The Poetical Works of the Right Hon. George Canning Comprising the Whole of his Satires, Odes, Songs, and Other Poems |
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 | The Poetical Works of the Right Hon. George Canning |  |
Oh! for thy playful smile,—thy potent frown,—
To abash bold Vice, and laugh pert folly down!
So should the Muse in Humour's happiest vein,
With verse that flow'd in metaphoric strain,
And apt allusions to the rural trade,
Tell of what wood young Jacobins are made;
How the skill'd Gardener grafts with nicest rule
The slip of Coxcomb, on the stock of fool;
Forth in bright blossom bursts the tender sprig,
A thing to wonder at, perhaps a Whig,
Should tell, how wise each half-fledged pedant prates
Of weightiest matter, grave distinctions, states—
That rules of policy, and public good,
In Saxon times were rightly understood;
That Kings are proper, may be useful things,
But then some Gentlemen object to Kings;
That in all times the Minister's to blame;
That British Liberty's an empty name,
Till each fair burgh, numerically free,
Shall choose its Members by the Rule of Three.
To abash bold Vice, and laugh pert folly down!
So should the Muse in Humour's happiest vein,
With verse that flow'd in metaphoric strain,
And apt allusions to the rural trade,
Tell of what wood young Jacobins are made;
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The slip of Coxcomb, on the stock of fool;
Forth in bright blossom bursts the tender sprig,
A thing to wonder at, perhaps a Whig,
Should tell, how wise each half-fledged pedant prates
Of weightiest matter, grave distinctions, states—
That rules of policy, and public good,
In Saxon times were rightly understood;
That Kings are proper, may be useful things,
But then some Gentlemen object to Kings;
That in all times the Minister's to blame;
That British Liberty's an empty name,
Till each fair burgh, numerically free,
Shall choose its Members by the Rule of Three.
i. e. Perhaps a Member of the Whig Club—a Society that has presumed to monopolize to itself a title to which it never had any claim, but from the character of those who have now withdrawn themselves from it. “Perhaps” signifies that even the Whig Club sometimes rejects a candidate, whose principles (risum teneatis) it affects to disapprove.
| The Poetical Works of the Right Hon. George Canning | |