In illustration of these peculiar doctrines of Love and Marriage, the authors of the present Parody introduced into the first twenty lines of the preceding “Extract,” the very free statements on these subjects which appear in Chapters 8, 12, 14, 16, 17, of the narrative of Cook’s First Voyage to the Pacific in the “Endeavour,” in 1768, derived, by the editor, Dr. John Hawkesworth, from the Diary of Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, who accompanied Captain Cook.—Ed.]
[Lord Erskine, after dinner, inveighed bitterly against Marriage; and smarting, I suppose, under the recollection of his own unsuccessful choice, concluded by saying that a wife was a tin canister tied to a man’s tail, which very much excited the indignation of Lady Ann Culling Smith, who was of the party. “Monk” Lewis took a sheet of paper, and wrote the following neat epigram on the subject, which he presented to Her Royal Highness [the Duchess of York]:—
“Lord Erskine at marriage presuming to rail,
Says, a wife’s a tin canister tied to ones tail;
And the fair Lady Ann, while the subject he carries on,
Feels hurt at his Lordship’s degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? if taken aright,
A tin canister’s useful, and polished, and bright,
And if dirt its original purity hide,
’Tis the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.”