CANTO IV.

GRAND ATTACK!

ARGUMENT.

Great Caustic, finding logic sound,

The conjuring crew will not confound,

Like an indignant hero blusters,

The MIGHTY ROYAL COLLEGE musters;

Joins to your worships’ powerful phalanx

“Death-doing” quacks, and men of all ranks!

A bolder, and more desperate host,

Than jacobinic France can boast;

Then marches to o’erturn and knock dead

Each tractoring Perkinistic blockhead;

Their INSTITUTION next attacking,

He sends them all to Satan--packing!

Our ’foresaid MANIFESTO first done,

Which shows our cause a good and just one;

The _boldest_ sons of Galen call on,[101]

That they with fire and fury fall on!

Sound Discord’s jarring tocsin louder,

Than Howard’s fulminating powder:[102]

Then into battle like brave men go,

Who late were “kill’d off,” at Marengo.[103]

But choose a chief before you start,

A bully bold as Buonapart’;

And to make sure of well succeeding,

Another chap like Charles of Sweden.

Step forth thou POTENT PRINCE OF PUFFERS!

Thou modern Hercules of Huffers!

Whose name, as Sternhold used to say,

Will ring “for ever--and a day;”

For thou canst sound (a thing the oddest,

Since an arch quaker should be modest,

And never meddle with a _strumpet_[104])

Thine own great name on _Fame’s_ brass trumpet.

And soon that name’s continuous roar

Shall roll sublime from shore to shore;

Among th’ antipodes, be known,

And _blaze_ through either _frozen_ zone.[105]

No more shall merciless reviewers,

Stick full of satire’s savage skewers

The mighty chief of whom I’m boasting,

As one would spit a _goose_ for roasting.[106]

For should they raise with dire misprision,

’Gainst thee one finger in derision;

This right hand rudest doggrel’s club in,

Shall give the knaves a dreadful drubbing.

But thou, the leader of our throng,

Shalt glitter in a future song,

Which I intend to raise sonorous,

And QUACK! QUACK!! QUACK!!! shall be the chorus.

Then, had I money, I would bet some,

And faith I’ll do it (when I get some)

One half a guinea, sirs (a net sum)

They’ll fall before great doctor Lettsom.[107]

Thou too, famed KNIGHT OF HORRID FIGURE!

With wig than bushel-basket bigger;

Which, in its orbit vast, contains,

At least a thimble full of brains;

Come on, with lion heart, like Hector,

And phiz resembling monkey’s spectre;

Prepare the batteries of thy journal,[108]

To blast with infamy eternal.

In medical societies pour

Forth all thy wonted _learned_ lore:

Tell the vile deeds by quackery done,

By every nostrum, save _thine own_.[109]

For thou didst play the hero rarely,

At Westminster, when routed fairly;

Thy genius show’d such vast resources,

’Gainst Belgraves, Colquhouns, Wilberforces![110]

Though hunted down, thou would’st not yield;

Though trodden on, didst keep the field.

Thus Witherington, in doleful dumps,

For lack of legs, fought stout on stumps!

And could’st thou, pertinacious Bradley,

But maul these mutton heads most sadly,

Soon might thy wig (the people staring)

_All_ in a chariot take an airing![111]

Led on by chieftains so redoubted,

These vile Perkineans must be routed;

Then, if in future people be sick,

They’ll worship us, the gods of physic.

Why stand ye now, like drones, astounded,

The weapons of your warfare grounded?

Arm’d _cap-a-pe_, like heroes rush on,

And crush this reptile institution.

But first, to make the bigger bluster,

Join every quack that you can muster,

Some place in rear, and some in front on,

From Brodum down to _gaseous_ Thornton.[112]

Now, when the foe you first get sight on,

Shout CA IRA, and then rush right on;

And make as terrible a racket,

As ever did a woman’s clack yet,

For should you sound a loud alarum,

Perhaps you may so sadly scare ’em,

Like frighted sheep, they’ll huddle right in

The Old Nick’s den, without much fighting.

Just so a gang of Indian savages,

When they set out to make great ravages,

With war-whoop fright their foes (God help ’em)

And then proceed to kill and scalp ’em.

Prudence, by Doctor Caustic’s test,

A sneaking virtue is at best,

Then drive ahead by hook and crook,

Like lions, leap before you look.

But stop, ere further we proceed,

To set forth every mighty deed,

We must exchange (tho’ horror stiffen ye)

Our Clio for a fell Tisiphone!

For when we do these wretches batter,

’Twill be no water gruel matter;

And you’ll agree then, I assure ye,

Our muse is well changed for a fury.

Thou sprite! thou hag! thou witch! thou spectre!

Friend Southey’s crony and protector:

Who led the bard, with Joan of Arc,

Through death’s deep, dreary, dungeon dark!

Until ye were, I dare be bound,

Near half a mile down under ground;

Mid screeching ghosts and dragons dreadful,

As e’er filled dreaming madman’s head full!

And, after mighty perils past,

On Terra Firma, got at last,

Didst dub thy jacobin toad eater

The “Thalaba” of English metre.[113]

And set the bard to brew a mess

Of horror in a wilderness,

So wondrous horrible, indeed it

Might make one faint away to read it!

Thence sent him under “_rooted waves_”

Adown through vast Domdaniel caves,[114]

In which the metre man and Thalaba,

Had like to have been lost infallibly:

But were translated in a trice

To monsieur Mahomet’s paradise,[115]

There to enjoy, with Houri-ladies,

A whole eternity of play days.

Give me in proper tone to tell,

Between a mutter and a yell,

How best our fierce avenging choler

May do dire deeds of doleful dolor.

Come on! Begin the grand attack

With aloes, squills, and ipacac;

And then with clyster-pipe and squirt-gun,

There will be monstrous deal of hurt done!

Each wry-faced rogue, and dirty trollop,

Must well be dosed with drastic jalap,

And though their insides you should call up,

Still make the numskulls take it all up.

Cram all the ninny-hammers’ gullets,

With pills as big as pistol bullets;

And mingle mercury enough

To season well your doctor’s stuff.

Dash at them escharotics gnawing,

Their carcases to pick a flaw in;

Of nitrous acid huge carboys,

Filled to the brim, like Margate hoys.

Thus when the Greeks with their commander,

That fighting fellow, Alexander,

Set out one morning, full of ire,

To take and burn the town of Tyre;

A patriotic stout old woman

Looked out, and saw the chaps a coming;

When on a sudden she bethought her

To heat a kettle full of water;

And as they went to climb the ladder,

(Sure never vixen could be madder,

But so the historian of the fray says)

She fired her water in their faces!

But to return to _our_ great battle;

Now rant! rave! roar! and rend! and rattle![116]

Like earth-born giants when they strove,

To pull the ears of thundering Jove!

Pelt the vile foe with weapons missile;

Make vials round their sconces whistle;

Shower on them a tremendous torrent,

Of gallipots and bottles horrent.

Make at ’em now like mad Mendozas;

With forceps pinch and pull their noses,

With tourniquet and dire tooth-drawers,

First gird their necks, then break both jaws.

But lo! they bid our dread alliance

Of doctors, quacks, and drugs defiance;

And, firm as host of cavaliers,

Convert their tractors into spears!

See host to host and man to man set!

A tractor each, and each a lancet!

Each meets his foe, so fierce attacks him!

That sure some god or demon backs him!

Fell Ate’s shriek the world alarms!

Bellona bellows “ARMS! TO ARMS!”

War’s demon dire, a great red dragon,

Drives, Jehu-like, Death’s iron wagon!![117]

Loud shouts and dismal yells arise!

Rend the blue “blanket” of the skies![118]

Grim Horror’s scream and Fury’s frantic

Howl might be heard across the Atlantic!!

Although a comet’s tail should hap

To give our globe a fatal slap,

The “crush of worlds” and “wreck of matter”

Would make ten thousand times less clatter!

Thus high in air two different kinds

Of monsieur Volney’s warring winds

Commence a most impetuous battle,

And round the Blue Ridge make all rattle.[119]

Loud, loud they bellow, blow and bluster,

With all the power that all can muster;

Harsh hurtle, howl, and hiss, but neither

Will yield his foe an inch of ether.

Now to the wretches give no quarter,

Pound them in indignation’s mortar;

Let not the women nor the men chance

To ’scape the pestle of your vengeance!

Make cerebrum and cerebellum,

To rattle like a roll of vellum,

And occiput of every numhead,

To sound as loud as kettle-drum head.

With fell trepaning perforator,

Pierce every puppy’s paltry pate, or

With chissel plied with might and main,

Punch a huge hole in pericrane.

And with a most tremendous process,

With power of elephant’s proboscis,

At once crush dura, pia mater,

As one would mash a boil’d potato!

Pelt, pulverize the rogues with shocks

Like those from moon-disploded rocks,

Sent from that mischief-making planet,

Huge, hissing hot, and hard as granite.[120]

Now, with harsh amputating saw,

Slash frontal os from under jaw;

And make a wound, by cutting slant down,

For doctor Tasker to descant on.[121]

Attack Medulla, hight Spinalis,

From where the head to where the tail is;[122]

Till every bone displays a fracture

Of scientific manufacture.

Thus Virgil tells of sturdy fellows,

Dares ycleped, and old Entellus,

Who, with a pair of iron mittens,

Attack’d each other, like true Britons.

Entellus, stout as Hob the giant,

Made horrid work, you may rely on’t;

Exceeding mightiest verse or prose deed,

Knock’d out two teeth, and made his nose bleed!

And now, with desperate trocar,

Urge on the dreadful “tug of war;”

And, having punch’d them in the crop, say

You meant to tap them for the dropsy.

With burning lapis infernalis,[123]

Convince them human nature frail is;

And taunting, tell them they’re afflicted,

Because they are to sin addicted.

With scalprum scrape off epidermis

And cuticle (I think the term is)

And all the nerves and muscles various,

Because, say you, their bones, are carious.

Thus rocks of primitive creation

Are worn down by disintegration,

Until the mountain mass is brought

To 99 times less than 0.

And when reduced to that condition,

By some additional attrition,

They furnish, by their aggregation,

The pabulum of vegetation.

With antimonials make them sweat away;

Cram each snout full of asafœtida:

Then tell them that their case you fancied

Required some castor oil, so rancid.

And though the drug seem somewhat baleful

Give each a dose of half a pailful;

Then thank them not to make wry faces,

For mild cathartics suit their cases.

Dash at them nitrate, hight argentum,

And tell them, though it does torment ’em

That papists say that purgatory

Is but a passport into glory.

Thus monsieur Satan was quite merry,[124]

When erst, in Heaven, he raised old Harry;

With jokes and cannon, _in terrorem_,

Rush’d on and drove ’em all before him.

Stick your keen penetrating probes

Through right and left hepatic lobes;

And though you pierce the diaphragm,

You need not care a single d--n.

So Indians, when a captive’s taken,

And they resolve to fry his bacon,

Their savage torture to refine,

First stick him full of splinter’d pine.

