LI. REFORMATION OF THE KNAVE OF HEARTS.

This is an exquisite satire on the attempts at criticism which were current in pre-Edinburgh Review days, when the majority of the journals were mere touts for the booksellers. The papers in question are taken from Nos. 11 and 12 of the Microcosm, published on Monday, February 12th, 1787—when Canning was seventeen years of age.

The epic poem on which I shall ground my present critique has for its chief characteristics brevity and simplicity. The author—whose name I lament that I am, in some degree, prevented from consecrating to immortal fame, by not knowing what it is—the author, I say, has not branched his poem into excrescences of episode, or prolixities of digression; it is neither variegated with diversity of unmeaning similitudes, nor glaring with the varnish of unnatural metaphor. The whole is plain and uniform; so much so, indeed, that I should hardly be surprised if some morose readers were to conjecture that the poet had been thus simple rather from necessity than choice; that he had been restrained, not so much by chastity of judgment, as sterility of imagination.

Nay, some there may be, perhaps, who will dispute his claim to the title of an epic poet, and will endeavour to degrade him even to the rank of a ballad-monger. But I, as his commentator, will contend for the dignity of my author, and will plainly demonstrate his poem to be an epic poem, agreeable to the example of all poets, and the consent of all critics heretofore.

First, it is universally agreed that an epic poem should have three component parts—a beginning, a middle, and an end; secondly, it is allowed that it should have one grand action or main design, to the forwarding of which all the parts of it should directly or indirectly tend, and that this design should be in some measure consonant with, and conducive to, the purposes of morality; and thirdly, it is indisputably settled that it should have a hero. I trust that in none of these points the poem before us will be found deficient. There are other inferior properties which I shall consider in due order.

Not to keep my readers longer in suspense, the subject of the poem is "The Reformation of the Knave of Hearts". It is not improbable that some may object to me that a knave is an unworthy hero for an epic poem—that a hero ought to be all that is great and good. The objection is frivolous. The greatest work of this kind that the world has ever produced has "the Devil" for its hero; and supported as my author is by so great a precedent, I contend that his hero is a very decent hero, and especially as he has the advantage of Milton's, by reforming, at the end, is evidently entitled to a competent share of celebrity.

I shall now proceed to the more immediate examination of the poem in its different parts. The beginning, say the critics, ought to be plain and simple—neither embellished with the flowers of poetry, nor turgid with pomposity of diction. In this how exactly does our author conform to the established opinion! He begins thus:

"The Queen of Hearts She made some tarts".

Can anything be more clear! more natural! more agreeable to the true spirit of simplicity? Here are no tropes, no figurative expressions, not even so much as an invocation to the Muse. He does not detain his readers by any needless circumlocution, by unnecessarily informing them what he is going to sing, or still more unnecessarily enumerating what he is not going to sing; but, according to the precept of Horace:—

In medias res, Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit—

That is, he at once introduces us and sets us on the most easy and familiar footing imaginable with her Majesty of Hearts, and interests us deeply in her domestic concerns. But to proceed—

"The Queen of Hearts She made some tarts, All on a summer's day".

Here indeed the prospect brightens, and we are led to expect some liveliness of imagery, some warmth of poetical colouring; but here is no such thing. There is no task more difficult to a poet than that of rejection. Ovid among the ancients, and Dryden among the moderns, were perhaps the most remarkable for the want of it. The latter, from the haste in which he generally produced his compositions, seldom paid much attention to the limae labor, "the labour of correction", and seldom, therefore, rejected the assistance of any idea that presented itself. Ovid, not content with catching the leading features of any scene or character, indulged himself in a thousand minutiae of description, a thousand puerile prettinesses, which were in themselves uninteresting, and took off greatly from the effect of the whole; as the numberless suckers and straggling branches of a fruit-tree, if permitted to shoot out unrestrained, while they are themselves barren and useless, diminish considerably the vigour of the parent stock. Ovid had more genius but less judgment than Virgil; Dryden more imagination but less correctness than Pope; had they not been deficient in these points the former would certainly have equalled, the latter infinitely outshone the merits of his countryman. Our author was undoubtedly possessed of that power which they wanted, and was cautious not to indulge too far the sallies of a lively imagination. Omitting, therefore, any mention of sultry Sirius, sylvan shade, sequestered glade, verdant hills, purling rills, mossy mountains, gurgling fountains, &c., he simply tells us that it was "All on a summer's day". For my own part I confess that I find myself rather flattered than disappointed, and consider the poet as rather paying a compliment to the abilities of his readers, than baulking their expectations. It is certainly a great pleasure to see a picture well painted; but it is a much greater to paint it well oneself. This, therefore, I look upon as a stroke of excellent management in the poet. Here every reader is at liberty to gratify his own taste, to design for himself just what sort of "summer's day" he likes best; to choose his own scenery, dispose his lights and shades as he pleases, to solace himself with a rivulet or a horse-pond, a shower or a sunbeam, a grove or a kitchen-garden, according to his fancy. How much more considerate this than if the poet had, from an affected accuracy of description, thrown us into an unmannerly perspiration by the heat of the atmosphere, forced us into a landscape of his own planning, with perhaps a paltry good-for-nothing zephyr or two, and a limited quantity of wood and water. All this Ovid would undoubtedly have done. Nay, to use the expression of a learned brother commentator—quovis pignore decertem, "I would lay any wager", that he would have gone so far as to tell us what the tarts were made of, and perhaps wandered into an episode on the art of preserving cherries. But our poet, above such considerations, leaves every reader to choose his own ingredients, and sweeten them to his own liking; wisely foreseeing, no doubt, that the more palatable each had rendered them to his own taste, the more he would be affected at their approaching loss.

"All on a summer's day."

I cannot leave this line without remarking that one of the Scribleri, a descendant of the famous Martinus, has expressed his suspicions of the text being corrupted here, and proposes instead of "all on" reading "alone", alleging, in favour of this alteration, the effect of solitude in raising the passions. But Hiccius Doctius, a high Dutch commentator, one nevertheless well versed in British literature, in a note of his usual length and learning, has confuted the arguments of Scriblerus. In support of the present reading he quotes a passage from a poem written about the same period with our author's, by the celebrated Johannes Pastor[230], intituled "An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey of Newgate", wherein the gentleman declares that, rather indeed in compliance with an old custom than to gratify any particular wish of his own, he is going—

"All hanged for to be Upon that fatal Tyburn tree ".

Now, as nothing throws greater light on an author than the concurrence of a contemporary writer, I am inclined to be of Hiccius' opinion, and to consider the "All" as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly phrases it elegans expletivum. The passage therefore must stand thus:—

"The Queen of Hearts She made some tarts All on a summer's day."

And thus ends the first part, or beginning, which is simple and unembellished, opens the subject in a natural and easy manner, excites, but does not too far gratify our curiosity, for a reader of accurate observation may easily discover that the hero of the poem has not, as yet, made his appearance.

I could not continue my examination at present through the whole of this poem without far exceeding the limits of a single paper. I have therefore divided it into two, but shall not delay the publication of the second to another week, as that, besides breaking the connection of criticism, would materially injure the unities of the poem.

Having thus gone through the first part, or beginning of the poem, we may, naturally enough, proceed to the consideration of the second.

The second part, or middle, is the proper place for bustle and business, for incident and adventure:—

"The Knave of Hearts He stole those tarts".

Here attention is awakened, and our whole souls are intent upon the first appearance of the hero. Some readers may perhaps be offended at his making his entree in so disadvantageous a character as that of a thief. To this I plead precedent.

The hero of the Iliad, as I observed in a former paper, is made to lament very pathetically that "life is not like all other possessions, to be acquired by theft". A reflection, in my opinion, evidently showing that, if he did refrain from the practice of this ingenious art, it was not from want of an inclination that way. We may remember, too, that in Virgil's poem almost the first light in which the pious AEneas appears to us is a deer-stealer; nor is it much excuse for him that the deer were wandering without keepers, for however he might, from this circumstance, have been unable to ascertain whose property they were, he might, I think, have been pretty well assured that they were not his.

Having thus acquitted our hero of misconduct, by the example of his betters, I proceed to what I think the master-stroke of the poet.

"The Knave of Hearts He stole those tarts, And—took them—quite away!!"

Here, whoever has an ear for harmony and a heart for feeling must be touched! There is a desponding melancholy in the run of the last line! an air of tender regret in the addition of "quite away!" a something so expressive of irrecoverable loss! so forcibly intimating the Ad nunquam reditura! "They never can return!" in short, such an union of sound and sense as we rarely, if ever, meet with in any author, ancient or modern. Our feelings are all alive, but the poet, wisely dreading that our sympathy with the injured Queen might alienate our affections from his hero, contrives immediately to awaken our fears for him by telling us that—

"The King of Hearts Called for those tarts".

