Never, never, since old
(Or fell not, ‘Gibbon versus Gell’)
Was ever battle fought so well. 2400
No fiery Arab ever hewed
Down Kafir dogs in ranks bestrewed
On crimson plain with half the will
As gars ye slaughter critics spill
The Readers’* blood, Reviewers kill.
I only hope some Homer may
Embalm your dust in deathless lay.”
Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., pro- poses a portrait to his volume.
“You’re in the regions of Romance;
Kindly return. Ere I commence
The work, indulge me with a hint 2410
About the kind of
thing to print.
Shall I prefix a face in wood
Or steel cut out, showing my mood,
Romantical Byronic sneer
Round th’ oval region, and a tear
Trembling outside the canthi; or
Would you prefer the style of Yor-
ick—index laid on writhèd nose,
And cunning leer ’neath thickest brows,
And bulging forehead one foot high;
2420
Or Rab’lais,
with expression sly,
The Stone derides this vanity,
And grinning mouth——”
Cried he, “Restrain
Thy jaw. A satirist, and vain
Of hair and grin and brow! Repent
In dust and
To foist upon the world your looks.
The Public’s tired of buying books
* Namely, the publisher’s Readers, not the readers of this
revelation.—F. B.
Half-a-crown dearer to be shown
Whether the author’s blond or brown;
Now every volume seems to groan 2430
’Neath weight of costard, and to moan
‘Caput
apri defero,
Laus sit biblipolo’—
Big
Bore’s head I offer, O!
Thanks to Messrs. Blank and Co.”
“Punning! a stone!” “Yes, sir, a man
Never omits a pun that can;
But, where he can’t, why, then, to mock it,
His envy dubs punster ‘Pickpocket.’
“Genius, man, never will endure 2440
Communism—of that be sure.”
“But I’m no
genius.”
“You should try,
Then, t’ ape its singularity—
Originality they call ’t —
So shall your readers be at fault;
For few are they, or young or old,
Know well gilt brass from purest
gold;
And, when some simple savan tries
and ridicules even a phreno- logic sketch,
To pluck the bandage from their eyes,
’Tis ten to one they sneer, and quote 2450
Something about a beam and mote.
As for your forehead, this the rule—
A large-brow’d fool is twice a fool.
I happened once to know a huge-
sconc’d individual called F * * *—
So tall his cranium, broad his
brain-
pan, Gall and Combe had sworn ’tis plain
As Donovan’s mouth he wore a mind
To influence and rule his kind:
The calvary deserved to bear a 2460
Craniological tiara;
But that within was vulgar, dense,
And hardly worth its weight in pence
For cat’s-meat.”
“Phrenologic sketch,
Being original, might catch
Some gudgeons,” I put in——
“There, there;
Sketch both your hams for all I
care,
Or draw your coccyx os. Conceit
Is authorcraft’s own mental meat,
And serves him from ancestral seat. 2470
inveighing against the frantic
folly of authors.
There’s not a goose-quill of ye all,
From garret to baronial hall,
Young, old, plain, handsome, great
or small,
That stands not forth the world
before
For men to tremble and adore,
That for himself is slow to claim
To be the crêmest of the crême.”
“Faith, you’re a
cynic all ran rabid,
Ultra-Diogenes more crabbed
Than any stale virginity 2480
In robe of
spotless dimity.
Perhaps you can still more complain
Of
With might and
main
He groaned aloud, e’en as might do
The Methodist that wants to show
Thereupon the Stone breaks into a philippic against
street- walkers,
Bottle and purse are very low,
And thus resumed: “What weighs me down
In this your God-forgotten town—
What nightly makes me wish I were
In muddy
Else—is the horrid degradation
Of the Hetæra’s incalcation.
O what potato heels and toes!
How dread her stamp as on she goes,
Wolf-like, upon the human tracks,
Hurls horrid oaths and foul jests
cracks
In ghastly mirth, as the Death’s head
Grinning before Egyptian ‘spread;’
Wafting of gin th’ infernal stench
Till e’en Cotytto’s ghost would blench; 2500
For ne’er, I ween,
had met its eyes
Such ultra-Thracian mysteries!
By all the virtues Britons claim,
By all your sense of human shame,
Have you, I ask, no means to stop
The growth of such a poison crop—
To curb a scandal makes your name
Now and hereafter
most infame?
I hear it said, were you to cull
From every city every trull 2510
Of abominablest
infamy,
And loose them here their chance to
try,
No two of them could e’er excel
One of these candidates for hell.
Remain ye idle, careless mute,
While such foul scenes and sights
pollute
Innocency’s
sanctuaries—
Your children’s opening minds and eyes;
Or fondly deem ye such things are
To them unknown, unheard of? Far 2520
Front this,
I may with safety say,
Rare is the brat in present day
That learns not with his penny
trumpet
The name and nature of a strumpet—
That can’t, all sage, discriminate
Betwixt the verb to fornicate,
And with a just discrimen see
The difference of adultery.
’Tis said fruits prove the parent tree
Or sound or else unsound to be. 2530
To judge from spec’mens of your fruit,
The tree must be a Upas shoot,
Within whose ring of poison gloom
Rank Sin and Death luxuriant bloom—
Disease that leaves to far off time
The dreadful legacy of crime;
That, on your children’s guiltless
heads,
Vials of Heavenly vengeance sheds;
That saps your race’s vigour, and
Spreads like a plague o’er every
land. 2540
O falsest of false modesty!
Pharisaic hypocrisy!
These crying horrors to ignore,
Nor stretch one hand to salve the
sore!
O silly shame, to you confined,
Unto all vile unkindly kind,
Britannia, wake, turn on the gas,
And, with thy trident, to the ‘Cas;’
Then wend thy melancholic way
Adown the Market named of Hay, 2550
Into the thick night-houses stray,
And end them, like a good old soul,
With Cider Cellar and Coal Hole.”
whom Dr. Polyglott,
Ph.D., defends on the usual grounds.
I thought
awhile, and thus replied:
“Let your immoral peoples hide
Such scenes with cloak of privacy:
We British English like to see
Them, as in evidence they show
Our mental frame hath power to throw
Out on the surface its foul humours 2560
The Stone replies fiercely that “trees are known by
their fruits,”
As healthy constitution’s tumours.”
