless the statesman stood and mourned.
Plaudits replied, and from the distant shore
Mingled the wild wind’s sighs and sorrowing ocean’s roar.
Raise the voice, and swell the cry!
The cry of sweet Hibernia’s woe;
From Asia myriad tongues reply,
And Afric bears a burden low.
Hear the wind, and hear the wave!
That bear the stifled wail of Cypriote slave:
Mingled with vexed Bulgaria’s murmurs hoarse,
Plaints of the yet unburied corse,
All—all in fearful unison combine:
“Thine was the hand that struck, the voice that doomed us thine!”
Count we the hoarded gold,
Tell out the augmented store!
Stripped of renown, we yet have wealth behind—
Void is the chest. No more,
Where countless millions rolled,
Aught but thy bills shall future rulers find.
Men of Midlothian! ever shrewd and keen,
These are your wasted goods, your fruitless toil,
The life-blood wrung alike from great and mean
Squandered in titles, or a trickster’s spoil!
The mild Hindoo, the brave Zulu,
To vex and harass these we waste;
But prostrate trade, and bills unpaid,
Naught of the wild profusion taste;
While venal voters of the false Buccleuch
Quell our indignant voice, and mask our utterance true,
More might have followed; but he felt it rain,
Hailed the first cab, and left by special train.
APIS MATINA. (H. Pattinson.)
The World. December 17, 1879.
Gladstone in Midlothian.
“Plague upon thee, Earl of B——
Bad luck attend thy servile crew,
Though gull’d awhile, they bend the knee
In worship of a wily Jew!
Inscrutability, nor sham
Veil’d in a wealth of brilliant epigram,
Shall prop for long thy fast-decaying power,
Or stave off Dissolution’s dreaded hour!”
Such were the words that fill’d with wild despair
The ruling Tories and their ductile lambs,
Indignant Dizzy raved and tore his hair,
As to his chums he read the telegrams.
Stout Stafford stared—his senses in a mist—
“What cheek!” cried angry Cross, and clench’d his brawny fist!
In the hall, cramm’d to excess
With all “Auld Reekie’s” Liberal blood,
Attir’d in his sombre dress,
With piercing eyes Mac Gladstone stood
(His tie awry, his locks of grey
Had not known comb for many a day),
And with a silvery tongue and eyes that flamed
He thus to canny Scots declaimed:—
“Behold, in each event of this strange time
A thousand signs the Tories’ reign is o’er;
For thee, oh Benjamin, thou man of crime,
A deadly retribution is in store!
Hush’d is poor Harty’s tongue,
That erst was loosed in scorn;
Brave Bright is half asleep, I sometimes fear;
Liberals, ye may not mourn
Roebuck, who wildly flung
Alike at friend or foe his caustic jeer.
But ye, tried sailors in the Liberal ship,
Dear as potatoes shortly will become—
Dear as the ruddy claret that I sip—
I cannot brook to think that ye are dumb!
No more regret—they’ll help us yet—
In fancy now I see them both,
Inspired by my eloquence,
Shake off their censurable sloth!
Weave we slowly, day by day,
The winding-sheet of Torydom;
Give our foes rope enough, and they
Will hang themselves, and our turn come!
Mark the day when we, no doubt,
Shall send them to the right-about!”
He spoke, and once again resumed his chair,
Whilst hearty Scottish plaudits rent the air!
From Snatches of Song, by F. B. Doveton.
London, Wyman & Sons. 1880.
“The Bostonian Prophet.” An Heroi-comico-serious-Parodical-Pindaric Ode, in imitation of The Bard. With Notes Critical, Satirical, and Explanatory, by the Editor. London. C. Etherington, 1779. Quarto. This was a parody relating to the American War of Independence, the first act of which occurred in Boston in November, 1773, when the populace refused to pay the obnoxious tax upon tea, and cast hundreds of chests of it into the sea. The parody describes the corruption and inefficiency of the English statesmen and commanders in language too coarse to reprint, even if the Parody were of sufficient present interest to render it desirable to do so.
There is another parody of Gray’s “Bard” which cannot be inserted here, it may be found in “The Authentic and Impartial Life of Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke,” by W. Clarke, London. T. Kelly, 1809. This Mistress Clarke lived for some time “under the protection” of H.R.H. the Duke of York, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. She obtained large sums of money by the sale of the commissions, appointments, and promotions which were at the disposal of her royal, but ever needy, lover. Finally an enquiry was held, and the Duke of York was compelled to resign the office he had disgraced. The parody above mentioned gives a history of the scandal, but it would be unintelligible unless accompanied by details of profligacy and corruption, such as are unsuited for any work but the Newgate Calendar. In addition to these parodies and imitations, The Bard was translated into Welsh in 1822.