Dissect a rogue or two alive,

For thus your worships may contrive

To trace the vital springs in action

Of nature’s movements to a fraction.

In fine, your worships will contrive

To leave not one vile wretch alive,

Except those dirty sons of witches,

Whom nature meant to dig in ditches.

But all who would not make most topping

Fellows to work in docks at Wapping,

Some way or other, sirs, I’d have ye

Give a quick passport to old Davy.

But if with all this blood and thunder,

The stubborn blockheads won’t knock under,

And e’en old women bravely wield

Their jordans like Achilles’ shield;

No more with these _our_ weapons dabble,

But raise a Lord-George-Gordon rabble;

Pour on the rogues, that they be undone,

The whole mobocracy of London!

Go, when I bid you, order out

A riotous and ragged rout

From dirty lane and alley dark

From Poplar corner to Hyde Park.

Come on, brave fellows, quick surround ’em;

With canes and cudgels punch and pound ’em;

Brick-bats and broom-sticks, all together,

Like coblers hammering sides of leather.

Brave Belcher, Lee, Mendoza, Bourke,

Let loose your fists in this great work!

Here’s fine amusement for your paws,

Without the dread of police laws.

Let not one Perkinite be found

Encumbering our British ground;

But keep on pelting, banging, mauling,

Until old Beelzy’s den they’re all in.

And I’ll be there and blow war’s trumpet:

Or with death’s kettle-drum will thump it,

Till all’s “confusion, worse confounded”

Than erst in Milton’s hell abounded.

Thus, when the Spartans were in trouble,

Tyrteus help’d them through their hobble,

By singing songs, to raise their courage,

All piping hot, as pepper-porridge.

These are the methods of “dead doing,”

By which to work the wizard’s ruin;

And when with Satan all such trash is,

We’ll rise, like Phenix, on its ashes.

Now, sirs, consent to my PETITION,

And send these varlets to perdition;

So for your weal and welfare, _post hic_,

Will ever pray--

CHRISTOPHER CAUSTIC.

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

No. I.

Fitted for female education.

Page 25. We are point blank opposed to allowing females any advantages

for education, which can possibly induce their ladyships to set up

for literata. “_Knowledge is Power_,” and whereas the “seraphic sex”

are prone to acquire knowledge with more facility, and communicate

it with more felicity than the rough samples of humanity with whom

Madam Destiny has had the impudence to connect them by ties (pretty

easily severed nowadays) we are amazingly apprehensive that ladies

will not only monopolize our trade of authorship, but usurp our

places in Church, State and Medicine. We have often shed cataracts of

tears (Della Crusca) over the following lines of Pope, which, though

addressed to lady Montague, will apply equally well to nine hundred

and ninety-nine other lady luminaries, in whose presence the light of

Dr CAUSTIC is like the glimmer of a glow worm in the glare of

sunshine.

“In beauty or wit

No mortal as yet

To question your empire has dared

But men of discerning

Have thought that in learning

To _yield to a woman is hard_.”

But with leave of the pope, we lords of the lower part of creation will

not “yield to a woman.” We will rather let Lord Bacon and the ladies

know, by dint of the right of the strongest, that knowledge _is not_

power, but that _physical strength is power_.

We are excessively provoked with the conductors of the North American

Review, who in the No. of that work, dated October, 1835, p. 430, have

reviewed, or rather eulogized certain Poems by Mrs Sigourney, and by

Miss Gould. And what makes such conduct the more preposterous is that

those ladies _deserve_ the encomiums of their admiring Reviewers.

They have, likewise, brought into bold relief a great number of

lady-authors, such as Miss Burney, Miss Edgworth, Miss Baillie, Miss

Martineau, Miss Mitford, Mrs Somerville, Mrs Hemans, Miss Sedgwick,

Miss Leslie, Mrs Child, Mrs Hale, &c., whose names and whose merits,

correct policy would have consigned to oblivion. Now, be it known, by

these presents, that the more merit there happens to be attached to a

lady-author, the more her productions should _not_ be taken honorable

notice of by a gentleman-critic.

No. II.

In foreign source of yellow fever.

Page 54. Some doctors, however, do not coincide in opinion with Dr

Caustic on this subject. Dr Miller, in a _“Report on the malignant

disease, which prevailed in New York, in the autumn of 1805,” has the

following passage_:

“We live in the latitude of pestilence, and our climate now perhaps

is only beginning to display its tendency to produce this terrible

scourge. The impurities which time and a police, rather moulded in

conformity to the usages of more northern countries than the exigencies

of our own, have been long accumulating, are now annually exposed

to the heats of a burning summer, and send forth exhalations of the

highest virulence.”

No. III.

Page 82, we told your worships, that Perkins was supported by Aldini,

and promised some additional remarks by way of illustrating our

assertion. We now intend to prove not only that we were correct in our

statement, but that light, heat or caloric, electricity, Galvanism,

Perkinism, animal spirits, the social feelings, especially when _love_

is concerned, and the stimulus of society, are all intimately connected

or different modifications of the same matter.

We will show that _light_ and _heat_ are the same thing in essence, by

the authority of some of our prime philosophers whom it would be heresy

to dispute or gainsay.

“Universal space,” says Dr Franklin, “so far as we know of it, seems

filled with a subtil fluid, whose motion, or vibration, is called light.

“This fluid may possibly be the same with that which attracted by

and entering into other more solid matter, dilates the substance, by

separating the constituent particles and so rendering some _solids

fluid_, and maintaining the fluidity of others; of which fluid when

our bodies are totally deprived, they are said to be frozen; when they

have a proper quantity they are in health, and fit to perform all their

functions; it is then called natural heat; when too much, it is called

fever; and when forced into the body in too great a quantity from

without, it gives pain by separating and destroying the flesh, and is

then called burning; and the fluid so entering and acting is called

fire.” _Transactions of the American Philosophical Society_, vol. iii.

p. 5, 6.

Now we will see what Lavoisier, according to Fourcroy, can tell us on

this subject.

“The comparison which the more modern philosophers, and particularly my

illustrious friend Monge, have established between _caloric and light_,

so as to consider these two effects as the _product of modifications of

the same body_, is entitled to much more attention. It is established

on a great number of experiments; it naturally and simply explains most

of the phenomena; and it agrees with the sublime economy of nature,

which multiplies effects much more than the bodies which produce them.

“Fire,” he continues, “is disengaged, and shows itself in the form of

_heat_, when it is gently and slowly driven out of bodies into the

composition of which it entered; but it shines in the form of _light_

when it flies out of compounds, in a very compressed state, by a swift

motion.

“According to this ingenious hypothesis, _caloric_ may become _light_,

and _light_ on the other hand may become _caloric_. For this purpose

it is only necessary that the first should assume more rapidity in its

motion, and the second undergo a diminution of velocity.” _Nicholsons’

Fourcroy_, vol. i. p. 57.

Our next step in this our wonderful process is to prove, that light,

which is the same as heat, may also be identified with _electricity_.

Here I shall produce the authority of a writer in the Encyclopædia

Britannica, who appears to be a very sound philosopher. Under the title

Electricity, article 83, you will find that gunpowder has been fired by

the electric blast; from which the writer reasons as follows.

“As it therefore appears, that the electric fluid, when it moves

through bodies either with great rapidity or in very great quantity

will set them on fire, _it seems scarce disputable_, that this fluid

is the same with the _element of fire_. This being once admitted, the

source from whence the electric fluid is derived into the earth and

atmosphere must be exceedingly evident, being no other than the sun

or source of light itself.” The writer then proceeds to show, that an

iron wire has been melted by the discharge of a battery of electricity,

and furnishes proofs which must convince the most incredulous, of the

correctness of his theory.

Thus far we have proceeded triumphantly in making it abundantly

evident that light, heat, and electricity are the same in substance;

so that if your worships will permeate this subject with due retention

and some small share of true philosophical perspicacity, you will find

that heat and electricity are the dregs or sediment of light, and by

digesting Dr Black’s theory of latent heat, you will find that the

matter of heat, light, and electricity exists in very vast abundance in

all bodies and substances.

We next will prove that Galvanism is a modification of electricity.

Here we will advert to the theory of Galvani and Aldini, as stated by

C. H. Wilkinson, lecturer on Galvanism in Soho square, Member of the

Royal College of Surgeons, &c. &c. This gentleman informs us, that “the

animal body is a description of _Leyden phial_, or magic battery, in

one part of which there is an excess of electricity, and in the other

a deficiency. _The conducting body communicates the fluid of the part

where it is abundant to the part_ where it is defective; and in this

passage of the electricity, the muscular contractions are obtained in

the same way as the discharges are produced by the Leyden phial or

magic batteries. As the _conducting bodies_ in electricity are the sole

agents in the discharge of the Leyden phial, so the same bodies alone

serve likewise to excite muscular contractions.” _Wilkinson’s Elements

of Galvanism_, p. 82.

We next will prove that Perkins’s points are the proper conductors of

animal electricity. From a specification which Mr Perkins published

in the Repertory of Arts, it would seem that _zinc_ is the principal

ingredient in the tractors.

“Zinc,” says Fourcroy, “is a conductor of electricity like all other

metals, and nothing particular has hitherto been discovered in it with

respect to this property; however, the _powerful manner in which it

effects the sensibility of the human body in Galvanic experiments seems

to give it herein a sort of prerogative_ or pre-eminence over other

metallic substances. If we place a plate of zinc under the tongue,

and cover the upper surface of this organ with another metal, and

especially a piece of gold or silver, and then incline the extremity

of this last, so as to approach it to the plate of zinc, at the moment

when the two metals come into contact with each other, the person who

performs the experiments feels a very perceptible pricking sensation,

heat, irritation, and a sort of acerb taste in the tongue, almost

always accompanied with a _momentous_ glare, or luminous circle, which

suddenly appears before his eyes. No metal produces this singular

effect with such force as zinc is observed to do.”

This animal electricity is likewise a modification of what we call

_animal spirits_, and may be termed the _stimulus of society_. That

this was well known to the wisest of men, is evident from this adage

of Solomon: “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance

of his friend.” The want of a proper communication among animal

Leyden phials is the cause of the gloom of the _solitaire_. The wish

to partake of the benefits of the stimulus of society makes man a

gregarious animal, and induces the human race to congregate in large

cities, and to be fond of routs, balls, assemblies, in which the

aforesaid human electric phials are beaming _animal electricity_ in

every direction, and thus a flow of animal spirits is communicated by a

pleasing contagion to all present.

When we see an animal Leyden phial superabounding with animal

electricity, we say it is a _spirited animal_. When said animal happens

to be a hero, a tiger, an irritated ram cat, or a black snake intent

on his game, visible flashes of electricity will blaze from the eyes,

and communicate very sensible shocks to a spectator. Thus the Gaul,

who was commanded to cut off the head of Marius, a celebrated Roman

general, and a personage full of the most _positive sort of animal

electricity_, received such a _stroke_ of lightning from the battery

of that hero’s head, and at the same time was so _thunderstruck_ with

the exclamation of “_Tune, homo, audes occidere Caium Marium?_” that

the dagger dropped bloodless from the hands of the ruthless assassin.

