VI.
Thy sophist veil, dread goddess, wear, Falsehood insidiously impart; Thy philosophic train, be there, To taint the mind, corrupt the heart; The gen’rous virtues of our isle, Teach us to hate and to revile; Our glorious Charter’s faults to scan, Time-sanction’d truths despise, and preach THY RIGHTS OF MAN. AN ENGLISH JACOBIN.
[The original poem, of which the above is an imitation, is subjoined:—
HYMN TO ADVERSITY.
BY THOMAS GRAY.
Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge, and torturing hour, The bad affright, afflict the best! Bound in thy adamantine chain, The proud are taught to taste of pain, And purple tyrants vainly groan, With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, designed, To thee he gave the heavenly birth, And bade thee form her infant mind, Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore: What sorrow was, thou bad’st her know, And from her own she learnt to melt at others’ woe.
Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly’s idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe; By vain prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.
Wisdom, in sable garb arrayed, Immersed in rapturous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend: Warm Charity, the general friend, With Justice, to herself severe, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.
O, gently on thy suppliant’s head, Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, Nor circled with the vengeful band (As by the impious thou art seen), With thundering voice, and threatening mien, With screaming Horror’s funeral cry, Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.
Thy form benign, O goddess! wear, Thy milder influence impart, Thy philosophic train be there, To soften not to wound my heart. The generous spark extinct revive; Teach me to love and to forgive; Exact my own defects to scan, What others are, to feel, and know myself a man.—ED.]
[Illustration]
No. XXI.
April 2, 1798.
We promised in our Sixteenth Number, that though we should not proceed regularly with the publication of the Didactic Poem, the PROGRESS OF MAN,—a work which, indeed, both from its bulk, and from the erudite nature of the subject, would hardly suit with the purposes of a Weekly Paper,—we should, nevertheless, give from time to time such extracts from it as we thought were likely to be useful to our readers, and as were in any degree connected with the topics or events of the times.
The following extract is from the 23rd Canto of this admirable and instructive Poem;—in which the author (whom, by a series of accidents, which we have neither the space, nor indeed the liberty, to enumerate at present, we have discovered to be MR. HIGGINS, of _St. Mary Axe_) describes the vicious refinement of what is called civilized society, in respect to marriage; contends with infinite spirit and philosophy against the factitious sacredness and indissolubility of that institution; and paints in glowing colours the happiness and utility (in a moral as well as political view) of an arrangement of an opposite sort, such as prevails in countries which are yet under the influence of pure and unsophisticated nature.
In illustration of his principles upon this subject, the author alludes to a popular production of the German Drama, the title of which is the “REFORMED HOUSEKEEPER” [_The Stranger_], which he expresses a hope of seeing transfused into the language of this country.
THE PROGRESS OF MAN. CANTO TWENTY-THIRD. CONTENTS.
ON MARRIAGE.—Marriage being indissoluble the cause of its being so often unhappy.—Nature’s laws not consulted in this point.—Civilized nations mistaken.—OTAHEITE: Happiness of the natives thereof—visited by Captain Cook, in his Majesty’s Ship _Endeavour_—Character of Captain Cook.—Address to Circumnavigation.—Description of His Majesty’s Ship _Endeavour_—Mast, rigging, sea-sickness, prow, poop, mess-room, surgeon’s mate—History of one.—Episode concerning naval chirurgery.—Catching a Thunny Fish.—Arrival at Otaheite—cast anchor—land—Natives astonished.—Love—Liberty—Moral—Natural—Religious—Contrasted with European manners.—Strictness—License—Doctor’s Commons.—Dissolubility of MARRIAGE recommended—Illustrated by a game at Cards—Whist—Cribbage—Partners changed—Why not the same in Marriage?—Illustrated by a River.—Love free.—Priests, Kings.—German Drama.—KOTZEBUE’S “Housekeeper Reformed”.—Moral employments of Housekeeping described—Hottentots sit and stare at each other—Query, WHY?—Address to the Hottentots—History of the Cape of Good Hope.—Resumé of the Arguments against Marriage.—Conclusion.
PROGRESS OF MAN. EXTRACT.
Hail! beauteous lands[174] that crown the Southern Seas; Dear happy seats of Liberty and Ease! Hail! whose green coasts the peaceful ocean laves, Incessant washing with its watery waves! Delicious islands! to whose envied shore Thee, gallant COOK! the ship _Endeavour_[175] bore.
There laughs the sky, there zephyr’s frolic train, And light-wing’d loves, and blameless pleasures reign: There, when two souls congenial ties unite, No hireling _Bonzes_ chant the mystic rite; Free every thought, each action unconfin’d, And light those fetters which no rivets bind.
There in each grove, each sloping bank along, And flow’rs and shrubs and odorous herbs among, Each shepherd clasp’d, with undisguis’d delight, His yielding fair one,—in the Captain’s sight; Each yielding fair, as chance or fancy led, Preferr’d new lovers to her sylvan bed.[176]
Learn hence, each nymph, whose free aspiring mind Europe’s cold laws,[177] and colder customs[178] bind— O! learn, what Nature’s genial laws decree— What Otaheite[179] is, let Britain be!
· · · · ·
Of WHIST or CRIBBAGE mark th’ amusing game— The partners _changing_, but the SPORT the _same_. Else would the gamester’s anxious ardour cool, Dull every deal, and stagnant every pool. —Yet must _one_[180] Man, with one unceasing Wife, Play the LONG RUBBER of connubial life.
Yes! human laws, and laws esteem’d divine, The generous passion straiten and confine; And, as a stream, when art constrains its course, Pours its fierce torrent with augmented force, So, Passion[181] narrowed to one channel small, _Unlike_ the former, does not flow at all. —For Love _then_ only flaps his purple wings, When uncontroll’d by priestcraft or by kings.
Such the strict rules, that, in these barbarous climes, Choke youth’s fair flow’rs, and feelings turn to crimes; And people every walk of polish’d life[182] With that two-headed monster, MAN and WIFE.
Yet bright examples sometimes we observe, Which from the general practice seem to swerve; Such as presented to Germania’s[183] view, A KOTZEBUE’S bold emphatic pencil drew: Such as, translated in some future age, Shall add new glories to the British stage; —While the moved audience sit in dumb despair, “Like Hottentots,[184] _and at each other stare_”.
With look sedate, and staid beyond her years, In matron weeds a _Housekeeper_ appears. The jingling keys her comely girdle deck— Her ’kerchief colour’d, and her apron _check_. Can that be Adelaide, that “soul of whim,” _Reform’d_ in practice, and in manner prim? —On household cares intent,[185] with many a sigh She turns the pancake, and she moulds the pie; Melts into sauces rich the savoury ham; From the crush’d berry strains the lucid jam; Bids brandied cherries,[186] by infusion slow, Imbibe new flavour, and their own forego, Sole cordial of her heart, sole solace of her woe! While, still responsive to each mournful moan, The saucepan simmers in a softer tone.
· · · · ·
[The following extracts will give some idea of PAYNE KNIGHT’S poem.
Hail! happy States, that fresh in vigour rise From Europe’s wrecks beneath Atlantic skies! Long may ye feel the blessings ye bestow; Nor e’er your parents’ sickly symptoms know! But when that parent, crush’d beneath the weight Of debts and taxes, yields herself to fate; May you her hapless fugitives receive, Comfort their sorrows, and their wants relieve! For come it will—th’ inevitable day, When Britain must corruption’s forfeit pay, Beneath a despot’s, or a rabble’s sway.
After a glowing description of the amours of a shepherd and shepherdess, he thus speaks of _Marriage_:—
Bless’d days of youth, of liberty, and love! How short, alas! your transient pleasures prove! Just as we think the sweet delights our own, We strive to fix them, and we find them flown:— For fix’d by laws, and limited by rules, Affection stagnates and love’s fervour cools; Shrinks like the gather’d flower, which, when possess’d, Droops in the hand, or withers on the breast: Feels all its native bloom and fragrance fly, And death’s pale shadows close its purple dye. While mutual wishes form love’s only vows, By mutual interests nursed, the union grows; Respectful fear its rising power maintains, And both preserve, when each may break, its chains. But when in bands indissoluble join’d, Securely torpid sleeps the sated mind; No anxious hopes or fears arise, to move The flagging wings, or stir the fires of love: Benumb’d, the soul’s best energies repose, And life in dull unvaried torpor flows; Or only shakes off lethargy to teaze Whom once its only pleasure was to please.—ED.]
In illustration of these peculiar doctrines of Love and Marriage, the authors of the present Parody introduced into the first twenty lines of the preceding “Extract,” the very free statements on these subjects which appear in Chapters 8, 12, 14, 16, 17, of the narrative of Cook’s First Voyage to the Pacific in the “Endeavour,” in 1768, derived, by the editor, Dr. John Hawkesworth, from the Diary of Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, who accompanied Captain Cook.—ED.]
[LORD ERSKINE, after dinner, inveighed bitterly against Marriage; and smarting, I suppose, under the recollection of his own unsuccessful choice, concluded by saying that a wife was _a tin canister tied to a man’s tail_, which very much excited the indignation of Lady Ann Culling Smith, who was of the party. “Monk” Lewis took a sheet of paper, and wrote the following neat epigram on the subject, which he presented to Her Royal Highness [the Duchess of York]:—
“Lord Erskine at marriage presuming to rail, Says, _a wife’s a tin canister tied to ones tail_; And the fair Lady Ann, while the subject he carries on, Feels hurt at his Lordship’s degrading comparison. But wherefore degrading? if taken aright, A tin canister’s useful, and polished, and bright, And if dirt its original purity hide, ’Tis the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.” —_Journal of T. Raikes_, ii. 56.—ED.]
[RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT, eminent as he was as a classical scholar and archæologist, was not successful as a poet or moralist, and this is shown in an amusing manner in a letter from Horace Walpole to the Rev. W. Mason, dated 22nd March, 1796, in which he declares how much he is offended and disgusted by Knight’s “_new_ insolent and self-conceited poem,” alluding to his _Progress of Civil Society_,—the former one being “_The Landscape_, a didactic poem in three books,” 4to, pub. 1794, of which mention has already been made.
In 1816 he was examined before a Select Committee of the House of Commons on the proposed purchase by the Government of the Elgin Marbles; but his estimate of their value as works of the highest art was much below that of other artistic witnesses, such as Flaxman, Westmacott, Chantrey, B. West, and others. For these statements he was severely criticised in vol. 14 of the _Quarterly Review_, and in a squib, reprinted in the _New Whig Guide_ in 1819. He valued the collection at £25,000; Gavin Hamilton’s estimate was £60,800, and Lord Aberdeen’s £35,000; for which latter sum they were obtained by the Government. He bequeathed his collection of ancient Bronzes, Greek Coins, &c.—valued at £50,000—to the British Museum.
He represented Ludlow till 1806. He was a supporter of FOX, upon whom he wrote a Monody. He was never married, and he was succeeded in his fine property, including Downton Castle, near Ludlow, &c., on his death in 1824, by his brother, Thomas Andrew Knight, one of the most scientific of horticulturists, and he in turn was succeeded by his grandson, Andrew Johnes Rouse Boughton, second son of the late Sir W. E. Rouse Boughton, Bart., who added by royal license in 1856 the name of Knight to his patronymic.—ED.]
[The drama (here nicknamed _The Reformed Housekeeper_), but entitled by the author “_Misanthropy and Repentance_,” was produced at Drury Lane Theatre, Sheridan being then lessee, as “_The Stranger_,” on the 24th March, 1798. The following was the cast:—_The Stranger_, J. P. Kemble; _Baron Steinfort_, John Palmer; _Francis_, R. Palmer; _Peter_, Suett; _Tobias_, J. Aikin; _Solomon_, Wewitzer; _Count Wintersen_, Barrymore; _Mrs. Haller_, Mrs. Siddons; _Countess Wintersen_, Mrs. Goodall; _Charlotte_, Miss Stuart. It was considered by competent authorities as one of Kemble’s finest efforts, and was performed on twenty-six successive nights. Some of our most eminent actors and actresses have essayed the principal parts. Miss O’Neill made her last appearance on the stage in the character of Mrs. Haller, 13th of July, 1818.
The acting version purported to be altered from the German by Benj. Thompson (afterwards Count Rumford), but it is likely that all or most of the alterations came from the skilful hands of Sheridan, assisted by Kemble. The pathetic song introduced, “_I have a silent sorrow here_,” was written by the former. Two other versions of the drama appeared in the year 1798—one by A. Schinck, and the other by G. Papendick—but neither has been acted.
Kotzebue tells us in his _Autobiography_ that this play of his was acted at the Imperial Palace of _The Hermitage_, St. Petersburg, under his superintendence while manager of the Imperial Company of German Comedians, and excited visible emotion in the Emperor Paul. He himself saw it acted at Tobolsk during his exile in Siberia. The vast and splendid palace of _The Hermitage_ is now given up to the Arts. It contains the enormous collection of Pictures accumulated by the Russian sovereigns (including the Houghton Gallery formed by Sir Robert Walpole), together with a Gallery of Sculpture, one of the finest assortments of Antique Gems in the world, a museum of Grecian and Etruscan Antiquities, and a library of rare Books and Manuscripts.
An awful event took place during the performance of this play a short time after its production. John Palmer, an eminent comedian, while acting the principal character, at Liverpool, on the 2nd of August, 1798, expired on the stage. He had recently suffered severe domestic bereavements, which are supposed to have given a painful application to some passages in the third act in which he had to utter the words: “There is another and a better world”. In the first scene of the fourth act, his agitation increased; he fell into the arms of the performer of the part of Baron Steinfort, and died without a groan. A narrative of this shocking event, published immediately afterwards, by the same performer, disposes of the generally-received but more emotional tradition that Palmer’s earthly career was terminated while pronouncing the above words. He was in his fifty-seventh year.
This is not the only instance of so impressive an end, for a similar death-stroke overtook Joseph Peterson, an excellent actor, in October, 1758, while representing _The Duke_ in _Measure for Measure_. In act 3, sc. 1, in reciting the words—
“—Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art—”
he dropped into the arms of Moody, who personated _Claudio_, and never spoke more!—ED.]
[“One other noted character we visited—the one who, according to William Taylor of Norwich, was the greatest of all. This was AUGUST VON KOTZEBUE, the very popular dramatist, whose singular fate it was to live at variance with the great poets of his country, while he was the idol of the mob. He was at one time (about this time (1801) and a little later) a favourite in all Europe. One of his plays, _The Stranger_, I have seen acted in German, English, Spanish, French, and, I believe, also Italian. He was the pensioner of Prussia, Austria, and Russia. The odium produced by this circumstance, and the imputation of being a spy, are assigned as the cause of his assassination by [C. L. Sand] a student of Jena, a few years after our visit [March 3, 1819]. He was living, like Goethe, in a large house and in style. I drank tea with him, and found him a lively little man, with small black eyes. He had the manners of a _petit-maître_.”—_Crabb Robinson’s Diary_ (1801), i. 115.—ED.]
[Illustration]
No. XXII.
April 9, 1798.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN.
SIR,—I saw, with strong approbation, your specimen of ancient Sapphic measure in English, which I think far surpasses all that Abraham Fraunce, Richard Stanyhurst, or Sir Philip Sidney himself, have produced in that style—I mean, of course, your sublime and beautiful _Knife-Grinder_, of which it is not too high an encomium to say, that it even rivals the efforts of the fine-eared democratic poet, Mr. Southey. But you seem not to be aware, that we have a genuine Sapphic measure belonging to our own language, of which I now send you a short specimen.
THE JACOBIN.
I am a hearty Jacobin, Who own no God, and dread no sin, Ready to dash through thick and thin For freedom:
And when the teachers of Chalk-Farm Gave Ministers so much alarm, And preach’d that kings did only harm, I fee’d ’em.
By BEDFORD’S cut I’ve trimm’d my locks, And coal-black is my knowledge-box, Callous to all, except hard knocks Of thumpers;
My eye a noble fierceness boasts, My voice as hollow as a ghost’s, My throat oft washed by factious toasts In bumpers.
Whatever is in France, is right; Terror and blood are my delight;
## Parties with us do not excite
Enough rage.
Our boasted laws I hate and curse, Bad from the first, by age grown worse, I pant and sigh for univers-[187] al suffrage.
WAKEFIELD[188] I love—adore HORNE TOOKE, With pride on JONES[189] and THELWALL[190] look, And hope that they, by hook or crook, Will prosper.
But they deserve the worst of ills, And all th’ abuse of all our quills, Who form’d of strong and _gagging Bills_[191] A cross pair.
Extinct since then each speaker’s fire, And silent ev’ry daring lyre,[192] Dum-founded they whom I would hire To lecture.
Tied up, alas! is ev’ry tongue On which, conviction nightly hung,[193] And THELWALL looks, though yet but young, A spectre.[194] B. O. B.
[Illustration]
No. XXIII.
April 16, 1798.
We cannot better explain to our readers the design of the poem from which the following extracts are taken, than by borrowing the expressions of the author, Mr. HIGGINS, of _St. Mary Axe_, in the letter which accompanied the manuscript.
We must premise, that we had found ourselves called upon to remonstrate with Mr. H. on the freedom of some of the positions laid down in his other didactic poem, the “Progress of Man”; and had in the course of our remonstrance hinted something to the disadvantage of the _new principles_ which are now afloat in the world, and which are, in our opinion, working so much prejudice to the happiness of mankind. To this Mr. H. takes occasion to reply—[195]
“What you call the _new principles_ are, in fact, nothing less than _new_. They are the principles of primeval nature, the system of original and unadulterated man.
“If you mean by my addiction to _new principles_ that the object which I have in view in my larger work [meaning the ‘Progress of Man’] and in the several other _concomitant_ and _subsidiary_ didactic poems which are necessary to complete my plan, is to restore this first, and pure simplicity; to rescue and to recover the interesting nakedness of human nature, by ridding her of the cumbrous establishments which the folly, and pride, and self-interest of the worst part of our species have heaped upon her;—you are right. Such is my object. I do not disavow it. Nor is it mine alone. There are abundance of abler hands at work upon it. _Encyclopedias_, _Treatises_, _Novels_, _Magazines_, _Reviews_, and _New Annual Registers_, have, as you are well aware, done their part with activity and with effect. It remained to bring the _heavy_ artillery of a didactic poem to bear upon the same object.
