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"All on a summer's day."

I cannot leave this line without remarking that one of the Scribleri, a
descendant of the famous Martinus, has expressed his suspicions of the
text being corrupted here, and proposes instead of "all on" reading
"alone", alleging, in favour of this alteration, the effect of solitude
in raising the passions. But Hiccius Doctius, a high Dutch commentator,
one nevertheless well versed in British literature, in a note of his
usual length and learning, has confuted the arguments of Scriblerus. In
support of the present reading he quotes a passage from a poem written
about the same period with our author's, by the celebrated Johannes
Pastor[230], intituled "An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey of Newgate",
wherein the gentleman declares that, rather indeed in compliance with
an old custom than to gratify any particular wish of his own, he is
going--

"All hanged for to be
Upon that fatal Tyburn tree ".

Now, as nothing throws greater light on an author than the concurrence
of a contemporary writer, I am inclined to be of Hiccius' opinion, and
to consider the "All" as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly
phrases it _elegans expletivum_. The passage therefore must stand
thus:--

"The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts
All on a summer's day."

And thus ends the first part, or beginning, which is simple and
unembellished, opens the subject in a natural and easy manner, excites,
but does not too far gratify our curiosity, for a reader of accurate
observation may easily discover that the hero of the poem has not, as
yet, made his appearance.

I could not continue my examination at present through the whole of
this poem without far exceeding the limits of a single paper. I have
therefore divided it into two, but shall not delay the publication of
the second to another week, as that, besides breaking the connection of
criticism, would materially injure the unities of the poem.

Having thus gone through the first part, or beginning of the poem, we
may, naturally enough, proceed to the consideration of the second.

The second part, or middle, is the proper place for bustle and
business, for incident and adventure:--

"The Knave of Hearts
He stole those tarts".

Here attention is awakened, and our whole souls are intent upon the
first appearance of the hero. Some readers may perhaps be offended at
his making his _entree_ in so disadvantageous a character as that of a
thief. To this I plead precedent.

The hero of the Iliad, as I observed in a former paper, is made to
lament very pathetically that "life is not like all other possessions,
to be acquired by theft". A reflection, in my opinion, evidently
showing that, if he _did_ refrain from the practice of this ingenious
art, it was not from want of an inclination that way. We may remember,
too, that in Virgil's poem almost the first light in which the pious
AEneas appears to us is a deer-stealer; nor is it much excuse for him
that the deer were wandering without keepers, for however he might,
from this circumstance, have been unable to ascertain whose property
they were, he might, I think, have been pretty well assured that they
were not his.

Having thus acquitted our hero of misconduct, by the example of his
betters, I proceed to what I think the master-stroke of the poet.

"The Knave of Hearts
He stole those tarts,
And--took them--quite away!!"

Here, whoever has an ear for harmony and a heart for feeling must be
touched! There is a desponding melancholy in the run of the last line!
an air of tender regret in the addition of "quite away!" a something so
expressive of irrecoverable loss! so forcibly intimating the _Ad
nunquam reditura!_ "They never can return!" in short, such an union of
sound and sense as we rarely, if ever, meet with in any author, ancient
or modern. Our feelings are all alive, but the poet, wisely dreading
that our sympathy with the injured Queen might alienate our affections
from his hero, contrives immediately to awaken our fears for him by
telling us that--

"The King of Hearts
Called for those tarts".

We are all conscious of the fault of our hero, and all tremble with
him, for the punishment which the enraged monarch may inflict:

"And beat the Knave full sore!"

The fatal blow is struck! We cannot but rejoice that guilt is justly
punished, though we sympathize with the guilty object of punishment.
Here Scriblerus, who, by the by, is very fond of making unnecessary
alterations, proposes reading "score" instead of "sore", meaning
thereby to particularize that the beating bestowed by this monarch
consisted of twenty stripes. But this proceeds from his ignorance of
the genius of our language, which does not admit of such an expression
as "full score", but would require the insertion of the particle "a",
which cannot be, on account of the metre. And this is another great
artifice of the poet. By leaving the quantity of beating indeterminate,
he gives every reader the liberty to administer it, in exact proportion
to the sum of indignation which he may have conceived against his hero,
that by thus amply satisfying their resentment they may be the more
easily reconciled to him afterwards.

