by Thomas Moore
1 The Casa Santa, supposed to have been carried by angels through the air from Galilee to Italy.
THE REVEREND PAMPHLETEER.
A ROMANTIC BALLAD.
Oh, have you heard what hapt of late?
If not, come lend an ear,
While sad I state the piteous fate
Of the Reverend Pamphleteer.
All praised his skilful jockeyship,
Loud rung the Tory cheer,
While away, away, with spur and whip,
Went the Reverend Pamphleteer.
The nag he rode — how could it err?
’Twas the same that took, last year,
That wonderful jump to Exeter
With the Reverend Pamphleteer.
Set a beggar on horseback, wise men say,
The course he will take is clear:
And in that direction lay the way
Of the Reverend Pamphleteer,
“Stop, stop,” said Truth, but vain her cry —
Left far away in the rear,
She heard but the usual gay “Good-by”
From her faithless Pamphleteer.
You may talk of the jumps of Homer’s gods,
When cantering o’er our sphere —
I’d back for a bounce, ‘gainst any odds,
This Reverend Pamphleteer.
But ah! what tumbles a jockey hath!
In the midst of his career,
A file of the Times lay right in the path
Of the headlong Pamphleteer.
Whether he tript or shyed thereat,
Doth not so clear appear:
But down he came, as his sermons flat —
This Reverend Pamphleteer!
Lord King himself could scarce desire
To see a spiritual Peer
Fall much more dead, in the dirt and mire,
Than did this Pamphleteer.
Yet pitying parsons many a day
Shall visit his silent bier,
And, thinking the while of Stanhope, say
“Poor dear old Pamphleteer!
“He has finisht at last his busy span,
“And now lies coolly here —
“As often he did in life, good man,
“Good, Reverend Pamphleteer!”
RECENT DIALOGUE.
1825.
A Bishop and a bold dragoon,
Both heroes in their way,
Did thus, of late, one afternoon,
Unto each other say: —
“Dear bishop,” quoth the brave huzzar,
“As nobody denies
“That you a wise logician are,
“And I am — otherwise,
“’Tis fit that in this question, we
“Stick each to his own art —
“That yours should be the sophistry,
“And mine the fighting part.
“My creed, I need not tell you, is
“Like that of Wellington,
“To whom no harlot comes amiss,
“Save her of Babylon;
“And when we’re at a loss for words,
“If laughing reasoners flout us,
“For lack of sense we’ll draw our swords —
“The sole thing sharp about us.” —
“Dear bold dragoon,” the bishop said,
“’Tis true for war thou art meant;
“And reasoning — bless that dandy head!
“Is not in thy department.
“So leave the argument to me —
“And, when my holy labor
“Hath lit the fires of bigotry,
“Thou’lt poke them with thy sabre.
“From pulpit and from sentrybox,
“We’ll make our joint attacks,
“I at the head of my Cassocks,
“And you, of your Cossacks.
“So here’s your health, my brave huzzar,
“My exquisite old fighter —
“Success to bigotry and war,
“The musket and the mitre!”
Thus prayed the minister of heaven —
While York, just entering then,
Snored out (as if some Clerk had given
His nose the cue) “Amen.”
THE WELLINGTON SPA.
“And drink oblivion to our woes.”
Anna Matilda.
1829.
Talk no more of your Cheltenham and Harrowgate springs,
’Tis from Lethe we now our potations must draw;
Yon Lethe’s a cure for — all possible things,
And the doctors have named it the Wellington Spa.
Other physical waters but cure you in part;
One cobbles your gout — t’other mends your digestion —
Some settle your stomach, but this — bless your heart! —
It will settle for ever your Catholic Question.
Unlike too the potions in fashion at present,
This Wellington nostrum, restoring by stealth,
So purges the memory of all that’s unpleasant,
That patients forget themselves into rude health.
For instance, the inventor — his having once said
“He should think himself mad if at any one’s call,
“He became what he is” — is so purged from his head
That he now doesnt think he’s a madman at all.
Of course, for your memories of very long standing —
Old chronic diseases that date back undaunted
To Brian Boroo and Fitz-Stephens’ first landing —
A devil of a dose of the Lethe is wanted.
But even Irish patients can hardly regret
An oblivion so much in their own native style,
So conveniently planned that, whate’er they forget,
They may go on remembering it still all the while!
A CHARACTERLESS
1834.
Half Whig, half Tory, like those mid-way things,
‘Twixt bird and beast, that by mistake have wings;
A mongrel Stateman, ‘twixt two factions nurst,
Who, of the faults of each, combines the worst —
The Tory’s loftiness, the Whigling’s sneer,
The leveller’s rashness, and the bigot’s fear:
The thirst for meddling, restless still to show
How Freedom’s clock, repaired by Whigs, will go;
The alarm when others, more sincere than they,
Advance the hands to the true time of day.