“If I have selected your paper as the channel for conveying my labours to the public, it was not because I was unaware of the hostility of your principles to mine, of the bigotry of your attachment to ‘things as they are,’ but because, I will fairly own, I found some sort of cover and disguise necessary for securing the favourable reception of my sentiments; the usual pretexts of humanity, and philanthropy, and fine feeling, by which we have for some time obtained a passport to the hearts and understandings of men, being now worn out or exploded. I could not choose but smile at my success in the first instance, in inducing _you_ to adopt my poem as your own.
“But you have called for an explanation of these principles of ours, and you have a right to obtain it. Our first principle is, then—the reverse of the trite and dull maxim of Pope—‘_Whatever is, is right_’. We contend, that ‘_Whatever is, is wrong_’; that institutions, civil and religious, that social order (as it is called in _your_ cant) and regular government, and law, and I know not what other fantastic inventions, are but so many cramps and fetters on the free agency of man’s _natural intellect_ and _moral sensibility_; so many badges of his degradation from the primal purity and excellence of his nature.
“Our second principle is, the ‘_eternal and absolute perfectibility of man_’. We contend, that if, as is demonstrable, we have risen from a level with the _cabbages of the field_ to our present comparatively intelligent and dignified state of existence, by the mere exertion of our own _energies_; we should, if these _energies_ were not repressed and subdued by the operation of prejudice, and folly, by KING-CRAFT and PRIEST-CRAFT, and the other evils incident to what is called civilized society, continue to exert and expand ourselves in a proportion infinitely greater than anything of which we yet have any notion:—in a _ratio_ hardly capable of being calculated by any science of which we are now masters: but which would in time raise man from his present biped state to a rank more worthy of his endowments and aspirations; to a rank in which he would be, as it were, _all_ MIND; would enjoy unclouded perspicacity and perpetual vitality; feed on _oxygene_, and never die, but _by his own consent_.
“But though the poem of the PROGRESS OF MAN alone would be sufficient to teach this system and enforce these doctrines, the whole practical effect of them cannot be expected to be produced, but by the gradual perfecting of each of the sublimer sciences;—at the husk and shell of which we are now nibbling and at the kernel whereof, in our present state, we cannot hope to arrive. These several sciences will be the subjects of the several _auxiliary_ DIDACTIC POEMS which I have now in hand (one of which, entitled THE LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES, I herewith transmit to you), and for the better arrangement and execution of which, I beseech you to direct your bookseller to furnish me with a handsome Chambers’s Dictionary; in order that I may be enabled to go through the several articles alphabetically, beginning with _Abracadabra_, under the first letter, and going down to _Zodiac_, which is to be found under the last.
“I am persuaded that there is no science, however abstruse, nay, no trade or manufacture, which may not be taught by a didactic poem. In that before you, an attempt is made (not unsuccessfully, I hope) to _enlist the imagination under the banners of Geometry_. _Botany_ I found done to my hands. And though the more rigid and unbending stiffness of a mathematical subject does not admit of the same appeals to the warmer passions, which naturally arise out of the _sexual_ (or, as I have heard several worthy gentlewomen of my acquaintance, who delight much in the poem to which I allude, term it, by a slight misnomer no way difficult to be accounted for—the _sensual_) system of Linnæus;—yet I trust that the range and variety of illustration with which I have endeavoured to ornament and enlighten the arid truths of Euclid and Algebra, will be found to have smoothed the road of Demonstration, to have softened the rugged features of Elementary Propositions, and, as it were, to have strewed the _Asses’ Bridge_ with flowers.”
Such is the account which Mr. HIGGINS gives of his own undertaking, and of the motives which have led him to it. For our parts, though we have not the same sanguine persuasion of the _absolute perfectibility_ of our species, and are in truth liable to the imputation of being more satisfied with _things as they are_, than Mr. HIGGINS and his associates;—yet, as we are, in at least the same proportion, less convinced of the practical influence of didactic poems, we apprehend little danger to our readers’ morals from laying before them Mr. HIGGINS’S doctrine in its most fascinating shape. The poem abounds, indeed, with beauties of the most striking kind,—various and vivid imagery, bold and unsparing impersonifications; and similitudes and illustrations brought from the most ordinary and the most extraordinary occurrences of nature—from history and fable—appealing equally to the heart and to the understanding, and calculated to make the subject of which the poem professes to treat rather amusing than intelligible. We shall be agreeably surprised to hear that it has assisted any young student at either University in his mathematical studies.
We need hardly add, that the plates illustrative of this poem (the engravings of which would have been too expensive for our publication) are to be found in Euclid’s Elements, and other books of a similar tendency.
LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES.[196] ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST CANTO.
Warning to the profane not to approach—Nymphs and Deities of Mathematical Mythology—Cyclois of a pensive turn—Pendulums, on the contrary, playful—and why?—Sentimental Union of the Naiads and Hydrostatics—Marriage of Euclid and Algebra.—Pulley the emblem of Mechanics—Optics of a licentious disposition—distinguished by her telescope and green spectacles.—Hyde-Park Gate on a Sunday morning—Cockneys—Coaches.—Didactic Poetry—Nonsensia—Love delights in Angles or Corners—Theory of Fluxions explained—Trochais, the Nymph of the Wheel—Smoke-Jack described—Personification of elementary or culinary Fire.—Little Jack Horner—Story of Cinderella—Rectangle, a Magician, educated by Plato and Menecmus—in love with Three Curves at the same time—served by Gins, or Genii—transforms himself into a Cone—the Three Curves requite his passion—Description of them—Parabola, Hyperbola, and Ellipsis—Asymptotes—Conjugated Axes.—Illustrations—Rewbell, Barras, and Lepaux, the three virtuous Directors—Macbeth and the Three Witches—the Three Fates—the Three Graces—King Lear and his Three Daughters—Derby Diligence—Catherine Wheel.—Catastrophe of Mr. Gingham, with his Wife and Three Daughters overturned in a One-horse Chaise—Dislocation and Contusion two kindred Fiends—Mail Coaches—Exhortation to Drivers to be careful—Genius of the Post-Office—Invention of Letters—Digamma—Double Letters—Remarkable Direction of one—Hippona the Goddess of Hack-horses—Parameter and Abscissa unite to overpower the Ordinate, who retreats down the Axis-Major, and forms himself in a Square—Isosceles, a Giant—Dr. Rhomboides—Fifth Proposition, or Asses’ Bridge—Bridge of Lodi—Buonaparte—Raft and Windmills—Exhortation to the recovery of our Freedom—Conclusion.
THE LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES. A Mathematical and Philosophical Poem, INSCRIBED TO DR. DARWIN.
## CANTO I.
Stay your rude steps, or e’er your feet invade[197] The Muses’ haunts, ye sons of War and Trade! Nor you, ye legion fiends of Church and Law, Pollute these pages with unhallow’d paw! Debased, corrupted, grovelling, and confined, 5 No DEFINITIONS[198] touch _your_ senseless mind; To _you_ no POSTULATES[199] prefer their claim, No ardent AXIOMS[200] _your_ dull souls inflame; For _you_ no TANGENTS[201] touch, no ANGLES meet, No CIRCLES[202] join in osculation[203] sweet! 10
For _me_, ye CISSOIDS,[204] round my temples bend Your wandering curves; ye CONCHOIDS[205] extend; Let playful PENDULES quick vibration feel, While silent CYCLOIS rests upon her wheel; Let HYDROSTATICS,[206] simpering as they go, 15 Lead the light Naiads on fantastic toe; Let shrill ACOUSTICS[207] tune the tiny lyre; With EUCLID sage fair ALGEBRA[208] conspire; The obedient pulley[209] strong MECHANICS ply, And wanton OPTICS roll the melting eye! 20
I see the fair fantastic forms appear, The flaunting drapery, and the languid leer; Fair sylphish forms[210]—who, tall, erect, and slim, Dart the keen glance, and stretch the length of limb; To viewless harpings weave the meanless dance, 25 Wave the gay wreath, and titter as they prance.
Such rich confusion[211] charms the ravish’d sight, When vernal Sabbaths to the Park invite. Mounts the thick dust, the coaches crowd along, Presses round Grosvenor Gate th’ impatient throng; 30 White-muslined misses and mammas are seen, Linked with gay cockneys, glittering o’er the green: The rising breeze unnumbered charms displays, And the tight ankle strikes th’ astonished gaze.
But chief, thou Nurse of the Didactic Muse, 35 Divine NONSENSIA, all thy soul infuse; The charms of _Secants_ and of _Tangents_ tell, How Loves and Graces in an _Angle_[212] dwell; How slow progressive _Points_[213] protract the _Line_, As pendent spiders spin the filmy twine; 40 How lengthened _Lines_, impetuous sweeping round, Spread the wide _Plane_, and mark its circling bound; How _Planes_, their substance with their motion grown, Form the huge _Cube_, the _Cylinder_, the _Cone_.
Lo! where the chimney’s sooty tube ascends, 45 The fair TROCHAIS[214] from the corner bends! Her coal-black eyes upturned, incessant mark The eddying smoke, quick flame, and volant spark; Mark with quick ken, where flashing in between, Her much-loved _Smoke-Jack_ glimmers thro’ the scene; 50 Mark, how his various parts together tend, Point to one purpose,—in one object end; The spiral _grooves_ in smooth meanders flow, Drags the long _chain_, the polished axles glow, While slowly circumvolves the piece of beef below; 55 The conscious fire[215] with bickering radiance burns, Eyes the rich joint, and roasts it as it turns.