“Man,” said he, gruffly, “pray go try
On softer souls your sophistry;
Let pamphleteering priest deceive,
Newspaper-spelling fool believe;
Let all the Commons, all the Lords,
Lend amplest credit to such words:
Me one sage sentence fully suits,
‘Good trees are they that bear good
fruits.’
Your Knowledge-apple is a mess 2570
Of most infragrant
rottenness;
And, for its core, I’ve mainly
found
Inside and outside correspond.
When I see nought
but simony,
Souls bought and sold for sly
money,
and that the Church’s pride
alienates it from its origin.
A mercantile affair their ‘cure,’
I know such things can’t long
endure.
Your Churchmen, puffed with pomp
and pride,
Claiming this world, the next beside,
Recall me not the mighty dead, 2580
Whose humble
state their tenets spread.
Not such th’ old moralists that strove
By wordless works of love to prove
The faiths for which they lived and died,
In death by living glorified.
Whoe’er could boast two coats was told
One should be worn, the other sold.
How many coats, d’ye
think, contains
Yon bishop’s lackey’s room?—yet
feigns
That bishop he to Paul succeeds. 2590
Where tall trees fall spring
noxious weeds!
The marrow of the thing may be
Piety or impiety;
But, when I judge of works, my eyes
Th’ outside, not th’ inside, scrutinize.”
Dr.
Polyglott, Ph.D., declares that the streets are
pure by day.
“At any rate, our streets by day
Are pure enough, say what you may.”
“Sir, if your streets are bad by night,
By day they are as vicious quite.
The
Stone declares they are not,
I speak not of the swell-mob crew 2600
In every lane that meet the view—
Pickpockets, flashmen, and garotters
That ruffle up and down your trottoirs.
Another deeper case I meant.
There’s not a snob or Sunday gent
That ‘sports’ not some foul sentiment;
Each shop-boy’s a La Rochefoucault,
Each cabman deals in Attic salt;
E’en the Bœotian drayman swears
Far-fetched oaths with witty airs. 2610
The bottle-washing boys that carry
Pills and draughts for apothecary
Instance how well canaille know
To ape their betters and to show
Their reading in Life’s folio.
Your higher classes, as they term
Themselves, are quite as bad. I’m firm
In this my statement. As a sample,
The quoted may be deemed proof ample.
SENT. I.*
cites proofs,
“‘A promise, like a pie-crust, ’s
meant 2620
For breaking, when convenient.’
* N.B.—Not borrowed
from “The Dirty Little Snob,” by Mr. Chas. Mackay, whose latest good news to us
is “Rot, poor old pen! die, hapless bard!”—F. B.
SENT. II.
“‘Tell her the truth? You precious flat!
To woman lies are tit for tat.’
SENT. III.
“‘Society’s essence, I opine,
Is a good feed with better wine.
The feast of reason and the flow
Of soul, you know, ’s all “rococo.”’
SENT. IV.
“‘The real value of a friend
Is just what he will give or lend.’
SENT. V.
“‘My tailor’s waxing violent, 2630
And, when I venture to indent
On the governor, like Polar bear
The old put growls me deaf, I swear.
Hail Continent and misanthropy!
Demme, good sir, the desert for me!’
SENT. VI.
“‘I marry Sal; her brothers are
Ordered out to this Indian war—
One croaks with fever, t’other’s shot;
And so the coin’s my
charmer’s lot.’
SENT.
“‘Two things are sweet in polished life— 2640
A friend’s old
wine and younger wife;
And two things mort’lly I detest—
An honest woman and a priest.’
SENT. VIII.
“‘Lord, man, you’d laugh your larynx hoarse
To see him pick the spavin’d horse.
He asked me if I’d sell the other;
“Gad, sir,” said I, “I’d sell my mother,
But she’s so old there’s none would buy
her.”
“Ah, trot her out,” cried he; “we’ll try her.”’
SENT. IX.
“‘I’m not quite ass enough
to cry 2650
Because my elder brothers die.
Three ’twixt me and the property;
Faith, they’ve no time to lose, say I.’
SENT. X.
“‘A precious dolt the chap must be
That dies for, bah! L. O. V. E.;
The which, transposed, upon my soul,
Denote a nobler thing—“La Vole.”’*
SENT. XI.
“‘I say, that precious Yahoo, Mister * * *,
Wanted to fight about—his sister!’
SENT. XII.
“‘While I’ve a cooter in my purse 2660
I’ll take no woman for better or
worse;
Till turned of fifty, then, of course,
Your wife’s a good and unpaid nurse.’
*At Ecarté,
I presume.—F. B.
SENT. XIII.
“‘The old girl’s forty, but she’s money.
I’m two-and-twenty: ‘twill be funny
To see me, as John Little said,
Lickerish in my grandam’s bed!’
SENT. XIV.
“‘When the old bird hops off the perch,
Then, Poll, my pet, we’ll go to church.
(Aside)
She is uncommon mild— 2670
A girl without coin and with child.’
and waxes very wrathful.
“Can I contain my wrath! why should
I do so even if I could?
You Cains
that walk the
Ye little ‘Devil’s-hypocrites’!
Lucifers of the shop and till!
Machiavels of the oven and mill!
Petroniuses and Talleyrands
Of livery stables and errands!
Gentlemen into ‘gent’ cut down! 2680
Small bourgoisie to Borgias grown!
Are Reason, Sense, and Virtue flown
So far away ye dare not own
To an acquaintance with the name
Of Goodness
without blush of shame?
Did ye act out each nauseous boast,
I’d think ye all a mission host
Sent by Sathanas’ ’hest to levy
Of volunteers an ardent bevy.
But, no! small things, I know ye
quake 2690
Privately at the lie ye spake
So bravely to your friends; and
why?—
To prove your wit, your manhood? Fie!
“An hour ago I said, Sir, we
Stones look towards futurity——”
“Enjoy the ‘is;’ no one e’er saw
The ‘will be,’ or the ‘was’ re-saw;
And, though some German swears the present
Is not, I say th’ idea’s pleasant.”
“Your ‘sentiment’! your dainty bit 2700
Of quibbling, verbal grammar wit!
Your galimatias! would you close
My mouth for ever?”
Fearing to lose
His latest words, rebuked, I sat
Listening,
The Stone looks into futurity;
“Futurity, I state,
When we shall come t’ our own
again,
Again assert our ancient reign,
And sit upon the throne we once
So proudly held—the human sconce.
