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

Some time ago the Lyric Peter,
With much sublimity of metre,
Did prophesy a minister would tumble!
To verify the poet's ode,
Behold it pleaseth man and God,
In anger, his high mightiness to humble!
Good man! but not the Man of Ross;
He's down! procumbit humi bos.

How like unto a crow, or rook,
Shot near his nest (a mortal wound),
He hung and bled, with downcast look,
Before he sous'd at last to ground!
Yes! like those black birds much too long we saw
The culprit hanging by a single claw.

What a vile bramble he has been,
May now with half an eye be seen.—
Look at us!—What poor shiv'ring sheep, alack

382

Naked and lank—most closely shorn!
This hooking, dragging imp has torn
The healthful, warming fleece from every back!

Gone! gone some good-for-nothing ribs to treat;
But woe to that poor sheep which dar'd to bleat!

Sing, heavenly muse, to whom our wool all goes:—
To warm Dundas, Long, Wyndham, Canning, Rose,
Old Liverpool and cub, with each compeer.—
While they carousing swill'd their toast and sack,
We bit, in anguish, musty bread and black,
And writhing got the gripes from dead small-beer.

‘Try Pitt again,’ some fools exclaim.
He has been tried, and tried, and tried—
The hobbling nation, still more lame,
Has now nor crutch, nor ass to ride.
‘He'll mend,’ they roar.—He mend! the mumer—
Aye, mend just like sour ale in mummer.

Lo, then, our sad state-carpenter dismiss'd!
No longer now his bungling art befools:
Yet from the service when the man was hiss'd,
Why leave behind his budget and his tools?

Glad as a bird that 'scapes the kite, I'll drop
The lamentations of poor Jeremiah;
Of gay Pindarics open a fresh shop,
And pour the song of triumph with Isaiah.

READER, in this my lyric ode,
I imitate a man of God;
That Poet of sublimity, Isaiah!
A man of quality, of note;
Of arms possessing a rich coat;
A brother to the great King Azariah.

383

Lord! how the poet did bespatter
The Babylonian monarch with his satire!
Were I to talk so of a British king,
What were my fate? Alas! a string!
Not string, dear reader, that the shoulder decks;
But string that twines at Newgate round our necks.

384

ODE OF TRIUMPH.

Tossing poor Englishmen in scorn,
The bull no more exalts his horn!
Thank God, the beast is put at last to pound!
And that he never may get out,
To make another cursed rout,
Forms many a hearty pray'r and wish profound.

What! is there not one song of sorrow,
One tear of pity?—Let me say,
There's neither dirge nor tear to-day,
Whatever there may be to-morrow.
Nay, cannons roar applause—the bells are ringing
And earth, rejoicing, breaketh into singing.

No more he turns the burning globe;
But on a dunghill, just like Job,
Scratching, surveys his melancholy plight!
No more with Hal, his chum, to booze,
And for the state's salvation snooze,
He bids the clarets and champaigns good night.

But hark! Old England's genius sings!
(Sounds that will pierce the ears of kings)
‘Harpoon'd art thou at last, thou flound'ring porpoise—
Thou who hast swallow'd all my rights,
Gobbling the mightiest just like mites—
Devouring like a sprat my habeas corpus.

385

‘Thou, who didst bind my sons in chains,
And nearly beatedst out their brains,
For fear their wrath might kindle riot;
And, after binding them in chains,
And nearly beating out their brains,
Didst cry—‘How tame they lie, poor things! how quiet!’

‘Thou who didst groaning prisoners keep
In Cold-bath Fields, like hapless sheep
Whom horrid butchers mean to slay;
Where Aris with his iron rod,
The Pluto of the dark abode,
Roasted and broil'd in cook-like way,
The victims of his pow'r and pride,
And damn'd them all before they died.

‘Art thou the caitiff, with imperious frown,
Who o'er the bard didst hold thy hempen string;
Threat'ning to hang him, if, to please the town,
He dar'd to smile or wink at q--- or k---;
Or dar'd (no matter how divine the songs)
To chant of Dumplings, Sheep, or Parson Youngs;
To mention kine and corn, and Famine's groans;
Record wit royal, and crack jokes on thrones?’

Bold hast thou said, ‘Supreme I'll prate—
‘I will be minister of state,
And swill from night to morn the nation's wine:
I will get drunk with honest Hal:
The bottle my dear constant Baal,
I'll daily kneel and hiccup at his shrine.