"The King of Hearts
Called for those tarts,
And beat the Knave full sore."

Here ends the second part, or middle of the poem, in which we see the
character and exploits of the hero portrayed with the hand of a master.

Nothing now remains to be examined but the third part, or end. In the
end it is a rule pretty well established that the work should draw
towards a conclusion, which our author manages thus:--

"The Knave of Hearts
Brought back those tarts".

Here everything is at length settled; the theft is compensated, the
tarts restored to their right owner, and poetical justice, in every
respect, strictly and impartially administered.

We may observe that there is nothing in which our poet has better
succeeded than in keeping up an unremitted attention in his readers to
the main instruments, the machinery of his poem, viz. the _tarts_;
insomuch that the afore-mentioned Scriblerus has sagely observed that
"he can't tell, but he doesn't know, but the tarts may be reckoned the
heroes of the poem". Scriblerus, though a man of learning, and
frequently right in his opinion, has here certainly hazarded a rash
conjecture. His arguments are overthrown entirely by his great
opponent, Hiccius, who concludes by triumphantly asking, "Had the tarts
been eaten, how could the poet have compensated for the loss of his
heroes?"

We are now come to the _denouement_, the setting all to rights: and our
poet, in the management of his moral, is certainly superior to his
great ancient predecessors. The moral of their fables, if any they
have, is so interwoven with the main body of their work, that in
endeavouring to unravel it we should tear the whole. Our author has
very properly preserved his whole and entire for the end of his poem,
where he completes his main design, the reformation of his hero, thus--

"And vowed he'd steal no more".

Having in the course of his work shown the bad effects arising from
theft, he evidently means this last moral reflection to operate with
his readers as a gentle and polite dissuasive from stealing.

"The Knave of Hearts
Brought back those tarts,
And vowed he'd steal no more!"

Thus have I industriously gone through the several parts of this
wonderful work, and clearly proved it, in every one of these parts, and
in all of them together, to be a "due and proper epic poem", and to
have as good a right to that title, from its adherence to prescribed
rules, as any of the celebrated masterpieces of antiquity. And here I
cannot help again lamenting that, by not knowing the name of the
author, I am unable to twine our laurels together, and to transmit to
posterity the mingled praises of genius and judgment, of the poet and
his commentator.

[Footnote 230: More commonly known, I believe, by the appellation of
Jack Shepherd.]




POETRY OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN.

(1797-1798.)


LII. THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER.

The _Anti-Jacobin_ was planned by George Canning when he was
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He secured the
collaboration of George Ellis, John Hookham Frere, William Gifford,
and some others. The last-named was appointed working editor. The
first number appeared on the 20th November, 1797, with a notice
that "the publication would be continued every Monday during the
sitting of Parliament". A volume of the best pieces, entitled _The
Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_, was published in 1800. It is almost
impossible to apportion accurately the various pieces to their
respective authors, though more than one attempt has been made so
to do. The following piece is designed to ridicule the extravagant
sympathy for the lower classes which was then the fashion.


_Friend of Humanity_.

Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going?
Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order--
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches!

Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones,
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, "Knives and
Scissors to grind O!"

Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
Was it the squire? or parson of the parish?
Or the attorney?

Was it the squire for killing of his game? or
Covetous parson for his tithes distraining?
Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit?

(Have you not read the _Rights of Man_, by Tom Paine?)
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall as soon as you have told your
Pitiful story.

_Knife-grinder_.

Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir,
Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in the scuffle.

Constable came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the Justice,
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish
Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honour's health in
A pot of beer, if you would give me sixpence;
But, for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir.

_Friend of Humanity_.

_I_ give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first--
Wretch! whom no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance--
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcast!