In days of yore we stones (and
faggots) 2710
Were used to purge of Schism’s
maggots
And Doubts the brains that dared to breed
Question of catechism or creed.
Still, it is said, in distant lands
We are strong weapons in the hands
Of priests, who, knowing well that edo
Is properest terminal of credo,
Are by their mundane interests led
T’ insinuate into human head
By stones what argument can’t teach. 2720
“
Simple, yet sure, Thus it is: Bind
The unconvinced one’s hands behind;
Then bring your mob, with stones
and clods,
To vindicate insulted gods.
The light work done, smash in his skull,
And break his backbone with the full
advises intolerance,
Force of your argumental
State
Machine for righting sceptic pate:
He’ll feel its force, and, lest his
fate 2730
Some softer soul commiserate,
Tell him that Allah the Raheem*
Made stones to smite lips that blaspheme
His name. If all this reason fail,
Him with the same strong proof assail.
“But your wise
folk in
Think the Creator strong enow
To settle his own quarrels—fear
To crop the Deist’s nose or ear—
Are too enlightened, or too good, 2740
To shed the blatant Atheist’s blood
You cut him dead; but, as his throat
Is safe, he careth not a groat.
“And see, th’ adulterer, he thrives
With you like cat with ninety lives:
In Jews’ and Moslems’ dispensation
punishment of adultery,
We soon cut short his avocation.
There the amour detected led
Directly to a stone-cracked head;
Your brighter souls prefer to see 2750
Him settled by some pert Q. C.—
Some Buz-fuz Bovell, Edwin James,
Or other talking thing that shames
The name of Themis. You would damage
His ‘bons’ and not his bones; you rummage
* One of the Moslems’ names for the
Supreme Being, meaning
“The Merciful.”—F. B.
His chest and eke his case to find
Food for enlightened Public’s mind,
Institute Probate and Divorce
Courts to inflame the evil worse,
Each fact least decent joy to trace, 2760
And, with delicious detail, grace
Tale of a ‘charming crim. con. case.’
Lotharios who have funds to pay
At that same game here safely play.
’Tis only paupers can’t afford
Part in their neighbour’s bed and board.
‘Come, Fan, with me, and be my love,
And we will o’er Ausonia rove,
Where no stiff prude shall sneer
and say
Sweet Fan’s a naughty divorcée.’” 2770
“Stone, outrag’d Honour——”
“Good sir, oftest
Inflicts the penalty the softest;
And, in such cases, very great is
The chance of getting off clean gratis.
For Honour, in her quiet way,
Stifles the-ugly exposé;
And few now fight, while fewer fall
By pistols only wanting ball,
Save youngest hands, who’re sometimes found
Wounded—in mind—upon the ground. 2780
The herd will aye prefer relief
For cornute pain, connubial grief,
(not damages),
And broken heart and woe intense
By bank-note plaster, salve of pence.
The man who pockets his disgrace
Never, methinks, should show his face
Without his ticket, duly worn
Suspended to his dexter horn.
Yet so ’tis not: Society
Treats him as well as you or me; 2790
And, if he’s rich, pray who’ll refuse
Once more to let him pick and choose?
“Faith, sir, in
A tariff for each sin and vice
Not difficult to calculate;
impartial justice,
Although the values fluctuate.
Crime, also, hath its market rate,
Though grown exorbitant of late.
It is a goodly sight to see
Astræa in
nineteenth century, 2800
In robes of solemn black berigged,
With a huge horse-hair wig befigged,
Bagging poor Peter’s Pence, and crying
‘Ho! Dispensations! who’s for buying?’
But, when unmoneyed criminals steal,
Or forge, or kill, stern fingers feel
The edge of her avenging steel,
Which, were the culprit rich, would lie
In scabbard cased eternally,
And be to all, save common fellow, 2810
Nothing but ‘leather and prunella.’
When ducal hands cut common
throat——”
“The duke must hang——”
“Yes, sir, but note
The gap ’twixt fictions of the law
And facts not you or I e’er saw.
Dukes have an easy saving clause;
Lawyer hath pouch—indictment flaws.
The grandee drives away on bail—
The pauper’s carried straight to jail.
Soldier’s habitual drunkenness 2820
Is a trimestrial excess;
Among the captains met to try
The private for debauchery,
How many, if the truth they’d speak,
Would own to ‘freshness’ once a week?”
“Station and rank must be upheld,
And wealth should make a man be bailed.”
“The ‘must’ and ‘should’ I cannot see;
It is your shame such things should be.
For, mark me, sir, in this fair land 2830
No sin is hated, crime is banned,
Like poverty: here to be poor
Is to be vile. The wide world o’er
’Tis a misfortune—here a worse
Than any sublunary curse.
less avarice,
Rich Vice trips out in laced chemise,
Poor Virtue shakes her cold-chapped knees;
Chastity hath nor shoon nor hose,
And Honour swabs a snivelling nose. [2840
And why? D’ye ask? Because you’ve sold
Your souls for filthy Mammon’s gold.
Long since from pest’lent
Came the ‘vile yellow slave’* that reigns
Supreme o’er
Its thirty million sovereigns,
Of whom few souls would not adore
The golden calf to ‘bone’ its ore.
’Tis only when it’s lead you’re strong
In love of right, in hate of wrong.
You’re very dotards in your lust 2850
Of lucre, madmen in your trust
To acre-might. Some
* From poor John Leyden’s pathetic “Ode to an Indian Gold
Coin.”—F. B.
Some art of turning coin to steam,
Some project wild as drunkard’s dream
Starts up each century, and drives
Britannia raving mad. So strives
The cunning maniac to conceal
His dread complaint. Would you reveal
The horrid malady, and goad
Into a fiend what seemed a load? 2860
With wizard wand of words that part
He hideth with his studied art.
But touch, and see his passions rise!
Mark all the demon in his eyes!
With you the latest wand appeared
In Engine shape; you forthwith reared,
Acteon-like, a bestial front,
With crowns of branching antlers on’t.
What Dian, Circe, Moon, had might
To work such marvel? What fierce sprite, 2870
Tell me, what Hecate-taught hag
Thus metamorphosed man to stag,
Sending him forth in modern days,
Nebuchadnezzar-like, to graze
Where’er a Railway king might lead—
Like Schwein-König of comic Head*—
King Hudson, who could e’en permute,
As royal Lub,† mankind to brute!
