 | Young Arthur |  |
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VARIATION III.
A short Stop for breathing, with Hints in Hudibrastic.
Direct they rarely travel through;
But stop at many a licens'd gate
At once themselves and steeds to bait.
So, Gentles, as we've far to jog,
Lest the spirits tire and clog,
We'll pull up here, with your permission,
To keep our cattle in condition:
Refresh ourselves and “bits of blood,”
And gain new vigour for the road.
Silence assent is, since agreed,
Ostler, here give the tits a feed,
Waiter, a room—you yawn, Sir—steady—
I hope you're not fatigu'd already.
But, haply, you may have bethought you
To ask me why so far I've brought you;
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Trepann'd into such company;
When you might join, in track of letters,
So many dozens of my betters;
Or (metaphor apart to draw)
How you and I the ancient law
Of common sense could so exceed,
That I should write and you should read.
There is a pow'r all fascinating,
For ever pertly fabricating
Laws of mummery and moonshine,
Which mankind fancy with a boon shine
Worth all their bending, bows, and scrapes,
And worship her as Indians apes;
While reason out ne'er farther bore 'em
Than that their sires did so before 'em.
This power is Fashion, goddess sinister;
Pride is her priest, Caprice prime minister;
And all the land she rates and rules,
And leaves 'em, as she finds 'em, fools.
It matters not how wild her whimsy
Be it in substance firm or flimsy,
Some advocate is always found
To prove 't as Magna Charta sound;
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Who proves by dogma and deduction
That the mind's grace, or twist, or twaddle,
Is evidenc'd by bump on noddle;
That every skull, or thick or thin,
Is but a map of what's within;
Proving the brain divided into
Apartments, lett each grace or sin to;
Deem'd by wise Craniologic codgers
A tenement let out to lodgers;
Fitting each passion, inclination,
Temper, or taste, with situation;
Plac'd in a separate chamber all,
The skull, of ev'ry room, the wall;
And as each inmate works about
For room all straiten'd, passing doubt,
'Tis sure to push the bone wall out;
And make a bump in skull, and (bar jest)
Which pushes hardest makes the largest.
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The grossest ever downward go;
The cellar drunkenness they pitch in,
And gluttony usurps the kitchen:
Each grace lodged true to systematic,
And wit and wisdom rent the Attic.—
At least 'tis said so—pardon doubt,
For I my head's roof search'd about,
But found there no sagacious bump;
To me my head seem'd all one lump.
No deed that fashion does, when mind
Determines an excuse to find,
But reason's rankly warp'd to do it,
And even Scripture proof brought to it:
For so expert is sophistry,
She'll make, to serve a theory,
A thing seem truth which is but trick;
As boys whirl round a lighted stick,
And from one little spark they bring
What seems of fire an ample ring.
When Mahomet in zeal's vagary
Enamour'd grew of Coptic Mary;
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To fit her for his Paradise:
Resolv'd to make her, barring crime,
One of the Houri 'ere her time:
For zeal is Reformation's stud-horse,
Possessing all the fire of blood horse;
And, unless well you break and curb him,
So many fantasies perturb him,
Especially if full you rack him,
A task of danger 'tis to back him;
For if he finds the seat of saddle
To him uneasy who may straddle
His reeking sides, to instant fretting
He takes, capriccio, and curvetting;
The whip and spur his care beneath,
He gets the curb bit in his teeth,
And—of his master little minder—
Now on his fore-feet, then his hinder,
He'll play, as, (hands and feet) you've seen
A tumbler on the trampolin;
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And try his power at pirouette;
And though, when to this caper giv'n,
You might be on high road to heav'n,
And just presuming on election,
You're serv'd from saddle with ejection;
And, from some quagmire, look about you,
And see th' horse gone to Heaven without you.
Or, if you are not thrown this play with,
'Tis chance but what you're run away with.
So, reader, mount not, with bravado,
Till you've digested sage Gambado;
Or you yourself secure may feel
As Mahomet when mounting zeal;
And by some similar vagary
Find your steed start at many a Mary.
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And by their turn'd-up eyes would shame him;
Although experience here supposes
He'd more to dread from turn'd up noses;
For turn'd up noses still have borne
Precedence as the types of scorn:
For there exists, where left is one sense,
Antipathy 'tween nose and nonsense;
And vice, however wits agree,
Is nonsense at maturity;
Since, prov'd by logic and the schools,
Your knaves are but the greatest fools.