So youthful Horner rolled the roguish eye, Cull’d the dark plum from out his Christmas pie, And cried, in self-applause—“How good a boy am I”. 60
So she, sad victim of domestic spite, Fair Cinderella, pass’d the wintry night, In the lone chimney’s darksome nook immured, Her form disfigured, and her charms obscured. Sudden her godmother appears in sight, 65 Lifts the charmed rod, and chants the mystic rite. The chanted rite the maid attentive hears, And feels new ear-rings deck her listening ears;[216] While ’midst her towering tresses, aptly set, Shines bright, with quivering glance, the smart aigrette; 70 Brocaded silks the splendid dress complete, And the Glass Slipper grasps her fairy feet. Six cock-tailed mice[217] transport her to the ball, And liveried lizards wait upon her call. Alas! that partial Science should approve The sly RECTANGLE’S too licentious love! For _three_ bright nymphs, &c., &c.
(_To be continued._)
[Illustration]
No. XXIV.
April 23, 1798.
THE LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES. A Mathematical and Philosophical Poem.
(_Continued._)
## CANTO I.
ALAS! that partial Science should approve 75 The sly RECTANGLE’S[218] too licentious love! For _three_ bright nymphs the wily wizard burns;— _Three_ bright-eyed nymphs requite his flame by turns. Strange force of magic skill! combined of yore With Plato’s science and Menecmus’ lore.[219] 80 In _Afric’s_ school, amid those sultry sands High on its base where Pompey’s pillar stands, This learnt the Seer; and learnt, alas! too well, Each scribbled talisman, and smoky spell: What muttered charms, what soul-subduing arts, 85 Fell Zatanai[220] to his sons imparts.
GINS[221]—black and huge! who in Dom-Daniel’s[222] cave Writhe your scorched limbs on sulphur’s[223] azure wave; Or, shivering, yell amidst eternal snows, Where cloud-capp’d Caf[224] protrudes his granite toes; 90 (Bound by his will, _Judæa’s_ fabled king,[225] Lord of _Aladdin’s_ lamp and mystic ring.) Gins! ye remember!—for your toil conveyed Whate’er of drugs the powerful charm could aid; Air, earth, and sea ye searched, and where below 95 Flame embryo lavas, young volcanoes[226] glow,— Gins! ye beheld appall’d th’ enchanter’s hand Wave in dark air th’ _Hypothenusal_ wand; Saw him the mystic _Circle_ trace, and wheel With head erect, and far-extended heel;[227] 100 Saw him, with speed that mocked the dazzled eye, Self-whirled, in quick gyrations eddying fly: Till done the potent spell—behold him grown Fair _Venus’_ emblem—the _Phœnician_ CONE.[228]
Triumphs the Seer, and now secure observes 105 The kindling passions of the _rival_ CURVES.
And first, the fair PARABOLA[229] behold, Her timid arms, with virgin blush, unfold! Though, on one _focus_ fixed, her eyes betray A heart that glows with love’s resistless sway; 110 Though, climbing oft, she strives with bolder grace Round his tall neck to clasp her fond embrace, Still ere she reach it, from his polished side Her trembling hands in devious _Tangents_ glide.
Not thus HYPERBOLA;[230]—with subtlest art 115 The blue-eyed wanton plays her changeful part; Quick as her _conjugated_ axes move Through every posture of luxurious love, Her sportive limbs with easiest grace expand; Her charms unveiled provoke the lover’s hand; 120 Unveiled, except in many a filmy ray, Where light _Asymptotes_[231] o’er her bosom play, Nor touch her glowing skin, nor intercept the day.
Yet why, ELLIPSIS,[232] at thy fate repine? More lasting bliss, securer joys are thine. 125 Though to each fair his treacherous wish may stray, Though each, in turn, may seize a transient sway, ’Tis thine with mild coercion to restrain, Twine round his struggling heart, and bind with endless chain.
Thus, happy France! in thy regenerate land, 130 Where TASTE with RAPINE saunters hand in hand; Where, nursed in seats of innocence and bliss, REFORM greets TERROR with fraternal kiss; Where mild PHILOSOPHY first taught to scan The _wrongs_ of PROVIDENCE, and _rights_ of MAN; 135 Where MEMORY broods o’er FREEDOM’S earlier scene, The _Lantern_ bright, and brighter _Guillotine_; _Three_ gentle swains evolve their longing arms, And woo the young REPUBLIC’S virgin charms; And though proud _Barras_ with the fair succeed, 140 Though not in vain th’ Attorney _Rewbell_ plead, Oft doth th’ impartial nymph their love forego, To clasp thy crooked shoulders, blest _Lepaux_!
So, with dark dirge athwart the blasted heath, _Three_ Sister Witches hailed the appalled Macbeth. 145
So, the _Three_ Fates beneath grim Pluto’s roof, Strain the dun warp, and weave the murky woof; ’Till deadly Atropos with fatal shears Slits the thin promise of the expected years, While ’midst the dungeon’s gloom or battle’s din, 150 Ambition’s victims perish, as they spin.
Thus, the _Three_ Graces on the Idalian green Bow with deft homage to Cythera’s Queen; Her polished arms with pearly bracelets deck, Part her light locks, and bare her ivory neck; 155 Round her fair form ethereal odours throw, And teach th’ unconscious zephyrs where to blow, Floats the thin gauze, and glittering as they play, The bright folds flutter in phlogistic day,.
So, with his daughters _Three_, th’ unsceptered Lear 160 Heaved the loud sigh, and poured the glistering tear: His daughters _Three_, save one alone, conspire (Rich in his gifts) to spurn their generous sire; Bid the rude storm his hoary tresses drench, Stint the spare meal, the hundred knights retrench; 165 Mock his mad sorrow, and with altered mien Renounce the daughter, and assert the queen. A father’s griefs his feeble frame convulse, Rack his white head, and fire his feverous pulse; Till kind Cordelia soothes his soul to rest, 170 And folds the parent-monarch to her breast.
Thus some fair spinster grieves in wild affright, Vexed with dull megrim, or vertigo light; Pleased round the fair, _Three_ dawdling doctors stand, Wave the white wig, and stretch the asking hand, 175 State the grave doubt, the nauseous draught decree, And all receive, though none deserve, a fee.
So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn,[233] glides The Derby dilly, carrying _Three_ INSIDES. One in each corner sits, and lolls at ease, 180 With folded arms, propt back, and outstretched knees; While the pressed _Bodkin_, punched and squeezed to death, Sweats in the midmost place, and scolds, and pants for breath.[234]
(_To be continued._)
[Illustration]
No. XXV.
April 30, 1798.
BRISSOT’S GHOST.[235]
As at the Shakespeare Tavern dining, O’er the well replenished board Patriotic chiefs reclining, Quick and large libations poured; While, in fancy, great and glorious, ’Midst the democratic storm, FOX’S crew, with shout victorious, Drank to _Radical Reform_;
Sudden, up the staircase sounding, Hideous yells and shrieks were heard; Then, each guest with fear confounding, A grim train of Ghosts appeared: Each a head, with anguish gasping, (Himself a trunk deformed with gore), In his hand, terrific, clasping, Stalked across the wine-stained floor.
On them gleamed the lamp’s blue lustre, When stern BRISSOT’S grizzly shade His sad bands was seen to muster, And his bleeding troops arrayed. Through the drunken crowd he hied him, Where the chieftain sate enthroned, There, his shadowy trunks beside him, Thus in threatening accents groaned:
“Heed, oh heed our fatal story, (I am BRISSOT’S injured Ghost), You who hope to purchase glory In that field where I was lost! Though dread PITT’S expected ruin Now your soul with triumph cheers, When you think on our undoing, You will mix your hopes with fears.
“See these helpless, headless spectres, Wandering through the midnight gloom: Mark their Jacobinic lectures Echoing from the silent tomb; These, thy soul with terror filling, Once were Patriots fierce and bold”— (Each his head, with gore distilling, Shakes, the whilst his tale is told).
“Some from that dread engine’s carving In vain contrived their heads to save— See BARBAROUX and PÉTION[236] starving In the Languedocian cave! See, in a higgler’s[237] hamper buckled, How LOUVET’S soaring spirit lay! How virtuous ROLAND,[238] helpless cuckold, Blew what brains he had away.
“How beneath the power of MARAT, CONDORCET, blaspheming, fell, Begged some laudanum of GARAT,[239] Drank;—and slept,—to wake in hell! Oh that, with worthier souls uniting, I in my country’s cause had shone! Had died my Sovereign’s battle fighting, Or nobly propp’d his sinking throne!—
“But hold!—I scent the gales of morning— Covent-Garden’s clock strikes One! Heed, oh heed my earnest warning, Ere England is, like France, undone! To St. Stephen’s quick repairing, Your dissembled mania end; And, your errors past forswearing, Stand at length your Country’s Friend!”
[The preceding ballad is parodied from the one by Glover, entitled—
ADMIRAL HOSIER’S GHOST.
As near Porto-Bello lying On the gently swelling flood, At midnight with streamers flying, Our triumphant navy rode: There while VERNON sat all-glorious From the Spaniard’s late defeat, And his crews, with shouts victorious, Drank success to England’s fleet:
On a sudden, shrilly sounding, Hideous yells and shrieks were heard, Then each heart with fear confounding, A sad troop of ghosts appeared: All in dreary hammocks shrouded, Which for winding-sheets they wore, And with looks by sorrow clouded, Frowning on that hostile shore.
