The Autobiography of John Galt :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Autobiography of John Galt

In Two Volumes

Galt, John (1779-1839)

VOL. I.

II.

VOL. II.

TIT FOR TAT.

TO THE AUTHOR OF MARMION.

THE APOTHEOSIS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

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188

TIT FOR TAT.

I

What the devil!—no, no, it cannot be true,—
Tommy Little, a Dublin dominie!—poh!—
He can sing about flowers, ripe lips, and green bowers,—
Is it sing that I said?—he 's the boy that can low.

II

To stand on a stool, like a duck on a stone,
By the sweet-smelling Liffy, and threaten in alt,—
No—no, sir, 'tis “fudge” ; he may groan, growl, and grudge;—
With his birch on a barrel he couldn't reach Galt .

III

'Tis true, he is not, in all other respects,
Unfit for the office:—I grant it at once.—
There's Anacreon—yes! My God! what is this?
You blush! but he never did steal from a dunce.

IV

I own that such clusters of lilies and roses
The cheerful old Greek would have sneezed at as snuff;
But the work now supplies trunks, tartlets, and pies,
With the ditties of gay Mr. Moore, to enough.

V

He murdered that Greek—can his conscience deny,
He's a criminal direful, audacious, and dread?
He attempts the dear lives of the friends he survives,—
A buzzing blue-bottle that feeds on the dead.

189

VI

If justice were done, the “gelatinous” bard
(Like “ichor” that flows from a feculent sore)
Might run his loose rhymes, refined for the Times,—
The flies that make rampant can never do more.

VII

As reptiles in bottles, his books on the shelf,—
He may to a lengthened existence aspire,
But in “amber” salvation “immortalization”
He can but exist a small thing-a pismire.

VIII

But, sir, I had almost forgotten to say
That the sorter of shreds with his patches between,
Is all in the wrong, like a frog with a song,—
His guessings at Fraser are gropings of spleen.

IX

A word of advice if I can ere I close
(While pen-guns in vollies around me are cracking):
Of this be you sure,—whether Byron or Moore,—
All quartos are not sold by rhyme-puffs, like blacking .

A slang term. See Moore's Epistle to Big Ben, The Fudge Family, and The Twopenny Post-bag.

Galt 's high, and Moore's low.

Vide the Irish translation of Anacreon alluded to.

An old pun of George III., applicable to Moore's works about Byron and Sheridan.

Gelatinous.—For literal meaning, see Dictionary; for figurative, applied to a thing without sense, as here used, look at many of Mr. Moore's Melodies.

An allusion to things sometimes seen in amber. Mr. Moore, though he may have read Pope's poems, may never have seen such things.

“A thing of shreds and patches.”

“Mr. Galt is supposed to be the editor of Fraser's Magazine.” They do him honour.

See Mr. Warren's poetry.