We are all conscious of the fault of our hero, and all tremble with him, for the punishment which the enraged monarch may inflict:

"And beat the Knave full sore!"

The fatal blow is struck! We cannot but rejoice that guilt is justly punished, though we sympathize with the guilty object of punishment. Here Scriblerus, who, by the by, is very fond of making unnecessary alterations, proposes reading "score" instead of "sore", meaning thereby to particularize that the beating bestowed by this monarch consisted of twenty stripes. But this proceeds from his ignorance of the genius of our language, which does not admit of such an expression as "full score", but would require the insertion of the particle "a", which cannot be, on account of the metre. And this is another great artifice of the poet. By leaving the quantity of beating indeterminate, he gives every reader the liberty to administer it, in exact proportion to the sum of indignation which he may have conceived against his hero, that by thus amply satisfying their resentment they may be the more easily reconciled to him afterwards.

"The King of Hearts Called for those tarts, And beat the Knave full sore."

Here ends the second part, or middle of the poem, in which we see the character and exploits of the hero portrayed with the hand of a master.

Nothing now remains to be examined but the third part, or end. In the end it is a rule pretty well established that the work should draw towards a conclusion, which our author manages thus:—

"The Knave of Hearts Brought back those tarts".

Here everything is at length settled; the theft is compensated, the tarts restored to their right owner, and poetical justice, in every respect, strictly and impartially administered.

We may observe that there is nothing in which our poet has better succeeded than in keeping up an unremitted attention in his readers to the main instruments, the machinery of his poem, viz. the tarts; insomuch that the afore-mentioned Scriblerus has sagely observed that "he can't tell, but he doesn't know, but the tarts may be reckoned the heroes of the poem". Scriblerus, though a man of learning, and frequently right in his opinion, has here certainly hazarded a rash conjecture. His arguments are overthrown entirely by his great opponent, Hiccius, who concludes by triumphantly asking, "Had the tarts been eaten, how could the poet have compensated for the loss of his heroes?"

We are now come to the denouement, the setting all to rights: and our poet, in the management of his moral, is certainly superior to his great ancient predecessors. The moral of their fables, if any they have, is so interwoven with the main body of their work, that in endeavouring to unravel it we should tear the whole. Our author has very properly preserved his whole and entire for the end of his poem, where he completes his main design, the reformation of his hero, thus—

"And vowed he'd steal no more".

Having in the course of his work shown the bad effects arising from theft, he evidently means this last moral reflection to operate with his readers as a gentle and polite dissuasive from stealing.

"The Knave of Hearts Brought back those tarts, And vowed he'd steal no more!"

Thus have I industriously gone through the several parts of this wonderful work, and clearly proved it, in every one of these parts, and in all of them together, to be a "due and proper epic poem", and to have as good a right to that title, from its adherence to prescribed rules, as any of the celebrated masterpieces of antiquity. And here I cannot help again lamenting that, by not knowing the name of the author, I am unable to twine our laurels together, and to transmit to posterity the mingled praises of genius and judgment, of the poet and his commentator.

[Footnote 230: More commonly known, I believe, by the appellation of Jack Shepherd.]



POETRY OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN.

(1797-1798.)

LII. THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER.

The Anti-Jacobin was planned by George Canning when he was Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He secured the collaboration of George Ellis, John Hookham Frere, William Gifford, and some others. The last-named was appointed working editor. The first number appeared on the 20th November, 1797, with a notice that "the publication would be continued every Monday during the sitting of Parliament". A volume of the best pieces, entitled The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, was published in 1800. It is almost impossible to apportion accurately the various pieces to their respective authors, though more than one attempt has been made so to do. The following piece is designed to ridicule the extravagant sympathy for the lower classes which was then the fashion.

Friend of Humanity.

Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going? Rough is the 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!"

Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives? Did some rich man tyrannically use you? Was it the squire? or parson of the parish? Or the attorney?

Was it the squire for killing of his game? or Covetous parson for his tithes distraining? Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little All in a lawsuit?

(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, Ready to fall as soon as you have told your Pitiful story.

Knife-grinder.

Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir, Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were Torn in the scuffle.

Constable came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the Justice, Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honour's health in A pot of beer, if you would give me sixpence; But, for my part, I never love to meddle With politics, sir.

Friend of Humanity.

I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first— Wretch! whom no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance— Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast!

[Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.]



LIII. SONG BY ROGERO THE CAPTIVE.

This is a satirical imitation of many of the songs current in the romantic dramas of the period. It is contained in the Rovers, or the Double Arrangement, act i. sc. 2, a skit upon the dramatic literature of the day.

Whene'er with haggard eyes I view This dungeon, that I'm rotting in, I think of those companions true Who studied with me in the U- -niversity of Gottingen— -niversity of Gottingen. [Weeps, and pulls out a blue 'kerchief, with which he wipes his eyes; gazing tenderly at it, he proceeds.

Sweet 'kerchief check'd with heavenly blue, Which once my love sat knotting in, Alas, Matilda then was true, At least I thought so at the U- -niversity of Gottingen— -niversity of Gottingen. [At the repetition of this line Rogero clanks his chain in cadence.

Barbs! barbs! alas! how swift ye flew, Her neat post-waggon trotting in! Ye bore Matilda from my view; Forlorn I languish'd at the U- -niversity of Gottingen— -niversity of Gottingen.

This faded form! this pallid hue! This blood my veins is clotting in, My years are many—they were few When I first entered at the U- -niversity of Gottingen— -niversity of Gottingen.

There first for thee my passion grew, Sweet; sweet Matilda Pottingen! Thou wast the daughter of my tutor, Law Professor at the U- -niversity of Gottingen— -niversity of Gottingen

Sun, moon, and thou vain world, adieu, That kings and priests are plotting in; Here doom'd to starve on water-gruel, never shall I see the U- -niversity of Gottingen!— -niversity of Gottingen!

[During the last stanza Rogero dashes his head repeatedly against the walls of his prison; and, finally, so hard as to produce a visible contusion. He then throws himself on the floor in an agony. The curtain drops—the music still continuing to play till it is wholly fallen.



COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY.

(1772-1834.) (1774-1843.)

LIV. THE DEVIL'S WALK.

Originally written in an album belonging to one of the Misses Fricker, the ladies whom the two poets married. What was the extent of the collaboration of the respective writers in the poem is unknown, but the fact is beyond a doubt that it was written by them in conjunction.

From his brimstone bed at break of day A-walking the Devil is gone, To visit his snug little farm upon earth, And see how his stock goes on.

Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he switched his long tail, As a gentleman switches his cane.

And how, then, was the Devil drest? Oh, he was in his Sunday best; His jacket was red, and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where his tail came through.

He saw a lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother Abel.

He saw an apothecary on a white horse Ride by on his own vocations; And the Devil thought of his old friend Death in the Revelations.

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility; And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is the pride that apes humility.

He went into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! we are both of one college, For I myself sate like a cormorant once, Fast by the tree of knowledge.

Down the river there plied, with wind and tide, A pig, with vast celerity, And the Devil looked wise as he saw how the while It cut its own throat. There! quoth he, with a smile, Goes "England's commercial prosperity".

As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw A solitary cell; And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint For improving his prisons in hell.

General Gascoigne's burning face He saw with consternation; And back to hell his way did take, For the Devil thought by a slight mistake It was a general conflagration.



SYDNEY SMITH.

(1771-1845.)

LV. THE LETTERS OF PETER PLYMLEY—ON "NO POPERY".

In 1807 the Letters of Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham on the subject of the Irish Catholics were published. "The letters", as Professor Henry Morley says, "fell like sparks on a heap of gunpowder. All London, and soon all England, were alive to the sound reason recommended by a lively wit." The example of his satiric force and sarcastic ratiocination cited below is the Second Letter in the Series.

DEAR ABRAHAM,

The Catholic not respect an oath! why not? What upon earth has kept him out of Parliament, or excluded him from all the offices whence he is excluded, but his respect for oaths? There is no law which prohibits a Catholic to sit in Parliament. There could be no such law; because it is impossible to find out what passes in the interior of any man's mind. Suppose it were in contemplation to exclude all men from certain offices who contended for the legality of taking tithes: the only mode of discovering that fervid love of decimation which I know you to possess would be to tender you an oath "against that damnable doctrine, that it is lawful for a spiritual man to take, abstract, appropriate, subduct, or lead away the tenth calf, sheep, lamb, ox, pigeon, duck", &c., and every other animal that ever existed, which of course the lawyers would take care to enumerate. Now this oath I am sure you would rather die than take; and so the Catholic is excluded from Parliament because he will not swear that he disbelieves the leading doctrines of his religion! The Catholic asks you to abolish some oaths which oppress him; your answer is that he does not respect oaths. Then why subject him to the test of oaths? The oaths keep him out of Parliament; why, then, he respects them. Turn which way you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by religious obligations as you are; but no eel in the well-sanded fist of a cook-maid, upon the eve of being skinned, ever twisted and writhed as an orthodox parson does when he is compelled by the gripe of reason to admit anything in favour of a dissenter.