Till, after brief but brilliant sway,
He sank t’ a thing as low as they. 2880
The fit hath passed, yet still remains
Its traces burnt in many brains—
* See “Bubbles from the Brunnens of
† A celebrated enchantress in the “Arabian Nights.”—F. B.
To be expelled when Furies send
Another and more frantic fiend;
And even now ye’re hardly sane,
But sad with unforgotten pain—
Many a loser sick and sore
With ruin’s potent Hellebore;
While, in the few, fixed melancholy
Hath ta’en
the place of frantic folly, 2890
Let me prescribe a cure which all
Will join in owning radical—
The real Font de la Jouvence,
Which can bring back your better sense,
The only dose for certain health—
and disgorging over wealth.
Namely, disgorging th’ over wealth,
Th’
ungodly fill with which your claws
Have crammed and rammed your ravening
maws.
Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., objects,
and even threatens.
Render, I say.”
“Stone,
Chartist ‘chaff’
Calls for the flail of Special’s staff. 2900
Like Quaker Bright, wouldst parcel out
Our nobles’ lands to rabble rout?
Wouldst, like the bagman Cobden, see all
Perfections in one beau idéal—
The dis-United
States—and plan
For John the fate of Jonathan,
Manifest fate of Uncle Sam,
Whom wiser men call Uncle Sham?”
“Man, I’ve an honest petrifaction;
Little I feel for petty faction 2910
Of patriots paid so much a day
To march with flags and run away.
And, what is more, I would not barter
Bond Pennsylvanian for Big Charter,
Whereupon the Stone actually abuses Magna
Charta,
Your liberalo-politic creed,
Calf-skin Tables of
To Lackland sense and wit baronial
Most creditable testimonial
(The which enables every stark ass
To have and hold his proper
carcass, 2920
And eke demand a baker’s dozen
Of jurymen the law to cozen,
The benefit of which appears
In
Of all the barons meeting there
How many read or wrote? They were
Dext’rous at pulling nose with grace
Their mutton fists could mar a face
As well as mighty Mahmud’s mace,†
And, with one buffet, breast-plate batter 2930
As flat as farmer’s pewter platter;
Their mighty draughts of beer and mead
Could flood the fields of
Strong men-at-arms, they had stiff seats
On steed, were proud of jousting feats—
Not as your ‘silken barons’ play,
With long cracked poles at mock tournay
(Like hodded cocks on soft green sward),
A tableau-vivant tilting-yard,
Passage of arms to scaramouch 2940
The dust of Ashby de la Zouche;‡
Not like Smith’s knights, whose arms
adorn
The tournament of Smith’s Cremorne,
* Alluding, perhaps, to the quasi-infernal Sierra
Leone.—F. B.
† The conqueror of Somnauth.—F.
B.
‡ For which see “Ivanhoe.”—F. B.
Where the object of the fray appears
Only t’ avoid the shock of spears.
Their lances, sir, were strong, were sharp,
More than their wits: on this I harp,
Because your age finds greater charms
In their dull wisdom than their arms.
To copy all they said—not did— 2950
Sir, I would bid your people rid
Themselves of all the ills they suffer,
And not a patched-up armistice offer
and lapses into treasonable
talk.
Upon such terms as cheaper bread
Or votes at £5 5. a head.
Ages to come mankind shall quote
The Great Napoleon’s Code: he wrote
From dictate of superior sense,
Not extracts from the impotence
Which Pepin might have penned, or great 2960
Carolus scratching scurfy pate.*
Ye Chartist wormkins,
pull up roots
Of wrongs, and thus you’ll kill the shoots;
But——”
“Stop!” cried I; “hast lost thy reason?
Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., would
restrain him,
Ruffian, thy words are rank high
treason.
I, too, a’ ‘Special.’”
“Ass!” said he;
“Choose other subject; what made ye
Provoke me to it?” I could hear
Him muttering to himself—“A year
Or ten, perhaps—trampled upon— 2970
Starved—Lords and Commons, all dupe
on!—
* “Charlemagne, being dull at his
pen, was in the habit of looking to the ceiling for words and of scratching his
head to urge his thoughts.” (Old Chronicle).—F. B.
Pikes, bludgeons—William Tell, Jack Cade—
Horseguards and Foot—a barricade—
Sulphuric acid—Specials to pot—
As fou,
but not so brisk as
The last allusion was too much
For me t’ endure. “Wretch!” cried I, “such
Insinuations loudly call
For treatment in Correction Hall.”
but cannot.
“You mean the station?” [2980
“Yes, of course.”
“Then will I tell you something worse.”
I sat as one spell-bound to see
His grimy grin of vicious glee.
“Stones, as I oft to you have said,
Ere this have broken human head;
And soon it may be ours again
The Stone looks forward to a
To test the strength of human brain.
“Behold our
proper paradise—
How gentle, gay, polite—how far is
Our
You’d say, ‘From this to Resurrection!’
You’re wrong. A dinner’s countermanded.
The weather’s sultry; they’ve demanded
Reasons: the only answer given
Is something touching anti-Heaven.
Two fellows hap to meet: one swears
C’est un peu fort; his friend declares
C’est infâme, that evil days
Are on the Français et Françaises.
A third man thinks it won’t ‘draw
length’ 3000
Before Parisians show their strength.
A fourth opines—if e’er, ’tis now—
That brave men ought their strength to show,
And counsels all ‘poltrons’ to go
Somewhere.
A fifth says present is
The best of opportunities,
And, being an ancient militaire,
Offers to manage the affair;
While some old chef of barricades
His tactics ’fore the crowd
parades, 3010
Sans further parlez-vous, they rush
Into the next gun-shop, and push
The owner out of house and hall
To show the People’s might—that’s all—
And kiss his daughter or his wife
To give the thing a spice of life.
This first step ta’en, they congregate,
Dozens and scores, in frantic state.
Not one has time to think or doubt,
Or ask or see what he’s about— 3020
Boys bad as men, and women first
Of plagues, as usual, and the worst.
A sea of blood, o’er whose fierce tide
Satan himself might gloat with pride,
In one quart d’heure—tables,
chairs,
Beds, wardrobes, boxes, strips of stairs;
And we, sir, placed on planks in layers.”
