The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] :: :: University of Virginia Library

‘------ Trahit sua quemque voluptas.’
‘In various things (says Virgil) folks delight;’
And so it really is in our great nation!
In meanness, avarice, some—revenge and spite,
Dutch fairs, mock charities, and ostentation.

'Twas at the royal seat on Frogmore Green,
With Britain's gold, uprear'd by Britain's queen;
To charm a court, a princess turn'd her head;
At length deliver'd was her lovely brain,
And, lo! on Frogmore's happy happy plain,
Wonders on wonders soon were brought to bed.

Sublime the pair of England sate!
Staring with most enormous state,
The family of Orange by their side;
With all the pretty offspring round,
That struck the mob with awe profound;
Sweet state, untainted by one grain of pride!

And bold beside them sat each valiant peer ;
Carpmeal, and courtly Chesterfield, were there;
Macmanus, star-clad Sal'sb'ry, Townsend, Jealous,
The guards of England's sovereigns—furious fellows:
With combs, puffs, powder-bags, their temples bound;
In golden letters, Guinea pigs, around.
‘Kings love mean company,’ quoth Edmund Burke—
Making indeed with royal taste short work:
But thus kings honour and exalt the low!
How like the god that gives the golden day;
Who through a little hole can dart his ray,
And bid the dungeon with his radiance glow;
Nay, from its filth too, bid a vapour rise ,
And make it a gay cloud amid the skies!

But Pitt and Grenville were not there,
To whom a puppet-show is dear—
Too small decorum on a certain debt,
Repell'd the pair from royal sport,
Whose want of manners put the court,
Like sour small beer, indeed, upon the fret.

No, no—the cousins were not ask'd indeed!
Broad hints, though giv'n, by no means could succeed;
Nought could prevail, alas! nor tears, nor sighs!
The zephyr, that scarce moves the lily's head,
As soon might lift Old Ocean from his bed,
And dash his wild of waters to the skies.

Saunt'ring Saint James's Park were seen the pair,
While bustling Frogmore triumph'd in her fair.

And now to charm our gracious queen and king,
Ascending on a public stage,
The tuneful wonder of the age,
Hight Incledon, began with bows to sing.

Of war he chanted—glorious war;
Of millions, millions, sent afar,
To aid of falling monarchy the cause;
When, lo! the lofty great all smil'd applause.

Now to the happy, simp'ring, courtly crowd,
In melting melody he sung aloud,

A list of ev'ry Hanoverian hide;
Skins of those mighty men, by bullets bor'd,
Worth thirty pounds a-piece to their high lord,
For whose great glory and defence they died.

Dear is Hanoverian-skinning !
Money well is worth the winning—
Fighting still, and still destroying;
Hide-money is worth enjoying:
Cutting, killing, drowning, starving;
Soldiers' skins are well worth carving.

And now the sweet Timotheus sang the fair,
A la Chinoise, that brought such crowds to stare;
And bear the trumpery of the booths away :
And then to charity he pour'd the strain—
How folk a deal by charity may gain,
And thus, with int'rest fair, themselves repay!

And then he prais'd the great man and his dame,
From whose deep heads the scheme so cunning came.

And now he chose a plaintive strain—
The embassy across the main,
Of poor Macartney, and sad Staunton, knight;
Forc'd, forc'd to enter, cheek by jowl,
With hogs, dogs, jack-asses, Jehol—
The sad procession!—a tumultuous sight!

A lord and knight, disgrac'd, and tir'd, and fretting,
Amidst the dusty hurlyburly sweating—
Ah embassy! to which we may compare
A drove of oxen sent to Smithfield fair.

The pinions of importance pluck'd,
Thrice to the earth their heads they duck'd;
And thrice did they with blushes rise,
With not a friend to close their eyes .

Thus suffer'd British majesty disgrace,
So well supported by the B---k race!

At this the court of Frogmore sigh'd—
And now he sang of more and worse disgrace;
Sang how the emp'ror show'd an angry face;
Swearing the bold advent'rers should be ty'd
To a cart's tail,
Should they dare fail
To leave the city in two days, poor clan!
When off they mov'd all mournful, beast and man.

At this the court of Frogmore dropp'd a tear;
For pity dwells with q--- and k--- and peer.

‘Yet O think,’ the songster said,
‘Of the pretty smuggling trade!
Court and cobbler this pursues:
Smuggling, juggling,
Juggling, smuggling,
Never mind the custom-dues.’

At this the court resum'd the cheerful smile:
For smuggling cannot courtly folk defile:
Courts may smuggle what they please —
Mob alone, exchequers seize.

And now he sung the little box , and old,
That caught the sovereign's wild and raptur'd gaze;
Which, oh! when open'd, a sad story told!
Displaying pot-hooks! not a bulse's blaze.

What are rhimes to western kings?
Paltry, stupid, jingling things:

Learning is a monarch's sport—
Wisdom never goes to court.

Now came a groan, that seem'd to say, ‘A p*x
On all the jingle of th' old driv'ler's box!’

Of taxes now the sweet musician sung
The court, the chorus join'd,
And fill'd the wond'ring wind;
And taxes, taxes, through the garden rung.