‘Snoring upon the state-machine
My drowsy brother shall be seen,
Who from his cradle never heard the lark.
I grant the man the wheels will clog,
Lazy as Ludlam's lazy dog,
That held his head against the wall to bark.

‘His nose may like the bull-frog roar—
The state shall pay him for the snore.

386

‘I'll buffet Opposition's waves:
I have my creatures and my slaves:
For any borough will I bring my man in:
The poorest wretch that crawls I'll raise,
To yield his incense-pot of praise,
From Greek-mouth'd Belgrave to lame-Latin Canning .

‘I'll pension any fool or knave;
The nation's pocket my poor slave,
Shall open, nor dare make a pother—
Gifford, that crooked babe of grace,
And Canning too, shall be in place,
And get a pension for his mother.

‘Ev'n Gr---v---r's cobbler shall come forth,
And hammer to the world my worth—

387

Come hobbling forth without one blush of shame,
With heeltaps, toe-caps, soles for worn-out fame.’
I'll hire each prostituted muse,
For mags, for newspapers, reviews;

388

I'll pay the ballad-singer's throat for praise:
My visage (hatchet-like, indeed!)
In shops the gaping mob shall feed—
My name on rails shall grace the king's highways;

389

And trav'llers, whether they may ride or walk,
Read ‘Pitt for ever!’ in broad-staring chalk.

‘I'll place the Capets on the throne,
And France her worthy kings shall own;

390

And Bonaparte soon my rage shall feel;
Crouch to my whip, whose lash shall bring
The daring Corsican, poor thing,
Just like a whining spaniel to my heel.’

391

Oft hast thou said, with scowling eye,
‘The world I hate, disdain, defy;
I value neither commoner nor peer:
He who attacks me, dearly pays:
A man must have, the proverb says,
Good iron nails that scratches with a bear.’

Art thou the man who bilk'd poor Paul,
Who sent his bears, the dev'l and all,
To fight in Britain's cause so hearty?
Art thou the man (whom nothing shames),
Who made his office clerks call names,
And fling their dirt at Bonaparte?

Bold hast thou said, with dauntless soul,
‘I'll damn the motion on Ferrol;
No matter whether cowardice or not:
Whatever was the crying sin,
Sir James shall sleep in a whole skin—
Hal says too, Pulteney must not go to pot.

‘The long-mock'd world may roar—“Where's shame?”
Thank Heaven! we only know the name.

‘Safe are my minions,’ thou art pleas'd to say:
‘What ill they do, is quickly done away:
Such (so secure is ev'ry culprit's lot)
Must make strong int'rest to get hang'd or shot.’

Thou, in thine insolence, hast said,
‘At me the world shall cow'r afraid;
Old Ganges humbly at my feet shall flow;
Mogul, Nizam, and Rajah bend;
Slave-like their humble tribute send,
And learn from me their future fates to know.
Those dare not call my hard decrees unjust,
But kiss the foot that stamps them in the dust.

392

‘Ind shall her streams Pactolean pour;
On petticoats her di'monds show'r,
And stomachers and caps, the courtly things,
Th' unchristian Turk his gems shall send—
His trembling tottering turban rend,
To grace the beaver'd brows of Christian kings.
Peru shall gild St. James's walls and doors;
And ravag'd Mexico emblaze the floors.’

Bold hast thou said—‘I'll curb the P---
His bleeding mouth shall sorely wince;
I value not his birth, his pride, his state:
O'er Y---k triumphant too I'll tow'r;
And Cl---ce shall not boast the pow'r
To make a gunner, or a gunner's mate.’

Such of Britannia's Genius is the song!
Now let the bard the theme pursue,
And, with an equal spirit too,
In thunder drive the muse's car along.

This gentleman was ravished from his opposition-friends on account of supposed extraordinary talents. A completer take-in of the knowing-ones was never more laughably experienced amonst the black-legs of the turf. His ‘Iter ad Meccam,’ for the university prize, exhibited such proofs of ideas and scholarship as put the poor dean of Christ-Church to the blush. The first effort was condemned to the flames, though it obtained the prize: the second was a cobbled piece of work between Mr. Canning and somebody of Christ-Church, which with difficulty passed muster.