Thus Alexander, when hampered in the chief city of the Oxydracæ,

kept his foes at a distance by the fire that flashed from his eyes

in whole torrents of animal electricity. How often do we see a

Congressional spouter, or an itinerant field preacher _electrize_ a

large assembly by repeated discharges of this mysterious fluid. In all

cases of fanaticism it is mistaken for the fire of devotion, and causes

grimaces, contortions, convulsions, and other strange symptoms, which,

however, are easily accounted for by the theory of the “animal Leyden

phial.”

But the prettiest experiments ever made with animal electricity, I

have seen sometimes exhibited by a female philosopher to a levee

of her admirers. On such occasions, the lady’s eyes seem to be

fountains of _animal electricity_. This electricity, however, is not

_vitreous_ and _resinous_, but _positive_ and _negative_. The former

expressed by a _glance of approbation_, and the latter by a _flash of

disdain_. The different effects which discharges of these different

kinds of electricity exhibit in the subjects of experiment may be

rated among the most wonderful of phenomena. The former transports a

man, Southey-like, to “the atmosphere of the highest of all possible

heavens,” the latter sinks him “down! down! to the Domdaniel cave at

the roots of the ocean.” But as this is a branch of natural philosophy

to which, for forty years, past I have not paid the least attention,

I shall not attempt further to instruct your worships therein, but

refer you to the experiments so delectably set forth in the poems of

Little, Johannes Bonefonius, Secundus, and other adepts in that curious

science.

AN ODE.[125]

Ye sons of Columbia, unite in the cause

Of liberty, justice, religion, and laws;

Should foes then invade us, to battle we’ll hie,

For the GOD OF OUR FATHERS will be our ally!

Let Frenchmen advance,

And all Europe join France,

Designing our conquest and plunder;

United and free

For ever we’ll be,

And our cannon shall tell them in thunder,

That foes to our freedom we’ll ever defy,

Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!

When Britain assail’d us, undaunted we stood,

Defended the land we had purchased with blood,

Our liberty won, and it shall be our boast,

If the old world united should menace our coast:--

Should millions invade,

In terror array’d,

Our liberties bid us surrender,

Our country they’d find

With bayonets lined,

And Washington here to defend her,

For foes to our freedom we’ll ever defy

Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!

Should Buonapart’ come with his sans culotte band,

And a new sort of freedom we don’t understand,

And make us an offer to give us as much

As France has bestow’d on the Swiss and the Dutch,

His fraud and his force

Will be futile of course;

We wish for no _Frenchified_ freedom:

If folks beyond sea

Are to bid us be free,

We’ll send for them when we shall need ’em.

But sans culotte Frenchmen we’ll ever defy,

Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!

We’re anxious that Peace may continue her reign,

We cherish the virtues which sport in her train;

Our hearts ever melt, when the fatherless sigh,

And we shiver at Horror’s funereal cry;

But still, though we prize

That child of the skies,

We’ll never like slaves be accosted.

In a war of defence

Our means are immense,

And we’ll fight till our _all_ is exhausted:

For foes to our freedom we’ll ever defy,

Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!

The EAGLE of FREEDOM with rapture behold!

Overshadow our land with his plumage of gold!

The flood-gates of glory are open on high,

And Warren and Mercer descend from the sky!

They come from above

With a message of love,

To bid us be firm and decided;

“At liberty’s call,

Unite one and all,

For you conquer, unless you’re divided.

Unite, and the foes to your freedom defy,

Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry!”

“Americans, seek no occasion for war;

The rude deeds of rapine still ever abhor;

But if in defence of your rights you should arm,

Let toils ne’er discourage, nor dangers alarm.

For foes to your peace

Will ever increase,

If freedom and fame you should barter,

Let those rights be yours,

While nature endures,

For OMNIPOTENCE gave you the charter!”

Then foes to our freedom we’ll ever defy,

Till the continent sinks, and the ocean is dry.

THE MORNING.

Behold, my fair, the ruddy morn

Anticipate the day;

What beauteous tints the sky adorn,

And gild the azure way!

The sombre mists, which gloomy night

Had gather’d in the vale,

Are borne aloft, and wing their flight

Before the rising gale.

Now changed to clouds of varied hue,

In airy maze they dance;

Now sweep athwart the welkin blue,

And gem the gay expanse.

The plumy tenant of the grove

Is perch’d on yonder spray,

And serenades his little love

With sweetest roundelay.

To taste the pleasures of the morn

Is bliss without alloy,

Though fashion’s drowsy vot’ries scorn

To quaff the cup of joy.

But rise, my lovely charmer, rise

To greet the early ray,

And let my TERAMINTA’S eyes

Add lustre to the day.

AN ODE.[126]

ALMIGHTY POWER!--The ONE SUPREME!

Our souls inspire, attune our lays

With hearts as solemn as our theme,

To sing hosannas to thy praise!

Then, while we swell the sacred song,

And bid the pealing anthem rise

May seraphim the strain prolong,

And hymns of glory fill the skies.

Thy word omnific form’d this earth,

Ere time began revolving years--

Thy fiat gave to Nature birth,

And tuned to harmony the spheres.

When stern oppression’s iron hand,

Our pious fathers forced to roam,

And o’er the wild wave seek the land

Where freedom rears her hallow’d dome--

When tempests howl’d, and o’er the main,

Pale horror rear’d his haggard form;

Thou didst the fragile bark sustain

To stem the fury of the storm!

Thou badest the wilderness disclose

The varied sweets of vernal bloom--

The desert blossom’d like the rose,

And breath’d Arabia’s rich perfume!

Look down from heaven’s empyreal height,

And gild with smiles this happy day;

Send us some chosen SON OF LIGHT

Our feet to guide in wisdom’s way.

The sons of faction strike with awe,

And hush the din of party rage,

That LIBERTY, secured by LAW,

May realize a golden age.

On those thy choicest blessings shower

To whom the cares of State are given;

May Justice wield the sword of power,

TILL EARTH’S THE MINIATURE OF HEAVEN!

ON THE DEATH OF WASHINGTON.

Why moves to mournful measures slow

Yon sable retinue of wo,

With tearful eye and visage pale?

And why this universal gloom?

Sure Nature trembles o’er her tomb,

And bids her wilder’d children wail!

Do plagues infest, do wars alarm,

Has God in wrath made bare his arm,

To hurl his bolts of vengeance round?

Have towns been sack’d by hostile ire,

Have cities sunk in floods of fire,

While earthquakes shook the shuddering ground?

Ah! no, thy sons, Columbia, mourn

A hero past that fatal “bourn

From whence no traveller returns;”

Before him none more good, more great,

E’er felt the unerring shafts of fate,

Though glory’s lamp illume their urns.

Behold yon pallid war-worn chief,

A marble monument of grief,

Who once our troops to victory led;--

The burst of sorrow now control,

But now the tears of anguish roll,

A tribute to the _immortal dead_!

Fain would the muse those virtues scan,

Which dignified the godlike man,

And launch in seas without a shore;

But sure his name alone conveys

More than a thousand hymns of praise,

The matchless WASHINGTON’S no more!

DIRECTIONS FOR DOING POETRY.[127]

IN THE SIMPLE STYLE OF SOUTHEY, WORDSWORTH, AND

OTHER MODERN METRE MONGERS.

Supposing you would sing

About love in the Spring,

Something like this will be just the thing.

Tell the reader to behold

The gay

Tints of the cloud-dappled _morn_!

Then streak the azure with gems set in gold,

And bring into view

Some Tyrian hue,

Mix’d with indigo blue.

Then the meads must be _spangled_,

And glittering _grove_

With OCEANS of dew!

_Whew!!_

But now you must mind

That rhymes you must find

For lines left behind,

You therefore must _rove_,

Say

On any day

About the fag end of May,

And bid lilacs _adorn_

Your beautiful _morn_;

And the thickets must be tangled

For the sake of your _spangled_.

Now having found

Yourself on firm ground,

You may roam along the edges

Of hawthorn hedges;

Then bid beds of roses

And pretty pink posies

_Ravish_ our eyes and _captivate_ our noses!!!

Interweave, if you will,

The hyacinth and daffodil,

With now and then a big weed

Of purslain and of pig weed,

And add fragrant crops

Of potato tops,

And scatter, here and thereabout,

As many hops

As you may please to care about;

And, between whiles,

Say

That Nature smiles,

In her new holiday

Dress;--

Nevertheless,

These beauties so rare

Can never compare

With the dear little dove

With whom you’re in love.

Next glance a quick eye

To the flame cinctur’d, multihu’d arch in the sky;--

In our vernacular idiom call’d a rainbow,

Which perhaps the unpoetic reader would fain know.

Then _positively declare_,

That Amanda the fair,

Who really beats the Dutch,

Exceeds as much

All such

As does a fine lilac silk gown

The dirtiest grogram in town.

Then bid your muse higher fly,

And say your queen of lasses

Each country wench surpasses,

Yea, far more excels

Your Moggies and Nells,

Than doth the noontide blaze the scintillating fire fly.

HORACE SURPASSED.

How funny ’tis, when pretty lads and lasses

Meet altogether, just to have a caper,

And the black fiddler plays you such a tune as

Sets you a frisking.

High bucks and ladies, standing in a row all,

Make finer show than troops of continentals.

Balance and foot it, rigadoon and chasse,

Brimful of rapture.

Thus poets tell us how one Mister Orpheus

Led a rude forest to a contra-dance, and

Play’d the brisk tune of Yankee Doodle on a

New Holland fiddle.

Spruce our gallants are, essenced with pomatum,

Heads powder’d white as Killington-Peak snowstorm;[128]

Ladies, how brilliant, fascinating creatures,

All silk and muslin!

But now behold a sad reverse of fortune,

Life’s brightest scenes are checker’d with disaster,

Clumsy Charles Clumpfoot treads on Tabby’s gown, and

Tears all the tail off!

Stop, stop the fiddler, all away this racket--

Hartshorn and water! See the ladies fainting,

Paler than primrose, fluttering about like

Pigeons affrighted!

Not such the turmoil, when the sturdy farmer

Sees turbid whirlwinds beat his oats and rye down,

And the rude hail-stones, big as pistol-bullets,

Dash in his windows!

Willy Wagnimble dancing with Flirtilla,

Almost as light as air-balloon inflated,

Rigadoons round her, ’till the lady’s heart is

Forced to surrender.

Benny Bamboozle cuts the drollest capers,

Just like a camel, or a hippopot’mus,

Jolly Jack Jumble makes as big a rout as

Forty Dutch horses!

See Angelina lead the mazy dance down,

Never did fairy trip it so fantastic;

How my heart flutters, while my tongue pronounces

Sweet little seraph!

Such are the joys, that flow from contra-dancing,

Pure as the primal happiness of Eden,

Love, mirth, and music, kindle in accordance

Raptures extatic.