By Mother Church, high-fed and haughty dame,
The boy was dandled, in his dawn of fame;
Listening, she smiled, and blest the flippant tongue
On which the fate of unborn tithe-pigs hung.
Ah! who shall paint the grandam’s grim dismay,
When loose Reform enticed her boy away;
When shockt she heard him ape the rabble’s tone,
And in Old Sarum’s fate foredoom her own!
Groaning she cried, while tears rolled down her cheeks,
“Poor, glib-tongued youth, he means not what he speaks.
“Like oil at top, these Whig professions flow,
“But, pure as lymph, runs Toryism below.
“Alas! that tongue should start thus, in the race,
“Ere mind can reach and regulate its pace! —
“For, once outstript by tongue, poor, lagging mind,
“At every step, still further limps behind.
“But, bless the boy! — whate’er his wandering be,
“Still turns his heart to Toryism and me.
“Like those odd shapes, portrayed in Dante’s lay.
“With heads fixt on, the wrong and backward way,
“His feet and eyes pursue a diverse track,
“While those march onward, these look fondly back.”
And well she knew him — well foresaw the day,
Which now hath come, when snatched from Whigs away
The self-same changeling drops the
mask he wore,
And rests, restored, in granny’s arms once more.
But whither now, mixt brood of modern light
And ancient darkness, canst thou bend thy flight?
Tried by both factions and to neither true,
Feared by the old school, laught at by the new;
For this too feeble and for that too rash,
This wanting more of fire, that less of flash,
Lone shalt thou stand, in isolation cold,
Betwixt two worlds, the new one and the old,
A small and “vext Bermoothes,” which the eye
Of venturous seaman sees — and passes by.
A GHOST STORY.
TO THE AIR OF “UNFORTUNATE MISS BAILEY.”
1835.
Not long in bed had Lyndhurst lain,
When, as his lamp burned dimly,
The ghosts of corporate bodies slain,1
Stood by his bedside grimly.
Dead aldermen who once could feast,
But now, themselves, are fed on,
And skeletons of mayors deceased,
This doleful chorus led on: —
Oh Lord Lyndhurst,
“Unmerciful Lord Lyndhurst,
“Corpses we,
“All burkt by thee,
“Unmerciful Lord Lyndhurst!”
“Avaunt, ye frights!” his Lordship cried,
“Ye look most glum and whitely.”
“Ah, Lyndhurst dear!” the frights replied,
“You’ve used us unpolitely.
“And now, ungrateful man! to drive
“Dead bodies from your door so,
“Who quite corrupt enough, alive,
“You’ve made by death still more so.
“Oh, Ex-Chancellor,
“Destructive Ex-Chancellor,
“See thy work,
“Thou second Burke,
“Destructive Ex-Chancellor!”
Bold Lyndhurst then, whom naught could keep
Awake or surely that would,
Cried “Curse you all” — fell fast asleep —
And dreamt of “Small v. Attwood.”
While, shockt, the bodies flew downstairs,
But courteous in their panic
Precedence gave to ghosts of mayors,
And corpses aldermanic,
Crying, “Oh, Lord Lyndhurst,
“That terrible Lord Lyndhurst,
“Not Old Scratch
“Himself could match
“That terrible Lord Lyndhurst.”
1 Referring to the line taken by Lord Lyndhurst, on the question of Municipal Reform.
THOUGHTS ON THE LATE DESTRUCTIVE PROPOSITIONS OF THE TORIES.1
BY A COMMON-COUNCILMAN.
1835.
I sat me down in my easy chair,
To read, as usual, the morning papers;
But — who shall describe my look of despair,
When I came to Lefroy’s “destructive” capers!
That he — that, of all live men, Lefroy
Should join in the cry “Destroy, destroy!”
Who, even when a babe, as I’ve heard said,
On Orange conserve was chiefly fed,
And never, till now, a movement made
That wasnt manfully retrograde!
Only think — to sweep from the light of day
Mayors, maces, criers and wigs away;
To annihilate — never to rise again —
A whole generation of aldermen,
Nor leave them even the accustomed tolls,
To keep together their bodies and souls! —
At a time too when snug posts and places
Are falling away from us one by one,
Crash — crash — like the mummy-cases
Belzoni, in Egypt, sat upon,
Wherein lay pickled, in state sublime,
Conservatives of the ancient time; —
To choose such a moment to overset
The few snug nuisances left us yet;
To add to the ruin that round us reigns,
By knocking out mayors’ and town-clerks’ brains;
By dooming all corporate bodies to fall,
Till they leave at last no bodies at all —
Naught but the ghosts of by-gone glory,
Wrecks of a world that once was Tory! —
Where pensive criers, like owls unblest,
Robbed of their roosts, shall still hoot o’er them:
Nor mayors shall know where to seek a nest,
Till Gaily Knight shall find one for them; —
Till mayors and kings, with none to rue ’em,
Shall perish all in one common plague;
And the sovereigns of Belfast and Tuam
Must join their brother, Charles Dix, at Prague.