(“Thank God, from
Gone!——”
“Yes, but they’ve left it in the walls!)
Proclaim Messieurs ‘No thoroughfare.’ 3030
Now, armed by magic, some prepare
Flanking defences from the windows;
Some dance, drink, sing, curse, try what din does
T’ excite their enemies to fight.
Faith, ’tis a spirit-stirring sight!
Clashes the tocsin, rolls the drum
Loud notes above the savage hum,
Whose key-note is the Sacré nom
‘Allahu’* of Gallic Christendom;
Blares the loud trump, and woman’s shriek 3040
Inflames the brave and nerves the weak.
Now all’s still as the tomb: the mound
One mounts, to hear the measured sound
Of ironed hoofs and gaitered feet
Slowly defiling up the street.
No ‘obus’? À merveille! Clear
These warriors know nought of war!
* * * * *
describing one at
“A pause, a brief, long-seeming pause,
Broken in time—a shot the cause,
Th’ effect an empty saddle. ‘Vive 3050
La Charte!’† Now, patriots, give
‘Pepper’ as well as tongue! prepare
Rifle and knife with anxious care!
Climb the banquette—on t’other side
Pour in a ceaseless fiery tide!
A feu d’enfer that mows them down
Like grass before the practised clown.
Ye flankers, fire! women, vitriol throw
Upon the fated troupe below! [3060
Splash face and arms with gore; ’twill show—
Well—hero-like: O qu’il est
beau!
You die? Eh bien! your friends will mourn,
And give, perhaps, a plaster urn
Where
In pretty, trashy Père la Chaise.
Your brother falls: a rien!—drive
Your blade through slaves that run to live!
* “Allah
he!” (is Allah!) the
Moslem war-cry—F. B.
† Which, if memory serves me, was
usually pronounced “La Chatte.”—F. B.
They charge; bah! Let them near you; keep
Your fire awhile. Now roll your heap
Of stones from every window-sill! 3070
Cold iron hurl, hot water spill!
Fill your barrels, men, fill, re-fill!
Taunt, howl, or else they’ll bolt before
You’ve tasted half enough of gore—
Before your hero-boy or wife
Gash e’en one throat with rusty knife!
* * * * *
Ah, what a pity! Shame, O shame!
Those well-trained cocks show scanty game.
They stand—they run! Let showers of
stones,
Parting volleys of shots and groans, 3080
Avenge the execrable crime
Of trifling with your dinner-time.
“A pretty sight this seems to be,
Succedaneous to th’ Agapæ;
You’ve admirably learn’d to smother
Your charity to one another.
‘See how these Christians love’ was true;
‘See how they hate’ is true of you.”
“Ah, they are French——”
“Yes, sir, they are,
These Gallicans, a very mar- 3090
tial member of the creed you can’t
But own to be most militant.
Slavish Islam can boast but one
Revolution, some ages gone
(When slain their caliph hight Usman
For meddling with their Alcoran).
But, this in brackets, d’ye suppose
That only
No; by my origin! we stones
Ere long shall dance on English
bones, 3100
Or Citoyen Crapaud despatch
Some million brother-men to teach
Stiff Lord Jean Boule grace to dance
With Miss Liberté, fresh from
Then some small hero Joinville
Or Cavaignac the Second will,
Under his huge mustachio, sneer
‘En avant, tugs; to gloire ye steer!
Go it, mes braves! the landing’s clear—
Thank God! no
coast-defences here. 3110
March, enfants of vin ordinaire,
Against the bifteck
and the bière;
Advance, sour wine, against flat swipes—
Sans culotte versus cotton wipes.’”
The dreadful thought hard froze my tongue;
I sat in reverie deep and long.
Then came another burst of glee,
And, with a jerk, thus he: “Sir, see,
Methinks may more incite your
spleen. 3120
“Behold yon lovely land outspread
Like emeralds strewn on sapphire bed;
He viciously enables Dr. Polyglott,
Ph.D., to Cumming-ize the
Its bound the narrow waving band
Of silvery cliff and golden sand:
That lovely region decked and drest
In bounteous Nature’s brightest, best;
The land where Zephyr loves to roam
Thro’ flowery hort and fruity grove,
Where Phœbus sheds his latest ray
As loth to leave a scene so gay. 3130
Is’t not an earthly paradise?”
“Now sit up, fellow; use your eyes,
And look and mark, with wondering stare,
The pretty scene that’s passing there.”*
In truth, his leer had mesmerized me:
My sudden power of sight surprised me.
“Mind ye yon city shining fair
In the translucent morning air;
Whose skirts descend on either side
To th’ edges of the subject tide, 3140
Upon whose heaving bosom ride
Three navies, each a nation’s pride.
The sea’s blue depths that seem to lave
The buildings based upon the wave;
The land’s green length, where objects all
Into a picture seem to fall;
Whilst, round about, o’er land and deep
Eternal quiet seems to sleep.
Is’t not too fair for ye to gaze
Upon except on holidays? 3150
“A curious contrast, now you see
Two hosts contend for victory—
This stretching o’er the distant hills,
Whilst that the goodly city fills.
They meet as lines of pismires—fall
By thousands ’fore a battered wall;
Whilst trumpet bray and cannon roar
Are answered by the groaning shore,
And puffs of fetid smoke soar high,
Staining the amethystine sky; 3160
And, swifter than the fiery leven,
Man’s guardian angel speeds to heaven,
While tortured shriek and dying yell
Are borne on demons’ wings to hell.
* Verily this beats Mother Shipton and Rob. Nixon and Dr. Cumming—Prophets
or Prophetasters.—F. B.
The French Malakoff-victory;
“The line divides; the right half, which is
Conspicuous for madder breeches,
Presses like flock of hunted sheep
Towards yon town so grim and steep:
O’er ditch and stream and crest and wall
They jump and swarm, they rise and fall, 3170
With vives and ’crés and cheers and cries
Like thunderings in autumnal skies;
A few defenders, brave in vain,
Slashed, stifled, stabbed, and shot, are slain,
Till every foot of ground is mud
With tears and brains and bones and blood.
Yet, ’faith, it is a grim delight.
To see the little devils fight.
They turn the guns against the town,
Batter each strongest bulwark down. 3180
Charge, grédins, charge! On, crétins, on!
and the English Redan-defeat.