SONG.[129]

When cannons roar, when bullets fly,

And shouts and groans affright the sky,

Amid the battle’s dire alarms,

I’ll think, my Mary, on thy charms;

The crimson field

Fresh proof shall yield

Of thy fond soldier’s love;

And thy dear form

In battle’s storm

His guardian angel prove.

Should dangers thicken all around,

And dying warriors strew the ground,

In varied shapes, though death appear,

Thy fancied form my soul shall cheer;

The crimson field

Fresh proof shall yield

Of thy fond soldier’s love;

And thy dear form

In battle’s storm

His guardian angel prove.

And when loud cannons cease to roar,

And when the din of battle’s o’er,

When safe return’d from war’s alarms,

O then I’ll feast on Mary’s charms!

In ecstacy

I’ll fly to thee

My ardent passion prove,

Left glory’s field,

My life I’ll yield

To all the joys of love.

TABITHA TOWZER.

Miss Tabitha Towzer is fair,

No guinea-pig ever was neater,

Like a hakmatak slender and spare,

And sweet as a musk-squash, or sweeter.

Miss Tabitha Towzer is sleek,

When dress’d in her pretty new tucker,

Like an otter that paddles the creek,

In quest of a mud-pout, or sucker.[130]

Her forehead is smooth as a tray,

Ah! smoother than that, on my soul,

And turn’d, as a body may say,

Like a delicate neat wooden-bowl.

To what shall I liken her hair,

As straight as a carpenter’s line,

For similes sure must be rare,

When we speak of a nymph so divine.

Not the head of Nazarite seer,

That never was shaven or shorn,

Nought equals the locks of my dear

But the silk of an ear of green corn.

My dear has a beautiful nose,

With a sled-runner crook in the middle,

Which one would be led to suppose

Was meant for the head of a fiddle.

Miss Tabby has two pretty eyes,

Glass buttons shone never so bright,

Their love-lighted lustre outvies

The lightning-bug’s twinkle by night.

And oft with a magical glance,

She makes in my bosom a pother,

When leering politely askance,

She shuts one, and winks with the other.

The lips of my charmer are sweet,

As a hogshead of maple molasses,

And the ruby red tint of her cheek,

The gill of a salmon surpasses.

No teeth like her’s ever were seen,

Nor ever described in a novel,

Of a beautiful kind of pea-green,

And shaped like a wooden-shod-shovel.

Her fine little ears, you would judge,

Were wings of a bat in perfection;

A dollar I never should grudge

To put them in Peale’s grand collection.

Description must fail in her chin,

At least till our language is richer,

Much fairer than ladle of tin,

Or beautiful brown earthen pitcher.

So pretty a neck, I’ll be bound,

Never join’d head and body together,

Like nice crook’d neck’d squash on the ground,

Long whiten’d by winter-like weather.

Should I set forth the rest of her charms,

I might by some phrase that’s improper,

Give modesty’s bosom alarms,

Which I wouldn’t do for a copper.

Should I mention her gait or her air,

You might think I intended to banter;

She moves with more grace, you would swear,

Than a founder’d horse forced to a canter.

She sang with a beautiful voice,

Which ravish’d you out of your senses;

A pig will make just such a noise

When his hind-leg stuck fast in the fence is.

THE SPLENDORS OF THE SETTING SUN.

Sol, slowly sinking down the steep of heaven,

With softened splendor greets the musing eye,

Resigns his throne to “sober suited even,”

But decorates while he deserts the sky.

His noonday beams, insufferably bright,

Are now succeeded by a milder blaze,

And every slanting filament of light

Heaven’s kind and cheering effluence conveys.

Now let me wend my solitary way

Where groves and lawns present alternate charms;--

Gaze on the glories of the waning day,

Till night shall fold me in her dusky arms.

Mark how the clouds now glow like molten gold,

Now gleam like snow-banks, heap’d on banks of snow;

Now dash’d with azure, softer hues unfold,

Now shift and kindle to a furnace-glow!

Compared with these, what is the pride of art!

Your petty palaces and pigmy spires--

The paltry pageants of the noisy mart,

And all the city-connoisseur admires!

Should the whole race of man unite as one

To celebrate some glorious festal day,

The simple splendor of the setting sun

Would far surpass their most superb display.

THE SLEEP OF THE SLUGGARD.

O list to an indolent lump of live lumber,

Whom slothfulness binds with invisible bands,

A little more sleep, and a little more slumber,

A little more folding together the hands.

“I’ve a villainous cold--and my head, how it aches!

The north wind is blowing, and stings like a hornet,

And as to this rising as soon as day breaks,

’Tis a vile vulgar habit, and gentlemen scorn it.

“I’m none of those wretches, who labor for bread

Through foul or fair weather, whatever may hap,

I mean to enjoy both my table and bed,

So let me turn over and take t’other nap.

“I’ve money enough, and can live at my ease,

I cannot be caught in necessity’s trap,

Will sleep every day till the next, if I please,

And so will indulge in another good nap.”

His heavy hydropical carcase he turns,

And sinks in uneasy intemperate rest,

Till dim in his bosom the lamp of life burns,

While snorting with nightmare and plethora prest.

What horrible visions his bed hover o’er,

The phantoms of spleen, the blue devils dire,

Like Gorgons and Hydras of fabulous lore,

Or red dragons belching whole rivers of fire.

Now clings to the side of a prominent steep,

O’er a rough, roaring cataract hangs by a hair,

Now suddenly sinks in a bottomless deep,

And starts, half awake with a shriek of despair!

Thus rolls like a porpoise o’er billows of down,

Grows big as a mammoth, and fat as a seal,

Lives a plague to his friends, or a charge to the town,

And dies to make worms a most plentiful meal.

Ye sons of Columbia, shun the syren of sloth

For if you submit to her leaden control,

You will find, when too late, like a venomous moth,

She consumes a man’s substance and poisons his soul.

If the wizard of indolence takes you in hand,

Quick break from his grasp, or you’re quickly undone,

Your limbs will be lithe as a wickapy wand,[131]

And your sinews be soften’d like wax in the sun.

“A SOFT ANSWER TURNETH AWAY WRATH.”

A gentle answer will assuage

The ruthless vehemence of ire,

But petulance opposed to rage

Is adding fuel to the fire.

He who is cautious, calm and cool,

When made the subject of attack,

May smile defiance on the fool,

Whose anger puts him on the rack.

If injury you must repel,

Hard words are not of any use,

The greatest energy as well

Is shown without, as with abuse.

If one should offer you offence,

By being angry with the elf,

Instead of gaining recompense

You are but punishing yourself.

But gentle answers will assuage

The headlong vehemence of ire,

While petulance opposed to rage,

Adds tenfold fuel to the fire.

“HAVING FOOD AND RAIMENT, LET US THEREWITH BE CONTENT.”

Art thou blest with food and raiment,

Give God thanks for favors given;

Gratitude is all the payment

Thou can’st make indulgent Heaven.

Clothing coarse, and scant subsistence,

Recompense which labor brings,

With contentment make existence

Happier than the life of kings.

Why in heaping useless treasure,

Shorten life, and health destroy?

Where’s the profit or the pleasure,

Hoarding what you ne’er enjoy?

Why, for Mammon’s paltry proffers,

Sell thyself to sin a slave,

Can the wealth which swells thy coffers,

Buy exemption from the grave?

Since the thread of life is brittle

Heed the poet’s moral song,

“Man in this world needs but little,

And that little needs not long.”

Wants by luxury created--

All of artificial kind,

By indulgence never sated,

Weaken and debase the mind.

To the hardy child of nature,

Decent clothes and frugal fare,

Furnish pure enjoyments greater

Than the pamper’d monarch’s share.

Gold by avarice that’s hoarded,

Might as well be in the mine,

Wealth that’s generously afforded,

Can alone be counted thine.

Then, if blest with food and raiment,

Let thy gratitude be shown,

No man’s merits, as a claimant,

Give a right to these alone.

HARVEST--INTEMPERANCE.

The arable fields and gay meadows behold,

And laughing luxuriant landscape accord,

In tributes of verdure, enamell’d with gold,

The hard-handed husbandman’s promised reward.

But pause ere you gather the bountiful crop,

And listen to well meant advice of a friend,

The evils which flow from _intemperance_ stop,

So far as your own good example may tend.

Avoid the inveterate habit of some,

(Excessively foolish, atrociously sinful,)

Now bloated with brandy, now reeling with rum,

Now stuffing with whiskey a spanish brown skin-full.

With the fire of the elements raging without,

If the fire of the still is consuming within,

A body of adamant soon must give out,

And the steel-sinew’d laborer soon must give in.

A man had much better be burnt at the stake,

For thus he will finish his troubles much quicker,

Than his own carcase take a blue blaze to make,

And be burning for years with the fire of strong liquor.

LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY’S ALBUM.

Miss Ann, you are, it seems to me,

An essence all ethereal;

The brightest being that can be,

Entirely immaterial.

A pencil tipp’d with solar rays

Your charms could scarcely blazon;

Contrasted with your beauty’s blaze

Bright Sol’s a pewter basin.

Transcendent little sprig of light,

If rhymes are always true,

An angel is an ugly sprite,

Compared to Sylph like you.

You frowning tell me, “This indeed

Is flattery past all bearing,

I ne’er before did hear nor read

Of any quite so glaring.”

Yes, this is flattery, sure enough,

And its exaggeration

May teach you how to hold such stuff

In utter detestation.

Should beaux your ladyship accost

With something like this flummery,

Tell them their labor will be lost,

For this transcends their mummery.

The man whose favor’s worth a thought,

To flattery can’t descend;

The servile sycophant is not

Your lover nor your friend.

THE INDEPENDENT FARMER.

It may very truly be said

That his is a noble vocation,

Whose industry leads him to spread

About him a little Creation.

He lives independent of all

Except th’ Omnipotent Donor:

Has always enough at his call--

And more is a plague to its owner.

He works with his hands, it is true,

But happiness dwells with employment,

And he who has nothing to do

Has nothing by way of enjoyment.

His labors are mere exercise,

Which saves him from pains and physicians;

Then, Farmers, you truly may prize

Your own as the best of conditions.

From competence, shared with content,

Since all true felicity springs,

The life of a farmer is blent

With more real bliss than a king’s.

THE CULTIVATOR’S ART.

We’re highly gratified to find,

The public more and more inclined

The Cultivator’s art to practise,

And patronize, because the fact is

That righteousness and cultivation

Go hand in hand t’ exalt a nation:

And Husbandry’s a hobby which

A world may ride with spur and switch,

If all mankind at once bestrode him

They could not tire nor overload him.

Not only men, who sit astride,

But ladies also on a side-

Saddle so neat, or on a pillion,

That’s big enough to hold a million,

May ride our hobby with a cheer-up,

And he’ll not kick, bite, plunge, nor rear up,

But _vires in eundo crescit_,[132]

As cousin Virgil somewhere has it

So fire, which has obtain’d ascendence,

When setting up for independence,

Prepares by heat of radiation

Combustibles for conflagration;--

By burning fast, the mighty master

Acquires fresh means of burning faster,

Till blazing pyramids arise,

Which threaten to consume the skies.

