’Tis known to all the world in common,
How politics and party strife
Vex public, even private, life;
But, till some days ago, at least
They never worried brutal beast.
I wish you could have seen the creature,
A tame domestic boar by nature,
Gone wild as boar that ever grunted,
By Baron Hoggerhausen hunted.
His back was up, and on its ledge
The bristles rose like quickset hedge;
His eye was fierce and red as coal,
Like furnace, shining through a hole,
And restless turn’d for mischief seeking;
His very hide with rage was reeking;
And oft he gnash’d his crooked tusks,
Chewing his tongue instead of husks,
Till all his jaw was white and yesty,
Showing him savage, fierce, and resty.
And what had caused this mighty vapour?
A dirty fragment of a paper,
That in his rambles he had found,
Lying neglected on the ground;
A relic of the Morning Post,
Two tattered columns at the most,
But which our irritated swine
(Derived from Learned Toby’s line)
Digested easy as his meals,
Like any quidnunc Cit at Peel’s.
He read, and mused, and pored and read,
His shoulders shrugg’d, and shook his head;
Now at a line he gave a grunt,
Now at a phrase took sudden stunt,
And snorting turn’d his back upon it,
But always came again to con it;
In short he petted up his passion,
After a very human fashion,
When Temper’s worried with a bone
She’ll neither like nor let alone.
At last his fury reach’d the pitch
Of that most irritating itch,
When mind and will, in fever’d faction,
Prompt blood and body into action;
No matter what, so bone and muscle
May vent the frenzy in a bustle;
But whether by a fight or dance
Is left to impulse and to chance.
So stood the Boar, in furious mood
Made up for any thing but good;
He gave his tail a tighter twist,
As men in anger clench the fist,
And threw fresh sparkles in his eye
From the volcano in his fry--
Ready to raze the parish pound,
To pull the pigsty to the ground,
To lay Squire Giles, his master, level,
Ready, indeed, to play the devil.
So, stirr’d by raving demagogues,
I’ve seen men rush, like rabid dogs,
Stark staring from the Pig and Whistle,
And like his Boarship, in a bristle,
Resolved unanimous on rumpus
From any quarter of the compass;
But whether to duck Aldgate Pump,
(For wits in madness never jump)
To liberate the beasts from Cross’s;
Or hiss at all the Wigs in Ross’s;
On Waithman’s column hang a weeper;
Or tar and feather the old sweeper;
Or break the panes of landlord scurvy,
And turn the King’s Head topsy-turvy;
Rebuild, or pull down, London Wall;
Or take his cross from old Saint Paul;
Or burn those wooden Highland fellows,
The snuff-men’s idols, ‘neath the gallows!
None fix’d or cared--but all were loyal
To one design--a battle royal.
Thus stood the Boar, athirst for blood,
Trampling the Morning Post to mud,
With tusks prepared to run a muck;--
And sorrow for the mortal’s luck
That came across him Whig or Tory,
It would have been a tragic story--
But fortune interposing now,
Brought Bessy into play--a Sow;--
A fat, sleek, philosophic beast
That never fretted in the least,
Whether her grains were sour or sweet,
For grains are grains, and she could eat.
Absorb’d in two great schemes capacious,
The farrow and the farinaceous,
If cares she had, they could not stay,
She drank, and _wash’d_ them all away.
In fact this philosophic sow
Was very like a German frow;
In brief--as wit should be and fun,--
If sows turn Quakers, she was one;
Clad from the duckpond, thick and slab,
In bran-new muddy suit of drab.
To still the storm of such a lubber,
She came like oil--at least like blubber--
Her pigtail of as passive shape
As ever droop’d o’er powder’d nape;
Her snout, scarce turning up--her deep
Small eyes half settled into sleep;
Her ample ears, dependent, meek,
Like fig-leaves shading either cheek;
Whilst, from the corner of her jaw,
A sprout of cabbage, green and raw,
Protruded,--as the Dove, so stanch
For Peace, supports an olive branch,--
Her very grunt, so low and mild,
Like the soft snoring of a child,
Inquiring into his disquiets,
Served like the Riot Act, at riots,--
He laid his restive bristles flatter,
And took to arguefy the matter.
“O Bess, O Bess, here’s heavy news!
They mean to ‘mancipate the Jews!
Just as they turn’d the blacks to whites,
They want to give them equal rights,
And, in the twinkling of a steeple,
Make Hebrews quite like other people.
Here, read--but I forget your fetters,
You’ve studied litters more than letters.”