This is a most extraordinary fellow, speculatively virtuous, and practically wicked—for ever bellowing in the cause of religion and morals, yet in the daily practice of every thing that should fix him at the cart's-tail.—To justify the above assertions, accept, reader, a small sketch of his life, and blush for the depravity of human nature! Taken from a cobbler's stall at Ashburton, a little town in Devonshire, by Mr. Cookesly, a surgeon of that place, who mistook the itch of rhime for the inspiration of the muses, he was, by a subscription of the gentlemen of the town and neighbourhood, placed at a grammar school, and afterwards sent to Exeter College.—At this college, after his daily occupations of tolling the bell, waiting at dinner, and lighting the candles, he amused himself with writing scandalous lampoons on the heads of the college, as well as other respectable characters of the university.—Noticed, however, by a clergyman, he was introduced to Earl G. who soon found an honourable employment for him, luckily for his lordship's pleasures, and fortunately congenial to the disposition of Gifford.—In a little time he tripped up the heels of his Oxford friend, ousted him from the house of G--- by lying insinuations, and publicly triumphed in his success.—His next glorious action was to send a cast-off strumpet of his l---ds*hp to the widow of his old friend Cookesly, who, for a livelihood, kept a creditable boarding-school.—She was recommended by Gifford as a modest young lady, for education, which modest young lady, in a few months, betrayed her old Cyprian propensities, and very expeditiously blasted the school: this was the subject of another triumph. To continue his progress in infamy with an equal splendour, he seduced a beautiful and innocent girl, called Mary Weeks, a native of Ashburton. Under the pretence of marrying her, a fellow with a surplice was prepared to execute this nefarious matter; the sham ceremony was performed, the poor girl was ruined; and after satiety had taken place with her infamous seducer, she was sent back to Ashburton, where she pined and died of a broken heart!!! To support the credit of his past achievements, he published a most dirty and scandalous poem, called ‘The Ashburtonaid,’ abusing all his old and respectable benefactors. Previously to the above act, he had obtained an ample subscription for a Translation of the Satires of Juvenal, which (happily for the public, and paper, and print) he never performed.—To accommodate his Mæcenas, he keeps a creature as a decoy-duck, and has actually sent her to necessitous young women of beauty and innocence, under the pretext of learning to read and write.—Such are parts of his life—Hunc tu Romane, caveto, hic niger est.—It must not, however, be forgotten, that, for his atrocious calumnies, he was lately cudgelled in one Wright's shop, a poor ignorant and painstaking bookseller in Piccadilly; and, in spite of the most solemn and tender protestations of his own head and shoulders, he with an unprecedented effrontery denied the fact; and, notwithstanding a message, informing him that he was cudgelled, most soundly cudgelled, and that he should be cudgelled again in order to oblige him, by producing a complete conviction, he had not the manners to answer the civility.

He continues in his favourite occupation of administering as jackall to the constantly watering chops of the toothless old lion. To use another figure, he is still his lordship's gamekeeper, and guards the plump little partridges (which are exceedingly numerous on all his lordship's manors) with so much laudable assiduity from poachers, that he has been amply and gratefully remunerated with an honourable annuity from government!!!

As for Mr. Gifford's rhimes, they will appears extraordinary to such readers (and they are not a few) as prefer bombast to sublimity. Bombast is the idol of the vulgar—To such, the Attic simplicity appears arrant insipidity—the vulgar eye is sooner fascinated by the stiff, staring cabbage-rose brocade of the harlot, than the modest and snowy robe of innocence. The ear of the true critic distinguishes with facility the difference between the mellifluous tones of the lyre of Apollo and the hard, ponderous sounds of the hammered lap-stone. To indulge a Greek quotation from Proclus on Plato, without offence to his pupil, the learned Lord Belgrave, Mr. William Gifford is—Ιδιωτες εν φιλοσοφοις, φιλοσοφος δε εν Ιδιωταις—which I translate thus: ‘He is a poet with poetasters, and a poetaster with poets.’ So much inequality pervades his verse, that the faculty would pronounce his muse afflicted with the rickets. Still to do him every justice, his various verses are very well for a cobbler; they must undoubtedly smell of the stall.

Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem
Testa diu ------

So singeth Horace, who, one would think, had peeped into futurity, aad penned the happy line for poor Crispin.