With ken prophetic, we behold

A brighter age than that of gold,

Which, with accelerating pace,

Is hurrying on to bless our race;

And hail its grand approximation,

Mark’d by superior cultivation,

When wise men’s heads, and good men’s hearts,

Devoted to the art of arts,

And industry’s untiring hand,

Shall make a garden of our land--

Yea, make New England, all exceeding,

A new edition of old Eden,

If not quite equal, yet before it,

In many a root, and fruit, and floret,

Indebted for its propagation

To modern arts of cultivation.

We’re tranced with rapture, when we find

The fairer moiety of mankind,

Whose smile makes mortal man’s condition

But little short of sheer fruition,

By whose society is given

Earth’s purest prototype of Heaven,

Th’ angelic part of human nature

Inspire and aid the cultivator.

A plant that’s sunn’d by ladies’ eyes

Will like an exhalation rise,

We hope that horticulture may

Be therefore blest with beauty’s ray,

Till Flora’s germs gem every waste,

And every grove’s a “Bower of Taste.”

Adam, in Eden, we believe,

Had been a brute without his Eve;

An arid heath, a blasted common,

Blest with the smiles of lovely woman,

We should prefer to all that’s rare

In paradise, without the fair.

We therefore pray that friendship’s hand

From every lady in the land,

May be to us henceforth extended,

From this time till our time is ended;

And would solicit every charmer

To please to patronize the Farmer,

And make those gentlemen, who claim

Her approbation, do the same;

And common justice must require her

To grant this boon to an admirer

Like us, so prone to chant her praises,

In verse which absolutely blazes.

His head is very like a stump

Whate’er its craniologic bump,

Who does not see that we the tillers

Of earth compose the nation’s pillars,

And may be styled, with strict propriety,

The props of civilized society.

What would have been poor mortals’ lot--

Yea, what were man, if we were not?

Nature’s poor, simple, houseless child,

The weakest wild beast of the wild,

Must live on browse, his home must be

A cavern or a hollow tree;

Sometimes, in spite of fears and cares,

Be served up raw to wolves and bears.

Or maugre tooth, nail, fist, and truncheon,

Make hungry catamounts a luncheon.

Our art, moreover, claims ascendence

As german to our independence;

Both, commonly, are coexistent,

And each the other’s best assistant.

We farmers are a sort of stuff,

Tyrants will always find too tough

For them to work up into slaves,

The servile tools of lordly knaves.

Those men who till the stubborn soil,

Enlighten’d, and inured to toil,

Cannot be made to quail or cower

By traitor’s art or tyrant’s power,

They might as well attempt to chain

The west wind in a hurricane;--

Make rivers run up hill by frightening,

Or steal a march on kindled lightning--

The great sea-serpent, which we’ve read of,

Take by the tail and snap his head off--

The firmament on cloudy nights,

Illume with artificial lights,

By such an apparatus as

Is used for lighting streets with gas--

Or, having split the north pole till it’s

Divided into baker’s billets,

Make such a blaze as never shone,

And torrefy the frozen zone--

With clubs assail the polar bear,

And drive the monster from his lair--

Attack the comets as they run

With loads of fuel for the sun,

And overset by oppugnation

Those shining colliers of creation--

The Milky Way McAdamize,

A railway raise to span the skies,

Then make, to save Apollo’s team,

The Solar Chariot go by steam.

These things shall tyrants do, and more

Than we have specified, before

Our cultivators they subdue,

While grass is green, or sky is blue.

AN ODE.

O’er the wild Atlantic wave,

Lo the fiends of discord rave;

Battle’s bray is heard from far,

Battle’s bray is heard from far,

To Bellona’s blood-stain’d car,

Yoked the madding _steeds of war_:--

But no fiend of battle roars

Round Columbia’s happy shores;

Peace and plenty, hand in hand,

Join to bless her happy land.

CHORUS.

Laud we then the _God of Heav’n_,

At whose behest fair peace is giv’n,

The God, who led our fathers o’er

To Columbia’s happy shore.

Where th’ embattled host of France,

To the kindling war advance,

There shall heroes bite the dust,

There shall heroes bite the dust,

Blood shall tinge the rubrick waves

Where the fiend of battle raves.

Sons of honor, “Sons of soul,”

Whom no tyrants can control,

Patriotic myriads join,

Round fair freedom’s sacred shrine.

Ever laud the _God of Heav’n_,

At whose behest fair peace is giv’n,

The God, who led our fathers o’er,

To Columbia’s happy shore.

Where Britannia’s sons unite

To provoke the distant fight,

There shall countless heroes fall,

There shall countless heroes fall,

When the din of battle join’d,

Hurtles in the hollow wind.

Fiends of horror flit around,

Dying heroes strow the ground,

Countless ghosts shall wailing go

To the sullen shades below.

Laud we then the _God of Heav’n_,

At whose behest fair peace is giv’n,

The God who led our fathers o’er,

To Columbia’s happy shore.

May not _anarch’s_ hydra form,

Thunder his voice, his breath the storm,

Desolate our happy land,

Desolate our happy land--

Mid fell discord’s wild uproar,

May no fiend of anarch roar,

Call the rugged, meddling throng

Of every clime, of every tongue,

To light fair freedom’s funeral pyre,

And bid her mid the blaze expire.

May the gracious _God of Heav’n_,

At whose behest fair peace is giv’n,

The God who led our fathers o’er,

Still protect Columbia’s shore.

THE COURSE OF CULTURE.[133]

Survey the world, through every zone,

From Lima to Japan,

In lineaments of light ’tis shown

That CULTURE makes the man.

By manual culture one attains

What industry may claim,

Another’s mental toil and pains

Attenuate his frame.

Some plough and plant the teeming soil

Some cultivate the arts;

And some devote a life of toil

To tilling heads and hearts.

Some train the adolescent mind,

While buds of promise blow,

And see each nascent twig inclined

The way the tree should grow.

The first man, and the first of men,

Were tillers of the soil;

And that was mercy’s mandate then,

Which destined man to moil.

Indulgence preludes fell attacks

Of merciless disease,

And sloth extends on fiery racks

Her listless devotees.

Hail, HORTICULTURE! Heaven-ordained,

Of every art the source,

Which man has polished, life sustained,

Since time commenced his course.

Where waves thy wonder-working wand

What splendid scenes disclose!

The blasted heath, the arid strand,

Out-bloom the gorgeous rose!

Even in the SERAPH-SEX is thy

Munificence described;

And Milton says in lady’s eye

Is Heaven identified.

A seedling, sprung from Adam’s side,

A most celestial shoot!

Became of Paradise the pride,

And bore a world of fruit.

The lily, rose, carnation, blent

By Flora’s magic power,

And tulip, feebly represent

So elegant a flower:

Then surely, bachelors, ye ought

In season to transfer

Some sprig of this sweet “TOUCH-ME-NOT,”

To grace your own parterre;

And every gardener should be proud,

With tenderness and skill,

If haply he may be allowed

This precious plant to till.

All that man has, had, hopes, can have,

Past, promised, or possessed,

Are fruits which CULTURE gives or gave

At INDUSTRY’S behest.

A SONG.

SUNG AT AN AGRICULTURAL DINNER, AT CONCORD, MASS.

Since time in the primer first sharpen’d his scythe,

And the sands in his glass were beginning to flow,

There never was spectacle bonny and blithe,

Which came fairly up to our GRAND CATTLE SHOW.

_Derry down, down, down, derry down._

Here’s bulls, hogs, and horses, and sheep not a few,

Respectable animals, worthy a prize,

Like good go-to-meeting folks, each in his _pew_,

All sober as deacons--if not quite so wise.

Master Pig is the Chorister, just twist his tail,

And he’ll give you altissimo trills in high style,

The fine diatonics which run through the scale

Of his exquisite gamut will ring for a mile.

Our roots have run down to gravity’s centre,

Some went on to China, and thieves pulled them through--

But that’s a tough story, and I shouldn’t venture,

In a high court of Justice to swear it is true.

And here we have oxen, stout animals, which

Might well go to Congress, representing their race,

Round gravity’s centre just give them a hitch,

And I guess they would twitch the great globe out of place.

The match of our _Ploughmen_ was ne’er matched before,

Save when a lorn lover is matched to his fair;

They turned the earth over as flat as this floor,

Such chaps the great globe, like an apple can pare.

In troth, all the world’s nothing more than a show

Of animals, shut up, or running at large,

You meet with queer creatures wherever you go,

And pity their keepers, who have them in charge.

A _calf_ sent to college comes out a great _bore_,

An odd metamorphosis that, it is true,

But one which has taken place over and o’er;--

Now I do not mean you, sir, nor you, sir, nor you.

I hate personalities, therefore won’t say,

How a jackass conducts when made just ass of Peace,

Such animals now and then come in my way,

But I never shear hogs for the sake of their fleece.

A vile pettifogger, all quibble and jaw,

Is ninety-nine thousand times worse than a brute,

In a sunbeam he’ll pick an indictable flaw,

And against his own shadow show cause for a suit.

Here’s health to our orator,[134] one who can boast

That he practises well what he preaches about;

But gentlemen please not to _butter_ my _toast_,

For we like him so well we can take him without.

Here’s “MIDDLESEX HUSBANDMEN,” doing more good

Than all the political clubs ever known,

Unless a man’s head is the essence of wood,

He ranks them above any king on his throne.

_Derry down, down, down, derry down._

THE EVILS OF A MISCHIEVOUS TONGUE.

Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not so many as

have fallen by the tongue.--Eccl. Apoc. xxviii. 8.

Tho’ millions, the sword of the warrior has slaughter’d,

While fame has the homicide’s eulogy rung:

Yet many more millions on millions are martyr’d;

Cut off by that cowardly weapon, the tongue.

One sword may be match’d by another as keen,

In battle the bold man a bolder may meet,

But the shaft of the slanderer, flying unseen

From the quiver of malice, brings ruin complete.

An _insolent tongue_, by a taunt or a gibe,

Enkindles heart-burnings and bloody affrays;

A _treacherous tongue_, when impell’d by a bribe,

The guiltless condemns, or a nation betrays.

A _smooth subtle tongue_ vile seducers employ

The fair sex to lure to libidinous thrall;

A _slip of the tongue_ may its owner destroy,

And _the tongue of the serpent_ occasion’d the fall.

Then be it impress’d on Columbian youth,

That the tongue is an engine of terrible force;

Not govern’d by reason, not guided by truth,

A plague, which may desolate worlds in its course.

CHEERFULNESS.

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”

With mirth let us cherish our hearts,

’Tis a precept by Solomon given,

And cheerfulness surely imparts

The temper best fitted for heaven.

Among all the numberless ways

By which folly contrives to be wrong,

There is none which more weakness displays

Than wearing a visage too long.

Th’ Omnipotent Donor designs

That the gifts of His grace be enjoy’d;

Hence, he that forever repines,

Had better be better employ’d.