——:o:——
THE DESCENT OF ODIN.
The following Parody of Gray’s “Descent of Odin” was written by James Hay Beattie, son of James Beattie, L.L.D., author of “The Minstrel.” Young Beattie was born in 1768 and died in 1790. In 1794, Dr. Beattie printed “Essays and Fragments in Prose and Verse” by his son, but only for private circulation.
Young Beattie had a clerical friend who made a sea voyage from Aberdeen to Rotherhithe, and suffered therefrom as described in
The Descent of Timothy.
Tim crawl’d on board; no phiz e’er sadder;
Stepp’d backward down the coal-black ladder;
Then twisting sidelong, like a crab, in,
Stagger’d into the after cabin.
Him spied the dog of Newfoundland,
That by a bulk-head chanced to stand;
His chaps, whence fat and froth distill’d,
With well-gnaw’d bones of bull-beef fill’d.
Straight with neck upstretch’d he howls,
Eyes that glare, and throat that growls,
And with vociferations vain
Stuns the poor preacher’s dizzy brain.
Onward his tottering Reverence hitches,
The deck beneath him rolls and pitches,
Till from its shelf an empty keg
Down dancing drives against his leg.
Pensive on a cask of gin
He sat, and stroked his aching shin;
While near him snored in drunken state
The carcase of the slumbering mate.
Facing to a starboard beam
Tim put to flight the seaman’s dream,
Discharging thrice, in accents dread,
Yells that almost might wake the dead;
Till the toss’d blankets part asunder,
And forth these sullen grumblings thunder.
Mate. What rascal with his thumps and screaming
Dares break the quiet of my dreaming?
Whose hand is this that pulls my head,
Labouring to lug me out of bed?
These ears have heard for weeks together
The long, long roar of wintry weather,
Pumps, waves, ropes rattling, tempest squalling;
But such a pinching and a bawling—
Zounds! I believe he’ll twist my neck—
On deck, there, ho! ye dogs on deck,
What means this execrable yelling?
Have ye let all the fiends of Hell in?
Tim. A traveller I, to thee unknown,
An honest man’s and woman’s son,
By hunger, thirst, and sickness undone,
And bound to Redriff first, then London.
But whose is that mug, pray? and spread,
For whom yon comfortable bed?
Mate. The bed’s our Captain’s bed, d’ye see—
I wish you’d let a body be—
The mug, you mean that has the grog in?
That, master, is the captain’s noggin.
He, good soul, must have his potion:
Thirst can reach the sons of ocean.
Unwilling I my lips unclose;
Leave me, leave me, to repose.
Tim. Once again my call obey,
Master mate, awake, and say,
Which way I to bed may go;
Pray have ye one for me or no?
Mate. There on the floor mattress and bolster are,
Who wish for more may ask the upholsterer.
Now my weary lips I close;
Leave me, leave me, to repose.
Tim. Master mate, my call obey,
Rouse yourself once more, and say,
If in this ship a poor starved sinner
May sup; to day I had no dinner.
Mate. Sure, when you were on deck, Sir, you heard
Our cook a-scraping pots to leeward:
A sooty seaman blusters there,
Who never comb’d his lamp-black hair,
Nor scrub’d his angry brow, nor pared
The bristles of his shaggy beard.
He by your chop or steak shall sit,
Hissing on gridiron, or on spit,
Now my weary lips I close:
Leave me, I beg you, to repose.
Tim. Once yet again awake, and tell us
Who are those surly ragged fellows;
Why each about so madly hops,
Howling, and tugging tarry ropes;
Why at the slacken’d cords they swear,
And fluttering sails that flap in air:
Tell me whence this hubbub rose,
Then I leave thee to repose.
Mate. Ha! no traveller art thou;
Fresh-water fiend, I smoke thee now
As ignorant a rogue as ever—
Tim. No mate genteel, polite, and clever,
Art thou; nor ever wert a sailor;
But, as I rather guess, a tailor.
Mate. Hie thee hence, and thank my mercy,
Or rather drowsiness, that spares ye.
Hence! or I’ll drive you; for no fellow
Shall break my sleep with his vile bellow,
Till this cold pitchy cloud of night
Melt in the warmth of morning light;
That is, till four o’clock, or three, Sir,
What, won’t you go!——Here, Cæsar, Cæsar.
