 | The Works of Thomas Love Peacock |  |
I. [JOHNNY ON THE SEA.]
To catch the fire of Chaucer,
And spin in doleful measure out
The tale of Johnny Raw, sir;
To make the people stare,
Set off full speed for Hindoostan
Upon Old Poulter's mare.
Splash! splash! across the sea;
“Pray who can ride like me?
To rout the classic forces,
And swore this mare was far more worth
Than both fierce Hector's horses.
To Virgil gave a punch,
And in the place of both I stuck
The doughty Mother Bunch.
Whose mettle nought can quail;
There squatted on the tomb of Joan,
And piped a dismal tale.
To make my hearers weep:
But when I looked, and held my tongue,
I found them fast asleep!
Some dire revenge to seek;
And conjured up, to make them roar,
Stout Taffy and his leek.
In spite of wind and weather:
Trumped up a diabolic lay;
And cursed them all together.
To spirit up my mare:
In every shape but those appear,
Which Taste and Nature wear.”
Our hero appears to have been “all naked feeling and raw life,” like Arvalan in the Curse of Kehama.
This is the Pegasa of the Cumberland school of poetry. Old Poulter's Mare is the heroine “of one of our old ballads, so full of beauty.” A modern bard, “whose works will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten,” was at infinite trouble to procure an imperfect copy of this precious piece of antiquity, and has rescued it from oblivion, si dîs placet, in the pages of Thalaba.
After all, perhaps, there is not much bragging in the speech of our hero. He has classical authority for self-panegyric, and, what is still better, the authority of Mr. Southey:
Come, for ye know me! I am he who sung
The Maid of Arc; and I am he who framed
Of Thalaba the wild and wondrous song.
Come, listen to my lay, and ye shall hear
How Madoc, &c.
And again:
Loathes the black catalogue of human crimes
And human misery: let that spirit fill
Thy song, and it shall teach thee, boy, to raise
Strains such as Cato might have deigned to hear.
What degree of pleasure Cato would have derived from the Carmen Triumphale for the year 1814, is a point that remains to be decided.
Ranarian minstrels of all ages and nations have entertained a high opinion of their own melody. The Muses of Styx, the Πιεριδες Καταχθονιαι, have transferred their seat in modern days to the banks of the Northern Lakes, where they inflate their tuneful votaries with inspiration and egotism. O dolce concento! when, to the philosophic wanderer on the twilight shore, ascends from the depths of Winander the choral modulation:
Βρεκεκεκεξ, κοαξ, κοαξ.Βρεκεκεκεξ, κοαξ, κοαξ.
Λιμναια κρηνων τεκνα
Ξυναυλον υμνων βοαν
Φθεγξωμεθ', ΕΨΓΗΡΨΝ ΕΜΑΝ ΑΟΙΔΑΝ,
Κοαξ, κοαξ.
Αριστοφανους Βατραχοι.
Our lay's harmonious burthen be:
In vain yon critic owl attacks
Our blithe and full-voiced minstrelsy.
With strength of lung that never slacks;
Still wake the wild and wondrous song:
Ko-ax! ko-ax! ko-ax! ko-ax!
This seems to be an imitation of two lines in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus, selected by Mr. Southey as the motto to the Curse of Kehama:
Ποικιλον ειδος εχων, οτε ποικιλον υμνον αρασσω.
Let me the many-changing Proteus see,
To aid my many-changing melody.
It is not at all surprising, that a man, under a process of moral and political metamorphosis, should desire the patronage of this multiform god, who may be regarded as the tutelary saint of the numerous and thriving sect of Anythingarians. Perhaps the passage would have been more applicable to himself, though less so to his poem, if he had read, suo periculo:
Στησατε μοι Πρωτηα πολυτροπον, οφρα φανειη.Ποικιλον ειδος εχων, ΟΤ' ΑΜΕΙΒΩ ΠΟΙΚΙΛΟΝ ΕΙΜΑ.
Before my eyes let changeful Proteus float,
When now I change my many-coloured coat.
| The Works of Thomas Love Peacock | |