When first was created our race,

This earth for man’s mansion was given,

And shall he find fault with the place

To which he’s allotted by heav’n?

’Tis a thing, I believe, understood,

In which every sect is agreed,

This earth was declared to be good,

And so in the Bible we read.

Under Providence, tenants at will,

A fine habitation we hold;

For us to be murmuring still

Is wicked, ungrateful and bold.

Yet well-meaning people I’ve seen,

Who think true religion is shown

By a sort of a wo-begone mein,

And a whining, conventicle tone.

’Tis true, there’s a season to mourn,

As Solomon says--ne’ertheless

Our grief should be manfully borne,

And ’tis folly to cherish distress.

A train of diseases await

On a heart that forever is sad,

And some, from a sorrowing state,

Become irretrievably mad.

That religion can never be true

Which bows its disciples to earth,

For he that has heav’n in view,

Has the best of all titles to mirth.

With mirth then we’ll cherish our hearts,

’Tis a mandate by Solomon given,

For cheerfulness surely imparts

The temper best fitted for heaven.

EULOGY ON THE TIMES.

Let poets scrawl satiric rhymes,

And sketch the follies of the times,

With much caricaturing;

But I, a _bon-ton-bard_, declare

A set of slanderers they are,

E’en past a Job’s enduring.

Let crabbed cynics snarl away,

And pious parsons preach and pray

Against the vices reigning;

That mankind are so wicked grown,

Morality is scarcely known,

And true religion waning.

Societies, who vice suppress,

May make a rumpus; ne’ertheless,

_Our’s is the best of ages_;

Such hum-drum folks our _fathers_ were,

They could no more with _us_ compare,

Than _Hottentots_ with _sages_.

It puts the poet in a pet

To think of THEM, _a vulgar set_;

But WE, thank G--d, are QUALITY!

For we have found this eighteenth century

What ne’er was known before, I’ll venture ye,

_Religion’s no reality_!

Tom Paine, and Godwin, both can tell

That there is no such thing as hell!

A doctrine mighty pleasant;

Your old-wives tales of a _hereafter_

Are things for ridicule and laughter,

While we enjoy the _present_.

We’ve nought to do, but frisk about,

At midnight ball, and Sunday rout,

And Bacchanalian revel;

To gamble, drink, and live at ease,

Our great and noble selves to please,

Nor care for man, nor devil.

In these _good times_, with little pains,

And scarce a penny-worth of brains,

A man with great propriety,

With some small risk of being hung,

May cut a pretty dash among

The foremost in society.

Good reader, I’ll suppose, for once,

Thou art no better than a dunce,

But wishest to be famous;

I’ll tell thee how, with decent luck,

Thou may’st become as great a buck

As any one could name us.

When first in high life you commence,

To virtue, reason, common sense,

You’ll please to bid adieu, sir;

And, lest some brother rake be higher,

Drink, till your blood be all on fire,

And face of crimson hue, sir.

Thus you’ll be dubb’d a _dashing blade_,

And, by the genteel world be said,

To be a _man of spirit_;

For _stylish folks_ despise the chaps,

Who think that they may rise, perhaps,

By industry and merit.

With lubric arts, and wily tongue,

Debauch some maiden, fair and young,

For that will be genteel;

Be not too scrupulous; win the fair;

Then leave the frail one to despair:

A rake should never feel.

When wine has made your courage stout,

In midnight revel sally out,

Insulting all you meet;

Play pretty pranks about the town,

Break windows, knock the watchmen down,

Your frolic to complete!

Besides exhibiting your parts,

You’re sure to win the ladies’ hearts

By dint of dissipation;

Since “every woman is a rake,”

A fool may know what steps to take

To gain her approbation.

By practising these famous rules,

You’ll gain from _wicked_ men and _fools_

A world of admiration:

And, as we know from good authority,

_Such folks compose a clear majority_,

There needs no hesitation.

THE ART OF PRINTING.

Blest be the memory of the Sage,

Who taught the typographic page

To teem with symbols, heav’n-design’d,

The mute interpreters of mind.

The world at length had learn’d to prize

The art of speaking to the eyes,

Which had, by modes which CADMUS taught,

Giv’n immortality to thought;--

When FAUSTUS, by celestial skill,

Found means to multiply at will,

Those silent heralds of the kind,

Which give ubiquity to mind,--

Explored that Art, which brings to view,

All that we know--our father’s knew,--

And which developes every hour

That knowledge, which results in power,--

That Art, which gives to man’s control

Celestial treasures of the soul,

Transcending, many thousand fold,

Golconda’s gems, and Ophir’s gold.

What but the Printer’s Art sublime,

Can register the deeds of time,

Recording all that’s said and done

Most worthy note beneath the sun?

The poet, patriot, saint and sage

Have habitations on his page,

Are never absent when you call,

Alike accessible to all.

He introduces man to man,

Of every nation, tribe or clan,

The humble to the high--MOST HIGH,

In palaces above the sky.

Then bless the memory of the sage,

Who taught the typographic page

To teem with symbols, heav’n-design’d,

The silent heralds of the mind.

THE OLD BACHELOR:

AN EPISTLE TO A LADY.

What singular mortal is that,

Who sits in yon cottage alone,

Excepting an old tabby cat,

Which gray with her master is grown?

Say, would you his origin know,

Or if the odd mortal came here

From regions above, or below?

The truth I will tell you, my dear.

Dame Nature, a fanciful jade,

As ancient philosophers say,

When all other creatures were made,

Had left a small portion of clay.

The matter, indeed, was so crude

She meant to have thrown it aside,

At length in a frolicsome mood,

To make something of it she tried.

Her goody-ship, worried about,

Was forc’d her old vessels to scrape,

For matter to finish the lout

To a biped, which had human shape.

She moulded the comical stuff,

’Till all in one mass was combined;

His body, though quite odd enough,

Was _perfect_, compared with his mind.

To a hard unsusceptible heart,

She added a thick leaden skull,

And threw in of pride such a part,

As well might suffice a mogul:

But did not implant in his breast

A taste for those pleasures refined,

Which give to enjoyment its zest,

And soften the cares of the mind.

Of wisdom she threw in a spice,

But omitted to add common sense;

Dutch prudence a very large slice,

To teach him the saving of pence.

She gave him good honesty’s phiz;

No mummy was ever more grave,

Although, my dear madam, the quiz,

To his wit’s full extent is a knave.

All this she perform’d in a jerk,

And being well pleased with him, so far,

She set herself gravely to work,

And forced him to swallow a crow-bar.

No wonder then, this queer machine,

Which so rude, and so awkwardly made is,

By nobody ever was seen

_To bow to the fairest of ladies_.[135]

At length he was usher’d to light,

A half-alive kind of commodity,

A thing, which you’d say, at first sight,

Was quite the quintessence of oddity.

She planted him down in yon hut,

To _vegetate_ there with impunity,

Till death shall prohibit the _Put_

Any more from disgusting community.

CALORIC.

Earth, sea and air abound in rare

Minute caloric particles,

Invisible indeed, but still

Most energetic articles.

Almighty power each atom gave

Existence at creation;

Each would Omnipotence require

For its annihilation.

It now lies in a latent state,

Anon in ardent action;

And HE alone, who can create

Can bring to naught a fraction.

Chief agent in all acts of power

Its atoms seem divinities;

Tempests, volcanoes, earthquakes are

Mere plays of their affinities.

’Tis their’s to drive the lightning’s car,

To speed the shaft of thunder,

Give earth an atmosphere of fire,

And rend the globe asunder!

THE ILLS OF IDLENESS.

What pains and penalties attend

The wight whose being’s aim and end

Is wholly self-enjoyment!

His easy chair becomes a rack,

And all Pandora’s plagues attack

The wretch who wants employment.

To shun the exquisite distress

Which ever waits on idleness,

He flies to dissipation;

Drinks _deep_ to keep his spirits _up_,

And in the inebriating cup

Drowns health and reputation.

And now in Fashion’s vortex whirl’d,

A dandy of the genteel world,

He figures in the ton,

The wise man laughs, the simple stare

To see the consequential air

The silly rake puts on.

Now drives his curricle about

To club, assembly, ball and rout,

To waste his time and treasure;

Gives sensual appetite the reins,

And takes illimitable _pains_

To _seem_ a man of _pleasure_.

The course of life such fools pursue

Would worry down the wand’ring Jew,--

Worse off than galley-slaves!

And ten to one, about the time

The man of virtue’s in his prime,

Such sots are in their graves.

But if their days are lengthen’d out,

By dint of constitution stout,

In apathy and pain;

A ruby and carbuncled face

Displays the signal of disgrace

Like mark, erst set on Cain.

Now dire paralysis and gout

Parade their forces round about

The citadel of life;

In vain the doctor tries his skill;

His obstinate opponents still

Are victors in the strife.

Disease, remorse, with joint attack,

Now put at once upon the rack

Their bodies and their souls;

Victims of vice, they suffer more

Than Montezuma did of yore

When stretch’d on burning coals.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]

I once stood high on Fortune’s ladder.

Although Dame FORTUNA was, by ancient mythologists, represented as a

whimsical being, cutting her capers on the periphery of a large wheel,

I am justified in accommodating her goddesship with a ladder, by virtue

of a figure in rhetoric called POETICA LICENTIA (_anglice_) poets’

licentiousness.

[2]

My _tintinabulum_ of rhyming.

“The clock-work tintinabulum of rhyme.”--COWPER.

[3]

I’ll drink Pierian puddle dry.

Pursuant to Mr Pope’s advice;

“Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

[4]

Sent me a bag full of his gas.

This wondrous soul-transporting modification of matter is christened by

chymists _gaseous oxyd of nitrogen_, and, as will be evident, from the

following sublime stanzas, and my judicious comments thereon (in which

I hold the _microscope_ of criticism to those my peculiar beauties

which are not visible to the _naked eye_ of common sense) is a subject

worthy the serious attention of the poet and physiologist.

Any “half-formed witling,” as Pope says (_Essay on Criticism_) “may

hammer crude conceptions into a sort of measured nonsense, vulgarly

called prose bewitched.” But the daring mortal, who aspires to “build

with lofty rhyme” an _Ævi Monumentum_, before he sets about the mighty

enterprise, must be filled with a sort of incomprehensible _quiddam_

of divine inflation. Then, if he can keep clear of Bedlam, and be

allowed the use of pen, ink, and paper, every line he scribbles, and

every phrase he utters, will be a miracle of sublimity. Thus one Miss

Sibyl remained stupid as a barber’s block, till overpowered by the

overbearing influence of Phœbus. But when

----ea fræna furenti

Concutit, et stimulos sub pectore vertit Apollo,

the frantic gipsy muttered responses at once sublime, prophetic, and

unintelligible.

Indeed, this _furor mentis_, so necessary an ingredient in the

composition of the genuine poet, sometimes terminates in real madness,

as was unfortunately the case with Collins and Smart: Swift, Johnson,

and Cowper, were not without dismal apprehensions of a similar fate.