“Now mark the line sinister that’s
In red coatees and Albert hats—
That host of sickly, war-worn men
Despatched against yon iron den
By chief who, seated far—too far!—
Through his specs darkly views the war,
Hidden behind a hilly rise
Where wicked bullet never flies; 3190
And round about the ‘brilliant staff’
All have their silly mot and laugh—
The delicate diminutives!—
About men’s perilled limbs and lives.
Without reserves, supports, or aught
(The idler red-coat host hath sought
Each man a place to view the fray)
That slender column works its way.
“Now neared the trench! a thrilling
shout!
All tumble in and scramble out, 3200
And, spite of bayonet and ball,
They jumble o’er the earthen wall,
Another charge and all is won—
Already the defenders run.
What means this check? Why halt they here,
Stricken by sudden panic fear?
Why slink these warriors aside
Their ostrich heads from death to hide?
Have Britons learned to hark-away
And live to fight another day? 3210
In vain their captains, stark and brave,
Push, urge, and scold, smite, curse, and rave;
They will not face that fiery flood
That sweeps them back in brother-blood.
Advance, supports, reserves, and save
Your honour front a craven’s grave,
And win and wear the glorious
Bronze Cross yclept Victorious!
Supports, reserves—ah, where are they?
Dispersed like wanton boys at play!
3220
Where’s the great Chief-Commander—where?
Lurking in honourable lair?
Arise, Sir James! arise and see
The fate of
The Stone ex-plains what will cause these “Cumming”
things,
* * * * *
“The cause of this I’ll now describe:
’Tis meet to move a cynic’s gibe.
Far in the north, where suns are cold,
Where ice is water, snow is mould,
Dwelt in those dreary lands a ‘Ba’ar,’
Horrid of mien, of hunger rare, 3230
Wont by his roar to spread a fear
’Mid minor brutelets far and near.
One day he formed the fell design
Upon a neighbouring bird to dine;
But Cock and Bull cried, ‘Bear, forbear;
That bird to all our peace is dear:
Sometime he must be some one’s prey,
But now let
For all reply they hear a growl
And certain innuendos foul, 3240
Proceeding from a host of Bears
That into
And inopine converts a brood
Of likely poults to lawless food.
The bird, tho’ somewhat stiff with age,
Ruffles his plume with noble rage,
And flies with’s softy beak and claw
At the vile breaker of the law,
Till tetchy Cock-a-doodle and
The Bull, who e’er
must have a hand 3250
In every pie of rich inside,
Rescue and comfort have supplied.
(They summon even the Sardine,
Done in Cassiteridean tin.)
Ensues a pretty scrimmage, till
The Bear of baiting hath his fill.
With grimly grins and groans of pain,
He wends, head backwards, to his den,
Which nature, art, and toil immense
Had made a marvel of defence. 3260
The
Waddles to glory proudly wobbling;
And Cock, with all his little poules,
And Bull, with all his junior Bulls,
Hasten to waste, in Justice’ name,
Beargarden Lodge with steel and flame.
“But one Spread-Eagle, ‘Death-in-Life,’
Aideth the Bear in’s mortal strife,
And by his wily art lays low
Some twenty thousand of the foe. 3270
Comes the beginning of the end
E’en ‘Death-in-Life’ may not defend:
He warns the Bears, who, waxing savage,
Their den beloved spoil, tear, and ravage,
And then depart in surly pride
Unto their stronghold’s other side;
Where, sitting safe, they take a sight
At Cock and Bull’s behungered plight,
Who sit at meat with saddened mien
’Fore potted cat and coffee green. 3280
“But soon the Bull and Cockadoodle
Resolved that both had played the
noodle,
And daily, as at meat they sat,
’Fore coffee green and potted cat,
They yearned to think on brats and wives,
How hastily they’d sold their lives,
Adorned a tale, pointed a moral
By meddling in another’s quarrel;
For which unauthorized interpose
Both oft had wiped cruorish nose. 3290
This done, they both devised manœuvre
To make the evil time run over;
And, having tried once more again
A mastery o’er the Bear to gain,
They packed the
Back to his home of painted wood,
And winked while Bruin in his rage
Tore down a corner of the cage.
This deed politic duly done,
As all had lost, and none had won, 3300
As none could buck or boast that he
Had gained superiority,
They all decreed fierce war to cease
And hail return of smiling peace,
To love once more with heart and soul
And drown their difference in the bowl.
Soon said, quick done; they drank, and then
Each warrior sought his distant den,
While Bruin whispered, ‘Heartkins, mum,
‘We’ll bide our time; ’twill surely come.’ 3310
“A hundred thousand men and more
Stained the Crimean soil with gore;
A hundred thousand souls had died
To gratify two despots’ pride.
Ah, man! it is a treat to see
Thy human inhumanity.”
He ceased, and rang within mine ear
His words significantly drear;
And, while I tried to seek relief
From vision of our national grief, 3320
Out broke, in sad and wailing tone
And doleful dumps, the following moan:
MOAN.
and moans over modern English de-generacy.
“Mourn,
Of honour in thine elder day.
The children of thy younger age,
That race so brave, if not so sage,
Ah, where are they?
Those knights so débonnaire and gay,
So fiery in the fight and fray,
That never knew the word of fear, 3330
Brought up from milk on beef and beer,
Ah, where are they?
Like other things, they’ve passed away,
And for their spirits churchmen pray;
Their sword-blades stain the walls with rust,
Their war-steeds, like themselves, are dust:
Ah, gone are they.
A poor and puny race to-day
In vain to take their place essay—
A dwarf’d, degenerate progeny, 3340
Reared on dry toast and twice-drunk tea:
Ah, sad decay!
He then enters upon the case of
“Ah, sad decay! see
Bruin once more
Rageth far fiercer than before.
As
On Poles he plants his heavy paw;
He rules their realm by fines and fetters;
He robs their brats, and eke their letters;
He drives their youth to swell his host;
He racks their rents, t’ uphold his boast 3350
Of being th’ incarnate principle
Of rule ye call despotical;
And, when they offer to object,
Their lives and fortunes rack’d and wreck’d,
He fills their towns with venal spies;
T’ hunt down each nobler soul he tries,
Most rigorous martial law proclaims,
Be-knouts their men, be-rates their dames,
Sending them forth, a dreary way,
To Tobolsk,
in
Fines, harries, bans, and confiscates
The friends of Freedom, whom he hates
With all the wrath of tyrant ire,
and abuses the so-called
Liberals,
As squire loathes poacher, poacher squire.