On them gleam’d the moon’s wan lustre, When the shade of HOSIER brave His pale bands was seen to muster, Rising from their wat’ry grave: O’er the glimmering wave he hied him, Where the Burford rear’d her sail, With three thousand ghosts beside him, And in groans did VERNON hail.
Heed, O heed, our fatal story, I am HOSIER’S injured ghost. You who now have purchas’d glory, At this place where I was lost; Though in Porto-Bello’s ruin You now triumph free from fears, When you think on our undoing, You will mix your joy with tears.
See these mournful spectres sweeping Ghastly o’er this hated wave, Whose wan cheeks are stain’d with weeping, These were English Captains brave. Mark those numbers pale and horrid, Those were once my sailors bold, See each hangs his drooping forehead, While his dismal tale is told.
I by twenty sail attended Did this Spanish town affright, Nothing then its wealth defended But my orders not to fight. O! that in this rolling ocean I had cast them with disdain, And obey’d my heart’s warm motion To have quell’d the pride of Spain.
For resistance I could fear none, But with twenty ships had done What thou, brave and happy VERNON, Hast achiev’d with six alone. Then the Bastimentos never Had our foul dishonour seen, Nor the sea the sad receiver Of this gallant train had been.
Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying, And her galleons leading home, Though condemned for disobeying, I had met a traitor’s doom: To have fallen, my country crying He has play’d an English part, Had been better far than dying Of a griev’d and broken heart.
Unrepining at thy glory, Thy successful arms we hail; But remember our sad story, And let HOSIER’S wrongs prevail. Sent in this foul clime to languish, Think what thousands fell in vain, Wasted with disease and anguish, Not in glorious battle slain.
Hence with all my train attending From their oozy tombs below, Through the hoary foam ascending, Here I feed my constant woe. Here the Bastimentos viewing, We recal our shameful doom, And our plaintive cries renewing, Wander through the midnight gloom.
O’er these waves for ever mourning, Shall we roam deprived of rest, If to Britain’s shores returning, You neglect my just request; After this proud foe subduing, When your patriot friends you see, Think on Vengeance for my ruin, And for England sham’d in me.]
No. XXVI.
May 7, 1798.
LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES.
The frequent solicitations which we have received for a continuation of the LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES have induced us to lay before the public (with Mr. Higgins’s permission) the concluding lines of the Canto. The catastrophe of Mr. and Mrs. Gingham, and the episode of Hippona, contained, in our apprehension, several reflections of too free a nature. The conspiracy of Parameter and Abscissa against the Ordinate is written in a strain of poetry so very splendid and dazzling as not to suit the more tranquil majesty of diction which our readers admire in Mr. Higgins. We have therefore begun our extract with the Loves of the Giant Isosceles, and the Picture of the Asses-Bridge, and its several illustrations.
## CANTO I.
EXTRACT.
’Twas thine alone, O youth of giant frame, Isosceles![240] that rebel heart to tame! In vain coy Mathesis[241] thy presence flies: Still turn her fond hallucinating[242] eyes; Thrills with _Galvanic_ fires[243] each tortuous nerve, Throb her blue veins, and dies her cold reserve. —Yet strives the fair, till in the giant’s breast She sees the mutual passion’s flame confessed: Where’er he moves, she sees his tall limbs trace _Internal Angles[244] equal at the base_; Again she doubts him: but _produced at will_, She sees _th’ external Angles equal still_.
Say, blest Isosceles! what favouring power, Or love, or chance, at night’s auspicious hour, While to the Asses-Bridge[245] entranced you strayed, Led to the Asses-Bridge the enamoured maid?— The Asses-Bridge, for ages doomed to hear The deafening surge assault his wooden ear, With joy repeats sweet sounds of mutual bliss, The soft susurrant sigh, and gently-murmuring kiss.
So thy dark arches, _London Bridge_, bestride Indignant Thames, and part his angry tide, There oft—returning from those green retreats, Where fair _Vauxhallia_ decks her sylvan seats;— Where each spruce nymph, from city compters free, Sips the froth’d syllabub, or fragrant tea; While with sliced ham, scraped beef, and burnt champagne, Her ’prentice lover soothes his amorous pain;— There oft, in well-trimmed wherry, glide along Smart beaux and giggling belles, a glittering throng: Smells the tarr’d rope—with undulation fine Flaps the loose sail—the silken awnings shine; “Shoot we the bridge!” the venturous boatmen cry; “Shoot we the bridge!” the exulting fare[246] reply. —Down the steep fall the headlong waters go, Curls the white foam, the breakers roar below. The veering helm the dexterous steersman stops, Shifts the thin oar, the fluttering canvas drops; Then with closed eyes, clenched hands, and quick-drawn breath, Darts at the central arch, nor heeds the gulf beneath. Full ’gainst the pier the unsteady timbers knock, The loose planks, starting, own the impetuous shock; The shifted oar, dropp’d sail, and steadied helm, With angry surge the closing waters whelm— Laughs the glad Thames, and clasps each fair one’s charms, That screams and scrambles in his oozy arms. Drench’d each smart garb, and clogged each straggling limb, Far o’er the stream the Cockneys sink or swim; While each badged boatman,[247] clinging to his oar, Bounds o’er the buoyant wave, and climbs the applauding shore.
So, towering Alp! from thy majestic ridge[248] Young Freedom gazed on Lodi’s blood-stained _Bridge_; Saw, in thick throngs, conflicting armies rush, Ranks close on ranks, and squadrons squadrons crush; Burst in bright radiance through the battle’s storm, Waved her broad hands, displayed her awful form; Bade at her feet regenerate nations bow, And twined the wreath round BUONAPARTE’S brow. Quick with new lights, fresh hopes, and altered zeal, The slaves of despots dropp’d the blunted steel: Exulting Victory owned her favourite child, And freed Liguria clapp’d her hands, and smiled.
Nor long the time ere Britain’s shores shall greet The warrior-sage, with gratulation sweet: Eager to grasp the wreath of naval fame, The GREAT REPUBLIC plans the _Floating Frame_! O’er the huge plane gigantic _Terror_ stalks, And counts with joy the close-compacted balks: Of young-eyed _Massacres_ the Cherub crew, Round their grim chief the mimic task pursue; Turn the stiff screw,[249] apply the strengthening clamp, Drive the long bolt, or fix the stubborn cramp, Lash the reluctant beam, the cable splice, Join the firm dove-tail with adjustment nice, Through yawning fissures urge the willing wedge, Or give the smoothing adze a sharper edge. Or group’d in fairy bands, with playful care, The unconscious bullet to the furnace bear;— Or gaily tittering, tip the match with fire, Prime the big mortar, bid the shell aspire; Applaud, with tiny hands, and laughing eyes, And watch the bright destruction as it flies.
Now the fierce forges gleam with angry glare— The windmill[250] waves his woven wings in air; Swells the proud sail, the exulting streamers fly, Their nimble fins unnumber’d paddles ply: Ye soft airs breathe, ye gentle billows waft, And, fraught with Freedom, bear the expected Raft! Perch’d on her back, behold the Patriot train, MUIR, ASHLEY, BARLOW, TONE, O’CONNOR, PAINE! While TANDY’S hand directs the blood-empurpled rein.
Ye Imps of Murder! guard her angel form, Check the rude surge, and chase the hovering storm; Shield from contusive rocks her timber limbs, And guide the sweet Enthusiast[251] as she swims!
And now, with web-foot oars, she gains the land, And foreign footsteps press the yielding sand: The Communes spread, the gay Departments smile, Fair Freedom’s Plant o’ershades the laughing isle: Fired with new hopes, the exulting peasant sees The Gallic streamer woo the British breeze;[252] While, pleased to watch its undulating charms, The smiling infant[253] spreads his little arms.
Ye sylphs of DEATH! on demon pinions flit Where the tall Guillotine is raised for PITT: To the poised plank tie fast the monster’s back,[254] Close the nice slider, ope the expectant sack; Then twitch, with fairy hands, the frolic pin— Down falls the impatient axe with deafening din; The liberated head rolls off below,[255] And simpering Freedom hails the happy blow!
[The following lines of Dr. Darwin’s, in Canto ii., gave great offence to the Government:—
So, borne on sounding pinions to the west, When tyrant-power had built his eagle nest; While from his eyry shriek’d the famish’d brood, Clench’d their sharp claws, and champ’d their beaks for blood, Immortal FRANKLIN watch’d the callow crew, And stabb’d the struggling vampires, ere they flew. —The patriot-flame with quick contagion ran, Hill lighted hill, and man electris’d man: Her heroes slain awhile Columbia mourn’d, And crown’d with laurels Liberty return’d.
The warrior, Liberty, with bending sails, Helm’d his bold course to fair Hibernia’s vales; Firm as he steps along the shouting lands, Lo! Truth and Virtue range their radiant bands; Sad Superstition wails her empire torn, Art plies his oar, and Commerce pours her horn.
Long had the giant-form on Gallia’s plains Inglorious slept, unconscious of his chains; Round his large limbs were wound a thousand strings By the weak hands of confessors and kings; O’er his closed eyes a triple veil was bound, And steely rivets lock’d him to the ground; While stern Bastile with iron-cage inthralls His folded limbs, and hems in marble walls.—ED.]
NOTES TO LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES.