The wight, therefore, who wishes to secure to himself a sublunary

immortality by dint of poetizing, and happens not to be _poeta

nascitur_, must, like Doctor Caustic, in the present instance, seek a

sort of cow-pock-like substitute for that legitimate _rabies_, which

characterizes the true sons of Apollo.

[5]

Was hous’d in heaven’s high upper story.

Brother Southey then made the important discovery that “the atmosphere

of the highest of all possible heavens was composed of this gas.”

_Beddoe’s Notice._

[6]

Have said that, in his Epic Poem.

The same poem to which the gentleman alludes in his huge quarto edition

of _Joan of Arc_, in the words following--“Liberal criticism I shall

attend to, and I hope to profit by, in the execution of my MADOC, an

epic poem on the discovery of America, by that prince, on which I am

now engaged.”

As _liberal_ criticism appears to be a great desideratum with this

sublime poet, I trust he will gratefully acknowledge the specimens of

my liberality towards a worthy brother, which I propose hereafter to

exhibit.

[7]

The beldam’s crack’d or Caustic crazy.

Or, it is possible, may it please your worships, that I--I for the

matter of that am a little te--te--tipsy, or so.--But as there may

perhaps be, as it were, now and then, one of your Right Worshipful

Fraternity, who has been in a similar predicament se--se ipse, I hope I

shall receive your worships’ permission to stagger on with a jug full

of gas in my noddle, at least, through a stanza or two.

[8]

I’m fall’n! fall’n! fall’n! down, flat! flat! flat!

See Dryden’s Feast of Alexander, where one king Darius has a terrible

tumble down, beautifully described by half a dozen “fallens.” But I

think the Persian monarch did not after all, fall quite so _flat_ as

Doctor Caustic.

[9]

And women to hysteric fits.

See the lamentable case of the Lady, page 16th of Dr Beddoes’s

pamphlet, who, taking a drop too much of this panacea, fell into

hysterical fits, &c.

[10]

Besides a _shoal_ of learned Dutchmen.

Boerhaave, Steno, De Graff, Swammerdam, Zimmerman, _cum multis aliis_.

By the by, gentlemen, this epithet _shoal_ is not always to be taken

in a _shallow_ sense; but when applied to such _deep_ fellows, must be

considered as noun of multitude, as we say a _shoal_ of herrings.

[11]

----discern, prescribe, apply,

And cure----

My learned friend, Dr Timothy Triangle perusing the manuscript of

this my pithy petition, discovered that my description of the _modus

operandi_ on the insect as above, compared with the celebrated “_veni,

vidi, vici_,” as a specimen of fine writing, is superior in the direct

proportion of _four_ to _three_; consequently Dr Caustic has advanced

one step higher in the climax of sublimity than Julius Cesar.

[12]

Could match OURSELF at second sight.

That your worships may be able to form something like an idea of the

wonderful ken of our mental optics, it will be necessary to con with

diligence the opinions of Dr Johnson on this subject, as expressed in

his tour to the Hebrides. The Doctor there tells us, that though he

“never could advance his curiosity to conviction, yet he came away at

last, _willing_ to believe.” But we would have all those who anticipate

the deriving any advantage from our slight at second seeing, not only

willing, but absolutely _predetermined_ to “believe,” positive evidence

to the contrary notwithstanding.

[13]

Foreseeing things which never will be.

Yes, gentlemen; among other great and wonderful events which we

foretold, but which never have happened, and moreover never will

happen, was the restoration of the Jews by the intervention of that

renowned pacificator, Buonaparte. We first prophecied, and many men

of our cast who had a knack at prying into futurity, echoed our

prediction, that the _pious_ emperor of the Gauls would make Jerusalem

the head quarters of the Millennium, and under our auspices many a

wandering Jew was recruited, and stood in readiness to march at a

moment’s warning to take possession of his patrimonial property.

[14]

In our good friend, Sir JOSEPH’S name.

This was immensely proper, as I propose colonizing these hitherto

_Terræ Incognitæ_, and know of no person in existence, except _myself_

(who am now decrepit with age, and, alas, sadly poverty stricken) whose

scientific qualifications, knowledge of the coast, and well known

ardent zeal in the science of Tadpolism, so well entitle him to command

such important expedition.

[15]

With leg or wing, he kick or jerk it.

Could we command the years of a Nestor, “the indelible ink” of a

Lettersom, and the diligence of a Dutch commentator, we should still

readily acknowledge that our powers were totally inadequate to the task

of eulogising, in proportion to their merits, the philosophical and

literary performances of that profound sage, Dr James Anderson, LL. D.,

F. R. S., _Scotland_, &c. &c. whose mysterious hints afford a clue by

which we have been enabled to add lustre to the present age, by many of

our own sublime discoveries and inventions.

In his _deep_ work called “_Recreations in Agriculture and Natural

History_,” the Doctor says, among other things not less marvelous, “The

mathematician can demonstrate with the most decisive certainty, that no

_fly_ can alight on this globe which we inhabit, without communicating

_motion_ to it; and he can ascertain, with the most accurate precision,

_if so he choose to do_” (by the by, this _sine qua non_ part of the

sentence is very beautiful, and not at all redundant) “what must be the

exact amount of the motion thus produced.” _Vol._ ii. _p._ 350.

[16]

Is doctoring off one generation.

“Perhaps no important revolution was ever bloodless. It may be

useful in this place to recollect in what the mischief of shedding

blood consists. The abuses, which at present exist in all political

societies are so enormous, the oppressions which are exercised are so

intolerable, the ignorance and vice which they entail so dreadful,

that possibly a dispassionate inquirer might decide that, if their

annihilation could be purchased by an instant sweeping off of every

human being now arrived at maturity, from the face of the earth, the

purchase would not be too dear,” &c. &c.--_Godwin’s Political Justice._

[17]

Those LL. D.s’ of Lynch’s Law.

_Lynch Law_, is, we believe, synonymous with _mob law_, sometimes

called _club law_. By this law summary _injustice_ is executed by an

ignorant and furious multitude, who burn and destroy, plunder and

murder, without measure and without mercy, the property and persons of

anybody and everybody who happen to be obnoxious, or are pointed out

as objects entitled to the particular attention of their mobocratic

mightinesses. Sometimes the poor individuals who are so unlucky as to

fall into the clutches of these horrible human harpies, are subjected

to mock trials, in which the accusers enact the parts of law makers,

judges and executioners. A man by the name of Lynch, who lives, or

has lived, somewhere in the West, was active in this mode of taking

cognizance of offences, whence the whole process is called _Lynch law_.

But thereby hangs a tale, which we either do not recollect, or have

never heard; and in either case, we shall not, at present, trouble your

worships with its recital.

[18]

Call’d craniology of snipes.

It would require an immensity of books, and an eternity of time

to describe or even allude to the physiological, craniological,

physiognomical, phrenological, &c. &c. &c. theories of Dr Gall, and

a multitude of his followers. We shall, therefore, attempt no such

thing, but content ourself with the simple assertion, which we will

maintain _pugnis et calcibus_, that, as to the craniology of reptiles

and insects we are out of sight above the utmost stretch of whatsoever

these superb philosophers could possibly comprehend.

[19]

Vanish before our beauty washes.

Mr Mackenzie, author of _five thousand receipts_, &c., deserves to be

trounced and anathematized for the following vulgar sentence:

“To set off the complexion with all the advantage it can attain,

nothing more is necessary than to wash the face with pure water, or if

anything farther be occasionally wanted, it is only the addition of a

little soap.”

[20]

We transform dowdies into goddesses.

We here quote a passage from a popular writer merely to indicate our

utter disapprobation of the author and of his sentiments:

“The solicitude of parents, especially of mothers to make their

daughters fine ladies is truly ridiculous. How often soever the poor

child has occasion to look at anything below the parallel of the

horizon, and a little relax the muscles of the neck, it can hardly

ever escape the notice of her mamma or her governess, and she is bid

with more than common poignancy of expression, to hold up her head,

perhaps more than a thousand times in a day. If one of her shoulders

should be thought to rise but an hair’s breadth higher than the other,

she is immediately bound and braced, twisted and screwed, in a most

unmerciful manner, and tortured almost to death, in order to correct

the supposed irregularity. And lest the dear creature, in the natural

play and free use of her limbs, should contract any ungenteel habits,

the dancing master must be called in at least three times a week to put

every part of the body into its due place and attitude, and teach her

to sit, stand and walk according to the exact rules of his art, which,

to be sure, must infinitely exceed all the simplicity of untutored

nature. Should the least pimple appear on any part of the face, or

what is still more alarming, should the milk-maid’s flush begin to

betray itself in the color of the cheeks, all possible means must be

used, physic and diet must do their part, nay, health itself must be

endangered or destroyed to suppress the vulgar complexion.

“Health and beauty have been frequently destroyed by a solicitous

care to preserve them, deformity induced, and a thousand ill

habits contracted by the very means that were intended to prevent

them.”--_Ash’s Sentiments on Education._

[21] See additional note No. 1, at the end of the volume.

[22]

They might as well have none at all.

The process by which this fabrication is effected is copied from

Nature; and her manipulations in similar performances have been thus

described in some of our heretofore publications:

Certain sages learn’d and twistical,

By reasoning not a whit sophistical,

Have proved what’s wonderful, to wit,

The smallest atom may be split,

Then split again, _ad infinitum_;

And diagrams, which much delight ’em,

By Mr Martin make this out

Beyond the shadow of a doubt.

_Matter_ thus _splittable_, I wean,

With half an eye it may be seen,

That _spirit_, being much diviner,

May be proportionably finer;

Nor is this merely _postulatum_,

’Tis proved by facts, and thus I state them.

Dame Nature erst, in mood of merriment,

Perform’d the following odd experiment;

She took a most diminish’d sprite,

Smaller than microscopic mite,

An hundred thousand such might lie

Wedged in a cambric needle’s eye,

And first, by dint of her divinity,

Divided that one whole infinity,

Then cull’d the very smallest particle,

And shaped therefrom that worthless article,

That tiny evanescent dole,

Which serves for Dicky Dapper’s soul.

[23]

Horace says, _dulce est desipere_.

The stanza with which this line commences, is a liberal, but so far as

respects meaning, a faithful translation of the famous maxim, _Dulce

est desipere in loco_.--_Horace_ L. iv. C. 12.

[24]

Is made of any kind of wood.

The hint for this improvement was derived from an article in the

_American Farmer_, from which the following is extracted:

“A few weeks since, two of the members of the United Society of

Shakers, at Lebanon, N. Y., were at our office. They informed us that

they had tried an experiment in feeding hogs with _saw dust_, produced

in their button and other wooden ware factory, by mixing with the usual

food, in the proportion of one third; that is, two parts of the usual

food and one part of saw dust; and that the hogs thrive full as well as

when fed in the usual way. From their experiments they are satisfied

that the saw-dust was digested by the animals, was nutritious, and

answered in all respects the purposes of the usual food.”

[25]

Illumed as one would light a candle.

