The Works of John Hall-Stevenson ... Corrected and Enlarged. With Several Original Poems, Now First Printed, and Explanatory Notes. In Three Volumes |
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QUERIES TO THE CRITICAL REVIEWERS. |
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| III. |
 | The Works of John Hall-Stevenson |  |
134
QUERIES TO THE CRITICAL REVIEWERS.
Ye judging Caledonian Pedlars,
That to a scribbling world give law
Laid up engarretted, like Medlars,
Ripening asperity in straw!
Ye Guardians of the Tree of Folly,
The Cocoa-Tree , whose leaves are clad
In green eternal, like the Holly,
Variegated like a plaid,
On which a flower perennial grows,
Worn at the Cocobittick Games,
Between a Lilly and a Rose,
Inscrib'd with silly royal names !
I come, with no felonious hand,
To steal one blossom from your tree;
Right well I know, and understand,
It was not planted there for me.
I come to ask you a few questions:
Why should a hodge-podge make you queasy,
You who for crowdys have digestions,
On whom e'en haggesses sit easy?
I come to ask why the sublime
Delights to dwell under Scotch bonnets?
Why Humour, Wit, Poetic Rhyme,
Are only found in Scottish sonnets?
And if in Scotland they are found,
And any one pleases to shew them,
Either above, or under ground,
To lay you odds you will not know them.
Also to ask you one word more:
What makes the Tories, your good masters,
As restless, feverish, and sore,
As people wrapt in blistering plasters?
Whether 'tis true that they're so tender,
And apt of late to take things ill,
Because their friend, the old Pretender,
Has struck them out of his last will?
Whether 'tis true, or a Whig fiction,
That shoals of exiles now at Calais,
Will fill up the Whig dereliction,
And fill up all St. James's palace?
If you will tell us this sincerely,
The cordial preacher and adviser
Will make you understand him clearly,
And, though no better, make you wiser.
That to a scribbling world give law
Laid up engarretted, like Medlars,
Ripening asperity in straw!
Ye Guardians of the Tree of Folly,
The Cocoa-Tree , whose leaves are clad
In green eternal, like the Holly,
Variegated like a plaid,
On which a flower perennial grows,
Worn at the Cocobittick Games,
Between a Lilly and a Rose,
Inscrib'd with silly royal names !
135
To steal one blossom from your tree;
Right well I know, and understand,
It was not planted there for me.
I come to ask you a few questions:
Why should a hodge-podge make you queasy,
You who for crowdys have digestions,
On whom e'en haggesses sit easy?
I come to ask why the sublime
Delights to dwell under Scotch bonnets?
Why Humour, Wit, Poetic Rhyme,
Are only found in Scottish sonnets?
And if in Scotland they are found,
And any one pleases to shew them,
Either above, or under ground,
To lay you odds you will not know them.
Also to ask you one word more:
What makes the Tories, your good masters,
As restless, feverish, and sore,
As people wrapt in blistering plasters?
Whether 'tis true that they're so tender,
And apt of late to take things ill,
136
Has struck them out of his last will?
Whether 'tis true, or a Whig fiction,
That shoals of exiles now at Calais,
Will fill up the Whig dereliction,
And fill up all St. James's palace?
If you will tell us this sincerely,
The cordial preacher and adviser
Will make you understand him clearly,
And, though no better, make you wiser.
POSTSCRIPT.
My compliments to Doctor S .To whom this Postscript I address.
Physician, Critic, and Reformer,
Expounder both of dream and riddle,
Historian and chief performer
Upon the Caledonian fiddle!
Master of dedication sweet,
Renown'd Translator of Translations,
137
Display their glittering temptations—
You are so us'd to a Northern trammel
You cannot enter into Lyric Fable;
One might as well expect to see a camel
Pass through a needle's eye into a stable:
And therefore I am forc'd to study
To find out something you can understand,
Pleasant and fresh, though somewhat muddy;
Just like the mug of porter in your hand.
And yet, when all is said and done,
This something's nothing but a Pun.
A PUN.
You are so very good at smelling;For we have often heard you tell it;
I wonder you don't change your spelling,
And write yourself Professor Smellit.
Rabelais speaks with great respect of this tree, Book iii. Chap. li. Page 351. translated by Ozell, “If the worth and Virtue thereof, says he, had been known, when those trees, by the relation of the prophet, made election of a wooden king to rule and govern over them, it without all doubt would have carried away from all the rest, the plurality of votes and suffrages.”
| The Works of John Hall-Stevenson | |