[The general features of Dr. Darwin’s extraordinary poems, the “_Loves of the Plants_,” and the “_Economy of Vegetation_,” which are so admirably ridiculed in the preceding pages, may be gathered from the following specimens:—
ARGUMENT.
The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany—She descends—is received by Spring and the Elements—Addresses the Nymphs of Fire—Love created the Universe—Chaos explodes—All the Stars revolve—Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies—Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air—Fires at the Earth’s Centre—Animal Incubation—Venus visits the Cyclops—Phosphoric Lights in the Evening—Bolognian Stone—Ignis fatuus—Eagle armed with Lightning—Discovery of Fire—Medusa—The Chemical Properties of Fire—Lady in Love—Gunpowder—Steam-engine—Labours of Hercules—Halo round the Heads of Saints—Fairy rings—Death of Professor Richman—Cupid snatches the thunderbolt from Jupiter—The great Egg of Night—Naiad released—Frost assailed—Whale attacked—Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas—Rainy Monsoons—Elijah on Mount Carmel—Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like sparks from Artificial Fireworks, &c.
“Nymphs! you disjoin, unite, condense, expand, And give new wonders to the Chemist’s hand; On tepid clouds of rising steam aspire, Or fix in sulphur all its solid fire; With boundless spring elastic airs unfold, Or fill the fine vacuities of gold; With sudden flash vitrescent sparks reveal, By fierce collision from the flint and steel; Or mark with shining letters Kunkel’s name In the pale phosphor’s self-consuming flame. So the chaste heart of some enchanted maid Shines with insidious light, by love betray’d; Round her pale bosom plays the young desire, And slow she wastes by self-consuming fire.”
These poems, produced in that dreary time for English poetry which elapsed between the disappearance of Cowper and Burns and the advent of Scott and Byron, had, in spite of their glaring absurdities, no lack of warm admirers. Miss Seward, in her _Life of Dr. Darwin_, published in 1804, sets no limits to her admiration:—“We are presented,” she says, “with an highly imaginative and splendidly descriptive poem, whose successive pictures alternately possess the sublimity of Michael Angelo, the correctness and elegance of Raphael, with the glow of Titian; whose landscapes have, at times, the strength of Salvator, and at others the softness of Claude; whose numbers are of stately grace, and artful harmony; while its allusions to ancient and modern history and fable, and its interspersion of recent and extraordinary anecdotes, render it extremely entertaining. * * * Each part is enriched by a number of philosophical notes. They state a great variety of theories and experiments in Botany, Chemistry, Electricity, Mechanics, and in the various species of Air, salubrious, noxious, and deadly,” &c.]
THE SCOTTISH “POLITICAL MARTYRS”.
[THOMAS MUIR, the younger, of Hunter’s Hill, a promising young advocate of the Scottish Bar, and of nigh respectability, was tried at Edinburgh, 30th and 31st of August, 1793, before Lord Justice Clerk (Braxfield), Lords Henderland, Swinton, Dunsinnan, and Abercromby, for Sedition. The weightiest charge against him was that of “_lending_” a copy of Paine’s _Rights of Man_ to a person who begged a reading of that popular book. He was found guilty, and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation. On the 17th of the ensuing month, the Rev. THOS. FYSHE PALMER, a Unitarian Minister of Dundee, and an ex-fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge, was tried at Perth for publishing a seditious Address, and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. On their arrival at Woolwich, in a revenue cutter, they were put on board separate hulks, and assisted at the common labour on the banks of the river. MUIR, soon after his arrival in New South Wales, effected his escape, in an American vessel, to South America, whence he proceeded to Spain. During this voyage, in an action with a British frigate, he received a wound in the head, from which he recovered; but on his arrival at his destination, he was imprisoned by the Spanish authorities, until, on the application of M. de Talleyrand in the name of the then government of France, he obtained his release. He then went to France, and died at Bourdeaux [or Chantilly] in 1799; aged 33. PALMER served out his seven years, but died on the homeward voyage.
Other Trials soon followed. At the close of December, 1793, MR. SKIRVING, MR. GERRALD, and MR. MARGAROT were tried at Edinburgh on similar charges of seditious practices, and were all sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation. The former two died soon after reaching New South Wales. MAURICE MARGAROT, who appears to have conducted himself throughout with the most abandoned and shameless profligacy, was the only one of these convicts—his fourteen years over—who ever set foot again in Britain.
GERRALD was a man of very superior ability, and a favourite pupil of Dr. Parr’s, as is mentioned by De Quincey in his famous essay on that noted Whig pedagogue.
On the Scottish “political martyrs” Lord Cockburn, in his posthumous _Examination of the Trials for Sedition in Scotland_, published in 1888, which deals with the twenty-five trials of the above-named five and of thirty-two others, between 1793 and 1849, passes his deliberate verdict, that, with the exception of Muir, not one of them was guiltless. But, like ordinary criminals, they were entitled to a fair and impartial trial; and their trials were, one and all, iniquitous. Of the six judges who presided in the first fourteen (1793–94), five were dull, timid nonentities; the sixth, Lord Justice Clerk Braxfield, was, says Lord Cockburn, “a profound practical lawyer, and a powerful man; coarse and illiterate ... utterly devoid of judicial decorum, and though pure in the administration of civil justice, when he was exposed to no temptation, with no other conception of principle in any political case except that the upholding of his party was a duty attaching to his position. Over the five weak men who sat beside him, this coarse and dexterous ruffian predominated as he chose.” But Jedburgh—no, nor the Bloody Assize itself—could scarcely match one scene in Gerrald’s trial:—“‘After all,’ he was urging in his defence, ‘the most useful discoveries in philosophy, the most important changes in the moral history of man, have been innovations. The Revolution was an innovation, Christianity itself was an innovation.’ Instantly upon this, the following interruption took place:—Lord Braxfield: ‘You would have been stopped long before this, if you had not been a stranger. All that you have been saying is sedition. And now, my Lords, he is attacking Christianity.’ Lord Henderland: ‘I allow him all the benefit of his defence. But ... I cannot sit here as a judge without saying that it is a most indecent defence....’ The juries were packed as never, surely, before, or afterwards.”
With such judges, such juries, and, at least, in two cases, false witnesses, it might seem easy to anticipate the result; but the result transcends anticipation. In almost every case a light sentence would have amply met the requirements of justice; but the judges all shared Lord Swinton’s opinion that “it is impossible to punish Sedition adequately, now that torture has been abolished”. So they strove to supply the deficiency by Transportation, a punishment unwarranted by precedent.
With respect to Margarot’s trial at Edinburgh, the following is a vivid memory of Lord Cockburn’s boyhood:—
“MARGAROT came from the Black Bull [in Leith Street] to be tried, attended by a procession of the populace and his Convention friends, with banners and what was called a tree of liberty. This tree was in the shape of the letter M, about twenty feet high and ten wide. The honour of bearing it up by carrying the two upright poles was assigned to two eminent Conventionalists, and the little culprit walked beneath the circular placard in the centre, which proclaimed liberty and equality, &c. I was looking out of a window in the old Post-Office, which was then the northmost house on the west side of the North Bridge. I think I see the scene yet. The whole North Bridge, from the Tron Church to the Register Office, was quite empty at first; not a single creature venturing on that bit of sand, over which the waves were so soon to break from both ends. The Post-Office and the adjoining houses had been secretly filled with constables, and sailors from a frigate in the roads (I think _The Hind_, Capt. Cochrane), all armed with sticks and batons. No soldier appeared, it being determined that this civic insurrection should be put down by the civil force, unaided, at least, by scarlet. As soon as the tree, which led the van, emerged from Leith Street, and appeared at the north end of the bridge, Provost Elder and the Magistrates issued from some place they had retired to (I believe the Tron Church), and appeared, all robed, at the south end. The day was good. There was still not one person—I doubt if there was even a dog—on any part of the space, being the whole length of the bridge, between the two parties. But the rear of each was crammed with people, who filled up every inch as those in front moved on. The Magistrates were in a line across the street, with the Provost in the centre, the city officers behind this line, and probably a hundred loyal gentlemen in the rear of the officers. The two parties advanced steadily towards each other, and in perfect silence, till they met just about the Post-Office. The Provost stepped forward about a pace, so that he almost touched the front line of the rebels, when, advancing his cane, he commanded them to retire. This order probably would not have been obeyed; but, at any rate, it could not have been obeyed speedily, from the crowd behind. However, all this was immaterial; for, without waiting one instant to see whether they meant to retire or not, the houses vomited forth their bludgeoned contents, and in almost two minutes the tree was demolished and thrown over the bridge, the street covered with the knocked down, the accused dragged to the bar, and the insurrection was over.”
On February 20th, 1837, a meeting took place at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand, for commencing a subscription to erect monuments in London and Edinburgh to the memory of the above five Reformers. Joseph Hume, M.P. was in the chair; Colonel Perronet Thompson, Mr. Dan. Whittle Harvey, and fifteen other members of Parliament were present. A lofty obelisk was erected on the Calton Hill to the memory of the “Scottish Martyrs,” but London did not sympathize with the movement.—ED.]
JOEL BARLOW.
