The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] ... With a Copious Index. To which is prefixed Some Account of his Life. In Four Volumes |
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BROTHER PETER TO BROTHER TOM,
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The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] | ||
BROTHER PETER TO BROTHER TOM,
AN EXPOSTULATORY EPISTLE.
CONTENTS.
Peter staringly expostulateth with Thomas on his unprecedented Silence on the royal Perfections in his last New-year's Ode—Giveth Thomas a Jobation—Instructeth Thomas in his Trade—Talketh of Heralds, Moles, Field Mice, and General Carpenter—Telleth a strange Story of the General—Commendeth Majesty, and laudeth his Love of Money, with delicious Similies—Peter informeth Thomas how he might have praised Majesty for Piety and Œconomy—Peter's great Knowledge of Nature—He talketh of her different Manufactures—Peter praiseth the royal Proclamation for leaving off Sin, and reforming fiddling Courtiers and others—Mistress Walsingham not able to sin on a Sunday—nor my Lady Young—nor my Lord of Exeter—nor my Lord Brudenell—whose Excellence in attending on the Rump Royal, Peter highly extolleth—nor the Welsh King Watkin—whose poor Violoncello Peter pitieth—nor my Lord of Salisbury—Peter intimateth an intended Reform among Cats and Dogs, Pigeons, Wrens, Sparrows, and Poultry—Love between the aforesaid Animals to be severely punished if made on the Lord's Day—Monday the most decent
Of royal virtues not the slightest mention!
Strung, like mock pearl, so lately on thy lays!
Tell me, a bankrupt, Tom, is thy invention?
As not to pay of praise, the annual debt?
Whitehead and Cibber, all the laureat throng,
To Fame's fair temple, twice a year, presented
Some royal virtues, real or invented,
In all the grave sublimity of song.
Creeping from cellar, just like snails from earth;
Or moles, or field-mice, stealing into light,
Forge arms to prove a loftiness of birth;
Tracing of each ambitious sir and madam
The branches to the very trunk of Adam.
Still bid thy royal master soar sublime?
Bards shine in fiction; then how slight a thing
To make a coat of merit for a king!
For furnishing a pretty lyric dream;
Once a monopolist of nod and smile:
Of broken sentences and questions rare,
Of snipsnap whispers sweet, and grin, and stare,
For which thy muse would travel many a mile.
Lost broken sentences, and nod, and grin,
And stare and snipsnap of the best of kings;
The sin, the crying sin, of rambling
Where Osnaburgh's good bishop, gambling,
Lost some few golden feathers from his wings;
Such were the horrors of the royal frown!
For, lo! his m*****y most roundly swore
He'd nod to General Carpenter no more.
Dear to some monarchs, as to bruin, honey;
Dear as to gamblers, pigeons fit to pluck;
Or show'rs to hackney coachmen or a duck!
For making sinners mind the Sabbath day,
Bidding the idle sons of pipe and string,
Instead of scraping jigs, sing psalms and pray;
Thus piously (against their inclination)
Dragooning souls unto salvation.
With that sweet nightingale, his lovely mate;
Who with the organ and one fiddle
Made up a concert every Sunday night:
Thus yielding majesties supreme delight,
Who relish cheapness e'en in tweedle tweedle.
Of money-loving, scraping, save-all mind,
That happy glorieth in the nat'ral thought
Of getting every thing for nought:
From royal eagles to a squalling parrot;
From bulls of Basan to a marrow-bone;
From rich ananas to a mawkish carrot:
And getting things for nought, I needs must say,
If not the noblest, is the cheapest way.
That thinks it never hath enough;
Hoarding up treasure—never once enjoying—
Such is the composition of some souls!
Like jackdaws all their cunning art employing,
In hiding knives, and forks, and spoons, in holes.
The courtier amateurs of this fair nation
On Sundays con their Bibles—make no riot—
The stubborn Uxbridge, music-loving lord,
Pays dumb obedience to the royal word,
And bids the instruments lie quiet.
And turn her eyes up, much against her will;
Sandwich sings psalms too, in his pious way:
And Lady Young forbears the tuneful trill:
And very politic is Lady Young:
A husband must not suffer for a song.
