Thomas Moore- Collected Poetical Works
Page 124
And who, if well curried and fed, they’ve no doubt,
Will beat even Bentley’s swift stud out and out.
It is true in these days such a drug is renown,
We’ve “Immortals” as rife as M.P.s about town;
And not a Blue’s rout but can offhand supply
Some invalid bard who’s insured “not to die.”
Still let England but once try our authors, she’ll find
How fast they’ll leave even these Immortals behind;
And how truly the toils of Alcides were light,
Compared with his toil who can read all they write.
In fact there’s no saying, so gainful the trade,
How fast immortalities now may be made;
Since Helicon never will want an “Undying One,”
As long as the public continues a Buying One;
And the company hope yet to witness the hour.
When, by strongly applying the mare-motive1 power,
A three-decker novel, midst oceans of praise,
May be written, launched, read and — forgot, in three days!
In addition to all this stupendous celerity,
Which — to the no small relief of posterity —
Pays off at sight the whole debit of fame,
Nor troubles futurity even with a name
(A project that wont as much tickle Tom Tegg as us,
Since ‘twill rob him of his second-priced Pegasus);
We, the Company — still more to show how immense
Is the power o’er the mind of pounds, shillings, and pence;
And that not even Phoebus himself, in our day,
Could get up a lay without first an out-lay —
Beg to add, as our literature soon may compare,
In its quick make and vent, with our Birmingham ware,
And it doesnt at all matter in either of these lines,
How sham is the article, so it but shines, —
We keep authors ready, all perched, pen in hand,
To write off, in any given style, at command.
No matter what bard, be he living or dead,
Ask a work from his pen, and ’tis done soon as said:
There being on the establishment six Walter Scotts,
One capital Wordsworth and Southeys in lots; —
Three choice Mrs. Nortons, all singing like syrens,
While most of our pallid young clerks are Lord Byrons.
Then we’ve * * *s and * * *s (for whom there’s small call),
And * * *s and * * *s (for whom no call at all).
In short, whosoe’er the last “Lion” may be,
We’ve a Bottom who’ll copy his roar2 to a T,
And so well, that not one of the buyers who’ve got ’em
Can tell which is lion, and which only Bottom.
N. B. — The company, since they set up in this line,
Have moved their concern and are now at the sign
Of the Muse’s Velocipede, Fleet Street, where all
Who wish well to the scheme are invited to call.
1 “’Tis money makes the mare to go.”
2 “Bottom: Let me play the lion; I will roar you as ‘twere any nightingale.”
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LATE DINNER TO DAN.
From tongue to tongue the rumor flew;
All askt, aghast, “Is’t true? is’t true?”
But none knew whether ’twas fact or fable:
And still the unholy rumor ran,
From Tory woman to Tory man,
Tho’ none to come at the truth was able —
Till, lo! at last, the fact came out,
The horrible fact, beyond all doubt,
That Dan had dined at the Viceroy’s table;
Had flesht his Popish knife and fork
In the heart of the Establisht mutton and pork!
Who can forget the deep sensation
That news produced in this orthodox nation?
Deans, rectors, curates, all agreed,
If Dan was allowed at the Castle to feed,
’Twas clearly all up with the Protestant creed!
There hadnt indeed such an apparition
Been heard of in Dublin since that day
When, during the first grand exhibition
Of Don Giovanni, that naughty play,
There appeared, as if raised by necromancers,
An extra devil among the dancers!
Yes — every one saw with fearful thrill
That a devil too much had joined the quadrille;
And sulphur was smelt and the lamps let fall
A grim, green light o’er the ghastly ball,
And the poor sham devils didnt like it at all;
For they knew from whence the intruder had come,
Tho’ he left, that night, his tail at home.
This fact, we see, is a parallel case
To the dinner that some weeks since took place.
With the difference slight of fiend and man,
It shows what a nest of Popish sinners
That city must be, where the devil and Dan
May thus drop in at quadrilles and dinners!
But mark the end of these foul proceedings,
These demon hops and Popish feedings.
Some comfort ‘twill be — to those, at least,
Who’ve studied this awful dinner question —
To know that Dan, on the night of that feast,
Was seized with a dreadful indigestion;
That envoys were sent post-haste to his priest
To come and absolve the suffering sinner,
For eating so much at a heretic dinner;
And some good people were even afraid
That Peel’s old confectioner — still at the trade —
Had poisoned the Papist with orangeade.
NEW HOSPITAL FOR SICK LITERATI.