[_Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport
of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy_.]



LIII. SONG BY ROGERO THE CAPTIVE.

This is a satirical imitation of many of the songs current in the
romantic dramas of the period. It is contained in the _Rovers, or
the Double Arrangement_, act i. sc. 2, a skit upon the dramatic
literature of the day.


Whene'er with haggard eyes I view
This dungeon, that I'm rotting in,
I think of those companions true
Who studied with me in the U-
-niversity of Gottingen--
-niversity of Gottingen.
[_Weeps, and pulls out a blue 'kerchief, with which
he wipes his eyes; gazing tenderly at it, he
proceeds_.

Sweet 'kerchief check'd with heavenly blue,
Which once my love sat knotting in,
Alas, Matilda then was true,
At least I thought so at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen--
-niversity of Gottingen.
[_At the repetition of this line Rogero clanks
his chain in cadence_.

Barbs! barbs! alas! how swift ye flew,
Her neat post-waggon trotting in!
Ye bore Matilda from my view;
Forlorn I languish'd at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen--
-niversity of Gottingen.

This faded form! this pallid hue!
This blood my veins is clotting in,
My years are many--they were few
When I first entered at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen--
-niversity of Gottingen.


There first for thee my passion grew,
Sweet; sweet Matilda Pottingen!
Thou wast the daughter of my tutor,
Law Professor at the U-
-niversity of Gottingen--
-niversity of Gottingen

Sun, moon, and thou vain world, adieu,
That kings and priests are plotting in;
Here doom'd to starve on water-gruel,
never shall I see the U-
-niversity of Gottingen!--
-niversity of Gottingen!

[_During the last stanza Rogero dashes his head
repeatedly against the walls of his prison;
and, finally, so hard as to produce a visible
contusion. He then throws himself on the
floor in an agony. The curtain drops--the
music still continuing to play till it is wholly
fallen_.




COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY.

(1772-1834.) (1774-1843.)


LIV. THE DEVIL'S WALK.

Originally written in an album belonging to one of the Misses
Fricker, the ladies whom the two poets married. What was the extent
of the collaboration of the respective writers in the poem is
unknown, but the fact is beyond a doubt that it was written by them
in conjunction.


From his brimstone bed at break of day
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To visit his snug little farm upon earth,
And see how his stock goes on.

Over the hill and over the dale,
And he went over the plain,
And backward and forward he switched his long tail,
As a gentleman switches his cane.

And how, then, was the Devil drest?
Oh, he was in his Sunday best;
His jacket was red, and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where his tail came through.

He saw a lawyer killing a viper
On a dunghill hard by his own stable;
And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind
Of Cain and his brother Abel.

He saw an apothecary on a white horse
Ride by on his own vocations;
And the Devil thought of his old friend
Death in the Revelations.

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility;
And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is the pride that apes humility.

He went into a rich bookseller's shop,
Quoth he! we are both of one college,
For I myself sate like a cormorant once,
Fast by the tree of knowledge.

Down the river there plied, with wind and tide,
A pig, with vast celerity,
And the Devil looked wise as he saw how the while
It cut its own throat. There! quoth he, with a smile,
Goes "England's commercial prosperity".

As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw
A solitary cell;
And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint
For improving his prisons in hell.

General Gascoigne's burning face
He saw with consternation;
And back to hell his way did take,
For the Devil thought by a slight mistake
It was a general conflagration.




SYDNEY SMITH.

(1771-1845.)


LV. THE LETTERS OF PETER PLYMLEY--ON "NO POPERY".

In 1807 the _Letters of Peter Plymley_ to his brother Abraham on
the subject of the Irish Catholics were published. "The letters",
as Professor Henry Morley says, "fell like sparks on a heap of
gunpowder. All London, and soon all England, were alive to the
sound reason recommended by a lively wit." The example of his
satiric force and sarcastic ratiocination cited below is the Second
Letter in the Series.