So us'd upon the sweet repast to sup;
As eager for his Sunday's quaver dish,
As cats and rav'nous aldermen for fish.
Bringing to mind a verse the world well knows;
Against sublimity that rather wars;
Which in an almanack all eyes may see:
‘God gave to man an upright form that he
Might view the stars.’
Behind his sacred majesty's great back,
Of placing for his latter end a chair
That ever waited on the royal rump,
So swift his motions, and so sweet his air;
Trembles for fear the king should kick up;
Drops, with concern, his jaw—with horror freezes—
Or smiles ‘God bless you, sire,’ whene'er he sneezes;
This lord, I say, uprais'd his convert chin,
And curs'd the concert for a crying sin.
With sighs, forbore his bass to seize;
With huge concern he dropp'd his Sunday airs,
And grumbled out in Welsh his thankless pray'rs.
The bass, indeed, Te Deum sung,
Glad on the willows to be hung.
Poor, inoffensive bass!
For when King Watkin scrubbeth him—alack!
The instrument, like one upon the rack,
Sends forth such horrid, inquisition groans!
Enough to pierce the hearts of stones!
Battled with Mistress Walsingham outright;
Yet both agreed to lift their palms,
Not in hostilities, but singing psalms.
Who, with my lady, thought it vastly odd,
Thus to be forc'd, like sailors in a storm,
Against their wills to pray to God.
Knock nearly all the Sunday concerts down!
Great act! ere long 'twill be a sin and shame
For cats to warble out an am'rous flame!—
Dogs shall be whipp'd for making love on Sunday,
Who very well may put it off to Monday.
And aid the purest of all pure religions,
To Bridewell shall be sent all cooing pigeons,
And cocks and hens be lash'd for making love:
Sparrows and wrens be shot from barns and houses,
For being barely civil to their spouses.
At losing such a Sunday's treat—
Sir John, the happy owner of a star—
Which radiant honour on surtouts he stitches;
Lamenting fashion doth not stretch so far
As sewing them on waistcoats and on breeches;
Which thus would pour a blaze of silver day,
And make the knight a perfect milky way.
Rebellious, riot in their Sabbath quavers;
Thus flying in the face of our great king,
Profane God's resting day with wind and string;
Whilst on the terrace, 'midst his German band,
On Sunday evenings George is pleas'd to stand;
Contented with a simple tune alone,
‘God save great George our king,’ or ‘Bobbing Joan;’
Wink at each other, and enjoy the sight:
And Satan, from a lurking hole,
Fond of a seeming-godly soul,
His eyes and ears scarce able to believe,
Laughs in his sleeve.
Bringeth a tale oppressive to my hand,
Relating to a tribe of German boys,
Whose horrid fortune made some little noise;
Sent for to take of Englishmen the places,
Who, gall'd by such hard treatment, made wry faces.
To feast upon the Coldstream regiment's fat:
And wider than a Kevenhuller hat.
But, ah! their knives no veal nor mutton carv'd!
To feasts they went indeed, but went and starv'd!
Their masters, raptur'd with the tuneful treat,
Forgot musicians like themselves cou'd eat.
Thus the poor woodcock leaves his frozen shores,
When tyrant winter 'midst his tempests roars:
Views the pure streams with joy, and shelt'ring groves,
And in one hour, oh! sad reverse of fate!
Is shot, and smokes upon a poacher's plate!
I turn, dear Thomas, to thy Ode again.
A pudding, and forget the plums!
Mercy upon us! what a cook art thou!
Dry e'en already!—what a sad milch cow!
Who gav'st, at first, of fame such flowing pails!—
Say, Thomas, what thy lyric udder ails?
'Tis strange, 'tis passing strange, thou didst not flatter:
Speak—in light money were thy wages paid?
Or was thy pipe of sack half fill'd with water?
Or hast thou, Tom, been cheated of thy dues?
Or hath a qualm of conscience touch'd thy Muse?
Display'd not long ago among the cooks:
Searching the kitchen with sagacious looks;
Wigs, christ'ned cratches, on their heads he spied.
Just like the wig that grac'd his own,
Was verily a sight to dread!—
Enough to turn a king to stone!