Desunt caetera.
——:o:——
The Triumphs of Owen.[67]
By the Muse of the Museum.
(Slightly altered from Gray.)
Owen’s praise demands my song.
Owen wise and Owen strong,
But in spite of Owen stout,
All the beasts must toddle out.
Out with weazles, ferrets, skunks,
Elephants, come pack your trunks;
You no longer dwell with us,
Yawning hippopotamus.
Dusty, straddling, split giraffe,
You have stayed too long by half,
Go and take some nice fresh air
With that grim-eyed Polar bear.
“Fish, fish, fish,” your Duty calls
Somewhere else than in these walls,
Flounders, you must go, that’s flat,
With the salmon and the sprat.
Cloud of birds, ascend and fly,
Migrate to some kinder sky
Perky, shiny, glittering things,
Leave the wing that holds your wings.
Fossil Man, you too must pack,
Take your slab, Sir, on your back,
Or if you’d prefer a ride,
Mount the Mammoth by your side.
Eggs, be blowed, if you’d not break,
You your eggsit now must make;
Yes, your yolk must turn to legs,
Yes, as sure as eggs is eggs.
All those myriad butterflies,
Pins and all, must please to rise,
We can use in other ways
Miles of camphor-scented trays.
Diamonds black, and diamonds bright,
Henceforth charm suburban sight,
Follow beasts and birds and bones,
All you tons of labelled stones.
From that yellowish liquor take,
Every coil, you spotted snake,
“Bonny beetles in a row,”
Stir your stumps, for you must go.
Mother Nature, beat retreat,
Out, M’m, from Great Russell Street!
Here, in future, folks shall scan
Nothing but the works of Man.
Yet look glad, for Owen stands
Moulding Gladstone to his hands;
Soon you’ll have a Palace new,
Worthy Owen, us, and you.
Shirley Brooks. 1861.
Gray’s Pindaric Odes were not very favorably received, their chief fault being obscurity. Gray was pressed by his friends to append explanatory notes, which, for a long time, he declined to do, writing “I would not have put another note to save the souls of all the owls in London. It is extremely well as it is—nobody understands me, and I am perfectly satisfied.” In 1760 there appeared two burlesque odes by G. Colman and R. Lloyd, one inscribed to “Obscurity”—That, said Gray, is me—the other to “Oblivion,” which was directed against Mason. In these parodies the friends Gray and Mason, are treated with contempt both as men and poets. Gray wrote to his fellow victim, “Lest people should not understand the humour, letters come out in Lloyd’s Evening Post to tell them who and what it was that he meant, and says it is like to produce a great combustion in the literary world. So if you have any mind to combustle about it, well and good, for me, I am neither so literary nor so combustible.” He also informed Dr. Wharton that a bookseller to whom he was unknown, had recommended him to purchase the satire upon himself as “a very pretty thing.” Gray was too proud to show that he was hurt by these satires, but he was too sensitive not to be annoyed at the ridicule, and except a single piece which was written upon compulsion (the Ode for the Installation of the Duke of Grafton), he attempted no more serious verse. These “Odes to Obscurity and Oblivion” are not now of sufficient interest to be reprinted in full:—
Daughter of Chaos and old Night,
Cimmerian Muse! all hail!
That wrapt in never-twinkling gloom canst write,
And shadowest meaning with thy dusky veil!
What poet sings, and strikes the strings?
It was the mighty Theban spoke.
He, from the ever-living lyre,
With magic hand elicits fire.
Heard ye the din of modern Rhymer’s bray?
It was cool Mason, or warm Gray
Involv’d in tenfold smoke
The shallow fop, in antic vest,
Tir’d of the beaten road,
Proud to be singularly drest,
Changes, with ev’ry changing moon the mode.
Say, shall not then the heaven-born Muses too
Variety pursue!
* * * * *
——:o:——
Gray’s Ode for Music, performed in the Senate House at Cambridge, July 1, 1769, at the installation of the Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of the University, commenced as follows:—
Air.
Hence! avaunt! ’tis holy ground,
Comus and his midnight crew,
And ignorance with looks profound,
And dreaming Sloth of pallid hue!
Mad Sedition’s cry prophane,
Servitude that hugs her chain,
Nor in these consecrated bow’rs
Let painted Flatt’ry hide her serpent train in flow’rs.
Chorus.