I will not dispute with you whether the Pope be or be not the Scarlet Lady of Babylon. I hope it is not so; because I am afraid it will induce His Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer to introduce several severe bills against popery, if that is the case; and though he will have the decency to appoint a previous committee of inquiry as to the fact, the committee will be garbled, and the report inflammatory. Leaving this to be settled as he pleases to settle it, I wish to inform you, that, previously to the bill last passed in favour of the Catholics, at the suggestion of Mr. Pitt, and for his satisfaction, the opinions of six of the most celebrated of the foreign Catholic universities were taken as to the right of the Pope to interfere in the temporal concerns of any country. The answer cannot possibly leave the shadow of a doubt, even in the mind of Baron Maseres; and Dr. Rennel would be compelled to admit it, if three Bishops lay dead at the very moment the question were put to him. To this answer might be added also the solemn declaration and signature of all the Catholics in Great Britain.

I should perfectly agree with you, if the Catholics admitted such a dangerous dispensing power in the hands of the Pope; but they all deny it, and laugh at it, and are ready to abjure it in the most decided manner you can devise. They obey the Pope as the spiritual head of their Church; but are you really so foolish as to be imposed upon by mere names? What matters it the seven-thousandth part of a farthing who is the spiritual head of any Church? Is not Mr. Wilberforce at the head of the Church of Clapham? Is not Dr. Letsom at the head of the Quaker Church? Is not the General Assembly at the head of the Church of Scotland? How is the government disturbed by these many-headed Churches? or in what way is the power of the Crown augmented by this almost nominal dignity?

The King appoints a fast-day once a year, and he makes the bishops: and if the government would take half the pains to keep the Catholics out of the arms of France that it does to widen Temple Bar, or improve Snow Hill, the King would get into his hands the appointments of the titular Bishops of Ireland. Both Mr. C——'s sisters enjoy pensions more than sufficient to place the two greatest dignitaries of the Irish Catholic Church entirely at the disposal of the Crown. Everybody who knows Ireland knows perfectly well that nothing would be easier, with the expenditure of a little money, than to preserve enough of the ostensible appointment in the hands of the Pope to satisfy the scruples of the Catholics, while the real nomination remained with the Crown. But, as I have before said, the moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots.

Whatever your opinion may be of the follies of the Roman Catholic religion, remember they are the follies of four millions of human beings, increasing rapidly in numbers, wealth, and intelligence, who, if firmly united with this country, would set at defiance the power of France, and if once wrested from their alliance with England, would in three years render its existence as an independent nation absolutely impossible. You speak of danger to the Establishment: I request to know when the Establishment was ever so much in danger as when Hoche was in Bantry Bay, and whether all the books of Bossuet, or the arts of the Jesuits, were half so terrible? Mr. Perceval and his parsons forget all this, in their horror lest twelve or fourteen old women may be converted to holy water and Catholic nonsense. They never see that, while they are saving these venerable ladies from perdition, Ireland may be lost, England broken down, and the Protestant Church, with all its deans, prebendaries, Percevals, and Rennels, be swept into the vortex of oblivion.

Do not, I beseech you, ever mention to me again the name of Dr. Duigenan. I have been in every corner of Ireland, and have studied its present strength and condition with no common labour. Be assured Ireland does not contain at this moment less than 5,000,000 people. There were returned in the year 1791 to the hearth tax 701,000 houses, and there is no kind of question that there were about 50,000 houses omitted in that return. Taking, however, only the number returned for the tax, and allowing the average of six to a house (a very small average for a potato-fed people), this brings the population to 4,200,000 people in the year 1791: and it can be shown from the clearest evidence (and Mr. Newenham in his book shows it), that Ireland for the last 50 years has increased in its population at the rate of 50,000 or 60,000 per annum; which leaves the present population of Ireland at about 5,000,000, after every possible deduction for existing circumstances, just and necessary wars, monstrous and unnatural rebellions, and all other sources of human destruction. Of this population, two out of ten are Protestants; and the half of the Protestant population are dissenters, and as inimical to the Church as the Catholics themselves. In this state of things thumbscrews and whipping—admirable engines of policy as they must be considered to be—will not ultimately avail. The Catholics will hang over you; they will watch for the moment, and compel you hereafter to give them ten times as much, against your will, as they would now be contented with, if it were voluntarily surrendered. Remember what happened in the American war, when Ireland compelled you to give her everything she asked, and to renounce, in the most explicit manner, your claim of sovereignty over her. God Almighty grant the folly of these present men may not bring on such another crisis of public affairs!

What are your dangers which threaten the Establishment? Reduce this declamation to a point, and let us understand what you mean. The most ample allowance does not calculate that there would be more than twenty members who were Roman Catholics in one house, and ten in the other, if the Catholic emancipation were carried into effect. Do you mean that these thirty members would bring in a bill to take away the tithes from the Protestant, and to pay them to the Catholic clergy? Do you mean that a Catholic general would march his army into the House of Commons, and purge it of Mr. Perceval and Dr. Duigenan? or, that the theological writers would become all of a sudden more acute or more learned, if the present civil incapacities were removed? Do you fear for your tithes, or your doctrines, or your person, or the English Constitution? Every fear, taken separately, is so glaringly absurd, that no man has the folly or the boldness to state it. Everyone conceals his ignorance, or his baseness, in a stupid general panic, which, when called on, he is utterly incapable of explaining. Whatever you think of the Catholics, there they are—you cannot get rid of them; your alternative is to give them a lawful place for stating their grievances, or an unlawful one: if you do not admit them to the House of Commons, they will hold their parliament in Potatoe Place, Dublin, and be ten times as violent and inflammatory as they would be in Westminster. Nothing would give me such an idea of security as to see twenty or thirty Catholic gentlemen in Parliament, looked upon by all the Catholics as the fair and proper organ of their party. I should have thought it the height of good fortune that such a wish existed on their part, and the very essence of madness and ignorance to reject it. Can you murder the Catholics? Can you neglect them? They are too numerous for both these expedients. What remains to be done is obvious to every human being—but to that man who, instead of being a Methodist preacher, is, for the curse of us and our children, and for the ruin of Troy and the misery of good old Priam and his sons, become a legislator and a politician.

A distinction, I perceive, is taken by one of the most feeble noblemen in Great Britain, between persecution and the deprivation of political power; whereas, there is no more distinction between these two things than there is between him who makes the distinction and a booby. If I strip off the relic-covered jacket of a Catholic, and give him twenty stripes ... I persecute; if I say, Everybody in the town where you live shall be a candidate for lucrative and honourable offices, but you, who are a Catholic ... I do not persecute! What barbarous nonsense is this! as if degradation was not as great an evil as bodily pain or as severe poverty: as if I could not be as great a tyrant by saying, You shall not enjoy—as by saying, You shall suffer. The English, I believe, are as truly religious as any nation in Europe; I know no greater blessing; but it carries with it this evil in its train, that any villain who will bawl out, "The Church is in danger!" may get a place and a good pension; and that any administration who will do the same thing may bring a set of men into power who, at a moment of stationary and passive piety, would be hooted by the very boys in the streets. But it is not all religion; it is, in great part, the narrow and exclusive spirit which delights to keep the common blessings of sun and air and freedom from other human beings. "Your religion has always been degraded; you are in the dust, and I will take care you never rise again. I should enjoy less the possession of an earthly good by every additional person to whom it was extended." You may not be aware of it yourself, most reverend Abraham, but you deny their freedom to the Catholics upon the same principle that Sarah, your wife, refuses to give the receipt for a ham or a gooseberry dumpling: she values her receipts, not because they secure to her a certain flavour, but because they remind her that her neighbours want it:—a feeling laughable in a priestess, shameful in a priest; venial when it withholds the blessings of a ham, tyrannical and execrable when it narrows the boon of religious freedom.

You spend a great deal of ink about the character of the present prime minister. Grant you all that you write—I say, I fear he will ruin Ireland, and pursue a line of policy destructive to the true interest of his country: and then you tell me, he is faithful to Mrs. Perceval, and kind to the Master Percevals! These are, undoubtedly, the first qualifications to be looked to in a time of the most serious public danger; but somehow or another (if public and private virtues must always be incompatible), I should prefer that he destroyed the domestic happiness of Wood or Cockell, owed for the veal of the preceding year, whipped his boys, and saved his country.