His Majesty his royal ire express'd:
‘How, how! what! cooks wear scratches just like me!—
Strange! strange! yes, yes, I see, I see, I see—
Fine fellows to wear scratches! yes, no doubt—
I'll have no more—no more when mine's worn out—
Hæ? pretty! pretty! pretty too it looks
To see my scratches upon cooks!’
As soon as ever he wore out the wig,
He with a pig-tail deign'd his head to match!
Nor more profan'd his temples with a scratch!
Thou think'st I'm joking; that the king's my hate.
I love him—for a partner, love him dearly;
Whilst his great name is on the ferme, I'm sure
My credit with the public is secure.
As long as it continues George and Co.;
That is to say, in plainer metre,
George and Peter.
I've thoughts of turning 'squire, and quitting trade:
This in my mind I've frequently revolv'd;
And in six months, or so,
For all I know,
The partnership may be dissolv'd.
Thomas, I'm far from hating our good king;
Yes, yes, or may I thrum no more my harp,
As David swore, who touch'd so well the string—
No! Tom;—the idol of thy sweet devotion
Excites not hate, whatever else th' emotion.
Were I a bookseller, I would not hire him:
Because, forsooth, I can't admire him?
He thinks to rival e'en the prince in fame?
A prince of science—in the arts so chaste!—
A giant to him in the world of taste;
Who from an envious cloud one day shall spring,
And prove that dignity may clothe a king.
Wherever merit, humble plant, is shown,
Will shed around that plant a fost'ring ray;
Whose hand shall stretch through poverty's pale gloom
For drooping genius, sinking to the tomb,
And lead the blushing stranger into day.
Once in a twelvemonth to a beggar giv'n;
By such mean charity (Lord help 'em) willing
To go as cheap as possible to Heav'n!
On Handel's manuscript old scores,
And schemes successful daily hatches,
For saving notes o'erwhelm'd with scratches;
Recovering from the blotted leaves
Huge cart-horse minims, dromedary breves;
Thus saving damned bars from just damnation,
By way of bright'ning Handel's reputation;
Who, charm'd with ev'ry crotchet Handel wrote,
Heav'd into Tot'nam Street each heavy note;
And forcing on the house the tuneless lumber,
Drove half to doors, the other half to slumber?
His eye (in wonder lost) unsated views?
Because his walls, with tasteless trumpery drest,
Robs a poor sign-post of its dues?
But in the company of West?
Except the works of Mr. West?
The works alone of Mr. West!
Who thinks, of painting, truth, and taste, the test,
None but the wondrous works of Mr. West!
And never suffers Wilson's landscapes near him.
In rural scenes so sweet, amidst their joys,
With such simplicity as makes us start,
Forgetting 'tis the work of art.
Which wonder and which care of Mr. West
May in a simile be well exprest:—
A SIMILE.
Thus have I seen a child, with smiling face,A little daisy in the garden place,
And strut in triumph round its fav'rite flow'r;
Gaze on the leaves with infant admiration,
Thinking the flow'r the finest in the nation,
Then pay a visit to it ev'ry hour:
Lugging the wat'ring pot about,
Which John the gard'ner was oblig'd to fill;
The child, so pleas'd, would pour the water out,
To show its marvellous gard'ning skill;
Then staring round, all wild for praises panting,
Tell all the world it was its own sweet planting;
And boast away, too happy elf,
How that it found the daisy all itself!
ANOTHER SIMILE.
In simile if I may shine agen,—Thus have I seen a fond old hen
With one poor miserable chick;
Bustling about a farmer's yard;
Now on the dunghill labouring hard,
Scraping away through thin and thick:
Flutt'ring her feathers—making such a noise!
Cackling aloud such quantities of joys,
As if this chick, to which her egg gave birth,
Was born to deal prodigious knocks,
To shine the Broughton of game cocks,
And kill the fowls of all the earth!
E'en with his painter let the king be blest;
Egad! eat, drink, and sleep with Mr. West;
Only let me, excus'd from such a guest,
Not eat, and drink, and sleep with Mr. West;
And as he will not please my taste—no never—
Let me not give him to the world as clever—
A better conscience in my bosom lies,
Than imitate the fellow and his flies.
THE TOPER AND THE FLIES.
