“Let us take to the road!”—Beggar’s Opera.
ADAM, hail!
Hail, Roadian! hail, Collossus! who dost stand
Striding ten thousand turnpikes on the land!
Oh universal Leveller! all hail!
To thee, a good, yet stony-hearted man,
The kindest one, and yet the flintiest going,—
To thee,—how much for thy commodious plan,
Lanark Reformer of the Ruts, is Owing!
The Bristol mail
Gliding o’er ways, hitherto deem’d invincible,
When carrying Patriots, now shall never fail
Those of the most “unshaken public principle.”
Hail to thee, Scot of Scots!
Thou northern light, amid those heavy men!
Foe to Stonehenge, yet friend to all beside,
Thou scatter’st flints and favours far and wide,
From palaces to cots;—
Dispenser of coagulated good!
Distributor of granite and of food!
Long may thy fame its even path march on,
E’en when thy sons are dead!
Best benefactor! though thou giv’st a stone
To those who ask for bread!
Thy first great trial in this mighty town
Was, if I rightly recollect, upon
That gentle hill which goeth
Down from “the County” to the Palace gate,
And, like a river, thanks to thee, now floweth
Past the Old Horticultural Society,—
The chemist Cobb’s, the house of Howell and James,
Where ladies play high shawl and satin games—
A little Hell of lace!
And past the Athenæum, made of late,
Severs a sweet variety
Of milliners and booksellers who grace
Waterloo Place,
Making division, the Muse fears and guesses,
’Twixt Mr. Rivington’s and Mr Hessey’s.
Thou stood’st thy trial, Mac! and shaved the road
From Barber Beaumont’s to the King’s abode
So well, that paviours threw their rammers by,
Let down their tuck’d shirt sleeves, and with a sigh
Prepared themselves, poor souls, to chip or die!
Next, from the palace to the prison, thou
Didst go, the highway’s watchman, to thy beat,—
Preventing though the rattling in the street,
Yet kicking up a row,
Upon the stones—ah! truly watchman-like,
Encouraging thy victims all to strike,
To further thy own purpose, Adam, daily;—
Thou hast smoothed, alas, the path to the Old Bailey!
And to the stony bowers
Of Newgate, to encourage the approach,
By caravan or coach,—
Hast strewed the way with flints as soft as flowers.
Who shall dispute thy name!
Insculpt in stone in every street,
We soon shall greet
Thy trodden down, yet all unconquered fame!
Where’er we take, even at this time, our way,
Nought see we, but mankind in open air,
Hammering thy fame, as Chantrey would not dare;—
And with a patient care
Chipping thy immortality all day!
Demosthenes, of old,—that rare old man,—
Prophetically followed, Mac! thy plan:—
For he, we know,
(History says so,)
Put pebbles in his mouth when he would speak
The smoothest Greek!
It is “impossible, and cannot be,”
But that thy genius hath,
Besides the turnpike, many another path
Trod, to arrive at popularity.
O’er Pegasus, perchance, thou hast thrown a thigh,
Nor ridden a roadster only;—mighty Mac!
And ‘faith I’d swear, when on that wingèd hack,
Thou hast observed the highways in the sky!
Is the path up Parnassus rough and steep,
And “hard to climb,” as Dr. B. would say?
Dost think it best for Sons of Song to keep
The noiseless tenor of their way? (see Gray.)
What line of road should poets take to bring
Themselves unto those waters, loved the first!—
Those waters which can wet a man to sing!
Which, like thy fame, “from granite basins burst,
Leap into life, and, sparkling, woo the thirst?”
That thou’rt a proser, even thy birthplace might
Vouchsafe;—and Mr. Cadell may, God wot,
Have paid thee many a pound for many a blot,—
Cadell’s a wayward wight!
Although no Walter, still thou art a Scot,
And I can throw, I think, a little light
Upon some works thou hast written for the town,—
And published, like a Lilliput Unknown!
“Highways and Byeways” is thy book, no doubt,
(One whole edition’s out,)
And next, for it is fair
That Fame,
Seeing her children, should confess she had ’em;—
“Some Passages from the life of Adam Blair,”—
(Blair is a Scottish name,)
What are they, but thy own good roads, M‘Adam?
O! indefatigable labourer
In the paths of men! when thou shalt die, ’twill be
A mark of thy surpassing industry,
That of the monument, which men shall rear
Over thy most inestimable bone,
Thou didst thy very self lay the first stone!—
Of a right ancient line thou comest,—through
Each crook and turn we trace the unbroken clue,
Until we see thy sire before our eyes,—
Rolling his gravel walks in Paradise!
But he, our great Mac Parent, erred, and ne’er
Have our walks since been fair?
Yet Time, who, like the merchant, lives on ‘Change,
For ever varying, through his varying range,
Time maketh all things even!
In this strange world, turning beneath high heaven,
He hath redeemed the Adams, and contrived,—
(How are time’s wonders hived!)
In pity to mankind, and to befriend ’em,—
(Time is above all praise,)
That he, who first did make our evil ways,
Reborn in Scotland, should be first to mend ’em!