“Well,” quoth the Sow, “and no great miss,
I’m sure my ignorance is bliss;
Contentedly I bite and sup,
And never let my flare flare-up;
Whilst you get wild and fuming hot--
What matters Jews be Jews or not?
Whether they go with beards like Moses,
Or barbers take them by the noses,
Whether they live, permitted dwellers,
In Cheapside shops, or Rag Fair cellars,
Or climb their way to civic perches,
Or go to synagogues or churches?”
“Churches!--ay, there the question grapples,
No, Bess, the Jews will go to Chappell’s!”
“To chapel--well--what’s that to you?
A Berkshire Boar, and not a Jew?
We pigs,--remember the remark
Of our old drover Samuel Slark,
When trying, but he tried in vain,
To coax me into Sermon Lane,
Or Paternoster’s pious Row,--
But still I stood and grunted No!
Of Lane of Creed an equal scorner,
Till bolting off, at Amen Corner,
He cried, provoked at my evasion,
‘Pigs, blow ’em! ar’n’t of no persuasion!’”
“The more’s the pity, Bess--the more--”
Said, with sardonic grin, the Boar;
“If Pigs were Methodists and Bunyans,
They’d make a sin of sage and onions;
The curse of endless flames endorse
On every boat of apple-sauce;
Give brine to Satan, and assess
Blackpuddings with bloodguiltiness;
Yea, call down heavenly fire and smoke
To burn all Epping into coke!”
“Ay,” cried the Sow, extremely placid,
In utter contrast to his acid,
“Ay, that would be a Sect indeed!
And every swine would like the creed,
The sausage-making curse and all;
And should some brother have a call,
To thump a cushion to that measure,
I would sit under him with pleasure;
Nay, put down half my private fortune
T’ endow a chapel at Hog’s Norton.--
But what has this to do, my deary,
With their new Hebrew whigmaleery?”
“Sow that you are! this Bill, if current,
Would be as good as our death-warrant;--
And, with its legislative friskings,
Loose twelve new tribes upon our griskins!
Unjew the Jews, what follows then?
Why, they’ll eat pork like other men,
And you shall see a Rabbi dish up
A chine as freely as a Bishop!
Thousands of years have pass’d, and pork
Was never stuck on Hebrew fork;
But now, suppose that relish rare
Fresh added to their bill of fare,
Fry, harslet, pettitoes, and chine,
Leg, choppers, bacon, ham, and loin,
And then, beyond all goose or duckling”--
“Yes, yes--a little tender suckling!
It must be held the aptest savour
To make the eager mouth to slaver!
Merely to look on such a gruntling,
A plump, white, sleek and sappy runtling,
It makes one--ah! remembrance bitter!
It made me eat my own dear litter!”
“Think, then, with this new waken’d fury,
How we should fare if tried by _Jewry_!
A pest upon the meddling Whigs!
There’ll be a pretty run on pigs!
This very morn a Hebrew brother
With three hats stuck on one another,
And o’er his arm a bag, or poke,
A thing pigs never find a joke,
Stopp’d--rip the fellow!--though he knew
I’ve neither coat to sell nor shoe,
And cock’d his nose--right at me, lovey!
Just like a pointer at a covey!
To set our only friends agin us!
That neither care to fat nor thin us!
To boil, to broil, to roast, or fry us,
But act like real Christians by us!--
A murrain on all legislators!
Thin wash, sour grains, and rotten ’taters!
A bulldog at their ears and tails!
The curse of empty troughs and pails
Famish their flanks as thin as weasels!
May all their children have the measles;
Or in the straw untimely smother,
Or make a dinner for the mother!
A cartwhip for all law inventors!
And rubbing-posts stuck full of tenters!
Yokes, rusty rings, and gates, to hitch in
And parish pounds to pine the flitch in,
Cold, and high winds, the Devil send ’em--
And then may Sam the Sticker end ’em!”
’Twas strange to hear him how he swore!
A Boar will curse, though like a boar,
While Bess, like Pity, at his side
Her swine-subduing voice supplied!
She bade him such a rage discard;
That anger is a foe to lard;
’Tis bad for sugar to get wet,
And quite as bad for fat to fret;
“Besides,”--she argued thus at last--
“The Bill you fume at has not pass’d,
For why, the Commons and the Peers
Have come together by the ears:
Or rather, as we pigs repose,
One’s tail beside the other’s nose,
And thus, of course, take adverse views
Whether of Gentiles or of Jews.
Who knows? They say the Lords’ ill-will
Has thrown out many a wholesome Bill,
And p’rhaps some Peer to Pigs propitious
May swamp a measure so _Jew-dish-us_!”