With punch that much regales the thirsty soul:
Flies soon the party join'd, and join'd the chat,
Humming, and pltching round the mantling bowl,
Some hundreds lost their legs, and tumbled in;
And sprawling 'midst the gulf profound,
Like Pharaoh and his daring host were drown'd!
Dipp'd from the bowl the drunken host,
And drank—then taking care that none were lost,
He put in ev'ry mother's son agen,
Taking it very much amiss—
Swearing, and in the attitude to smite:—
‘Lord!’ cried the man, with gravely-lifted eyes,
‘Though I don't like to swallow flies,
I did not know but others might!’
E'en now a royal virtue strikes my eye!
To prove th' assertion, let me just relate
The king's submission to the will of Fate.
As in his politics—a common thing!
With searching eyes he stares at first about,
Then faces the misfortune like a king!
He sits like patience grinning on his nag!
Now, wisdom-fraught, his curious eyeballs ken
The little hovels that around him rise:
To these he trots—of hogs surveys the sties,
And nicely numbers ev'ry cock and hen.
How many eggs the fowls have laid!
What's in the oven—in the pot—the crock
Whether 'twill rain or no, and what's o'clock?—
To serve as future treasure for the nation!
He pokes his most sagacious nose about,
And seems in Paradise—like that so fam'd;
Looking like Adam too, and Eve so fair:
Sweet simpletons! who, though so very bare,
‘Were,’ says the Bible, ‘not asham'd.’
By thirst of leather glory spurr'd—
At bookbinders he oft is seen to laugh—
And wondrous is the king in sheep or calf!
Fastidious down, and only readeth books!—
Here by the sire the son is much surpass'd;
Which Fame should publish on her loudest blast!
That is, in coats, and waistcoats, and in breeches—
Which, draughted once a year for foreign stations,
Make fine recruits to serve some near relations.
Of pretty Jewish œconomic schemes!
So very proud (I'm griev'd, O Tom, to tell it),
He'd rather give a coat away than sell it!
Fair justice to the monarch must allow
Prodigious science in a calf or cow;
And wisdom in the article of swine!
What most unusual knowledge for a king!
Because pig-wisdom is a thing
In which no sov'reigns e'er were known to shine.
The Prince, who Britain's throne in time shall grace,
Ne'er finger'd at a fair a bullock's ribs,
Nor ever ogled a pig's face!
That thus a father hath excell'd a son!
A dozen who admire the king;
And should he dream of setting off for Hanover,
As once he said he wou'd to spite Charles Fox;
Draw all his little money from the stocks,
Shut shop, and carry ev'ry pot and pan over;
That dozen would not let him go;
But in the struggle spend their vital breath,
And hug their idol, probably to death;
As happen'd to a Romish priest—a tale
That, whilst I tell it, almost turns me pale.
THE ROMISH PRIEST.
A TALE.
Some years ago—how many, I don't say—
Handled so well his heav'nly broom,
He brush'd, like cobwebs, sins away.
Gave to the Prince of Darkness such hard blows,
That Satan was afraid to show his nose
(Except in Hell) before this priest so warrish!
To teach folks how to shun the paths of evil,
And prove a match for Mr. Devil,
Was constantly this pious man's endeavour,
And, as I've said before, the man was clever.
He gallop'd like a hunter o'er his pray'rs;
Petitions on petitions he let fly,
Which nothing but Barbarians could deny—
In short, the saints were to compliance worried.
So well his evolutions did perform;
His pray'rs, those holy small-shot, flew about
So thick!—it seem'd like taking Heav'n by storm!
No candidate at an election
Did ever labour more, and fume, and sweat,
To make a fellow change his coat,
And bless him with the casting vote,
Than this dear man to get in Heav'n a seat
For souls of children, women, and of men:
No matter which the species—cock or hen!
Who makes us all with horror shrink,
A knave high meriting Hell's hottest coals;
Who wrote a dreadful book to prove
That women, charming women, form'd for love,
Have got no souls!
Ha! hast thou not a soul, thou peerless maid,
Who bidst my rural hours with rapture roll?
Whose beauties charm the shepherds and the shade!
Fate into being drew yon starry sphere;
Then kindly sent thy form divine,
To show what wondrous bliss inhabits there!