With all humility we beg
To inform the public, that Tom Tegg —
Known for his spunky speculations
In buying up dead reputations,
And by a mode of galvanizing
Which, all must own, is quite surprising,
Making dead authors move again,
As tho’ they still were living men; —
All this too managed, in a trice,
By those two magic words, “Half Price,”
Which brings the charm so quick about,
That worn-out poets, left without
A second foot whereon to stand,
Are made to go at second hand; —
‘Twill please the public, we repeat,
To learn that Tegg who works this feat,
And therefore knows what care it needs
To keep alive Fame’s invalids,
Has oped an Hospital in town,
For cases of knockt-up renown —
Falls, fractures, dangerous Epic fits
(By some called Cantoes), stabs from wits;
And of all wounds for which they’re nurst,
Dead cuts from publishers, the worst; —
All these, and other such fatalities,
That happen to frail immortalities,
By Tegg are so expertly treated,
That oft-times, when the cure’s completed,
The patient’s made robust enough
To stand a few more rounds of puff,
Till like the ghosts of Dante’s lay
He’s puft into thin air away!
As titled poets (being phenomenons)
Dont like to mix with low and common ‘uns,
Tegg’s Hospital has separate wards,
Express for literary lords,
Where prose-peers, of immoderate length,
Are nurst, when they’ve outgrown their strength,
And poets, whom their friends despair of,
Are — put to bed and taken care of.
Tegg begs to contradict a story
Now current both with Whig and Tory,
That Doctor Warburton, M.P.,
Well known for his antipathy,
His deadly hate, good man, to all
The race of poets great and small —
So much, that he’s been heard to own,
He would most willingly cut down
The holiest groves on Pindus’ mount,
To turn the timber to account! —
The story actually goes, that he
Prescribes at Tegg’s Infirmary;
And oft not only stints for spite
The patients in their copy-right,
But that, on being called in lately
To two sick poets suffering greatly,
This vaticidal Doctor sent them
So strong a dose of Jeremy Bentham,
That one of the poor bards but cried,
“Oh, Jerry, Jerry!” and then died;
While t’other, tho’ less stuff was given,
Is on his road, ’tis feared, to heaven!
Of this event, howe’er unpleasant,
Tegg means to say no more at present, —
Intending shortly to prepare
A statement of the whole affair,
With full accounts, at the same time,
Of some late cases (prose and rhyme),
Subscribed with every author’s name,
That’s now on the Sick List of Fame.
RELIGION AND TRADE.
“Sir Robert Peel believed it was necessary to originate all respecting religion and trade in a Committee of the House.” — Church Extension, May 22, 1830.
Say, who was the wag, indecorously witty,
Who first in a statute this libel conveyed;
And thus slyly referred to the selfsame committee,
As matters congenial, Religion and Trade?
Oh surely, my Phillpotts, ’twas thou didst the deed;
For none but thyself or some pluralist brother,
Accustomed to mix up the craft with the creed,
Could bring such a pair thus to twin with each other.
And yet, when one thinks of times present and gone,
One is forced to confess on maturer reflection
That ’tisn’t in the eyes of committees alone
That the shrine and the shop seem to have some connection.
Not to mention those monarchs of Asia’s fair land,
Whose civil list all is in “god-money” paid;
And where the whole people, by royal command,
Buy their gods at the government mart, ready made;1 —
There was also (as mentioned, in rhyme and in prose, is)
Gold heaped throughout Egypt on every shrine,
To make rings for right reverend crocodiles’ noses —
Just such as, my Phillpotts, would look well in thine.
But one needn’t fly off in this erudite mood;
And ’tis clear without going to regions so sunny
That priests love to do the least possible good
For the largest most possible quantum of money.
“Of him,” saith the text, “unto whom much is given,
“Of him much, in turn, will be also required:” —
“By me,” quoth the sleek and obese man of heaven —
“Give as much as you will — more will still be desired.”
More money! more churches! — oh Nimrod, hadst thou
‘Stead of Tower-extension, some shorter way gone —
Hadst thou known by what methods we mount to heaven now,
And tried Church-extension, the feat had been done!
1 The Birmans may not buy the sacred marble in mass but must purchase figures of the deity already made. — SYMES.
MUSINGS.
SUGGESTED BY THE LATE PROMOTION OF MRS. NETHERCOAT.
“The widow of Nethercoat is appointed jailer of Loughrea, in the room
of her deceased husband.” — Limerick Chronicle.
Whether as queens or subjects, in these days,
Women seem formed to grace alike each station: —
As Captain Flaherty gallantly says,
“You ladies, are the lords of the creation!”
Thus o’er my mind did prescient visions float
Of all that matchless woman yet may be;
When hark! in rumors less and less remote,
Came the glad news o’er Erin’s ambient sea,
The important news — that Mrs. Nethercoat
Had been appointed jailer of Loughrea;
Yes, mark it, History — Nethercoat is dead,
And Mrs. N. now rules his realm instead;
Hers the high task to wield the uplocking keys,
To rivet rogues and reign o’er Rapparees!