The Boar was conquer’d: at a glance,
He saw there really was a chance--
That as the Hebrew nose is hooked,
The Bill was equally as crooked;
And might outlast, thank party embers,
A dozen tribes of Christian members;--
So down he settled in the mud,
With smoother back, and cooler blood,
As mild, as quiet, a Blue Boar,
As any over tavern-door.
MORAL.
The chance is small that any measure
Will give all classes equal pleasure;
Since Tory Ministers or Whigs,
Sometimes can’t even “please the Pigs.”
A FLYING VISIT.
“A Calendar! a Calendar! look in the Almanac, find out
moonshine--find out moonshine!”--_Midsummer Night’s Dream._
The by-gone September,
As folks may remember,
At least if their memory saves but an ember,
One fine afternoon,
There went up a Balloon,
Which did not return to the Earth very soon.
For, nearing the sky,
At about a mile high,
The Aëronaut bold had resolved on a fly;
So cutting his string,
In a Parasol thing,
Down he came in a field like a lark from the wing.
Meanwhile, thus adrift,
The Balloon made a shift
To rise very fast, with no burden to lift;
It got very small,
Then to nothing at all;
And then rose the question of where it would fall?
Some thought that, for lack
Of the man and his pack,
’Twould rise to the Cherub that watches Poor Jack;
Some held, but in vain,
With the first heavy rain,
’Twould surely come down to the Gardens again!
But still not a word
For a month could be heard
Of what had become of the Wonderful Bird:
The firm Gye and Hughes,
Wore their boots out and shoes,
In running about and inquiring for news.
Some thought it must be
Tumbled into the Sea;
Some thought it had gone off to High Germanie:
For Germans, as shown
By their writings, ’tis known
Are always delighted with what is high-flown.
Some hinted a bilk,
And that maidens who milk,
In far distant Shires would be walking in silk:
Some swore that it must,
“As they said at the _fust_,
Have gone again’ flashes of lightning and _bust_!”
However, at last,
When six weeks had gone past,
Intelligence came of a plausible cast;
A wondering clown,
At a hamlet near town,
Had seen “like a moon of green cheese” coming down.
Soon spread the alarm,
And from cottage and farm,
The natives buzz’d out like the bees when they swarm;
And off ran the folk,--
It is such a good joke
To see the descent of a bagful of smoke.
And lo! the machine,
Dappled yellow and green,
Was plainly enough in the clouds to be seen:
“Yes, yes,” was the cry,
“It’s the old one, sure_ly_,
Where _can_ it have been such a time in the sky?
“Lord! where will it fall?
It can’t find out Vauxhall,
Without any pilot to guide it at all!”
Some wager’d that Kent
Would behold the event,
Debrett had been posed to _predict_ its “descent.”
Some thought it would pitch
In the old Tower Ditch,
Some swore on the Cross of St. Paul’s it would hitch,
And Farmers cried “Zounds!
If it drops on our grounds,
We’ll try if Balloons can’t be put into pounds!”
But still to and fro
It continued to go,
As if looking out for soft places below--
No difficult job,
It had only to bob
Slap-dash down at once on the heads of the mob:
Who, too apt to stare
At some castle in air,
Forget that the earth is their proper affair;
Till, watching the fall
Of some soap-bubble ball,
They tumble themselves with a terrible sprawl.
Meanwhile, from its height
Stooping downward in flight,
The Phenomenon came more distinctly in sight:
Still bigger and bigger,
And strike me a nigger
Unfreed, if there was not a live human figure!
Yes, plain to be seen,
Underneath the machine,
There dangled a mortal--some swore it was Green;
Some Mason could spy;
Others named Mr. Gye;
Or Hollond, compell’d by the Belgians to fly.
’Twas Graham the flighty,
Whom the Duke high and mighty,
Resign’d to take care of his own lignum-vitæ;
’Twas Hampton, whose whim
Was in Cloudland to swim,
Till e’en Little Hampton look’d little to him!
But all were at fault;
From the heavenly vault
The falling balloon came at last to a halt;
And bounce! with the jar
Of descending so far,
An outlandish Creature was thrown from the car!
At first with the jolt
All his wits made a bolt,
As if he’d been flung by a mettlesome colt;
And while in his faint,
To avoid all complaint,
The Muse shall endeavour his portrait to paint.
The face of this elf,
Round as platter of delf,
Was pale as if only a cast of itself:
His head had a rare
Fleece of silvery hair,
Just like the Albino at Bartlemy Fair.
