The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe
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The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe
American poetry; American wit and humor; English poetry; English wit and humor; Humorous poetry, American; Humorous poetry, English
Now through a thundering peal of kind huzzas,
Proceeding some from hired* and unhired jaws,
The raree-show thought proper to retire;
Whilst Whitbread and his daughter fair
Surveyed all Chiswell-street with lofty air,
For, lo! they felt themselves some six feet higher
*[Footnote: When his majesty goes to a play-house, or brew-house, or
parliament, the Lord Chamberlain provides some pounds' worth of mob to
huzza their beloved monarch. At the play-house about forty wide-
mouthed fellows are hired on the night of their majesties' appearance,
at two shillings and sixpence per head, with the liberty of seeing the
play GRATIS. These STENTORS are placed in different parts of the
theater, who, immediately on the royal entry into the stage-box, set
up [illeg.] of loyalty; to whom their majesties, with sweetest smiles,
acknowledge the obligation by a genteel bow, and an elegant curtesy.
This congratulatory noise of the Stentors is looked on by many,
particularly country ladies and gentlemen, as an infallible
thermometer, that ascertains the warmth of the national regard--P. P.]
Such, Thomas, is the way to write!
Thus shouldst thou birth-day songs indite;
Then stick to earth, and leave the lofty sky:
No more of ti tum tum, and ti tum ti.
Thus should an honest laureate write of kings--
Not praise them for IMAGINARY THINGS;
I own I can not make my stubborn rhyme
Call every king a character sublime;
For conscience will not suffer me to wander
So very widely from the paths of candor.
I know full well SOME kings are to be seen,
To whom my verse so bold would give the spleen,
Should that bold verse declare they wanted BRAINS
I won't say that they NEVER brains possessed--
They MAY have been with such a present blessed,
And therefore fancy that some STILL remains;
For every well-experienced surgeon knows,
That men who with their legs have parted,
Swear that they've felt a pain in all their TOES,
And often at the twinges started;
They stared upon their oaken stumps in vain!
Fancying the toes were all come back again.
If men, then, who their absent toes have mourned,
Can fancy those same toes at times returned;
So kings, in matters of intelligences,
May fancy they have stumbled on their senses.
Yes, Tom--mine is the way of writing ode--
Why liftest thou thy pious eyes to God!
Strange disappointment in thy looks I read;
And now I hear thee in proud triumph cry,
"Is this an action, Peter, this a deed
To raise a monarch to the sky?
Tubs, porter, pumps, vats, all the Whitbread throng,
Rare things to figure in the Muse's song!"
Thomas, I here protest, I want no quarrels
On kings and brewers, porter, pumps, and barrels--
Far from the dove-like Peter be such strife,
But this I tell thee, Thomas, for a fact--
Thy Caesar never did an act
More wise, more glorious in his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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