No. XXV.
April 30, 1798.
BRISSOT’S GHOST.[[235]]
As at the Shakespeare Tavern dining,
O’er the well replenished board
Patriotic chiefs reclining,
Quick and large libations poured;
While, in fancy, great and glorious,
’Midst the democratic storm,
Fox’s crew, with shout victorious,
Drank to Radical Reform;
Sudden, up the staircase sounding,
Hideous yells and shrieks were heard;
Then, each guest with fear confounding,
A grim train of Ghosts appeared:
Each a head, with anguish gasping,
(Himself a trunk deformed with gore),
In his hand, terrific, clasping,
Stalked across the wine-stained floor.
On them gleamed the lamp’s blue lustre,
When stern Brissot’s grizzly shade
His sad bands was seen to muster,
And his bleeding troops arrayed.
Through the drunken crowd he hied him,
Where the chieftain sate enthroned,
There, his shadowy trunks beside him,
Thus in threatening accents groaned:
“Heed, oh heed our fatal story,
(I am Brissot’s injured Ghost),
You who hope to purchase glory
In that field where I was lost!
Though dread Pitt’s expected ruin
Now your soul with triumph cheers,
When you think on our undoing,
You will mix your hopes with fears.
“See these helpless, headless spectres,
Wandering through the midnight gloom:
Mark their Jacobinic lectures
Echoing from the silent tomb;
These, thy soul with terror filling,
Once were Patriots fierce and bold”—
(Each his head, with gore distilling,
Shakes, the whilst his tale is told).
“Some from that dread engine’s carving
In vain contrived their heads to save—
See Barbaroux and Pétion[[236]] starving
In the Languedocian cave!
See, in a higgler’s[[237]] hamper buckled,
How Louvet’s soaring spirit lay!
How virtuous Roland,[[238]] helpless cuckold,
Blew what brains he had away.
“How beneath the power of Marat,
Condorcet, blaspheming, fell,
Begged some laudanum of Garat,[[239]]
Drank;—and slept,—to wake in hell!
Oh that, with worthier souls uniting,
I in my country’s cause had shone!
Had died my Sovereign’s battle fighting,
Or nobly propp’d his sinking throne!—
“But hold!—I scent the gales of morning—
Covent-Garden’s clock strikes One!
Heed, oh heed my earnest warning,
Ere England is, like France, undone!
To St. Stephen’s quick repairing,
Your dissembled mania end;
And, your errors past forswearing,
Stand at length your Country’s Friend!”
[The preceding ballad is parodied from the one by Glover, entitled—
ADMIRAL HOSIER’S GHOST.
As near Porto-Bello lying
On the gently swelling flood,
At midnight with streamers flying,
Our triumphant navy rode:
There while Vernon sat all-glorious
From the Spaniard’s late defeat,
And his crews, with shouts victorious,
Drank success to England’s fleet:
On a sudden, shrilly sounding,
Hideous yells and shrieks were heard,
Then each heart with fear confounding,
A sad troop of ghosts appeared:
All in dreary hammocks shrouded,
Which for winding-sheets they wore,
And with looks by sorrow clouded,
Frowning on that hostile shore.
On them gleam’d the moon’s wan lustre,
When the shade of Hosier brave
His pale bands was seen to muster,
Rising from their wat’ry grave:
O’er the glimmering wave he hied him,
Where the Burford rear’d her sail,
With three thousand ghosts beside him,
And in groans did Vernon hail.
Heed, O heed, our fatal story,
I am Hosier’s injured ghost.
You who now have purchas’d glory,
At this place where I was lost;
Though in Porto-Bello’s ruin
You now triumph free from fears,
When you think on our undoing,
You will mix your joy with tears.
See these mournful spectres sweeping
Ghastly o’er this hated wave,
Whose wan cheeks are stain’d with weeping,
These were English Captains brave.
Mark those numbers pale and horrid,
Those were once my sailors bold,
See each hangs his drooping forehead,
While his dismal tale is told.
I by twenty sail attended
Did this Spanish town affright,
Nothing then its wealth defended
But my orders not to fight.
O! that in this rolling ocean
I had cast them with disdain,
And obey’d my heart’s warm motion
To have quell’d the pride of Spain.
For resistance I could fear none,
But with twenty ships had done
What thou, brave and happy Vernon,
Hast achiev’d with six alone.
Then the Bastimentos never
Had our foul dishonour seen,
Nor the sea the sad receiver
Of this gallant train had been.
Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying,
And her galleons leading home,
Though condemned for disobeying,
I had met a traitor’s doom:
To have fallen, my country crying
He has play’d an English part,
Had been better far than dying
Of a griev’d and broken heart.
Unrepining at thy glory,
Thy successful arms we hail;
But remember our sad story,
And let Hosier’s wrongs prevail.
Sent in this foul clime to languish,
Think what thousands fell in vain,
Wasted with disease and anguish,
Not in glorious battle slain.
Hence with all my train attending
From their oozy tombs below,
Through the hoary foam ascending,
Here I feed my constant woe.
Here the Bastimentos viewing,
We recal our shameful doom,
And our plaintive cries renewing,
Wander through the midnight gloom.
O’er these waves for ever mourning,
Shall we roam deprived of rest,
If to Britain’s shores returning,
You neglect my just request;
After this proud foe subduing,
When your patriot friends you see,
Think on Vengeance for my ruin,
And for England sham’d in me.]