Thus, while your blusterers of the Tory school
Find Ireland’s sanest sons so hard to rule,
One meek-eyed matron in Whig doctrines nurst
Is all that’s askt to curb the maddest, worst!
Show me the man that dares with blushless brow
Prate about Erin’s rage and riot now;
Now, when her temperance forms her sole excess;
When long-loved whiskey, fading from her sight,
“Small by degrees and beautifully less,”
Will soon like other spirits vanish quite;
When of red coats the number’s grown so small,
That soon, to cheer the warlike parson’s eyes,
No glimpse of scarlet will be seen at all,
Save that which she of Babylon supplies; —
Or, at the most, a corporal’s guard will be,
Of Ireland’s red defence the sole remains;
While of its jails bright woman keeps the key,
And captive Paddies languish in her chains!
Long may such lot be Erin’s, long be mine!
Oh yes — if even this world, tho’ bright it shine,
In Wisdom’s eyes a prison-house must be,
At least let woman’s hand our fetters twine,
And blithe I’ll sing, more joyous than if free,
The Nethercoats, the Nethercoats for me!
INTENDED TRIBUTE
TO THE AUTHOR OF AN ARTICLE IN THE LAST NUMBER OF The Quarterly Review, ENTITLED “ROMANISM IN IRELAND.”
It glads us much to be able to say,
That a meeting is fixt for some early day,
Of all such dowagers — he or she —
(No matter the sex, so they dowagers be,)
Whose opinions concerning Church and State
From about the time of the Curfew date —
Stanch sticklers still for days bygone,
And admiring them for their rust alone —
To whom if we would a leader give,
Worthy their tastes conservative,
We need but some mummy-statesman raise,
Who was pickled and potted in Ptolemy’s days;
For that’s the man, if waked from his shelf,
To conserve and swaddle this world like himself.
Such, we’re happy to state, are the old he-dames
Who’ve met in committee and given their names
(In good hieroglyphics), with kind intent
To pay some handsome compliment
To their sister author, the nameless he,
Who wrote, in the last new Quarterly,
That charming assault upon Popery;
An article justly prized by them
As a perfect antediluvian gem —
The work, as Sir Sampson Legend would say,
Of some “fellow the Flood couldnt wash away.”1
The fund being raised, there remained but to see
What the dowager-author’s gift was to be.
And here, I must say, the Sisters Blue
Showed delicate taste and judgment too.
For finding the poor man suffering greatly
From the awful stuff he has thrown up lately —
So much so indeed to the alarm of all,
As to b
ring on a fit of what doctors call
The Antipapistico-monomania
(I’m sorry with such a long word to detain ye),
They’ve acted the part of a kind physician,
By suiting their gift to the patient’s condition;
And as soon as ’tis ready for presentation,
We shall publish the facts for the gratification
Of this highly-favored and Protestant nation.
Meanwhile, to the great alarm of his neighbors,
He still continues his Quarterly labors;
And often has strong No-Popery fits,
Which frighten his old nurse out of her wits.
Sometimes he screams, like Scrub in the play,2
“Thieves! Jesuits! Popery!” night and day;
Takes the Printer’s Devil for Doctor Dens,
And shies at him heaps of High-church pens;3
Which the Devil (himself a touchy Dissenter)
Feels all in his hide, like arrows, enter.
‘Stead of swallowing wholesome stuff from the druggist’s,
He will keep raving of “Irish Thuggists;”4
Tells us they all go murdering for fun
From rise of morn till set of sun,
Pop, pop, as fast as a minute-gun!5
If askt, how comes it the gown and cassock are
Safe and fat, mid this general massacre —
How hap sit that Pat’s own population
But swarms the more for this trucidation —
He refers you, for all such memoranda,
To the “archives of the Propaganda!”
This is all we’ve got, for the present, to say —
But shall take up the subject some future day.
1 See Congreve’s “Love for Love.”
2 “Beaux’ Stratagem.”
3 “Pray, may we ask, has there been any rebellious movement of Popery in Ireland, since the planting of the Ulster colonies, in which something of the kind was not visible among the Presbyterians of the north.” — Quarterly Review.
4 “Lord Lorton, for instance, who, for clearing his estate of a village of Irish Thuggists,” etc. — Quarterly Review.
5 “Observe how murder after murder is committed like minute-guns.” — Ibid.
GRAND DINNER OF TYPE AND CO.
A POOR POET’S DREAM.1
As I sate in my study, lone and still,
Thinking of Sergeant Talfourd’s Bill,
And the speech by Lawyer Sugden made,
In spirit congenial, for “the Trade,”
Sudden I sunk to sleep and lo!
Upon Fancy’s reinless nightmare flitting,