So far from originalty of thought and a luxuriance of imagery in his lines, there reigns a pitiable famine: awkward and obscure inversions, with a verbose pomposity, form the leading features of almost every couplet. Indeed, it were cruel to expect more. Sprung from a dunghill, and old before he was charitably taken from his stall, at the same time totally destitute of the poetical character, what could a few scraps of Latin and Greek do for an object whose sole powers lay within the circumscribed space of a rhime? A riddle in the Lady's Diary—an acrostic in a newspaper—an abusive stanza in the Anti-Jacobin Review, or a criticism in the British Critic (equal, perhaps, to those of poor paralytic Parson Nares, a most feeble pillar of that falling fabric, and lately sent for a maintenance to that idle and expensive toyshop of the nation, called the British Museum)— form at present his amusement. At the house of Gr---v---r he experiences a prodigality of praise. But his lordship and his ladies are better qualified for writing the history of Paphos than Parnassus.

On the appearance of this gentleman's last lying publication, which was in some measure answered by the argumentum baculinum, I entertained thoughts of a formal execution of the felon, in a solemn poetical epistle; but, on reflection, thinking him beneath the dignity of such an exhibition, I determined to hang him in a note.

For, should the muse's satire bid him die,
The goddess really guillotines a fly.

Before I conclude, it may not be unacceptable to my readers to be informed that his I---dsh*p sometimes kills his own mutton—hunts without his jackall—and succeeds. Witness the following little genuine epistle:

‘DEAR G---,

‘I am in luck to-day—sprung a fine covey among a parcel of brambles. Take care of the plump little bird that bears this letter—clean her and comb her well, cut her nails close, and put her to bed.

‘G---,’

POETA LOQUITUR.

Bold hast thou sworn—‘The muse I'll check;
Each, with a halter round her neck,
Shall sing with trembling, trembling dread;
Nay, should Apollo's song be sharp,
And on my power and glory harp,
Off goes at once the fellow's head:

‘I'll make a puddle of their streams,
That give the bards their pretty dreams;
And through the tuneful shades shall stray
My jack-asses , to graze and bray.’

393

Thou'rt an abominable branch:
No more shalt thou enjoy a haunch—
No more with Harry booze from night to morn—
The hackneymen, to thy amaze,
Shall cry, ‘My money for my chaise;
The money, sir, to pay for hay and corn!
Come, sir, I know what's what, and who is who;
I'll trust no longer—d*mn me, if I do.’

See the stern shade of Chatham rise!
On thee he darts his eagle eyes!
‘Fool!’ cries the angry disappointed ghost:
‘Was it for this I show'd thy youth
The paths of glory, and fair truth?
Lo, by thy flagrant solly, all is lost!
Mad boy! instead of Wisdom's springs, to court
The Dozing fountain of Dundas's port.

‘The wondrous column of my hand,
That push'd its head into the skies;
Shook by thy damned wizard wand,
Low! low! a splendid ruin lies!
Toads for a dwelling the poor pile invade,
And shelter'd weeds of death, the fragment shade.
Blush at the partners of thy toil,
The refuse of the groaning isle!’

The Mathiases, the Giffords, the B---s, the C---s, &c. &c. Will it be credited that an administration so feeble should not have selected one tolerably literary pillar to support its imbecility? Where was Huntsman-Wyndham's judgment, when he made choice of hounds to run down opposition? Heavens bless us! Not one decent dog in the pack—neither nose nor speed—absolutely a parcel of yelping curs!

Where is the eagle that, above,
Grasp'd daringly the bolts of Jove,

394

And taught their fatal thunders where to roll?
Ah! forc'd his lofty perch to quit,
He dwindles to a poor tom-tit,
And skulks through humble hedges to his hole.

Is this the man who pension'd spies,
Informers, that, with wolf-like eyes,
Prowl'd nightly, yelling, in pursuit of food?
Is this the man, who put, alack,
Such bugs upon the nation's back,
To gnaw and suck its best, its vital blood?

Where are thy bustling levees now?
Thy humble sycophants to bow,
Obey thy mandate, and applaud thy wit?
Unnotic'd thou shalt lonely ride,
Attended only by thy pride,
That never, never yet forsook a Pitt.