Monarchs first of taxes think:
Taxes are a monarch's treasure :
‘Sweet the pleasure,
Rich the treasure;’
Monarchs love a guinea's chink.

And now to Avarice he tun'd the strain,
That suck'd a nation like a spunge—
And now to Dissipation's madding train,
Who in distress a people plunge;
A people that from ruin scarce can 'scape—
And now the wide-mouth'd court began to gape.

Gaping is the mouth's disease,
When a subject fails to please.

Now to sad France his plaintive voice he tun'd—
Sunk by the wicked sans-culottes so low;
Dealing poor Despotism so dire a blow!
When, mark! the melting audience almost swoon'd!

The songster now a graver subject chose—
‘Who is to pay performers that compose
This charming Fete of Frogmore?’ were the words:

With much surprise,
And rolling eyes,
The court heard syllables, that stabb'd like swords;

Nwo voices came—‘Mine Gote!—enuff, enuff.’—
How! how! what, what? stuff, Incledon, stuff, stuff.’
‘We pay! no, no! mine Gote, we haf more wit.’—
‘Go, go to Parliament—ask Pitt, ask Pitt.’

With loaded subjects, ah! we see
A jack-ass in the next degree ;
When soon appear'd the emblematic brutes,
With chimney-sweepers on their backs,
That kick'd, and spur'd, and lash'd their hacks—
And well with such tame fools the treatment suits.

Off gallop'd, for royal amusement, the asses;
'Mid the haycocks they scamper'd, and knock'd down the lasses—
Girls squall'd, the court laugh'd, and the jack-asses bray'd
At the sight of the legs by the tumble display'd.

Now a couple leap'd down from their state to the prancers,
Musicians and racers, tune-grinders and dancers;
Shaking all by the hand , who, in compliment clever,
Roar'd aloud, ‘Kings and queens, fun and Frogmore for ever!!!’

The reader will, at the first glance, perceive a resemblance between my ode, and the celebrated ode for St. Cecilia's Day by Dryden, and know perhaps to which he must yield the preference. In spite of all the praises bestowed on Alexander's Feast, I dare pronounce it, a downright drunken Bartholomew-Fair scene; the poetry too, not superior to the subject: whereas the Frogmore Gala was of the order of sublimity; and as for the merits of my muse on the glorious occasion (though indeed I could say a great deal in her favour) my good old friend, the public, must decide.

‘'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won.’
DRYDEN.

The Princess Elizabeth.

‘His valiant peers were plac'd around.’
DRYDEN.

To the ignorant in punctuation, this passage may seem degrading; as though the poet meant Messrs. Carpmeal, Macmanus, Townsend, and Jealous, as a part of the peers; whereas no such idea was intended. I nevertheless entertain a high respect for those gentlemen, as very useful members of society; yet cannot place them so high—it is so astonishing a leap from Bow-street.

‘Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound.’
DRYDEN.

Witness Lord H---y, Lord A---d, Mr. G. R*se, Mrs. H---, &c. whose origins may be traced (as Mr. Burke emphatically expressed himself on a particular occasion) ‘to the swinish multitude.’

Not a single card of invitation was sent from Windsor or Carletonhouse. Violent were the r---l displeasures in the beginning; but the poet, in the true spirit of Christianity, hopes that he shall not be able to say, like the Liturgy, ‘As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.’

‘War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying.’

DRYDEN.

Booths were formed, and filled with the trinkets of the Windsor shops; purchased by somebody or other of the inhabitants of Windsor at prime cost, and sold at Frogmore at about one thousand pounds per cent. Large quantities were retailed on the occasion: for who could withstand the temptation of carrying off a bit of majesty, which would crown the possessor with eternal glory, and support a charity?

‘On the bare earth expos'd he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.’
DRYDEN.

To this degrading ceremony of prostration before his Chinese majesty, it is said, our embassy submitted. But how could it be helped? Every thing, to be sure, that could be devised for the honour and glory of Great Britain, was attempted by Ambassador and Co.; but beggars must not be choosers.

Lady H---rn---sse and her private card-parties know more of this matter than the poet. The sly nocturnal visits of a certain great lady's sedan-chair from the ------ are notorious.

A present, containing a scrap of complimentary rhime, manufactured by Kien Long himself, in answer to the Latin letter sent by the King of Great Britain (but not of his own composition) to the Emperor of China. Poor Sir George Staunton was made overseer of the Latinity; but as the knight had long forgotten his propriæ quæ maribus, the literary vigour of a German was employed for the occasion. Are our universities still in disgrace? Will nothing but Gottingen go down? In the sacred name of Literature, what have our princes imported from thence to astonish, that could not have been given by Cambridge and Oxford?

‘Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure,’ &c.

DRYDEN.

What a poetical and sublime compliment to the military of that day!

‘The mighty master smil'd to see,
That love was in the next degree.’

DRYDEN.

‘The mighty master smil'd to see,
That love was in the next degree.’

DRYDEN.

‘Thais led the way.’

DRYDEN.

His m---y was verily the happiest gentleman in the world, and (si licet parvis componere magna) was as merry as a grig, vowing repetitions of the gala; but by what fatality it has not happened, not even the sagacity of the poet is able to discover.