“Ye Whigs, ye Liberals, that be
Infleshed Illiberality,
That e’en to use the Liberal name
Should flush your checks with blush of shame,
What did ye when the generous cry
Of Christendom was heard on high? 3370
“Of course the Jack of Britain sees
The Euxine and the Baltic seas—
Not led by men from whom the go
Hath gone some score of years ago,
Not boasting knight of Netherby
In place where he should never be,
Nor John de Bedford (name of fear!),
Nor Pecksniff Glad. to Grundy dear,
Nor wanting bomb-ketch, light craft—all,
In fact, that was effectual— 3380
Not with a broadside of popgun,
But cupolas, by Coles begun;
Not manned by tailor, potboy, clown—
Refuse of bog, and eke of town;
But, from the first to last, complete,
As
“Ah, no! So powerful, so grand
The lecturing of this freeborn land,
What erring ruler dare gainsay
Nor see the folly of his way? 3390
Penitent—constitutional—
From
‘Peccavi’ cry with might and main,
And rush to learn the A B C
Of ten-pun vote and liberty.
“Sarah” especially.
“Yes, look ye! ‘Sarah’* grips the pen
And
Sneer with a concentrated spite
To see the Briton
No Solon he to talk or think,
But ‘peart’ at goosequill stained with ink.
And what writes he?
Some wretched trash,
Grotius and Bible all in hash,
With stern dictate and feint of threat
And league for armed coercion met—
Three allied powers’ (all the scoff
Of single-handed Gortschakoff)
Vapid outcries and maunder’d pleading
For the poor land whose corpse lies
bleeding, 3410
All ending with the arrière-goût
‘Go in and win: who'll fight for you?’
“Then th’ all unreasonable Tartar,
Though caught, will not be daunted,
laughter
And equal scribbling art opposing
To all the foeman thinks most posing;
And, daunting all with fell-fanged grin,
He hugs his victim tighter in,
While Dogberry, hast’ning tail to show,
Takes note of him and lets him go†— 3420
Like bully Pistol, e’en must seek
A private coigne to eat his leek.
* Surely the irreverend wretch of a
Stone cannot allude to the motto of the ducal family of——?—F. B.
† I cannot pass over this misquotation. In the original
Dogberry says, “Take no note of him, but let him go.”—F. B.
He waxes pathetic about the dis-United
States war,
“Behold a brother-nation stand
Embattled on its mother-land—
This half for empire fights, the other,
That won't call Sambo man and brother,
For Freedom strikes: the twain appeal
To the old parent, who should feel
Bowels of pity yearn to see
The fury of his progeny. 3430
A word in time had stayed the flood
That drenched the land in tears and blood.
’Tis money-loving cowardice,
’Tis slavish silence to be nice
When men's lives in the balance sway:
Outspeak it, men, come what come may.
But no! we
wait what
Abortive, called a
For once sits deeply, deadly dumb; 3440
So mumbles Bull with toothless gum,
‘Oyez! ye great Confederates,
And Oyez! ye great Federal States:
Great are ye both! Considering this,
Considering that, and all that is
To be considered, I'm content
To call ye both belligerent,
To keep a strict neutrality,
Which means look out. for self, ye see.
Bella debella belle! Belly 3450
Will make ye soon knock off, I tell ye;
Meanwhile, fight on till all is red,
And grind your bones to make my bread.’
“Turn t’other way: see yonder Dane,
His realm invaded, cities ta’en,
His people plundered, soldiers
slain
By those twin gaunt and grisly forms
That daunt
the steed in Russian storms.
Weary of wrangle in their lairs
O’er the dry bones of State affairs, 3460
Fearing a general mutiny
In the whole horde both far and nigh,
Luck-burgh and High-toll (such their
names)
Set forth to see the world in flames—
Bravely pick out the smallest prey
And crack his crown.
And where are they
That should defend?—the ‘Cabinet
Of all the Talents’—Premier Threat,
Secundus Sneer, and Grundy Glad.,
Inevitable Stick?*
’Tis sad! 3470
Again they all sit down to write,
When other men would stand and fight.
They fire off—Armstrongs? Whitworths?—
No!
But protocol and plenipo!
Pushed to the last, they dare propose
Of Conference the normal dose;
And now behold how all this ends—
The Lord defend me from my friends!
* * * * *
and ends with general abuse of
John Bull.
Certes, the last half-century
Hath sent us queerish things to see. 3480
When the great Uncle’s subtle Nephew
Delivered
* Can he mean the great No-shire statesman with whom Dr. Polyglott dined?—F. B.
From Cossack and Republican—
Who mostly thwarted’s every plan?
Grundy and Stiggins! Thou and Thou!!
That was a glorious pow-wow!*
What tricks ye played in Church and State!
What jinks ye flung infuriate!
Court, pulpit, press, and public, all
Lunatico-maniacal: 3490
The Stone shows that
Such mania as say’th th’ old tradition
The gods make courier to perdition.
And thus Napoleon rose. Abuse
First taught fair
‘See, l’Anglais hates him!—why? ’tis
clear
No more Napoleons wanted here:
Le petit homme is Heaven sent,
And he shall sit our President!’
“I’ sooth, it was a contrast—You
Versus the man of ’Fifty-two, 3500
And You kow-towing all before
To self-same man of ’Fifty-four.
’Tis true that was a candidate,
And this had won imperial state;
Whilst your rank-worship casts you prone
All the world o’er before a throne,
And from all ‘Things of Pagod sway,’
With brazen Front and feet of Clay,
Turning with mien sufficient bold,
You lowly buss
the toe of gold. 3510
“Thus rose Napoleon III.: again
Imperialism took the rein.
* A council amongst the savage aborigines of
Poor Johnny Bull down louted low
’Fore Gallic cockrel’s clarion crow,
And warned his female sharp to put her
Alarm-bells up at every shutter,
Whilst he went forth to guard his store
Of steel-traps and spring-guns galore.
‘Who knows,’ cries he, ‘what treachery?
That “beastly bird” may cunning be. 3520
L’Empire c’est la paix: a word
For Peace may substitute the Sword.
While fields are pocked with armed heel,
While ports are stocked with iron keel,
While
To general
Who knows what is the fellow’s plan
Against a “Merchant and a Man”?