The late administration did not do right; they did not build their measures upon the solid basis of facts. They should have caused several Catholics to have been dissected after death by surgeons of either religion; and the report to have been published with accompanying plates. If the viscera, and other organs of life, had been found to be the same as in Protestant bodies; if the provisions of nerves, arteries, cerebrum, and cerebellum, had been the same as we are provided with, or as the dissenters are now known to possess; then, indeed, they might have met Mr. Perceval upon a proud eminence, and convinced the country at large of the strong probability that the Catholics are really human creatures, endowed with the feelings of men, and entitled to all their rights. But instead of this wise and prudent measure, Lord Howick, with his usual precipitation, brings forward a bill in their favour, without offering the slightest proof to the country that they were anything more than horses and oxen. The person who shows the lama at the corner of Piccadilly has the precaution to write up—Allowed by Sir Joseph Banks to be a real quadruped, so his Lordship might have said—Allowed by the bench of Bishops to be real human creatures.... I could write you twenty letters upon this subject; but I am tired, and so I suppose are you. Our friendship is now of forty years' standing; you know me to be a truly religious man; but I shudder to see religion treated like a cockade, or a pint of beer, and made the instrument of a party. I love the king, but I love the people as well as the king; and if I am sorry to see his old age molested, I am much more sorry to see four millions of Catholics baffled in their just expectations. If I love Lord Grenville and Lord Howick, it is because they love their country; if I abhor ... it is because I know there is but one man among them who is not laughing at the enormous folly and credulity of the country, and that he is an ignorant and mischievous bigot. As for the light and frivolous jester, of whom it is your misfortune to think so highly, learn, my dear Abraham, that this political Killigrew, just before the breaking up of the last administration, was in actual treaty with them for a place; and if they had survived twenty-four hours longer, he would have been now declaiming against the cry of No Popery! instead of inflaming it. With this practical comment on the baseness of human nature, I bid you adieu!



JAMES SMITH.

(1775-1839.)

LVI. THE POET OF FASHION.

From the famous Rejected Addresses.

His book is successful, he's steeped in renown, His lyric effusions have tickled the town; Dukes, dowagers, dandies, are eager to trace The fountain of verse in the verse-maker's face: While, proud as Apollo, with peers tete-a-tete, From Monday till Saturday dining off plate, His heart full of hope, and his head full of gain, The Poet of Fashion dines out in Park Lane.

Now lean-jointured widows who seldom draw corks, Whose tea-spoons do duty for knives and for forks, Send forth, vellum-covered, a six-o'clock card, And get up a dinner to peep at the bard; Veal, sweetbread, boiled chickens, and tongue crown the cloth, And soup a la reine, little better than broth. While, past his meridian, but still with some heat, The Poet of Fashion dines out in Sloane Street,

Enrolled in the tribe who subsist by their wits, Remember'd by starts, and forgotten by fits, Now artists and actors, the bardling engage, To squib in the journals, and write for the stage. Now soup a la reine bends the knee to ox-cheek, And chickens and tongue bow to bubble-and-squeak. While, still in translation employ'd by "the Row" The Poet of Fashion dines out in Soho.

Pushed down from Parnassus to Phlegethon's brink, Toss'd, torn, and trunk-lining, but still with some ink, Now squat city misses their albums expand, And woo the worn rhymer for "something off-hand"; No longer with stinted effrontery fraught, Bucklersbury now seeks what St. James's once sought, And (O, what a classical haunt for a bard!) The Poet of Fashion dines out in Barge-yard.



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

(1775-1864.)

LVII. BOSSUET AND THE DUCHESS OF FONTANGES.

This is taken from Landor's Imaginary Conversations, and is one of the best examples of his light, airy, satiric vein.

Bossuet. Mademoiselle, it is the King's desire that I compliment you on the elevation you have attained.

Fontanges, O monseigneur, I know very well what you mean. His Majesty is kind and polite to everybody. The last thing he said to me was, "Angelique! do not forget to compliment Monseigneur the Bishop on the dignity I have conferred upon him, of almoner to the Dauphiness. I desired the appointment for him only that he might be of rank sufficient to confess you, now you are Duchess. Let him be your confessor, my little girl."

Bossuet. I dare not presume to ask you, mademoiselle, what was your gracious reply to the condescension of our royal master.

Fontanges. Oh, yes! you may. I told him I was almost sure I should be ashamed of confessing such naughty things to a person of high rank, who writes like an angel.

Bossuet. The observation was inspired, mademoiselle, by your goodness and modesty.

Fontanges. You are so agreeable a man, monseigneur, I will confess to you, directly, if you like.

Bossuet. Have you brought yourself to a proper frame of mind, young lady?

Fontanges. What is that?

Bossuet. Do you hate sin?

Fontanges. Very much.

Bossuet. Are you resolved to leave it off?

Fontanges. I have left it off entirely since the King began to love me. I have never said a spiteful word of anybody since.

Bossuet. In your opinion, mademoiselle, are there no other sins than malice?

Fontanges. I never stole anything; I never committed adultery; I never coveted my neighbour's wife; I never killed any person, though several have told me they should die for me.

Bossuet. Vain, idle talk! Did you listen to it?

Fontanges. Indeed I did, with both ears; it seemed so funny.

Bossuet. You have something to answer for, then?

Fontanges. No, indeed, I have not, monseigneur. I have asked many times after them, and found they were all alive, which mortified me.

Bossuet. So, then! you would really have them die for you?

Fontanges. Oh, no, no! but I wanted to see whether they were in earnest, or told me fibs; for, if they told me fibs, I would never trust them again.

Bossuet. Do you hate the world, mademoiselle?

Fontanges. A good deal of it: all Picardy, for example, and all Sologne; nothing is uglier—and, oh my life! what frightful men and women!

Bossuet. I would say, in plain language, do you hate the flesh and the devil?

Fontanges. Who does not hate the devil? If you will hold my hand the while, I will tell him so.—I hate you, beast! There now. As for flesh, I never could bear a fat man. Such people can neither dance nor hunt, nor do anything that I know of.

Bossuet. Mademoiselle Marie-Angelique de Scoraille de Rousille, Duchess de Fontanges! do you hate titles and dignities and yourself?

Fontanges. Myself! does anyone hate me? Why should I be the first? Hatred is the worst thing in the world: it makes one so very ugly.

Bossuet. To love God, we must hate ourselves. We must detest our bodies, if we would save our souls.

Fontanges. That is hard: how can I do it? I see nothing so detestable in mine. Do you? To love is easier. I love God whenever I think of him, he has been so very good to me; but I cannot hate myself, if I would. As God hath not hated me, why should I? Beside, it was he who made the King to love me; for I heard you say in a sermon that the hearts of kings are in his rule and governance. As for titles and dignities, I do not care much about them while His Majesty loves me, and calls me his Angelique. They make people more civil about us; and therefore it must be a simpleton who hates or disregards them, and a hypocrite who pretends it. I am glad to be a duchess. Manon and Lizette have never tied my garter so as to hurt me since, nor has the mischievous old La Grange said anything cross or bold; on the contrary, she told me what a fine colour and what a plumpness it gave me. Would not you rather be a duchess than a waiting-maid or a nun, if the King gave you your choice?

Bossuet. Pardon me, mademoiselle, I am confounded at the levity of your question.

Fontanges. I am in earnest, as you see.

Bossuet. Flattery will come before you in other and more dangerous forms: you will be commended for excellences which do not belong to you; and this you will find as injurious to your repose as to your virtue. An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof. If you reject it, you are unhappy; if you accept it, you are undone. The compliments of a king are of themselves sufficient to pervert your intellect.

Fontanges. There you are mistaken twice over. It is not my person that pleases him so greatly: it is my spirit, my wit, my talents, my genius, and that very thing which you have mentioned—what was it? my intellect. He never complimented me the least upon my beauty. Others have said that I am the most beautiful young creature under heaven; a blossom of Paradise, a nymph, an angel; worth (let me whisper it in your ear—do I lean too hard?) a thousand Montespans. But His Majesty never said more on the occasion than that I was imparagonable! (what is that?) and that he adored me; holding my hand and sitting quite still, when he might have romped with me and kissed me.

Bossuet. I would aspire to the glory of converting you.