Nor Envy pale, nor creeping Gain,
Dare the Muse’s walk to stain,
While bright-ey’d Science walks around;
Hence! avaunt! ’tis holy ground.
* * * * *
Two long parodies of this ode may be found in Volume IV. of The New Foundling Hospital for Wit, London, 1786, both treat of the political questions of the day, and refer to persons long since forgotten, so that it is unnecessary to quote more than a verse or two from each:—
Travestie
Air.
Hence! avaunt! ’tis venal ground,
Wilkes, and all his free-born crew;
Within our pale no room is found,
Ye modern Algernons, for you.
Mute be the bold Alcaic strain
Of liberty, that spurns a chain,
Nor in these pliant courtly bow’rs
Let harsh Phillippic weeds choke adulation’s flowers.
Chorus.
Virtue hence! with brow severe!
Public spirit come not near,
While servile int’rest walks around;
Hence! avaunt! ’tis venal ground!
Another Travestie.
Air.
Hence avaunt, ’tis sacred ground;
Let pallid freedom ever fly,
Let innocence in chains be bound,
Nor e’er come truth or virtue nigh!
Opposition’s cry prophane,
Liberty that scorns the chain,
Nor in these consecrated fields,
Let injur’d justice weep, that she to tyrants yields.
Chorus.
Nor dare bright truth, the patriot’s friend,
The minister’s high walk offend,
While stern-ey’d Fitzroy stalks around;
Hence! avaunt! ’tis sacred ground.
Recitative.
From yonder realms of ministerial sway
Bursts on my ear th’ applauding lay:
There sit the pension’d sage, the peer prophane,
The few whom interest gives to reign
O’er every unborn place or yet unclaim’d domain,
Deep in the nation’s business they,
Yet hither oft a glance from high,
They send of triumph and of joy,
To bless the place, where first, on freedom’s soul.
He bade the Scottish thunder roll.
’Twas N—t—n rais’d that deep-ton’d voice,
And as discordant murm’rings round him rose,
The Speaker’s self bends from his chair on high,
And shakes his awful wig, and joins the courtly cry.
Air.
Ye high o’er-hanging walls
That sure no monarch loves,
Where fain would freedom linger with delight,
Oft at the break of day
He’s sought your wearied way,
Oft by the glare of flambeaux glitt’ring light,
In chariot close, fresh from the haunts of folly,
With Nancy by his side, sworn foe to melancholy.
Recitative.
But hark! the door’s unbarr’d, and marching forth,
With gouty steps and slow
Gen’rals and shrives, and peers of royal birth,
And mitred bishops home to dinner go;
North, with th’ exchequer laurels on his brow,
From haughty Greville torn,
And sad Fitzpatrick on his bridal morn,
That weeps his fault too late; and proud Dundas;
And watchful Dy—n; and the paler Burke,
The rival of his fortune, and his place;
And either Onslow there.
Quartette.
What are pensions without power?
Heavy toil, insipid pain.
Who but would wish like thee to gain
The guidance of the public weal?
Sweet is Dundas’s golden show’r,
Cli—e’s visionary treasure sweet,
Sweet Holland’s rise but sweeter yet,
The still small place of privy seal.
“A Long Story,” which Gray himself considered unworthy a place amongst his Poems, does not appear to have attracted enough attention to be parodied, but a sequel to it was written by John Penn, and inserted in Hakewill’s History of Windsor, and a further sequel to that by the Poet Laureate, Henry James Pye.
“Poems by Mr. Gray.” Dublin. Printed by William Sleater, at No. 51 in Castle Street, 1775. This volume, published only four years after the death of Gray, contains poems which show that his reputation had already made its way to the Continent. It contains several Latin translations of the Elegy; a Latin address “Ad Poetam,” and an Italian version of the Elegy written by Signor Abbate Crocchi of Sienna. It also gives Mason’s continuation of Gray’s fragmentary Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude; the Ode to Raneleigh, a Parody; An Evening Contemplation in a College, a Parody; and Lloyd and Colman’s Burlesque Ode, all of which parodies have already been quoted.
“Runic Odes, imitated from the Norse Tongue,” in the manner of Mr. Gray. By Thomas James Mathias. Quarto. London, 1781. Price one shilling and sixpence. This imitation of Gray by the learned author of the once famous Pursuits of Literature, has nothing of a burlesque character, indeed it opens with a complimentary address to Gray:—
“Pardon me, Mighty Poet, that I turn
My daring steps to thy supreme abode,
And tread with awe the solitary road,
To deck with fancied wreaths thy hallow’d urn.”