His eyes they were odd,
Like the eyes of a cod,
And gave him the look of a watery God.
His nose was a snub;
Under which for his grub,
Was a round open mouth like to that of a chub.
His person was small,
Without figure at all,
A plump little body as round as a ball:
With two little fins,
And a couple of pins,
With what has been christen’d a bow in the shins.
His dress it was new,
A full suit of sky-blue--
With bright silver buckles in each little shoe--
Thus painted complete,
From his head to his feet,
Conceive him laid flat in Squire Hopkins’s wheat.
Fine text for the crowd!
Who disputed aloud
What sort of a creature had dropp’d from the cloud--
“He’s come from o’er seas,
He’s a Cochin Chinese--
By jingo! he’s one of the wild Cherookees!”
“Don’t nobody know?”
“He’s a young Esquimaux,
Turn’d white like the hares by the Arctical snow.”
“Some angel, my dear,
Sent from some upper _spear_
For Plumtree or Agnew, too good for this-here!”
Meanwhile, with a sigh,
Having open’d one eye,
The Stranger rose up on his seat by and by;
And finding his tongue,
Thus he said, or he sung,
“_Mi criky bo biggamy kickery bung!_”
“Lord! what does he speak?”
“It’s Dog-Latin--it’s Greek!”
“It’s some sort of slang for to puzzle a Beak!”
“It’s no like the Scotch,”
Said a Scot on the watch,
“Phoo! it’s nothing at all but a kind of hotch-potch!”
“It’s not parly voo,”
Cried a schoolboy or two,
“Nor Hebrew at all,” said a wandering Jew.
Some held it was sprung
From the Irvingite tongue,
The same that is used by a child very young.
Some guess’d it high Dutch,
Others thought it had much
In sound of the true Hoky-poky-ish touch;
But none could be poz,
What the Dickens (not Boz),
No mortal could tell what the Dickens it was!
When who should come pat,
In a moment like that,
But Bowring, to see what the people were at--
A Doctor well able,
Without any fable,
To talk and translate all the babble of Babel.
So just drawing near,
With a vigilant ear,
That took ev’ry syllable in, very clear,
Before one could sip
Up a tumbler of flip,
He knew the whole tongue from the root to the tip!
Then stretching his hand,
As you see Daniel stand,
In the Feast of Belshazzar, that picture so grand!
Without more delay,
In the Hamilton way
He English’d whatever the Elf had to say.
“_Krak kraziboo ban_,
I’m the Lunatic Man,
Confined in the Moon since creation began--
_Sit muggy bigog_,
Whom, except in a fog,
You see with a Lantern, a Bush, and a Dog.
“_Lang sinery lear_,
For this many a year,
I’ve long’d to drop in at your own little sphere,--
_Och, pad-mad aroon_,
Till one fine afternoon,
I found that Wind-Coach on the horns of the Moon.
“_Cush quackery go_,
But, besides you must know,
I’d heard of a profiting Prophet below;
_Big botherum blether_,
Who pretended to gather
The tricks that the Moon meant to play with the weather.
“_So Crismus an crash_,
Being shortish of cash,
I thought I’d a right to partake of the hash--
_Slik mizzle an smak_,
So I’m come with a pack,
To sell to the trade, of my own Almanack.
“_Fiz, bobbery pershal_,
Besides aims commercial,
Much wishing to honour my friend Sir John Herschel,
_Cum puddin and tame_,
It’s inscribed to his name,
Which is now at the full in celestial fame.
“_Wept wepton wish wept_,
Pray this Copy accept”--
But here on the Stranger some Kidnappers leapt:
For why? a shrewd man
Had devis’d a sly plan
The Wonder to grab for a show Caravan.
So plotted, so done--
With a fight as in fun,
While mock pugilistical rounds were begun,
A knave who could box,
And give right and left knocks,
Caught hold of the Prize by his silvery locks.
And hard he had fared,
But the people were scared
By what the Interpreter roundly declared:
“You ignorant Turks!
You will be your own Burkes--
He holds all the keys of the lunary works!
“You’d best let him go--
If you keep him below,
The Moon will not change, and the tides will not flow;
He left her at full,
And with such a long pull,
Zounds! ev’ry man Jack will run mad like a bull!”
So awful a threat
Took effect on the set;
The fright, tho’, was more than their Guest could forget;
So taking a jump,
In the car he came plump,
And threw all the ballast right out in a lump.
Up soar’d the machine,
With its yellow and green;
But still the pale face of the Creature was seen,
Who cried from the car,
“_Dam in yooman bi gar!_”
That is,--“What a sad set of villains you are!”