Thus mused I, in my chair, alone,
(As above described) till dozy grown,
And nodding assent to my own opinions,
I found myself borne to sleep’s dominions,
Where, lo! before my dreaming eyes,
A new House of Commons appeared to rise,
Whose living contents, to fancy’s survey,
Seemed to me all turned topsy-turvy —
A jumble of polypi — nobody knew
Which was the head or which the queue.
Here, Inglis, turned to a sansculotte,
Was dancing the hays with Hume and Grote;
There, ripe for riot, Recorder Shaw
Was learning from Roebuck “Çaira:”
While Stanley and Graham, as poissarde wenches,
Screamed “à-bas!” from the Tory benches;
And Peel and O’Connell, cheek by jowl,
Were dancing an Irish carmagnole.
The Lord preserve us! — if dreams come true,
What is this hapless realm to do?
1 These verses were written in reference to the Bill brought in at this time, for the reform of Corporations, and the sweeping amendments proposed by Lord Lyndhurst and other Tory Peers, in order to obstruct the measure.
ANTICIPATED MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION IN THE YEAR 1836.
1836
After some observations from Dr. M’Grig
On that fossil reliquium called Petrified Wig,
Or Perruquolithus — a specimen rare
Of those wigs made for antediluvian wear,
Which, it seems, stood the Flood without turning a hair —
Mr. Tomkins rose up, and requested attention
To facts no less wondrous which he had to mention.
Some large fossil creatures had lately been found,
Of a species no longer now seen above ground,
But the same (as to Tomkins most clearly appears)
With those animals, lost now for hundreds of years,
Which our ancestors used to call “Bishops” and “Peers,”
But which Tomkins more erudite names has bestowed on,
Having called the Peer fossil the Aris-tocratodon,1
And, finding much food under t’other one’s thorax,
Has christened that creature the Episcopus Vorax.
Lest the savantes and dandies should think this all fable,
Mr. Tomkins most kindly produced, on the table,
A sample of each of these species of creatures,
Both tolerably human, in structure and features,
Except that the Episcopus seems, Lord deliver us!
To’ve been carnivorous as well as granivorous;
And Tomkins, on searching its stomach, found there
Large lumps, such as no modern stomach could bear,
Of a substance called Tithe, upon which, as ’tis said,
The whole Genus Clericum formerly fed;
And which having lately himself decompounded,
Just to see what ’twas made of, he actually found it
Composed of all possible cookable things
That e’er tript upon trotters or soared upon wings —
All products of earth, both gramineous, herbaceous,
Hordeaceous, fabaceous and eke farinaceous,
All clubbing their quotas, to glut the oesophagus
Of this ever greedy and grasping Tithophagus.2
“Admire,” exclaimed Tomkins. “the kind dispensation
“By Providence shed on this much-favored nation,
“In sweeping so ravenous a race from the earth,
“That might else have occasioned a general dearth —
“And thus burying ’em, deep as even Joe Hume would sink ’em,
“With the Ichthyosaurus and Paloeorynchum,
“And other queer ci-devant things, under ground —
“Not forgetting that fossilized youth,3 so renowned,
“Who lived just to witness the Deluge — was gratified
“Much by the sight, and has since been found stratified!”
This picturesque touch — quite in Tomkins’s way —
Called forth from the savantes a general hurrah;
While inquiries among them, went rapidly round,
As to where this young stratified man could be found.
The “learned Theban’s” discourse next as livelily flowed on,
To sketch t’other wonder, the Aristocratodon —
An animal, differing from most human creatures
Not so much in speech, inward structure or features,
As in having a certain excrescence, T. said,
Which in form of a coronet grew from its head,
And devolved to its heirs, when the creature was dead;
Nor mattered it, while this heirloom was transmitted,
How unfit were the heads, so the coronet fitted.
He then mentioned a strange zoölogical fact,
Whose announcement appeared much applause to attract.
In France, said the learned professor, this race
Had so noxious become, in some centuries’ space,
From their numbers and strength, that the land was o’errun with ’em,
Every one’s question being, “What’s to be done with em?”
When, lo! certain knowing ones — savans, mayhap,
Who, like Buckland’s deep followers, understood trap,4
Slyly hinted that naught upon earth was so good
For Aristocratodons, when rampant and rude,
As to stop or curtail their allowance of food.
This expedient was tried and a proof it affords
Of the effect that short commons will have upon lords;
For this whole race of bipeds, one fine summer’s morn,
Shed their coronets, just as a deer sheds his horn,
And the moment these gewgaws fell off, they became