From vaults to drag up hogshead, tun or pipe,
As this good priest, to drag, for small reward,
The souls of sinners from the Devil's gripe.
Their wonder at his fine address;
Nay, e'en St. Peter said, to whom are giv'n
The keys for letting people into Heav'n,
He never got more halfpence in his life.
(Peter, the porter of Heav'n gate, so trusty),
That till this priest appear'd, souls were so rare
His bunch of keys was absolutely rusty!
And leave the church a good round sum;
Lo! in the twinkling of an eye,
The parson frank'd their souls to kingdom-come!
Insur'd admittance to the Lord.
To take a roast before they enter'd in:
For had they got the plague, 'twas said that God
Had let them enter without quarantine.
So sought, so courted, so desir'd,
Thousands with putrid souls, like putrid meat,
Came for his holy pickle, to be sweet:
Enter the shop of Mr. Warren;
Who disappoints that highwayman call'd Time
(Noted for robbing ladies of their prime),
By giving sixty-five's pale, wither'd mien,
The blooming roses of sixteen.
He always kept his flock awake—
In summer too,—hear, parsons, this strange news,
Ye who so often preach to nodding pews!
Sin, like a rat, had eat large holes,
For, gentle reader, sin of such a sort is,
It souls corrodeth just as aqua fortis
Corrodeth iron, brass, or copper.
If he'd agree to change his quarters;
Protesting, when his soul should leave its clay,
To rank his bones with those of saints and martyrs.
But stop—his parish would not let him go—
Then surly did the other parish look,
And swore to have the man by hook or crook.
The priest's parishioners, who lov'd him well,
Rather than to another church belong,
Swore they would sooner see him lodg'd in Hell—
So very strong, too, their affection!
Protesting that they ‘lov'd him as their life,’
So sweetly he would look when down to pray'r!
So happy in a sermon choice;
And then he had of nightingales the voice—
And holy water gave with such an air!
Yielding such quantities of heav'nly pleasure!
However carnal the transgression,
In such a charming, love-condemning strain!
He really seem'd to say, “Go sin again;
Hell shall not throw, my angels, on your souls
So sweet, a single shovelful of coals.”
Just as two bull-dogs pull a cat,
Both parishes with furious zeal contended—
So much from place to place his limbs were lugg'd,
That very fatally the battle ended!
In short, by hugging, lugging, and kind squeezes,
The man of God was pull'd in fifty pieces!
And so the fray continued most devoutly—
Lo with an arm away one rascal fled;
This with a leg, and that the head—
Off with the foot another goes—
Another seizes him and gets the toes.
Fought just like mastiffs for a rib;
Nay more (for truth, to tell the whole, obliges),
A dozen battled for his os coccygis !
In which each parish acted like a brute;
Then bade the dead man as a saint be sought
Still, to reward him more, his bones enriches
With pow'r o'er evils, rheumatisms, and itches,
However dreadful, and wherever caught:
Thus, by the grace of Him who governs thunder,
His very toe nail could perform a wonder.
Be hugg'd!—and then! and then! and then! and then!
Then what? why then, this direful ill must spring:
I a good subject lose, and thou a king!
Thy courtly tropes of adulation blaze:
Thou (like old Ocean's heaving wave no more,
That lifts a ship and fly with equal roar)
Pour'st from thy lyric pipe a sober stream.
Wild blust'ring with thy master's name;
No more ideal virtues ride sublime
(Like feathers), on the surge of rhime.
To bid the tempest of his praise be still:
No more to let his virtues make a rout,
Blown by thy blasts like paper kites about—
Might justly have exclaim'd at many a line,
‘In peacock's feathers, lo, this knave arrays me.’
And like a king of France of whom I've read,
Our gracious sov'reign also might have said,
‘What have I done that he should praise me.’
Trundling thy lyric wheelbarrow along,
Amid'st St. James's gapers to unload
The motley mass of pompous ode;
And wish'd the sack, for verse the annual prize,
To poets of a less renown—
To poor Will Mason, who in secret sighs
To strut beneath the laureat's leaden crown.
Of thy great king and his great queen;
But not so diabolically hot—
A downright devil or a pepper-pot.