Howbeit, at some height,
He threw down quite a flight
Of Almanacks, wishing to set us all right--
And, thanks to the boon,
We shall see very soon
If Murphy knows most, or the Man in the Moon!
A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS.
“Glorious Apollo, from on high behold us.”--OLD SONG.
As latterly I chanced to pass
A Public House, from which, alas!
The Arms of Oxford dangle!
My ear was startled by a din,
That made me tremble in my skin,
A dreadful hubbub from within,
Of voices in a wrangle--
Voices loud, and voices high,
With now and then a party-cry,
Such as used in times gone by
To scare the British border;
When foes from North and South of Tweed--
Neighbours--and of Christian creed--
Met in hate to fight and bleed,
Upsetting Social Order.
Surprised, I turn’d me to the crowd,
Attracted by that tumult loud,
And ask’d a gazer, beetle-brow’d,
The cause of such disquiet.
When lo! the solemn-looking man,
First shook his head on Burleigh’s plan,
And then, with fluent tongue, began
His version of the riot:
A row!--why yes,--a pretty row, you might hear from this to Garmany,
And what is worse, it’s all got up among the Sons of Harmony,
The more’s the shame for them as used to be in time and tune,
And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in June!
Ah! many a pleasant chant I’ve heard in passing here along,
When Swiveller was President a-knocking down a song;
But Dick’s resign’d the post, you see, and all them shouts and hollers
Is ‘cause two other candidates, some sort of larned scholars,
Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!
Lord knows their names, I’m sure I don’t, no more than any yokel,
But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal;
Nay, some do say, although of course the public rumour varies,
They’ve no more warble in ’em than a pair of hen canaries,
Though that might pass if they were dabs at t’other sort of thing,
For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot sing;
But lork! it’s many folk’s belief they’re only good at prosing,
For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their composing;
And when a piece of poetry has stood its public trials,
If pop’lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials,
And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey,
It’s chanted like the “Dog’s Meat Man,” or “If I had a Donkey.”
Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither,
No ballad--worth a ha’penny--has ever come from either,
And him as writ “Jim Crow,” he says, and got such lots of dollars,
Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.
Howsomever that’s the meaning of the squabble that arouses,
This neighbourhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of Houses,
Who want to have their dinners and their parties, as is reason
In Christian peace and charity according to the season.
But from Number Thirty-Nine--since this electioneering job,
Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there’s an everlasting mob;
Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creature passes by,
But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye;
And a pretty noise there is!--what with canvassers and spouters,
For in course each side is furnish’d with its backers and its touters;
And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried,
You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married;
Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms,
If you’re dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from the “Arms;”
While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their scholars,
To write about a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.
Well, that, sir, is the racket; and the more the sin and shame
Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same;
Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup,--
But they’ll be the House’s ruin, or the shutting of it up,
With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears,
While they’ve damaged many articles and broken lots of squares,
And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother,
By throwing _Morning Heralds_, _Times_, and _Standards_ at each other;
Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn’t to repeat,
And the names they call each other--for I’ve heard ’em in the street--
Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and Vipers, and what not,
For Pasley and his divers ain’t so blowing-up a lot.
And then such awful swearing!--for there’s one of them that cusses
Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition ‘busses;
For he cusses every member that’s agin him at the poll,
As I wouldn’t cuss a donkey, tho’ it hasn’t got a soul;
And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob or Jim,
To the babby in the cradle, if they don’t agree with him.
Whereby, altho’ as yet they have not took to use their fives,
Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives,
I’m bound there’ll be some milling yet, and shakings by the collars,
Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!
To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall,
Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call--
And as if there wasn’t Whigs enough and Tories to fall out,
Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about,--
Why, a Cornfield is sufficient, sir, as anybody knows,
For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows--
Not to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews,
To agitate society and loosen all its screws;
And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres,--
But it’s not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears.
And as to College larning, my opinion for to broach,
And I’ve had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach,
And so knows the University, and all as there belongs,
And he says that Oxford’s famouser for sausages than songs,
And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant,
As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want,
Or other Tavern Melodists I can’t just call to mind--
But it’s not the classic system for to propagate the kind,
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!
For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice,
It’s the best among the vocalists I’d honour with the choice;
Or a Poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch;
Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch;
Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics--
And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec’s.
But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud,
And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd,
Have brought their jangling voices, as far as they can compass,
Have turn’d a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus,
And him as knows most hymns--altho’ I can’t see how it follers--
They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!