DEAR ABRAHAM,

The Catholic not respect an oath! why not? What upon earth has kept him
out of Parliament, or excluded him from all the offices whence he is
excluded, but his respect for oaths? There is no law which prohibits a
Catholic to sit in Parliament. There could be no such law; because it
is impossible to find out what passes in the interior of any man's
mind. Suppose it were in contemplation to exclude all men from certain
offices who contended for the legality of taking tithes: the only mode
of discovering that fervid love of decimation which I know you to
possess would be to tender you an oath "against that damnable doctrine,
that it is lawful for a spiritual man to take, abstract, appropriate,
subduct, or lead away the tenth calf, sheep, lamb, ox, pigeon, duck",
&c., and every other animal that ever existed, which of course the
lawyers would take care to enumerate. Now this oath I am sure you would
rather die than take; and so the Catholic is excluded from Parliament
because he will not swear that he disbelieves the leading doctrines of
his religion! The Catholic asks you to abolish some oaths which oppress
him; your answer is that he does not respect oaths. Then why subject
him to the test of oaths? The oaths keep him out of Parliament; why,
then, he respects them. Turn which way you will, either your laws are
nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by religious obligations as you are;
but no eel in the well-sanded fist of a cook-maid, upon the eve of
being skinned, ever twisted and writhed as an orthodox parson does when
he is compelled by the gripe of reason to admit anything in favour of a
dissenter.

I will not dispute with you whether the Pope be or be not the Scarlet
Lady of Babylon. I hope it is not so; because I am afraid it will
induce His Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer to introduce several
severe bills against popery, if that is the case; and though he will
have the decency to appoint a previous committee of inquiry as to the
fact, the committee will be garbled, and the report inflammatory.
Leaving this to be settled as he pleases to settle it, I wish to inform
you, that, previously to the bill last passed in favour of the
Catholics, at the suggestion of Mr. Pitt, and for his satisfaction, the
opinions of six of the most celebrated of the foreign Catholic
universities were taken as to the right of the Pope to interfere in the
temporal concerns of any country. The answer cannot possibly leave the
shadow of a doubt, even in the mind of Baron Maseres; and Dr. Rennel
would be compelled to admit it, if three Bishops lay dead at the very
moment the question were put to him. To this answer might be added also
the solemn declaration and signature of all the Catholics in Great
Britain.

I should perfectly agree with you, if the Catholics admitted such a
dangerous dispensing power in the hands of the Pope; but they all deny
it, and laugh at it, and are ready to abjure it in the most decided
manner you can devise. They obey the Pope as the spiritual head of
their Church; but are you really so foolish as to be imposed upon by
mere names? What matters it the seven-thousandth part of a farthing who
is the spiritual head of any Church? Is not Mr. Wilberforce at the head
of the Church of Clapham? Is not Dr. Letsom at the head of the Quaker
Church? Is not the General Assembly at the head of the Church of
Scotland? How is the government disturbed by these many-headed
Churches? or in what way is the power of the Crown augmented by this
almost nominal dignity?

The King appoints a fast-day once a year, and he makes the bishops: and
if the government would take half the pains to keep the Catholics out
of the arms of France that it does to widen Temple Bar, or improve Snow
Hill, the King would get into his hands the appointments of the titular
Bishops of Ireland. Both Mr. C----'s sisters enjoy pensions more than
sufficient to place the two greatest dignitaries of the Irish Catholic
Church entirely at the disposal of the Crown. Everybody who knows
Ireland knows perfectly well that nothing would be easier, with the
expenditure of a little money, than to preserve enough of the
ostensible appointment in the hands of the Pope to satisfy the scruples
of the Catholics, while the real nomination remained with the Crown.
But, as I have before said, the moment the very name of Ireland is
mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common
prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants
and the fatuity of idiots.