Fontanges. You may do anything with me but convert me: you must not do that; I am a Catholic born. M. de Turenne and Mademoiselle de Duras were heretics: you did right there. The King told the chancellor that he prepared them, that the business was arranged for you, and that you had nothing to do but get ready the arguments and responses, which you did gallantly—did not you? And yet Mademoiselle de Duras was very awkward for a long while afterwards in crossing herself, and was once remarked to beat her breast in the litany with the points of two fingers at a time, when everyone is taught to use only the second, whether it has a ring upon it or not. I am sorry she did so; for people might think her insincere in her conversion, and pretend that she kept a finger for each religion.

Bossuet. It would be as uncharitable to doubt the conviction of Mademoiselle de Duras as that of M. le Marechali.

Fontanges. I have heard some fine verses, I can assure you, monseigneur, in which you are called the conqueror of Turenne. I should like to have been his conqueror myself, he was so great a man. I understand that you have lately done a much more difficult thing.

Bossuet. To what do you refer, mademoiselle?

Fontanges. That you have overcome quietism. Now, in the name of wonder, how could you manage that?

Bossuet. By the grace of God.

Fontanges. Yes, indeed; but never until now did God give any preacher so much of his grace as to subdue this pest.

Bossuet. It has appeared among us but lately.

Fontanges. Oh, dear me! I have always been subject to it dreadfully, from a child.

Bossuet. Really! I never heard so.

Fontanges. I checked myself as well as I could, although they constantly told me I looked well in it.

Bossuet. In what, mademoiselle?

Fontanges. In quietism; that is, when I fell asleep at sermon-time. I am ashamed that such a learned and pious man as M. de Fenelon should incline to it, as they say he does.

Bossuet. Mademoiselle, you quite mistake the matter.

Fontanges. Is not then M. de Fenelon thought a very pious and learned person?

Bossuet. And justly.

Fontanges. I have read a great way in a romance he has begun, about a knight-errant in search of a father. The King says there are many such about his court; but I never saw them nor heard of them before. The Marchioness de la Motte, his relative, brought it to me, written out in a charming hand, as much as the copybook would hold; and I got through, I know not how far. If he had gone on with the nymphs in the grotto, I never should have been tired of him; but he quite forgot his own story, and left them at once: in a hurry (I suppose) to set out upon his mission to Saintonge in the pays de d'Aunis, where the King has promised him a famous heretic-hunt. He is, I do assure you, a wonderful creature: he understands so much Latin and Greek, and knows all the tricks of the sorceresses. Yet you keep him under.

Bossuet. Mademoiselle, if you really have anything to confess, and if you desire that I should have the honour of absolving you, it would be better to proceed in it, than to oppress me with unmerited eulogies on my humble labours.

Fontanges. You must first direct me, monseigneur: I have nothing particular. The King assures me there is no harm whatever in his love toward me.

Bossuet. That depends on your thoughts at the moment. If you abstract the mind from the body, and turn your heart toward heaven—

Fontanges. O monseigneur, I always did so—every time but once—you quite make me blush. Let us converse about something else, or I shall grow too serious, just as you made me the other day at the funeral sermon. And now let me tell you, my lord, you compose such pretty funeral sermons, I hope I shall have the pleasure of hearing you preach mine.

Bossuet. Rather let us hope, mademoiselle, that the hour is yet far distant when so melancholy a service will be performed for you. May he who is unborn be the sad announcer of your departure hence![231] May he indicate to those around him many virtues not perhaps yet full-blown in you, and point triumphantly to many faults and foibles checked by you in their early growth, and lying dead on the open road you shall have left behind you! To me the painful duty will, I trust, be spared: I am advanced in age; you are a child.

Fontanges. Oh, no! I am seventeen.

Bossuet. I should have supposed you younger by two years at least. But do you collect nothing from your own reflection, which raises so many in my breast? You think it possible that I, aged as I am, may preach a sermon on your funeral. We say that our days are few; and saying it, we say too much. Marie Angelique, we have but one: the past are not ours, and who can promise us the future? This in which we live is ours only while we live in it; the next moment may strike it off from us; the next sentence I would utter may be broken and fall between us.[232] The beauty that has made a thousand hearts to beat at one instant, at the succeeding has been without pulse and colour, without admirer, friend, companion, follower. She by whose eyes the march of victory shall have been directed, whose name shall have animated armies at the extremities of the earth, drops into one of its crevices and mingles with its dust. Duchess de Fontanges! think on this! Lady! so live as to think on it undisturbed!

Fontanges. O God! I am quite alarmed. Do not talk thus gravely. It is in vain that you speak to me in so sweet a voice. I am frightened even at the rattle of the beads about my neck: take them off, and let us talk on other things. What was it that dropped on the floor as you were speaking? It seemed to shake the room, though it sounded like a pin or button.

Bossuet. Leave it there!

Fontanges. Your ring fell from your hand, my Lord Bishop! How quick you are! Could not you have trusted me to pick it up?

Bossuet. Madame is too condescending: had this happened, I should have been overwhelmed with confusion. My hand is shrivelled: the ring has ceased to fit it. A mere accident may draw us into perdition; a mere accident may bestow on us the means of grace. A pebble has moved you more than my words.

Fontanges. It pleases me vastly: I admire rubies. I will ask the King for one exactly like it. This is the time he usually comes from the chase. I am sorry you cannot be present to hear how prettily I shall ask him: but that is impossible, you know; for I shall do it just when I am certain he would give me anything. He said so himself; he said but yesterday—

'Such a sweet creature is worth a world':

and no actor on the stage was more like a king than His Majesty was when he spoke it, if he had but kept his wig and robe on. And yet you know he is rather stiff and wrinkled for so great a monarch; and his eyes, I am afraid, are beginning to fail him, he looks so close at things.

Bossuet. Mademoiselle, such is the duty of a prince who desires to conciliate our regard and love.

Fontanges. Well, I think so too, though I did not like it in him at first. I am sure he will order the ring for me, and I will confess to you with it upon my finger. But first I must be cautious and particular to know of him how much it is his royal will that I should say.

[Footnote 231: Bossuet was in his fifty-fourth year; Mademoiselle de Fontanges died in child-bed the year following; he survived her twenty-three years.]

[Footnote 232: Though Bossuet was capable of uttering and even of feeling such a sentiment, his conduct towards Fenelon, the fairest apparition that Christianity ever presented, was ungenerous and unjust.

While the diocese of Cambray was ravaged by Louis, it was spared by Marlborough, who said to the Archbishop that, if he was sorry he had not taken Cambray, it was chiefly because he lost for a time the pleasure of visiting so great a man. Peterborough, the next of our generals in glory, paid his respects to him some years afterward.]



GEORGE, LORD BYRON.

(1788-1824.)

LVIII. THE VISION OF JUDGMENT.

The Vision of Judgment appeared in 1822, and created a great sensation owing to its terrible attack on George III., as well as its ridicule of Southey, of whose long-forgotten Vision of Judgment this is a parody.

I.

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate; His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull, So little trouble had been given of late: Not that the place by any means was full, But since the Gallic era "eighty-eight", The devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull, And "a pull all together", as they say At sea—which drew most souls another way.

II.

The angels all were singing out of tune, And hoarse with having little else to do, Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, Or curb a runaway young star or two, Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue, Splitting some planet with its playful tail, As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.

III.

The guardian seraphs had retired on high, Finding their charges past all care below; Terrestrial business fill'd nought in the sky Save the recording angel's black bureau; Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply With such rapidity of vice and woe, That he had stripp'd off both his wings in quills, And yet was in arrear of human ills.

IV.

His business so augmented of late years, That he was forced, against his will no doubt (Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers), For some resource to turn himself about, And claim the help of his celestial peers, To aid him ere he should be quite worn out By the increased demand for his remarks: Six angels and twelve saints were named his clerks.

V.

This was a handsome board—at least for heaven; And yet they had even then enough to do, So many conquerors' cars were daily driven, So many kingdoms fitted up anew; Each day, too, slew its thousands six or seven, Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo, They threw their pens down in divine disgust, The page was so besmear'd with blood and dust.

VI.

This by the way; 'tis not mine to record What angels shrink from: even the very devil On this occasion his own work abhorr'd, So surfeited with the infernal revel: Though he himself had sharpen'd every sword, It almost quench'd his innate thirst of evil. (Here Satan's sole good work deserves insertion— 'Tis that he has both generals in reversion.)

VII.

Let's skip a few short years of hollow peace, Which peopled earth no better, hell as wont, And heaven none—they form the tyrant's lease, With nothing but new names subscribed upon't: 'Twill one day finish: meantime they increase, "With seven heads and ten horns", and all in front, Like Saint John's foretold beast; but ours are born Less formidable in the head than horn.

VIII.

In the first year of freedom's second dawn Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn Left him nor mental nor external sun: A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn, A worse king never left a realm undone! He died—but left his subjects still behind, One half as mad—and t'other no less blind.

IX.