There is a something makes alive
The nasal nerve, when sensitive,
And curves it in an up-direction
At vice or folly's chance defection;
A certain sign of some detection
Ungrateful to olfact'ry feeling,
Too powerful for art's concealing:
For turn'd-up nose beyond a doubt,
Ask casuists, means “I smell you out;”
And Mahomet in his ambition,
Had dread of nasal inquisition.
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This act, and keep my saintly pride;
To hide it from my fools and followers?
Who, though they're most determin'd swallowers,
And gulp'd the Koran, caught my snare in,
They'll not gulp this, unsanction'd there-in;
They'll cock their noses; but, deuce take 'em!
Who makes the laws may surely break 'em;
As he who manufactures pottery
May any break he finds has got awry:
Besides, (thought he) the devil's in it,
If saints must be (like old crack'd spinnet,
Nor perfect e'er in that or this chord)
For ever stumming drone and discord.
Some sins are sweet, and some are shining,
And, haply, these are virtue's lining;
For your œconomists Sartorial
Their prudence prove by strong memorial,
The habit made best superfine
With something worse they always line,
And till 'tis lin'd, by their averment,
The thing is not a perfect garment.
We deprecate the sour and sad,
Then sweet and shining can't be bad;
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And so I choose the sweet and shining;
And if a little sin I would
'Tis to effect a greater good;
And learned casuists have prov'd oft,
When prudent conscience off has mov'd, oft,
And turn'd her back while they were pleading
To shew her wit if not her breeding,—
They've prov'd no matter what's detected
I'th' progress, if the end's effected.
Else why have holy saints, like me,
Enslav'd mankind to set 'em free?
Or why do misers pleasure find
To starve themselves and cheat mankind?
Should they be censur'd the employment
From which they never gain enjoyment?
And rated be, tho' it appears
They wash their hands in widow's tears;
And that their rushlights oft, no doubt,
An orphan's sickly sigh puffs out?
Shall they be blam'd, since such vagary
Springs from aim elemosynary?
In them the future's almsmen see,
Post Obits all of charity!
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Blessings, whose grandams curs'd 'em living.
This reasoning aptly comes for fact,
The aim still sanctifies the act;
She'll be a saint through holy knackery,
And heaven must wink at pious quackery.”
Still as he tried to, “cheat the devil,”
Conscience and shame were both uncivil;
Conscience look'd black as any inkhorn,
Or, “Belzy looking over Lincoln :”
While shame stood by, and whisper'd, “hush!”
Too much astonish'd e'en to blush:
And shame alone he fear'd, be't noted,
Conscience he'd long before out-voted;
For shame remains though conscience travels,
And virtue such a lure unravels,
That, when men lose her idiocrasy,
They choose her will-oth'-whisp, hypocrisy;
And often as its apings teaze 'em
There comes a “smelling out” don't please 'em.
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So on a neat expedient hit;
Wrote a new chapter in the Koran
Whose subject this nice bus'ness bore on;
A difference making, learn'd and lenient,
'Tween sins condemn'd and sins convenient.
This shame prevented 'mong his pupils,
And Mary's beauty cur'd his scruples.
So men, a deed resolv'd before on,
Each adds a chapter to his Koran;
And Fashion's an excuse for all
We do, or wise or whimsical;
'Tis this that makes the dolt and dribble,
If wits and scholars publish, scribble;
Perhaps made me—then (others leading)
Do find excuse for farther reading.
Dr. Gall, of the German school, who, with his countryman Spurzheim, has propagated a new system of mental analyzation called Craniology, in which he proves (to his own satisfaction) that the character of the mind may be discovered from that of the skull: on this principle head-gauges would be very serviceable, and prevent much trouble, disappointment, and misconception.
I hope the tasteful author of Lallah Rookh having (in four lines) merely alluded to this circumstance, will not be objected to my dilating upon it; though I must candidly own my reading those four lines occasioned the present: at any rate, my wild and straggling furze will not interfere with his cultivated and elegant flowers.
The elegant rotary motion of an opera dancer, poised on one foot—and he who spins longest is considered the best dancer, a custom probably derived from some sects of Indian priests, whose religious qualities are estimated by their powers of spinning to imitate the revolution of the sun.
Geoffrey Gambado, Esq., a luminous writer upon riding on, and off horseback—and who gives his readers one piece of advice which ought to be written in large letters at the corners of streets—pro bono publico.—viz. “Never set out on horseback till you have ascertained the probability of how you are to get home again.”
| Young Arthur | |