[JOEL BARLOW, born in 1756 in Connecticut, was educated as a Presbyterian minister, but afterwards turned Deist. Before this change he translated the Psalms into metre, and his version is still used in the churches of New England. He now adopted the Law, and engaged in periodicals—one, _The Anarchist_, which was political in its character, and exercised great influence. In 1788, after visiting England, he went to Paris, where he joined the Girondists. In 1791, he returned to England, where he published the first part of his _Advice to the Privileged Orders_, in which he assails the whole system of Government pursued in monarchical Europe, the Church establishments, the standing armies, the judicial organisations, and the financial systems which belong to the old governments. In February, 1792, he published a political poem, which he entitled _The Conspiracy of Kings_; also a Letter to the _Convention_ advising the separation of Church and State. So great did his reputation become that he was fixed on by the London Constitutional Society to present their Address to the _Convention_. After various political transactions in the interest of France, and also in commercial speculations which made him a rich man, he left Paris in 1805, living on his estate in America till 1811, when he was sent as Minister Plenipotentiary to Paris. But Napoleon being on his Russian Expedition, he followed him to Wilna; but the fatiguing journey proved fatal: he died 26th December, 1812. He wrote at an early age a poem, _The Vision of Columbus_, which acquired great popularity, and which he afterwards enlarged as _The Columbiad_. Among other works he published (in 1796) a mock-heroic poem, _Hasty Pudding_, which is generally considered his best work.—ED.]
THEOBALD WOLFE TONE.
[THEOBALD WOLFE TONE, the founder of the ASSOCIATION OF UNITED IRISHMEN, was born in Dublin in 1764, and, after passing through Trinity College, came to London to prosecute his legal studies, which he soon forsook for politics, being induced thereto by the indignation excited in his breast by the persecution of the Irish Catholics, whose cause, although himself a Protestant, he warmly advocated. With the view of getting their grievances redressed, he founded the society of UNITED IRISHMEN, which gave great alarm to the English Government. His liberty being menaced, he went to America, and thence to France, where he arranged with Gen. Hoche the expeditions to Bantry Bay and the Texel. Being appointed Adjutant-General, he served in several of the French armies, and lastly in Gen. Hardi’s expedition to Ireland in October, 1798. The vessel he was aboard of was captured by the English, and he was conveyed to Dublin, tried by a Court-Martial, and sentenced to be hanged. He anticipated his execution, however, by committing suicide in prison, 19th November, 1798.—ED.]
ARTHUR O’CONNOR.
[On the 21st and 22nd May, 1798, ARTHUR O’CONNOR (proprietor of a Dublin newspaper, _The Press_), JOHN BINNS (an active member of the _London Corresponding Society_), JOHN ALLEN, JEREMIAH LEARY, and JAS. O’COIGLY, _alias_ Jas. Quigley, _alias_ Jas. John Fivey (a Priest), were tried at Maidstone for High Treason. ROBERT FERGUSSON was counsel for Allen. O’COIGLY only was found Guilty, and was executed 7th June, on Pennenden Heath. After being suspended for ten minutes, he was cut down and his head severed from his body: the disgusting remainder of his sentence was remitted. He met his death with great fortitude, and denying to the last the charge of treasonable correspondence abroad. In the _State Trials_, vols. 26 and 27, are included the Life of the prisoner; Observations on his Trial; Address to the People of Ireland; and Letters, all written by himself during his confinement in Maidstone Gaol. His real name, he says, was the Rev. Jas. Coigly, and his age 36. “Can you imagine a man more treacherous and profligate than O’COIGLY?” said Sir James Mackintosh to DR. PARR. “Yes, Sir, he might have been worse: he was a parson—he might have been a lawyer; he was a traitor—he might have been an apostate; he was an Irishman—he might have been a Scotchman.” When it is recollected that Mackintosh was a Scotchman and a lawyer, and that he had written in defence of the French Revolution against Burke, these observations of Dr. Parr were both insolent and uncalled for.
A Portrait of “Arthur O’Connor, late Member in the Irish Parliament for Borough of Philipstown, painted by J. Dowling, engraved by W. Ward,” was published in London, 18th April, 1798. Another Portrait in military uniform is to be found in Barrington’s _Memoirs of the Union_. He figures also in several of GILLRAY’S _Caricatures_.
In the _Birmingham Daily Post_ of April 2, 1888, it is stated that THE HON. R. E. O’CONNOR, M.A., barrister-at-law, the latest addition to the Legislative Council of New South Wales, is a grandson of ARTHUR O’CONNOR, one of the leaders of the United Irishmen, who died a General in the service of France.
When O’CONNOR was acquitted by the Jury, on the above-named occasion, but before the Judge had given orders for his release, a strange scene occurred in court, an attempt being made, as it was alleged, by SACKVILLE, EARL OF THANET, ROBERT FERGUSSON (in after years known as CUTLAR FERGUSSON, Judge-Advocate-General), and others to facilitate his escape in order to avoid further charges about to be preferred against him, Binns also being implicated for this exploit, which was unsuccessful, but attended with violence. These confederates were tried at the Bar of the Court of King’s Bench, 25th April, 1799. The Counsel for the Crown were Sir John Scott [Lord Eldon], Law [Lord Ellenborough], Sir W. Garrow, Sir C. Abbot, &c., while the defendants had the powerful advocacy of Erskine and others. His Lordship and Mr. Fergusson were found guilty after a long and ingenious defence by the latter, which presaged his future eminence as a Counsel. LORD THANET was ordered to pay a fine of £1000; to be imprisoned in the Tower for a year; and to give security for good behaviour for seven years on the expiration of the sentence; himself in £10,000, and two sureties in £5000 each. FERGUSSON was ordered to pay a fine of £100; to be imprisoned in the King’s Bench prison for one year; to give security for good behaviour for seven years from the expiration of the sentence; himself in £500, and two sureties in £250 each.—See _State Trials_, vols. 26 and 27.—ED.]
JAMES NAPPER TANDY.
[“A person who afterwards made a considerable figure in the local affairs of Ireland raised himself about this time into considerable notoriety by his patriotic exertions. This was Mr. JAMES NAPPER TANDY, a gentleman in the middle station of life, without talent or natural influence, had become a warm advocate in the corporation of Dublin; he debated zealously in public, he argued strenuously in private, and persevered in both with indefatigable ardour. His person was ungracious—his language neither eloquent nor argumentative—his address neither graceful nor impressive—but he was sincere and persevering—and though in many instances erroneous and violent, he was considered to be honest. His private character furnished no ground to doubt the integrity of his public one—and, like many of those persons who occasionally spring up in revolutionary periods, he acquired celebrity without being able to account for it, and possessed influence without rank or capacity. In 1796, Mr. Tandy lost all his popularity, and nearly his life, by his apparent want of courage in an affair between him and Mr. Toler, then Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord Norbury, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Mr. Tandy having signified to Mr. Toler his desire to fight him, the Chief Justice readily accepted the offer. Both parties manœuvred very skilfully; but Mr. Tandy delaying his ultimatum too long for the impatience of the Solicitor-General, he brought him before the House of Commons for a breach of privilege, and prosecuted him for sedition. Mr. Tandy escaped to the Continent, entered the French Service, invaded Ireland, was, with his confederates, arrested by the British Envoy at Hamburg, 24 Nov., 1798, contrary to the law of nations: the Minister of France claimed them as French citizens, and the Senate, unwilling to offend either power, came to no decision on the subject. Tandy was thereupon taken to Ireland and condemned to be hanged—was pardoned by Lord Cornwallis, and sent back to France, where he died a French General.”—Barrington’s _Memoirs of the Union_, vol. 1, where is a portrait of Tandy.—ED.]
[Illustration]
No. XXVII.
May 14, 1798.
The gallant defence of the ISLES OF ST. MARCOU would justify a more serious celebration than is attempted in the following poem; and the modest and unassuming manner in which LIEUTENANT PRICE gives the account of services so highly meritorious, adds to the hope which we entertain that he will meet a more solid reward than any verse of ours or of our correspondent’s could bestow.
CITIZEN MUSKEIN, if he understands Horace, and can read English, will be amply rewarded for the victory of which he has, no doubt, by this time, made a pompous report to the Directory, by the perusal of the 14th Ode of the 1st Book, for which we have to return our thanks to a classical correspondent.
A CONSOLATORY ADDRESS TO HIS GUN-BOATS.
BY CITIZEN MUSKEIN.
_O navis! referent in mare te novi fluctus._
O gentle Gun-Boats, whom the Seine Discharged from Havre to the main; Now leaky, creaking, blood-bespattered, With rudders broken, canvas shattered— O tempt the treacherous sea no more, But gallantly regain the shore.
Scarce could our guardian goddess, Reason, Ensure your timbers through the season. Though built of wood from famed Marseilles, Well-manned from galleys, and from jails, Though with LEPAUX’S and REWBELL’S aid, By PLEVILLE’S[256] skill your keel was laid; Though lovely STAEL, and lovelier STONE,[256] Have worked their fingers to the bone, And cut their petticoats to rags To make your bright three-coloured flags; Yet sacrilegious grape and ball Deform the works of STONE and STAEL, And trembling, without food or breeches, Our sailors curse the _painted_ ——.[257]
Children of Muskein’s anxious care, Source of my hope and my despair, GUN-BOATS—unless you mean hereafter To furnish food for British laughter— Sweet GUN-BOATS, with your gallant crew, Tempt not the rocks of SAINT MARCOU; Beware the Badger’s bloody pennant, And that d——d invalid LIEUTENANT!
LYRICS OF HORACE. ODE XIV., BOOK I.
TRANSLATED BY ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM.