My constitution’s strong and free
When not assailed by enemy; 3530
But man, when danger groweth near,
Must think of all that man holds dear,
Prize wife and children, friends, renown,
Protestantism, Peerage, Crown.
Bide we our time—he’ll go his way;
I’ll run, to fight another day.’
And so the rude and rampant roar,
Erst wont to echo
Subsided to the piteous whine
Of second childhood genuine, 3540
* It is wrong thus to allude
to that reverend gentleman; but the friends of Mr. S—— surely ought not to have
left him standing, in the shape of a
plaster-of-Paris bust, in the Crystal Palace, looking, with
cock-nose and snarling
lip, at those high-bred gentlemen
Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin as if he were a potboy offering to fight either
of them for a pint o’ porter.—J. B.
And all the beasts of field and fell
The Bull-ings are made to fall foul of Mr. Bull, their
sire,
Cried ‘Farewell, Johnny Bull!
Farewell!’
“But Bull of Bull-lings had a brood
Full fierce of fight and full of
blood,
Sturdy young louts who more than once
To odds had dealt a broken sconce.
They ranked themselves in troop and
squad,
And learned to stand and eke to prod,
To turn, to wheel about, and show
A ’fended front to every foe: 3550
Their Bull’s Run o’er was t’other way;
And some had nearly died (they say)
For want of enemy to slay.
“When Bull-lings heard their sire’s decree,
T’ ignobly guard his property,
They made a mighty ‘many’ and
Thus unto hint preferred demand:
“‘Thee, great Papa, we praise,’ they said,
‘Yet wherefore hide that dear old head?
If weight of hours and honours press thee, 3560
If stricture, rheum, gout, stone, oppress thee,
O take thy rest! Speak thou the word,
And we go forth a ready herd,
To sweep from off our pasture’s face
Of hostile animals every trace—
Cocks, Eagles with Two Heads or One,
Dragons and Bears, Lions and Sun.
Right soon the beasts obscure shall see
The British Beef’s supremacy.
We’ll dip the world in English ale, 3570
Make Kickshaw and
And send to Vaterland undear
Sausage, Sauer-kraut, and Lagerbier.
Bellow the word!’
But Bull was old,
And Bull was stupid; Bull was cold;
Bull, like a certain widow, ’d seen
Far better times than these, I ween.
“‘My sons,’ he gently ’gan to low,
‘We all must reap the thing we sow.
I planted storms in my hot youth, 3580
And now I gather cyclones. ’Sooth
To say, my sin hath found me out.’
“‘Papa! no cant!’
‘Hush, rebel rout,
Time was when to Borussia none
Without my leave could bang a gun,
Civis Romanus sum could save
The veriest miscreant from the grave,
And a roast Protestant set fire,
Like Helen's rape, t’ a whole empire.
’Twas then three mighty specs I made, 3590
And threw all peoples in the shade:
I shipped old Afric’s West Coast clean
Of negro and of niggerine—
Five hundred million guineas there
Were brought me by my negro ware;
Next
And voided gold ’neath fire and
steel,
Till I could hardly stir a foot
For weight of land and blood and
loot;
And, lastly, cotton made me roll 3600
In gold and notes, until my soul
Is made of money——
about his fleet,
‘But,
Pa, your fleet?——’
‘My little dears, is tight and neat;
Wanting, ’tis true, officers, men,
And the right gun: but still, what then?
Each Bull is fit, you know, ye dogs,
To meet and eat a dozen Frogs.
army,
Hip! hip! hurrah!’
‘But, Pa, your army?——’
“‘Let not that nauseous theme alarm ye.
’Tis, somehow, hard to raise recruits, 3610
Who cry for rank and pay (the brutes!),
And yet I beat, on Belgian plain,
The Frenchman, and will do ’t again;
At
In
and colonies.
Hip! hip! hurrah!’
‘Your colonies?——’
“‘Oh, let them slide: Ionians go
To
Thou Caffre-fighting
Maori-slaying
African pest-house, gang your gait;
Take
And, e’en
if
I've left her nothing but the rind.’
The Bull-lings blushed, each shook his head—
‘No luck till poor Papa is dead.’
And
From rising Sun to setting Sol.
The Stone re- opens his Lament ab initio,
* * * * *
Alas and oh! oh and alas!
How Tempora
and Mores pass! 3630
Time was—but now once more the doom
Striketh me silent as the tomb;
* Kinglake says English won
when Fate dumbs
him.
A cold clutch grips my heart around,
My ear grows deaf, my tongue is bound——
“Place me on Shakespeare's sandstone Cliff,
His last words are, “I’ll go to
Where nought save donkey-boys and I
Can hear our mutual groan and sniff;
Thence, swan-like, let me take fly:
A
I'll wend me somewhere on the
Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., who can stand
it no more,
I could no more. “Police! Po-li-ce!”
I shouted. “Ruffian, in a trice
The station-house shall hold your tongue,
And Johnny Bull shall see you hung,
Meagher’d, Bedlam’d, or sent to try an-
other attempt with Rex O'Brien;
Where, in thought, and thought only, you
Are Fingal's rock—he Brian Boru.”*
And off I ran full hard, while he
Giggled a sneering “Hi! hi! hi!” 3650
And, looking round, methought a dead-
light played above his pestilent head,
Which made me faster run from th’ evil—
Perhaps Ram Mohun was the Devil.
I gazed around. Day slothful broke
Through hanging veils of coaly smoke;
Rose in her russet cloak the Dawn,
As if her silks were out of pawn;
complains to the Police,
And every sparrow seem’d to say,
“’Drat it! another rainy day!” 3660
Th’ inspector heard my hurried tale,
And threatened me with fine or jail
is laughed at, and
For hoaxing the detective force.
Seeing the matter might be worse,
* Brian the Brave, king of
Back I returned to mark the place
Where lay that pagan Stone, in case
A future reference were required.
I searched all round about, till tired
goes to bed sober.
Of scrutinizing every stone
Except the one my thoughts were on. 3670
Yet there, I’m certain, stood the house
Of the old wife and junior spouse;*
Here lived Miss B., and there Miss A.:
’Twas vain; I sighed, and went away
To bed—sober.
* Omitted in page 75.—F. B.
THE
END.
TEMPLE BAR.