He died! his death made no great stir on earth: His burial made some pomp: there was profusion Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth Of aught but tears—save those shed by collusion. For these things may be bought at their true worth; Of elegy there was the due infusion— Bought also; and the torches, cloaks, and banners, Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners,

X.

Form'd a sepulchral melodrame. Of all The fools who flock'd to swell or see the show, Who cared about the corpse? The funeral Made the attraction, and the black the woe, There throbb'd not there a thought which pierced the pall; And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low, It seem'd the mockery of hell to fold The rottenness of eighty years in gold.

XI.

So mix his body with the dust! It might Return to what it must far sooner, were The natural compound left alone to fight Its way back into earth, and fire, and air, But the unnatural balsams merely blight What nature made him at his birth, as bare As the mere million's base unmummied clay— Yet all his spices but prolong decay.

XII.

He's dead—and upper earth with him has done; He's buried; save the undertaker's bill, Or lapidary's scrawl, the world has gone For him, unless he left a German will. But where's the proctor who will ask his son? In whom his qualities are reigning still, Except that household virtue, most uncommon, Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman.

XIII.

"God save the King!" It is a large economy In God to save the like; but if He will Be saving, all the better; for not one am I Of those who think damnation better still; I hardly know, too, if not quite alone am I In this small hope of bettering future ill By circumscribing, with some slight restriction, The eternity of hell's hot jurisdiction.

XIV.

I know this is unpopular; I know 'Tis blasphemous; I know one may be damn'd For hoping no one else may e'er be so; I know my catechism: I know we 're cramm'd With the best doctrines till we quite o'erflow; I know that all save England's church have shamm'd; And that the other twice two hundred churches And synagogues have made a damn'd bad purchase.

XV.

God help us all! God help me too! I am, God knows, as helpless as the devil can wish, And not a whit more difficult to damn, Than is to bring to land a late-hooked fish, Or to the butcher to purvey the lamb; Not that I'm fit for such a noble dish, As one day will be that immortal fry Of almost everybody born to die.

XVI.

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate, And nodded o'er his keys; when lo! there came A wondrous noise he had not heard of late— A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame; In short, a roar of things extremely great, Which would have made all save a saint exclaim; But he, with first a start and then a wink, Said, "There's another star gone out, I think!"

XVII.

But ere he could return to his repose, A cherub flapp'd his right wing o'er his eyes— At which Saint Peter yawn'd and rubb'd his nose; "Saint porter," said the angel, "prithee rise!" Waving a goodly wing, which glow'd, as glows An earthly peacock's tail, with heavenly dyes; To which the Saint replied, "Well, what's the matter? Is Lucifer come back with all this clatter?"

XVIII.

"No," quoth the cherub; "George the Third is dead." "And who is George the Third?" replied the apostle; "What George? What Third?" "The King of England," said The angel. "Well, he won't find kings to jostle Him on his way; but does he wear his head? Because the last we saw here had a tussle, And ne'er would have got into heaven's good graces, Had he not flung his head in all our faces.

XIX.

"He was, if I remember, King of France, That head of his, which could not keep a crown On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance A claim to those of martyrs—like my own. If I had had my sword, as I had once When I cut ears off, I had cut him down; But having but my keys, and not my brand, I only knock'd his head from out his hand.

XX.

"And then he set up such a headless howl, That all the saints came out and took him in; And there he sits by St. Paul, cheek by jowl; That fellow Paul—the parvenu! The skin Of Saint Bartholomew, which makes his cowl In heaven, and upon earth redeem'd his sin So as to make a martyr, never sped Better than did that weak and wooden head.

XXI.

"But had it come up here upon its shoulders, There would have been a different tale to tell; The fellow-feeling in the saints' beholders Seems to have acted on them like a spell; And so this very foolish head heaven solders Back on its trunk: it may be very well, And seems the custom here to overthrow Whatever has been wisely done below."

XXII.

The angel answer'd, "Peter! do not pout: The king who comes has head and all entire, And never knew much what it was about— He did as doth the puppet—by its wire, And will be judged like all the rest, no doubt: My business and your own is not to inquire Into such matters, but to mind our cue— Which is to act as we are bid to do."

XXIII.

While thus they spake, the angelic caravan, Arriving like a rush of mighty wind, Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde, Or Thames, or Tweed), and 'midst them an old man With an old soul, and both extremely blind, Halted before the gate, and in his shroud Seated their fellow-traveller on a cloud.

XXIV.

But bringing up the rear of this bright host, A Spirit of a different aspect waved His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved; His brow was like the deep when tempest-toss'd; Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved Eternal wrath on his immortal face, And where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space.

XXV.

As he drew near, he gazed upon the gate Ne'er to be enter'd more by him or Sin, With such a glance of supernatural hate, As made St. Peter wish himself within: He patter'd with his keys at a great rate, And sweated through his apostolic skin: Of course his perspiration was but ichor, Or some such other spiritual liquor.

XXVI.

The very cherubs huddled all together, Like birds when soars the falcon; and they felt A tingling to the tip of every feather, And form'd a circle like Orion's belt Around their poor old charge; who scarce knew whither His guards had led him, though they gently dealt With royal manes (for by many stories, And true, we learn the angels all are Tories).

XXVII.

As things were in this posture, the gate flew Asunder, and the flashing of its hinges Flung over space an universal hue Of many-color'd flame, until its tinges Reach'd even our speck of earth, and made a new Aurora Borealis spread its fringes O'er the North Pole, the same seen, when ice-bound, By Captain Perry's crew, in "Melville's Sound".

XXVIII.

And from the gate thrown open issued beaming A beautiful and mighty Thing of Light, Radiant with glory, like a banner streaming Victorious from some world-o'erthrowing fight: My poor comparisons must needs be teeming With earthly likenesses, for here the night Of clay obscures our best conceptions, saving Johanna Southcote, or Bob Southey raving.

XXIX.

'Twas the archangel Michael: all men know The make of angels and archangels, since There's scarce a scribbler has not one to show, From the fiends' leader to the angels' prince. There also are some altar-pieces, though I really can't say that they much evince One's inner notions of immortal spirits; But let the connoisseurs explain their merits.

XXX.

Michael flew forth in glory and in good, A goodly work of Him from whom all glory And good arise: the portal pass'd—he stood Before him the young cherubs and saints hoary— (I say young, begging to be understood By looks, not years, and should be very sorry To state, they were not older than St. Peter, But merely that they seem'd a little sweeter).

XXXI.

The cherubs and the saints bow'd down before That archangelic hierarch, the first Of essences angelical, who wore The aspect of a god; but this ne'er nursed Pride in his heavenly bosom, in whose core No thought, save for his Maker's service, durst Intrude, however glorified and high; He knew him but the viceroy of the sky.

XXXII.

He and the sombre silent Spirit met— They knew each other both for good and ill; Such was their power that neither could forget His former friend and future foe; but still There was a high, immortal, proud regret In either's eye, as if't were less their will Than destiny to make the eternal years Their date of war, and their champ clos the spheres.

XXXIII.

But here they were in neutral space: we know From Job, that Satan hath the power to pay A heavenly visit thrice a year or so; And that "the sons of God", like those of clay, Must keep him company; and we might show From the same book, in how polite a way The dialogue is held between the powers Of Good and Evil—but 'twould take up hours.

XXXIV.

And this is not a theologic tract, To prove with Hebrew and with Arabic, If Job be allegory or a fact, But a true narrative; and thus I pick From out the whole but such and such an act, As sets aside the slightest thought of trick. 'Tis every tittle true, beyond suspicion, And accurate as any other vision.



LIX. THE WALTZ.

Published in 1813 and described by its author as an "Apostrophic Hymn".

Muse of the many-twinkling feet! whose charms Are now extended up from legs to arms; Terpsichore!—too long misdeem'd a maid— Reproachful term—bestow'd but to upbraid— Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine, The least a vestal of the virgin Nine. Far be from thee and thine the name of prude; Mock'd, yet triumphant; sneer'd at, unsubdued; Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly, If but thy coats are reasonably high; Thy breast, if bare enough, requires no shield: Dance forth—sans armour thou shalt take the field, And own—impregnable to most assaults, Thy not too lawfully begotten "Waltz".

Hail, nimble nymph! to whom the young huzzar, The whisker'd votary of waltz and war, His night devotes, despite of spurs and boots; A sight unmatch'd since Orpheus and his brutes: Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz! beneath whose banners A modern hero fought for modish manners; On Hounslow's heath to rival Wellesley's fame, Cock'd, fired, and miss'd his man—but gain'd his aim: Hail, moving muse! to whom the fair one's breast Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest. Oh, for the flow of Busby or of Fitz, The latter's loyalty, the former's wits, To "energize the object I pursue", And give both Belial and his dance their due!

Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine (Famed for the growth of pedigree and wine), Long be thine import from all duty free, And hock itself be less esteem'd than thee; In some few qualities alike—for hock Improves our cellar—thou our living stock. The head to hock belongs—thy subtler art Intoxicates alone the heedless heart: Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims, And wakes to wantonness the willing limbs.

O Germany! how much to thee we owe, As heaven-born Pitt can testify below. Ere cursed confederation made thee France's, And only left us thy d—d debts and dances! Of subsidies and Hanover bereft, We bless thee still—for George the Third is left! Of kings the best, and last not least in worth, For graciously begetting George the Fourth. To Germany, and highnesses serene, Who owe us millions—don't we owe the queen? To Germany, what owe we not besides? So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides: Who paid for vulgar, with her royal blood, Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud; Who sent us—so be pardon'd all our faults— A dozen dukes, some kings, a queen—and Waltz.

But peace to her, her emperor and diet, Though now transferr'd to Bonaparte's "fiat!" Back to thy theme—O Muse of motion! say, How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?

Borne on thy breath of hyperborean gales From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg yet had mails), Ere yet unlucky Fame, compelled to creep To snowy Gottenburg was chill'd to sleep; Or, starting from her slumbers, deign'd arise, Heligoland, to stock thy mart with lies; While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send, Nor owed her fiery exit to a friend. She came—Waltz came—and with her certain sets Of true despatches, and as true gazettes: Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch, Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match; And, almost crush'd beneath the glorious news, Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's; One envoy's letters, six composers' airs, And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs: Meiner's four volumes upon womankind, Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind; Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it, Of Heyne, such as should not sink the packet.

Fraught with this cargo, and her fairest freight, Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a mate, The welcome vessel reach'd the genial strand, And round her flock'd the daughters of the land. Not decent David, when, before the ark, His grand pas-seul excited some remark, Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought The knight's fandango friskier than it ought; Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread, Her nimble feet danced off another's head; Not Cleopatra on her galley's deck, Display'd so much of leg, or more of neck, Than thou ambrosial Waltz, when first the moon Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!

To you, ye husbands of ten years whose brows Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse; To you of nine years less, who only bear The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear, With added ornaments around them roll'd Of native brass, or law-awarded gold: To you, ye matrons, ever on the watch To mar a son's, or make a daughter's match; To you, ye children of—whom chance accords— Always the ladies, and sometimes their lords; To you, ye single gentlemen, who seek Torments for life, or pleasures for a week; As Love or Hymen your endeavours guide, To gain your own, or snatch another's bride;— To one and all the lovely stranger came, And every ball-room echoes with her name.

Endearing Waltz! to thy more melting tune Bow Irish jig and ancient rigadoon. Scotch reels, avaunt! and country dance forego Your future claims to each fantastic toe! Waltz, Waltz alone, both legs and arms demands, Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands; Hands which may freely range in public sight Where ne'er before—but—pray "put out the light". Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier Shines much too far, or I am much too near; And true, though strange, Waltz whispers this remark, "My slippery steps are safest in the dark!" But here the Muse with due decorum halts, And lends her longest petticoat to Waltz.

Observant travellers of every time! Ye quartos publish'd upon every clime! Oh, say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round, Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound; Can Egypt's Almas—tantalizing group— Columbia's caperers to the warlike whoop— Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be borne? Ah, no! from Morier's pages down to Galt's, Each tourist pens a paragraph for "Waltz".

Shades of those belles whose reign began of yore, With George the Third's—and ended long before!— Though in your daughters' daughters yet you thrive, Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive! Back to the ball-room speed your spectred host; Fools' Paradise is dull to that you lost. No treacherous powder bids conjecture quake; No stiff-starch'd stays make meddling fingers ache (Transferr'd to those ambiguous things that ape Goats in their visage, women in their shape): No damsel faints when rather closely press'd, But more caressing seems when most caress'd; Superfluous hartshorn and reviving salts; Both banished, by the sovereign cordial, "Waltz".

Seductive Waltz!—though on thy native shore Even Werter's self proclaim'd thee half a whore: Werter—to decent vice though much inclined, Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind— Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Stael, Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball; The fashion hails—from countesses to queens, And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes; Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads, And turns—if nothing else—at least our heads; With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce, And cockneys practise what they can't pronounce. Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts, And rhyme finds partner rhyme in praise of "Waltz!"

Blest was the time Waltz chose for her debut: The court, the Regent, like herself, were new, New face for friends, for foes some new rewards; New ornaments for black and royal guards; New laws to hang the rogues that roar'd for bread; New coins (most new) to follow those that fled; New victories—nor can we prize them less, Though Jenky wonders at his own success; New wars, because the old succeed so well, That most survivors envy those who fell; New mistresses—no, old—and yet 'tis true, Though they be old, the thing is something new; Each new, quite new—(except some ancient tricks), New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new sticks! With vests or ribbons, deck'd alike in hue, New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue; So saith the muse! my ——, what say you? Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain Her new preferments in this novel reign; Such was the time, nor ever yet was such: Hoops are no more, and petticoats not much: Morals and minuets, virtue and her stays, And tell-tale powder—all have had their days. The ball begins—the honours of the house First duly done by daughter or by spouse, Some potentate—or royal or serene— With Kent's gay grace, or sapient Glo'ster's mien, Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush Might once have been mistaken for a blush, From where the garb just leaves the bosom free, That spot where hearts were once supposed to be; Round all the confines of the yielded waist, The stranger's hand may wander undisplaced; The lady's in return may grasp as much As princely paunches offer to her touch. Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip, One hand reposing on the royal hip: The other to the shoulder no less royal Ascending with affection truly loyal! Thus front to front the partners move or stand, The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand; And all in turn may follow in their rank, The Earl of—Asterisk—and Lady—Blank; Sir—Such-a-one—with those of fashion's host, For whose blest surnames—vide Morning Post (Or if for that impartial print too late, Search Doctors' Commons six months from my date)— Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow, The genial contact gently undergo; Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk, If "nothing follows all this palming work". True, honest Mirza!—you may trust my rhyme— Something does follow at a fitter time; The breast thus publicly resign'd to man In private may resist him—if it can.

O ye who loved our grandmothers of yore, Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, and many more! And thou, my prince! whose sovereign taste and will It is to love the lovely beldames still! Thou ghost of Queensbury! whose judging sprite Satan may spare to peep a single night, Pronounce—if ever in your days of bliss Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this; To teach the young ideas how to rise, Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes; Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame, With half-told wish and ill-dissembled flame; For prurient nature still will storm the breast— Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

But ye, who never felt a single thought, For what our morals are to be, or ought; Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, Say—would you make those beauties quite so cheap? Hot from the hands promiscuously applied, Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side, Where were the rapture then to clasp the form From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm? At once love's most endearing thought resign, To press the hand so press'd by none but thine; To gaze upon that eye which never met Another's ardent look without regret; Approach the lip which all, without restraint, Come near enough—if not to touch—to taint; If such thou lovest—love her then no more, Or give—like her—caresses to a score; Her mind with these is gone, and with it go The little left behind it to bestow.

Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme? The bard forgot thy praises were his theme. Terpsichore, forgive!—at every ball My wife now waltzes—and my daughters shall; My son—(or stop—'tis needless to inquire— These little accidents should ne'er transpire; Some ages hence our genealogic tree Will wear as green a bough for him as me)— Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends, Grandsons for me—in heirs to all his friends.



LX. "THE DEDICATION" IN DON JUAN.

Southey as Poet Laureate was a favourite target for satirical quips and cranks on the part of Byron. This "Dedication" was not published until after the author's death.

I.

Bob Southey! You're a poet—Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race; Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory Last—yours has lately been a common case— And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at? With all the Lakers, in and out of place? A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four-and-twenty Blackbirds in a pie;

II.

"Which pie being open'd they began to sing" (This old song and new simile holds good), "A dainty dish to set before the King", Or Regent, who admires such kind of food— And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumber'd with his hood— Explaining metaphysics to the nation— I wish he would explain his Explanation.

III.

You, Bob, are rather insolent, you know At being disappointed in your wish To supersede all warblers here below, And be the only blackbird in the dish; And then you overstrain yourself, or so, And tumble downward like the flying fish Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob, And fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry, Bob!

IV.

And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion" (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages), Has given a sample from the vasty version Of his new system to perplex the sages; 'Tis poetry—at least by his assertion, And may appear so when the dog-star rages— And he who understands it would be able To add a story to the Tower of Babel.

V.

You—Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion From better company, have kept your own At Keswick, and, through still continued fusion Of one another's minds, at last have grown To deem as a most logical conclusion, That Poesy has wreaths for you alone; There is a narrowness in such a notion, Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for ocean.