O Ship, fresh billows soon again Shall bear thee to the boisterous main! Firm, keep the port. See, see thy side, Without a single oar to guide! Wounded by tempests is thy mast; Thy sail-yards groan beneath the blast; Nor can thy keel, uncabled, brave The swelling of th’ imperious wave. Torn are thy sails! nor Gods hast thou, When danger threats, to hear thy vow. Though born of noblest wood, ’twas thine To tower a vigorous Pontic pine; ’Tis vain thy race, thy name, to prize: Nought on his painted stern relies The trembling seaman. Storms afar Thicken to mock thy strength: beware.
Thou, who wast late my anxious fear, Thou now my fondest, tenderest care: O shun, dear Ship, those tossing seas Which part the white-cliff’d Cyclades!
[MUSKEIN was an inhabitant of Antwerp, whom the Directory not only appointed to superintend the construction of the flat-bottomed boats for the invasion of Great Britain (usually called by the French sailors “_bateaux à la Muskein_”), but made a “_capitaine de vaisseau_”. An attack was ordered to be made upon the two small islands of SAINT MARCOUF (each not more than 200 yards in length), of which, in July, 1795, SIR SIDNEY SMITH, with the Diamond frigate, had taken unobstructed possession, and which were considered to give to the English great facility in intercepting between the ports of Havre and Cherbourg. The islands are situated off the river Isigny, on the coast of Normandy, and about four miles distant from the French shore. After being garrisoned with about 500 seamen and marines, including a great proportion of invalids, these small islands were placed under the command of LIEUT. CHARLES PAPPS PRICE, of _The Badger_, a cruiser-converted Dutch hoy, mounting four, or at most six, guns.
On the 8th April, 1798, MUSKEIN, with 33 flat-bottomed boats, with a body of troops on board, and a few gun-brigs, was about to make a combined attack on the two islands, but was driven off by two British frigates, THE DIAMOND, _Capt. Sir R. J. Strachan_, and THE HYDRA, _Capt. Sir Francis Laforey_, and stood into Caen river. While there for three weeks, repairing damages, he was joined by seven heavy gun-brigs, and about 40 flat-boats and armed fishing vessels, bringing with them additional troops.
On the 6th May, LIEUT. PRICE received information that an attack was meditated during the night. By 10 p.m., owing to the prevailing calm, the small naval force on the station, consisting of the 50–gun ship, ADAMANT, _Capt. Wm. Hotham_, 24–gun ship, EURYDICE, _Capt. John Talbot_, and 18–gun brig-sloop, ORESTES, _Capt. W. Haggitt_, had not been able to approach nearer to the islands than six miles—precisely what the assailants wanted. The attacking force consisted of 52–gun brigs and flat-bottomed boats, having on board, as was reported, about 6000 men. At day-break, on the 7th, the flotilla was seen drawn up in a line opposite to the south-west front of the western redoubt; and instantly was opened, upon the brigs and flats composing it, a fire from 17 pieces of cannon, consisting of four 4, two 6, and six 24 pounder long guns, and three 24 and two 32–pounder carronades, being all the guns that would bear. The brigs remained at a distance of from 300 to 400 yards, in order to batter the redoubt with their heavy long guns, while the boats, with great resolution, rowed up until within musket-shot of the battery. But the guns of the latter, loaded with round, grape, and canister, soon poured destruction amongst these, cutting several of the boats “into chips,” and compelling all that could keep afloat to seek their safety in flight. Six or seven boats were seen to go down, and one small flat, No. 13, was afterwards towed in, bottom upwards. She appeared, by some pieces of paper found in her, to have had 144 persons on board, including 129 of the second company of the Boulogne battalion.
The loss sustained by the British garrison amounted to one private-marine killed, and two private-marines and two seamen wounded. According to one French account, the invaders lost about 900 in killed or drowned, and between 300 and 400 wounded. As a reward for their conduct on this occasion, Lieutenants PRICE and BOURNE were each promoted to the rank of Commander. The former died a Post Captain, at Hereford, in 1813, aged 62.—_James’s Naval History_, vol. ii., pp. 128–131: ed. 1886.—ED.]
[M. PLÉVILLE was Minister of Marine, and, shortly after this unsuccessful _début_ of the famous flotilla, was succeeded by Rear-Adm. Bruix, who directed Rear-Adm. La Crosse to take the command, and to make a second attack upon the islands. This, however, the French Government declined to make.—ED.]
HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.
HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.—[“Among the literary celebrities of the French Revolution was Helen Maria Williams, at whose house were wont to assemble the most distinguished of the liberal writers of France, her own reputation giving considerable _éclat_ to these meetings. She wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in our language, was a prisoner under the _reign of terror_, and published a work on the French Revolution which is full of the most touching incidents, and adorned with specimens of the ardent and pathetic poetry, the product of French genius under the excitement of those most mysterious days. A. Humboldt was much attached to her, and committed to her care the translation and publication of some of his most elaborate works.
“She had two nephews, ATHANAS and CHARLES COQUEREL, whom she educated, and who both attained considerable fame, one in the theological and the other in the political field. Athanas was for some time the preacher in the Protestant Church at Amsterdam, and married the daughter of a Swiss gentleman, the only person I have ever known on the Continent to adopt the dress and profess the opinions of an English Quaker. Miss Williams maintained intimate relations with her English friends, was familiar with the great lights of the Revolution, and her conversation was most instructive, entertaining, and varied. All her sympathies were on the side of freedom, and though she was not so prominent as to be persecuted by the Emperor, like Madame de Staël, she was the object of a good deal of suspicion and narrowly watched by the police.”—_Autobr. Recollections by Sir John Bowring_, pp. 353–4.—ED.]
[MISS WILLIAMS, for some years, wrote that portion of the _New Annual Register_ which relates to France. Among many other productions she was the author of the song _Evan Banks_ (to the tune of _Savourna Delish_), which has often been attributed to Burns; a novel called _Julia_, and a _Tour in Switzerland_. Horace Walpole called her in his CORRESPONDENCE a “scribbling trollop”.
She lived for many years, and until the death of that gentleman—in Paris, 1818—under the _protection_ of JOHN HURFORD STONE, a man of letters, who in the early part of the French Revolution had removed with his wife to Paris, where he formed an intimacy with Miss Williams. She was born about 1762, and died in Paris in 1827 as a friend to the Bourbons, and the enemy of the Revolution!
This MR. STONE was born at Tiverton in 1763. While in Paris he was in the confidence of the Directory, and became one of the chief printers there. In 1805, he brought out an edition of the _Geneva Bible_, and published several English reprints; also Miss Williams’s translation of HUMBOLDT’S _Travels_. His brother, WM. STONE, was tried in 1796 for High Treason, for holding treasonable correspondence with him.—ED.]
ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JEAN BON ST. ANDRÉ.
The following exquisite tribute to the memory of an unfortunate republican is written with such a touching sensibility, that those who can command salt tears must prepare to shed them. The narrative is simple and unaffected; the event in itself interesting; the moral obvious and awful.—We have only to observe, that as this account of the transaction is taken from the French papers, it may possibly be somewhat
## partial.—The DEY’S own statement of the affair has not yet been
received. Every friend of humanity will join with us in expressing a candid and benevolent hope, that this business may not tend to kindle the flames of war between these two unchristian powers; but that, by mutual concession and accommodation, they may come to some point (short of the restoration of JEAN BON’S head on his shoulders, which in this stage of the discussion is hardly practicable) by which the peace of the Pagan world may be preserved. For our part, we pretend not to decide from which quarter the concessions ought principally to be made. It is but candid to allow that there are probably faults on _both sides_, in this, as in most other cases. For the character of the DEY we profess a sincere respect on the one hand; and on the other, we naturally wish that the head of JEAN BON ST. ANDRÉ should be reserved for his own guillotine.
ELEGY; OR, DIRGE.
All in the town of TUNIS, In Africa the torrid, On a Frenchman of rank Was played such a prank, As LEPAUX must think quite horrid.
No story half so shocking, By kitchen fire or laundry, Was ever heard tell,— As that which befel The great JEAN BON ST. ANDRÉ.[258]
Poor John was a gallant Captain, In battles much delighting; He fled full soon On the first of June— But he bade the rest keep fighting.
To Paris then returning, And recovered from his panic, He translated the plan Of _Paine’s Rights of Man_, Into language Mauritanic.
He went to teach at Tunis— Where as Consul he was settled— Amongst other things, “That the people are kings!” Whereat the DEY was nettled.
The Moors being rather stupid, And in temper somewhat mulish, Understood not a word Of the doctrine they heard, And thought the Consul foolish.
He formed a _Club_ of _Brothers_, And moved some resolutions— “Ho! ho! (says the DEY), “So this is the way “That the French make _Revolutions_”.
The DEY then gave his orders In Arabic and Persian— “Let no more be said— But bring me his head! These _Clubs_ are my aversion”.
The Consul quoted WICQUEFORT, And PUFFENDORF and GROTIUS; And proved from VATTEL Exceedingly well, Such a deed would be quite atrocious.
’Twould have moved a Christian’s bowels To hear the doubts he stated;— But the Moors they did As they were bid, And strangled him while he prated.
His head with a sharp-edged sabre They severed from his shoulders, And stuck it on high, Where it caught the eye, To the wonder of all beholders.
This sure is a doleful story As e’er you heard or read of;— If at Tunis you prate Of matters of state, Anon they cut your head off!