"Ye Queen of Spades
She beat ye maids
For their immodesty;
Ye Knave of Spades
He kissed those maids,
Which made the Queen to cry.
Ye King then curst
That Knave who durst
Make Royalty shed tears;
'Vile Knave,' says he,
''Tis my decree
That you lose both your ears.'
"Ye Diamond Queen
Was one day seen
So drunk she could not stand;
Ye Diamond Knave
He blushed, and gave
Ye Queen a reprimand.
Ye King, distrest
That his dearest
Should do so vile a thing,
Says, 'By my wig
She's like ye pig
Of David, ye good king.'
"Ye Queen of Clubs
Made syllabubs;
Ye Knave came like Big Ben,
He snatched the cup
And drank it up—
His toast was, 'Rights of men.'
With hands and eyes
That marked surprise
Ye King laments his fate:
'Alas!' says he,
'I plainly see
Ye Knave's a Democrate.'"
Mr. Canning used habitually to designate the selfish and officious Duke of Buckingham as the "Ph.D.," an abbreviation which was understood to mean "the fat Duke." That bulky potentate had cautioned him on the eve of his expected voyage to India, against the frigate in which he was to sail, on the ground that she was too low in the water. "I am much obliged to you," he replies to Lord Morley, "for your report of the Duke of Buckingham's caution respecting the Jupiter. Could you have the experiments made without the Duke of Buckingham on board? as that might make a difference."
In a letter to Lord Granville, at a time when Prince Metternich was expected in Paris, he says, "You ask me what you shall say to Metternich. In the first place, you shall hear what I think of him; that he is the greatest r—— and l—— on the Continent, perhaps in the civilized world!"
Almost all the brilliant exceptions to the average trash of the Anti-Jacobin appear to belong to Canning; though, if the authority of the most recent editor may be trusted, the best stanza of the best poem was added to the original manuscript by Pitt.
"Sun, moon, and thou, vile world, adieu!
Which kings and priests are plotting in;
Here doomed to starve on water gru-
el, I no more shall see the U-
niversity of Gottingen."
Canning's Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder is well remembered as witty ridicule of the youthful Jacobin effusions of Southey, in which it was sedulously inculcated that there was a natural and eternal warfare between the poor and the rich; the Sapphic lines of Southey affording a tempting subject for ludicrous parody:—
"Friend of Humanity.
"Needy Knife-grinder? whither art thou going?
Rough is your road—your wheel is out of order.
Bleak blows the blast—your hat has got a hole in't!
So have your breeches!
"Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones,
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, 'Knives and
Scissors to grind O!'