VI.

I would not imitate the petty thought, Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought, Since gold alone should not have been its price, You have your salary; was't for that you wrought? And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise! You're shabby fellows—true—but poets still, And duly seated on the immortal hill.

VII.

Your bays may hide the baldness of your brows— Perhaps some virtuous blushes, let them go— To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs, And for the fame you would engross below, The field is universal, and allows Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow; Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe, will try 'Gainst you the question with posterity.

VIII.

For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, Contend not with you on the winged steed, I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses, The fame you envy and the skill you need; And recollect a poet nothing loses In giving to his brethren their full meed Of merit, and complaint of present days Is not the certain path to future praise.

IX.

He that reserves his laurels for posterity (Who does not often claim the bright reversion) Has generally no great crop to spare it, he Being only injured by his own assertion; And although here and there some glorious rarity Arise like Titan from the sea's immersion, The major part of such appellants go To—God knows where—for no one else can know.

X.

If, fallen in evil days on evil tongues, Milton appealed to the Avenger, Time, If Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs, And makes the word "Miltonic" mean "sublime", He deign'd not to belie his soul in songs, Nor turn his very talent to a crime; He did not loathe the sire to laud the son, But closed the tyrant-hater he begun.

XI.

Think'st thou, could he—the blind old man—arise, Like Samuel from the grave, to freeze once more The blood of monarchs with his prophecies, Or be alive again—again all hoar With time and trials, and those helpless eyes, And heartless daughters—worn—and pale—and poor: Would he adore a sultan? he obey The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?

XII.

Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant! Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore, And thus for wider carnage taught to pant, Transferr'd to gorge upon a sister shore, The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want, With just enough of talent, and no more, To lengthen fetters by another fix'd. And offer poison long already mix'd.

XIII.

An orator of such set trash of phrase Ineffably—legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile; Not even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of endless torments and perpetual motion.

XIV.

A bungler even in its disgusting trade, And botching, patching, leaving still behind Something of which its masters are afraid, States to be curb'd, and thoughts to be confined, Conspiracy or Congress to be made— Cobbling at manacles for all mankind— A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains, With God and man's abhorrence for its gains.

XV.

If we may judge of matter by the mind, Emasculated to the marrow It Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind, Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit, Eutropius of its many masters,—blind To worth as freedom, wisdom as to wit, Fearless—because no feeling dwells in ice, Its very courage stagnates to a vice.

XVI.

Where shall I turn me not to view its bonds, For I will never feel them:—Italy! Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds Beneath the lie this State-thing breathed o'er thee— Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds, Have voices—tongues to cry aloud for me. Europe has slaves—allies—kings—armies still, And Southey lives to sing them very ill.

XVII.

Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate, In honest simple verse, this song to you. And if in flattering strains I do not predicate, 'Tis that I still retain my "buff and blue"; My politics as yet are all to educate: Apostasy's so fashionable, too, To keep one creed's a task grown quite Herculean: Is it not so, my Tory, Ultra-Julian?

VENICE, September 16, 1818.



THOMAS HOOD.

(1798-1845.)

LXI. COCKLE v. CACKLE.

This is not meant as a "cut" at that standard medicine named therein which has wrought such good in its day; but is a satire on quack advertising generally. The more worthless the nostrum, the more universal the advertising of it, such is the moral of Hood's satire.

Those who much read advertisements and bills, Must have seen puffs of Cockle's Pills, Call'd Anti-bilious— Which some physicians sneer at, supercilious, But which we are assured, if timely taken, May save your liver and bacon; Whether or not they really give one ease, I, who have never tried, Will not decide; But no two things in union go like these— Viz.—quacks and pills—save ducks and pease. Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow, Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow, And friends portended was preparing for A human pate perigord; She was, indeed, so very far from well, Her son, in filial fear, procured a box Of those said pellets to resist bile's shocks, And—tho' upon the ear it strangely knocks— To save her by a Cockle from a shell! But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth, Who very vehemently bids us "throw Bark to the Bow-wows", hated physic so, It seem'd to share "the bitterness of Death": Rhubarb—Magnesia—Jalap, and the kind— Senna—Steel—Assa-foetida, and Squills— Powder or Draught—but least her throat inclined To give a course to boluses or pills; No—not to save her life, in lung or lobe, For all her lights' or all her liver's sake, Would her convulsive thorax undertake, Only one little uncelestial globe!

'Tis not to wonder at, in such a case, If she put by the pill-box in a place For linen rather than for drugs intended— Yet for the credit of the pills let's say After they thus were stow'd away, Some of the linen mended; But Mrs. W. by disease's dint, Kept getting still more yellow in her tint, When lo! her second son, like elder brother, Marking the hue on the parental gills, Brought a new charge of Anti-tumeric Pills, To bleach the jaundiced visage of his mother— Who took them—in her cupboard—like the other.

"Deeper and deeper still", of course, The fatal colour daily grew in force; Till daughter W. newly come from Rome, Acting the self-same filial, pillial, part, To cure Mamma, another dose brought home Of Cockles;—not the Cockles of her heart! These going where the others went before, Of course she had a very pretty store; And then—some hue of health her cheek adorning, The medicine so good must be, They brought her dose on dose, which she Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, "night and morning". Till wanting room at last, for other stocks, Out of the window one fine day she pitch'd The pillage of each box, and quite enrich'd The feed of Mister Burrell's hens and cocks,— A little Barber of a by-gone day, Over the way Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops, Was one great head of Kemble,—that is, John, Staring in plaster, with a Brutus on, And twenty little Bantam fowls—with crops. Little Dame W. thought when through the sash She gave the physic wings, To find the very things So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash, For thoughtless cock, and unreflecting pullet! But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles, Each peck'd itself into a peck of troubles, And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet. They might as well have addled been, or ratted, For long before the night—ah woe betide The Pills! each suicidal Bantam died Unfatted!

Think of poor Burrel's shock, Of Nature's debt to see his hens all payers, And laid in death as Everlasting Layers, With Bantam's small Ex-Emperor, the Cock, In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle, Giving, undone by Cockle, a last Cackle! To see as stiff as stone, his un'live stock, It really was enough to move his block. Down on the floor he dash'd, with horror big, Mr. Bell's third wife's mother's coachman's wig; And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble, Burst out with natural emphasis enough, And voice that grief made tremble, Into that very speech of sad Macduff— "What!—all my pretty chickens and their dam, At one fell swoop!— Just when I'd bought a coop To see the poor lamented creatures cram!"

After a little of this mood, And brooding over the departed brood, With razor he began to ope each craw, Already turning black, as black as coals; When lo! the undigested cause he saw— "Pison'd by goles!"

To Mrs. W.'s luck a contradiction, Her window still stood open to conviction; And by short course of circumstantial labour, He fix'd the guilt upon his adverse neighbour;— Lord! how he rail'd at her: declaring how, He'd bring an action ere next Term of Hilary, Then, in another moment, swore a vow, He'd make her do pill-penance in the pillory! She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard, Lapp'd in a paradise of tea and cream; When up ran Betty with a dismal scream— "Here's Mr. Burrell, ma'am, with all his farmyard!" Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending, With all the warmth that iron and a barbe Can harbour; To dress the head and front of her offending, The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking; In short, he made her pay him altogether, In hard cash, very hard, for ev'ry feather, Charging of course, each Bantam as a Dorking; Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple, So the sad dame unpocketing her loss, Had nothing left but to sit hands across, And see her poultry "going down ten couple".

Now birds by poison slain, As venom'd dart from Indian's hollow cane, Are edible; and Mrs. W.'s thrift,— She had a thrifty vein,— Destined one pair for supper to make shift,— Supper as usual at the hour of ten: But ten o'clock arrived and quickly pass'd, Eleven—twelve—and one o'clock at last, Without a sign of supper even then! At length the speed of cookery to quicken, Betty was called, and with reluctant feet, Came up at a white heat— "Well, never I see chicken like them chicken! My saucepans, they have been a pretty while in 'em! Enough to stew them, if it comes to that, To flesh and bones, and perfect rags; but drat Those Anti-biling Pills! there is no bile in 'em!"



LORD MACAULAY.

(1800-1859.)

LXII. THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN'S TRIP TO CAMBRIDGE.

This is one of the numerous jeux d'esprit in which Macaulay, in his earlier years, indulged at election times. It was written in 1827.

As I sate down to breakfast in state, At my living of Tithing-cum-Boring, With Betty beside me to wait, Came a rap that almost beat the door in. I laid down my basin of tea, And Betty ceased spreading the toast, "As sure as a gun, sir," said she, "That must be the knock of the Post".