Thou ought'st to know I mean a turkey's gizzard;
So christen'd for its quality, by man,
Because so oft 'tis loaded with kian—
This dev'l is such a red-hot bit of meat
As nothing but the dev'l himself should eat.
Why give the pap of praise then with a ladle?
Gently thou should'st have rock'd him to repose—
Not like a drunken nurse o'erturn'd the cradle.
(Knowing himself no bigger than a lath)
To find himself a tall, gigantic oak—
'Twas too much of a magic-lantern stroke.
Where was the rural vagrant straying,
Not to admonish thee, an idle jade,
When thou thy tuneful compliments wert paying?
Lord! how we wits forget—she was with me.
Oft condescends to be my guest:
From time to time the maid my rhime reviews,
And dictates sweet instructions to the muse.
Just like that blushful damsel call'd Miss Morn—
Who smiling from the dreary caves of night,
Moves from her east with silent pace and slow
O'er yonder shadowy mount's gigantic brow,
And to my window steals with dewy light,
Then peeping through the panes with cherub mien,
Seems to ask liberty to enter in.
She sweeps the darkness with her star-clad broom:
Now pleas'd a stronger splendour to diffuse,
Smiles on the plated buckles in my shoes;
Smiles on my breeches, too, of handsome plush,
Where George's head once made no gingling sound,
But where amidst the pockets all was hush;
Such awful silence reign'd around!
Whose fob, which thieves so often pick,
Was quite a stranger to a watch's click.
Seeming with sweet reproof to say,
‘The lark to Heav'n her grateful matins sings:
Then, Peter, also ope thy tuneful throat,
And, happy in a fascinating note,
Rise and bewitch the best of kings.’
I cannot do without crown'd heads, by Heav'n!
Bards must have subjects that their genius suit,—
And if I've not crown'd heads I must be mute.
Which game, though play'd by people e'er so keen,
Cannot with much success, alas! exist,
Except their hands possess a king and queen.
Lead-mines, producing many pretty pounds!
Joe Millars, furnishing a fund of joke!
Lo, with a fund of joke a court abounds!
Saves our poor brain th' expense of wit:
At princes let but satire lift his gun,
The more their feathers fly, the more the fun.
E'en the whole world, blockheads and men of letters,
Enjoy a cannonade upon their betters.
Know pretty well what scandal means,
And love it too—yes, majesty's a grinner:
Scandal that really would disgrace a stable
Hath oft been beckon'd to a royal table,
And pleas'd a princely palate more than dinner.
‘Suppose a king not over wise
(A vice in kings not very oft suspected),
Suppose he does this childish thing, and this,
If folly constitutes a monarch's bliss,
Shall such by saucy poets stand corrected?
‘Who tells a monarch where his error lies.’—
‘Grant that a king in converse cannot shine,
And sharp with shrewd remark a world alarm;
What business, Peter Pindar, is 't of thine?
Grant puerilities—pray where's the harm?—
Will go to hell for ev'ry childish thing—
Yet mind, I think that one in his great station
Should show sublime example to a nation:
To drink the solar blaze on tow'ring wing;
With daring and undazzled eyes;
Not be a sparrow upon chimneys hopping,
His head in holes and corners popping
For flies.’
And op'd on Windsor wall thy tuneful throat;
For verily it is a rare old mass!
Nor angry that to West thou dost descend;
The king's great painting oracle and friend,
Who teacheth Jervas how to spoil good glass.
Thou talk'st of painting, like an ardent lover,
Of panes of glass now daubing over,
Dimming delightfully the great abode;
I have not seen them, Tom, for many moons!
Of those most heav'nly pictures talk a bit—
For which the nation paid down ev'ry souse?
Rare pictures, brought long since from Hampton Court,
And by a self-taught carpenter cut short,
To suit the pannels of the queen's old house.
And yet I verily believe it too;
It is so like some people I could name,
Whose pericraniums walk a little lame.
Beshrew me, but it brings to mind
A cutting story, much of the same kind!
Where wandering gutlers, wandering gutlers meet,
Making in show'rs of rain a monstrous pother;
Bart'ring, like Rag-fair Jews, with one the other,
With carrots, cabbage leaves, and breathless cats,
Potatoes, turnip tops, old rags, and hats:
Where clouds to wash its face for ever pour—
A town where beau-traps under water grin,
Inviting gentle strangers to walk in;
Where dwell the lady Naiads of the flood,
Prepar'd to crown their visitors with mud.