In my younger days, I lived on terms of intimacy with Doctor Franklin,

highly honorable to both parties, as it showed we were both men of

discernment in choosing each a great man for his friend.

In a letter from that venerable sage, afterwards printed (_See

Franklin’s Works_, _p._ 115, _vol._ ii. _third edition_) he told _me_

that toads buried in sand, shut up in hollow trees, &c. would live

forever, as it were; and, among other things, informed me of certain

curious facts about flies, which I will relate in his own words. “I

have seen an instance of common flies preserved in a manner somewhat

similar. They had been drowned in Madeira wine, apparently about the

time when it was bottled in Virginia, to be sent to London. At the

opening of one of the bottles, at the house of a friend where I was,

three drowned flies fell into the first glass which was filled. Having

heard it remarked that drowned flies were capable of being revived by

the rays of the sun, I proposed making the experiment upon these. They

were therefore exposed to the sun upon a sieve, which had been employed

to strain them out of the wine. In less than three hours two of them

began by degrees to recover life. They commenced by some convulsive

motions of the thighs, and at length they raised themselves upon their

legs, wiped their eyes with their fore feet, beat and brushed their

wings with their hind feet, and soon after began to fly, finding

themselves in Old England, without knowing how they came thither. The

third continued lifeless until sun-set, when, losing all hopes of him,

he was thrown away.

“I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method

of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they might be

recalled to life, at any period, however distant; for having a very

ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years

hence, I should prefer to an ordinary death, the being immersed in a

cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, until that time, then to be

recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country. But since, in

all probability, we live in an age too early, and too near the infancy

of science, to see such an art brought, in our time, to perfection, I

must, for the present, content myself with the treat which you are so

kind as to promise me, of the resurrection of a fowl or turkey cock.”

[26]

To healthier action than before.

I do not arrogate to myself the whole merit of this noble invention. Dr

Price and Mr Godwin, in divers elaborate works, especially the latter,

in his _Political Justice_, suggested some ideas which set my ingenuity

in such a ferment, that I could not rest quietly till I had brewed

a sublime treatise on the best mode of pulling down, repairing, and

rebuilding decayed and worn out animal machines.

I shall not attempt, in this place, to oblige your worships with

anything like a table of the contents of this judicious and profound

performance. I will, however, gratify your curiosity so far as to

glance cursorily at a few of the leading topics therein discussed and

illustrated, and slightly mention some of the immense advantages which

will be the result of this discovery.

In the first place, I make it apparent, by a long series of experiments

and scientific deductions, drawn therefrom, that it is very practicable

to enlighten the mind of a stupid fellow, by battering, boring, or

pulling his body to pieces.--Mr poet Waller’s authority is here to my

purpose, who tells us, that

“The soul’s dark cottage _batter’d_ and decay’d, Lets in _new light_

through chinks which time has made.”

Mr Gray, likewise, in his _Hymn to Adversity_, requests that “Daughter

of Jove” to impose _gently_ her “iron hand,” and trouble him a _little_

with her “torturing hour,” although he appears disposed to avoid, if

possible, her more dismal accompaniments, such as her “Gorgonic frown,”

and the “funereal cry of horror.”

The Spaniards, under Cortes and Pizarro, managed much in the same way,

and enlightened the natives of the mighty empires of Peru and Mexico

in the great truths of Christianity, by killing a part, reducing the

remainder to a state of servitude, and battering their souls’ cottages

at their leisure. This process is in part expressed in a poetical

epistle, which I received not long since from my correspondent settled

at Terra del Fuego, in South America, who thus expresses the conduct of

some of his acquaintance, in converting the aborigines to Christianity.

Good folks to America came

To curtail old Satan’s dominions;

The natives, the more to their shame,

Stuck fast to their ancient opinions.

Till a method the pious men find,

Which ne’er had occur’d to your dull wits.

Of making sky-lights to the mind,

By boring the body with bullets.

Like Waller, with process so droll,

To illume an old clod-pated noddy;

They thought they might burnish the soul,

By beating a hole in the body.

Good folks to America came To curtail old Satan’s dominions; The

natives, the more to their shame, Stuck fast to their ancient opinions.

Till a method the pious men find, Which ne’er had occur’d to your dull

wits. Of making sky-lights to the mind, By boring the body with bullets.

Like Waller, with process so droll, To illume an old clod-pated noddy;

They thought they might burnish the soul, By beating a hole in the body.

I have read of a great mathematician, who was uncommonly stupid till

about the age of twenty, when he accidentally pitched head first into

a deep Well, fractured his skull, and it became necessary to trepan

him. After the operation it was immediately evident that his wit was

much improved, and he soon became a prodigy of intellect. Whether

this alteration was caused by “new light let in through chinks,” the

trapanning chisel had made, or whether the texture and position of the

brain were materially changed for the better in consequence of the jar

and contusion of the fall, I shall leave to some future Lavater, or any

other gentleman, who can gauge the capacity of a statesman, or a barrel

of porter, with equal facility, to determine.

2d. I proceed to demonstrate, that man being, as our most enlightened

_modern_ philosophers allow, jumbled together by mere _chance_ (a

blind; capricious goddess, who, half her time, does not know what she

is about) it is extremely easy to understand the principles of his

texture; because the mechanism of his frame is less intricate than that

of a common spit jack. Consequently, a Solomon or a Brodum can mend

this machine when deranged, as Well as a Harvey, a Sydenham, or a Mead.

3d. I proceed to prove, from analogy, with what facility this machine

may be disjointed, pulled to pieces, and again botched together. My

friend Mahomet had his heart taken out, a drop of black blood expressed

therefrom, and went about his common concerns next day as well as ever.

So when a sighing swain is taken desperately in love, he may lose all

his insides without any Very serious inconvenience. This I can attest

from _sad experience_, as, about forty years since, I was terribly in

for’t, with a sweet little sprig of divinity, whose elbow was ever

her most prominent feature, whenever I had the audacity to attempt to

approximate the shrine of her Goddesship.

4th. The important advantages, which will undoubtedly arise from this

invention, are almost too obvious to require explanation. I shall,

however, advert to a few.

By taking the animal machine to pieces, you may divest it of such

particles as clog its wheels, and render its motions less perfect. A

decayed, worn-out gallant may have _its_ parts separated, thoroughly

burnished, botched together, and rendered as bright as a new-coined

silver sixpence. Thus my venerable Piccadilly friend, who, as Darwin

expresses it, sometimes “clasps a beauty in _Platonic_ arms;” if he

should, fifty years hence, perceive that the mechanism of his frame is

rather the worse for wear, may come to Dr Caustic, and be rebuilt into

as fine a young buck as any in Christendom.

5th. Hereditary diseases may be thus culled from the constitution, and

gouty and other deleterious particles separated from those which are

sound and healthful.

Pride may be picked from the composition of an upstart mushroom of a

nobleman, impudence from a quack, knavery from a lawyer, moroseness

from a methodist, testiness from an old bachelor, peevishness from

an old maid; in short, mankind altered from what they are to what

they ought to be, by a method at once cheap, practicable, easy and

expeditious.

The only difficulty which has ever opposed itself to my carrying this

sublime invention to the highest possible pitch of perfection, has

been the almost utter impossibility of procuring any man, woman, or

child, who is willing to become the subject of operation. Now if either

of your worships would loan me his carcase to be picked to pieces,

and again botched together in the manner above stated, provided the

experiment should not fully succeed, I will engage to pay _all_ the

damages thereby accruing to community, out of _one tenth_ part of the

profits of this publication.

[27]

The gods of _old_ folks could make _young_ ones.

----Stricto Medea recludit

Ense senis jugulum: veteremque exire cruorem

Passa, replet succis. Quos postquam combibit Æson

Aut ore acceptos, aut vulnere barda, comæque

Canitie posita nigrum rapuere colorem.

Pulsa fugit macies.

This passage, with a condensation of thought and felicity of expression

peculiar to myself, I have thus happily hit into English.

Medea cut the wither’d weasand

Of superannuated Æson,

Then fill’d him with the acrid juices

Of nettle-tops and flower-de-luces;

Till from the defunct carcase, lo!

Starts a full blooded Bond street beau!!

Medea cut the wither’d weasand Of superannuated Æson, Then fill’d him

with the acrid juices Of nettle-tops and flower-de-luces; Till from the

defunct carcase, lo! Starts a full blooded Bond street beau!!

[28]

In mimic earthquakes, rain, and thunder!

Chymistry furnishes us with a method of manufacturing _artificial_

earthquakes, which will have all the great effects of those that are

natural. The old-fashioned receipt for an earthquake, however, of

iron filings and sulphur mixed in certain proportions and immersed in

the earth, I shall not take the trouble to state to your worships; as

most of you have, _perhaps_, read Mr Martin’s Philosophy nearly half

through. But my plan is to make such an earthquake as no mortal, except

Dr Darwin and myself, ever supposed possible. The former gentleman

made shift to explode the moon from the _southern_ hemisphere of our

earth, and I propose to forward other moons by artificial earthquakes

of my own invention, from the _northern_ hemisphere. I will give your

worships a specimen of Dr Darwin’s moon-producing earthquake, from

“_Botanic Garden_,” Canto I.

“Gnomes! How you shriek’d! when through the troubled air,

Roar’d the fierce din of elemental war;

When rose the continents, and sunk the main,

And earth’s huge sphere exploding burst in twain.--

Gnomes! How you gazed! When from her wounded side,

Where now the _South_ sea heaves its waste of tide,

Rose on swift wheels the Moon’s refulgent car,

Circling the solar orb, a sister star,

Dimpled with vales, with shining hills emboss’d,

And roll’d round earth her airless realms of frost.”

No man will say in this case,--

Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus.

The reaction, at the moment of explosion, of that mass of matter which

now composes our moon, is the cause of the obliquity of the polar axis

to the poles of the ecliptic, according to Dr Darwin; though Milton

says,

“----Angels turn’d askance

The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more:

From the sun’s axle, they with labor push’d

Oblique the centric globe.”--

Whether an explosion similar to that, so beautifully described by Dr

Darwin, from the _north_ side of the equator, would not set all right,

and a new era be announced, which will be, like that of old, when

“----Spring

Perpetual smiled on earth, with vernal flowers,

Equal in days and nights”----

is a problem worth the attention of our modern philosophers. But at any

rate, I, Dr Caustic, will positively try the experiment.

[29]

E’en fairly knock the man in the moon down!

This notable exploit I think to be a very great improvement on

electrical experiments made by a number of renowned French and English

philosophers. See _Priestly’s History of Electricity_, page 94.

[30]

We took like macaroni snuff.

Dr Darwin alludes to this wonderful performance in the following superb

lines:

“Led by the sage, lo! Britain’s sons shall guide

Huge SEA-BALLOONS beneath the tossing tide;

The diving castles roof’d with spheric glass,

Ribb’d with strong oak, and barr’d with bolts of brass,

Buoy’d with pure air shall endless tracts pursue,

And Priestley’s hand the vital flood renew.”

_Botanic Garden_, _Canto_ iv.