Cur-like shalt thou walk in and out,
Unnotic'd at her Grace's rout!
Unnotic'd, down thy throat, her pastry poke:
No bumpkin, no poor country wight,
Shall, stealing near with curious sight,
Watch if thy jaw-bones wag like those of common folk!

George Rose's papers shall turn tail—
Expose thy blunders, storm and rail,
And ope of Calumny the dirty springs;
While Anti-Jacobin Reviews
Shall cull the literary stews
For flowers to deck the counsellor of kings.

Each newspaper that took delight
To make thee, like the snow-ball, white,
Will paint thee now as black as Hell:
No more thy voice angelic hail,
But give the horn, and hoof, and tail,
With Cerberus's frightful yell!—

395

Paint thee a damned spirit from below,
Rais'd by some wizard for the nation's woe.

Lo! thou art sprawling in the dirt!
The mob their wanton jokes will spirt!—
Behold a sable chimney-sweep appear!
And hark! a scavenger, with eyes
Sparkling with rapture and surprise,
Exclaims—‘Ah, Master Billy, are you there?’
Then, anxious to reward thee, on they rush,
One with his broom, and t'other with his brush!

Hark! authors braying round thee crowd,
And authoresses cry aloud—
‘Villain! to wage a war with all the muses!’
And lo, the printer's devils appear!
With ink thy visage they besmear,
While each in turn indignantly abuses;
And more their pris'ner to disgrace,
They empt the pelt-pot in thy face!
Roaring, around thee as they caper,
‘Take that, my boy, for tax on paper!’

And lo, with anger Hardy glows!
The man of leather, with delight,
Runneth his awl into thy nose,
And stirrups thee with all his might.
‘He wants much mending, d*mn my eyes!’
The punning son of Crispin cries—
‘The shoe quite rotten—yes, the whole—
Quite vanished ev'ry bit of sole.’

And, see! the girls around thee throng—
‘Art thou the wight, thus stretch'd along,
An enemy well known to wives and misses?
Art thou the man who dost not care
For oglings, squeezes of the fair;
Nay, makest up wry mouths at woman's kisses?’—

396

Then shall the nymphs apply their birchen rods,
And baste thee worse than Peter Pindar's Odes.

And see poor Paddy with his pole!
‘By Jasus now, I'll twig his jowl,
For leaving us poor Christians in the lurch:
Open your jaw-bones, Master Knave—
Where be the promises ye gave,
To give a bit of shove to Mother Church?
To a good market, faith! our hogs are brought—
And so we're dead, and kill'd, and murder'd, all for naught!’

The cats shall spit at thee!—and, hark!
The curs in yelling concert bark.
The cats exclaim—‘Our mice with famine moan!
Not one fat mouse is to be had!’
‘Aye,’ cry the curs, ‘and what's more sad,
We cannot now obtain a well-pick'd bone!’

O Furcifer—no, Lucifer I mean—
How art thou fall'n from the starry sphere!
Kick'd from the presence of the K. and Q.—
From burgundy, from claret, to small beer!

That feature of thy face call'd nose,
Which now with many a ruby glows,
Shall lose, alas! its wonted fire!
The claret-lustre shall expire!
For Poverty's pale fingers soon pick out
The blushing rubies of the richest snout.

The meanest of the mean shall scoff,
And cry, ‘I'm glad the fellow's off!’
The tailor leaps in rapture from his board;
The cobbler throws his shoe away;
The washerwoman flings her tray;
The shoeblack drops his brush, and thanks the Lord:
To pot-houses they run with loud acclaim,
To get more joyful news from Gossip Fame.

Fox, on thy fall, with scorn must look;
And pointed Sheridan and Tooke

397

Will make thee tingle with the lash of wit:
The poorest reptile of the House,
The vilest little borough louse,
Will scratch and bite the back of Billy Pitt.

And he , of whom the muses brag,
From his stretch'd jaws shall pull the gag,
And vengeful to thy head shall give it wing:
Then shall he cry, with dauntless looks,
‘I'll go again amongst the cooks,
And tell more pretty tales of q--- and k---.’

The jolly and hospitable Duchess of Gordon.

An utensil among printers, containing a certain stale fluid for the benefit of the balls.

My very identical and numerical self, whose innocent and improving rhimes falling some years since in the way of an irritable and offended bashaw, gave birth to an act of parliament vowing vengeance on the wight that should, by any prose or poetical anatomy, dare exhibit the inside of heads royal.