A town where parsons for the living fight,
On every vacancy, with godly might,
Like wrestlers for lac'd hats and buckskin breeches;
Where oft the priest who best his lungs employs
To make the rarest diabolic noise,
With surest chance of vict'ry preaches:
Whose empty sounds alone his labours bless;
Like cannon fir'd by vessels in distress.
The royal tar with indignation lours;
Kept by his sire from London, and from sin,
To say his catechism to Mrs. Wynn.
THE PLYMOUTH CARPENTER AND THE COFFINS.
Of fevers, colds, and more good things beside:
Presents for valour, from damp walls and chinks,
And nakedness, that seldom sees a shirt;
And vermin, and all sorts of dirt;
And multitudes of motley stinks,
That might with smells of any clime compare
That ever sought the nose or fields of air.
Forming a pretty sort of wooden wings
For wafting men, to graves, for t'other world;
Where anchor'd (doom'd to make no voyages more),
The rudders of our souls are put ashore,
And all the sails for ever furl'd.
Hight master Screw, a man of reputation,
Got leave, through borough int'rest, to prepare
Good wooden lodgings for the Gallic nation:
I mean for luckless Frenchmen that were dead;
And very well indeed Screw's contract sped.
As if they play'd into each other's hands;
Wishing to make as much as e'er they cou'd
By this same contract coffin wood,
For such as Death had thrown upon their backs.
Whom conscience very easily persuades
Resolv'd upon an œconomic plan,
Which shows that in the character of man
Economy is not an incongruity.
I know some monarchs say the same—whose pulses.
Beat high for iv'ry chairs and beds and bulses.
Made all his coffins much too short,
Yet snugly he accommodates the dead—
Cuts off, with much sang froid, the head,
And then to keep it safe as well as warm,
He gravely puts it underneath the arm;
Making his dead man quite a Paris beau!—
Hugging his jowl en chapeau bras.
Do ask thy sov'reign in my name
What's to be done with those rare pictures next;
Some months ago, by night, they travell'd down
To the Queen's House in Windsor town,
At which the London folks were vastly vex'd.
Were (much to this great nation's praise)
Bought for the nation's sole inspection;
Unask'd, to suffer any man to feel 'em,
Or suffer any forward dame to steal 'em,
Would be a national reflection.
Because the walls are naked there I know—
Strelitz a mouse-hole is, all dark and drear;
And shou'd the pictures be inclin'd to stray,
Not liking Strelitz, they may lose their way,
And ramble to some Hebrew auctioneer:
The holy wand'rers may be made a lot—
And, like the goods at Garraway's we handle,
Christ and the saints be sold by inch of candle!
(I see thee ready to bawl out ‘amen:’)
Joking apart, don't think me rude
For wishing to instruct thy lyric pen
Along the simple stream of prose we glide;
Or stirring from below a cloud of mud,
Like whales we flounder through the lyric flood;
Or if a past'ral image charm thee more;
Whether the vales of prose our feet explore,
Or rais'd sublime on Ode's aërial steep,
We bound from rock to rock like goats and sheep;
Or, poet-like, against our wishes,
On beef or pork, an œconomic crumb
(Perchance no bigger than our thumb,
Turn'd by a bit of packthread at the fire),
To satisfy our hunger's keen desire;
A good old proverb let us keep in view—
Viz. Thomas, ‘Give the dev'l his due.’
Smiles us to court, and shakes us by the hand;
Or rude bumbailiffs touch us on the shoulder,
And bid our tuneful harps in prison moulder;
Sell not (to meanness sunk) one golden line—
The Muse's incense for a gill of wine.
‘Few are the people that my ode attend:
I'm like a country clock, poor, lonely thing,
That on the staircase, or behind the door,
Cries “Cuckow, cuckow,” just at twelve and four,
And chimes that vulgar tune, “God save the king.”
To save a sixpence in his barrack bow'rs,
A monarch shuffles from the world away,
And gives to Folly's whims the bustling day;
From such low themes thy promis'd praise recall,
And sing more wonders of the old mud wall.
The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] | ||