Whatever your opinion may be of the follies of the Roman Catholic
religion, remember they are the follies of four millions of human
beings, increasing rapidly in numbers, wealth, and intelligence, who,
if firmly united with this country, would set at defiance the power of
France, and if once wrested from their alliance with England, would in
three years render its existence as an independent nation absolutely
impossible. You speak of danger to the Establishment: I request to know
when the Establishment was ever so much in danger as when Hoche was in
Bantry Bay, and whether all the books of Bossuet, or the arts of the
Jesuits, were half so terrible? Mr. Perceval and his parsons forget all
this, in their horror lest twelve or fourteen old women may be
converted to holy water and Catholic nonsense. They never see that,
while they are saving these venerable ladies from perdition, Ireland
may be lost, England broken down, and the Protestant Church, with all
its deans, prebendaries, Percevals, and Rennels, be swept into the
vortex of oblivion.

Do not, I beseech you, ever mention to me again the name of Dr.
Duigenan. I have been in every corner of Ireland, and have studied its
present strength and condition with no common labour. Be assured
Ireland does not contain at this moment less than 5,000,000 people.
There were returned in the year 1791 to the hearth tax 701,000 houses,
and there is no kind of question that there were about 50,000 houses
omitted in that return. Taking, however, only the number returned for
the tax, and allowing the average of six to a house (a very small
average for a potato-fed people), this brings the population to
4,200,000 people in the year 1791: and it can be shown from the
clearest evidence (and Mr. Newenham in his book shows it), that Ireland
for the last 50 years has increased in its population at the rate of
50,000 or 60,000 per annum; which leaves the present population of
Ireland at about 5,000,000, after every possible deduction for
_existing circumstances, just and necessary wars, monstrous and
unnatural rebellions_, and all other sources of human destruction. Of
this population, two out of ten are Protestants; and the half of the
Protestant population are dissenters, and as inimical to the Church as
the Catholics themselves. In this state of things thumbscrews and
whipping--admirable engines of policy as they must be considered to
be--will not ultimately avail. The Catholics will hang over you; they
will watch for the moment, and compel you hereafter to give them ten
times as much, against your will, as they would now be contented with,
if it were voluntarily surrendered. Remember what happened in the
American war, when Ireland compelled you to give her everything she
asked, and to renounce, in the most explicit manner, your claim of
sovereignty over her. God Almighty grant the folly of these present men
may not bring on such another crisis of public affairs!

What are your dangers which threaten the Establishment? Reduce this
declamation to a point, and let us understand what you mean. The most
ample allowance does not calculate that there would be more than twenty
members who were Roman Catholics in one house, and ten in the other, if
the Catholic emancipation were carried into effect. Do you mean that
these thirty members would bring in a bill to take away the tithes from
the Protestant, and to pay them to the Catholic clergy? Do you mean
that a Catholic general would march his army into the House of Commons,
and purge it of Mr. Perceval and Dr. Duigenan? or, that the
theological writers would become all of a sudden more acute or more
learned, if the present civil incapacities were removed? Do you fear
for your tithes, or your doctrines, or your person, or the English
Constitution? Every fear, taken separately, is so glaringly absurd,
that no man has the folly or the boldness to state it. Everyone
conceals his ignorance, or his baseness, in a stupid general panic,
which, when called on, he is utterly incapable of explaining. Whatever
you think of the Catholics, there they are--you cannot get rid of them;
your alternative is to give them a lawful place for stating their
grievances, or an unlawful one: if you do not admit them to the House
of Commons, they will hold their parliament in Potatoe Place, Dublin,
and be ten times as violent and inflammatory as they would be in
Westminster. Nothing would give me such an idea of security as to see
twenty or thirty Catholic gentlemen in Parliament, looked upon by all
the Catholics as the fair and proper organ of their party. I should
have thought it the height of good fortune that such a wish existed on
their part, and the very essence of madness and ignorance to reject it.
Can you murder the Catholics? Can you neglect them? They are too
numerous for both these expedients. What remains to be done is obvious
to every human being--but to that man who, instead of being a Methodist
preacher, is, for the curse of us and our children, and for the ruin of
Troy and the misery of good old Priam and his sons, become a legislator
and a politician.

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