A Satire Anthology

ON LYTTON

WE know him, out of Shakespeare’s art,And those fine curses which he spoke —The Old Timon with his noble heart,That strongly loathing, greatly broke.So died the Old; here comes the New;Regard him – a familiar face;I thought we knew him. What! it’s you,The padded man that wears the stays;Who killed the girls, and thrilled the boysWith dandy pathos when you wrote:O Lion, you that made a noise,And shook a mane en papillotes..What profits now to understandThe merits of a spotless shirt,A dapper boot, a little hand,If half the little soul is dirt?.A Timon you! Nay, nay, for shame!It looks too arrogant a jest —That fierce old man, to take his name,You bandbox! Off, and let him rest!Alfred Tennyson.

SORROWS OF WERTHER

WERTHER had a love for CharlotteSuch as words could never utter;Would you know how first he met her?She was cutting bread and butter.Charlotte was a married lady,And a moral man was Werther,And, for all the wealth of Indies,Would do nothing for to hurt her.So he sighed and pined and ogled,And his passion boiled and bubbled,Till he blew his silly brains out,And no more was by it troubled.Charlotte, having seen his bodyBorne before her on a shutter,Like a well-conducted person,Went on cutting bread and butter.William Makepeace Thackeray.

MR. MOLONY’S ACCOUNT OF THE BALL

GIVEN TO THE NEPAULESE AMBASSADOR BY THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL COMPANYOH, will ye choose to hear the news?Bedad, I cannot pass it o’er;I’ll tell you all about the BallTo the Naypaulase Ambassador.Begor! this fête all balls does bateAt which I’ve worn a pump, and IMust here relate the splendthor greatOf th’ Oriental Company.These men of sinse dispoised expinse,To fête these black Achilleses.“We’ll show the blacks,” says they, “Almack’s,And take the rooms at Willis’s.”With flags and shawls, for these Nepauls,They hung the rooms of Willis up,And decked the walls, and stairs, and halls,With roses and with lilies up.And Jullien’s band it tuck its standSo sweetly in the middle there,And soft bassoons played heavenly chunes,And violins did fiddle there.And when the Coort was tired of spoort,I’d lave you, boys, to think there wasA nate buffet before them set,Where lashins of good dhrink there was.At ten, before the ballroom doorHis moighty Excellincy was,He smoiled and bowed to all the crowd,So gorgeous and imminse he was.His dusky shuit, sublime and muteInto the doorway followed him;And oh, the noise of the blackguard boys,As they hurrood and hollowed him!The noble Chair stud at the stair,And bade the dhrums to thump; and heDid thus evince to that Black PrinceThe welcome of his Company.Oh, fair the girls, and rich the curls,And bright the oys you saw there, was;And fixed each oye, ye there could spoi,On Gineral Jung Behawther was!This gineral great then tuck his sate,With all the other ginerals(Bedad his troat, his belt, his coat,All bleezed with precious minerals);And as he there, with princely air,Recloinin’ on his cushion was,All round about his royal chairThe squeezin’ and the pushin’ was.O Pat, such girls, such jukes, and earls,Such fashion and nobilitee!Just think of Tim, and fancy himAmidst the hoigh gentilitee!There was Lord de L’Huys, and the PortygeeseMinisther and his lady there,And I reckonized, with much surprise,Our messmate, Bob O’Grady, there.There was Baroness Brunow, that looked like Juno,And Baroness Rehausen there,And Countess Roullier, that looked peculiarWell, in her robes of gauze in there.There was Lord Crowhurst (I knew him first,When only Misther Pips he was),And Mick O’Toole, the great big fool,That after supper tipsy was.There was Lord Fingall, and his ladies all,And Lords Killeen and Dufferin,And Paddy Fife, with his fat wife:I wondher how he could stuff her in.There was Lord Belfast, that by me passed,And seemed to ask how should I go there?And the Widow Macrae, and Lord A. Hay,And the Marchioness of Sligo there.Yes, jukes, and earls, and diamonds, and pearls,And pretty girls, was sporting there;And some beside (the rogues!) I spied,Behind the windies, coorting there.Oh, there’s one I know, bedad would showAs beautiful as any there,And I’d like to hear the pipers blow,And shake a fut with Fanny there!William Makepeace Thackeray.

DAMAGES, TWO HUNDRED POUNDS

SPECIAL jurymen of England, who admire your country’s laws,And proclaim a British jury worthy of the realm’s applause,Gayly compliment each other at the issue of a causeWhich was tried at Guildford ’Sizes, this day week, as ever was.Unto that august tribunal comes a gentleman in grief(Special was the British jury, and the judge, the Baron Chief) —Comes a British man and husband, asking of the law relief,For his wife was stolen from him; he’d have vengeance on the thief.Yes, his wife, the blessed treasure with the which his life was crowned,Wickedly was ravished from him by a hypocrite profound;And he comes before twelve Britons, men for sense and truth renowned,To award him for his damage twenty hundred sterling pound.He by counsel and attorney there at Guildford does appear,Asking damage of the villain who seduced his lady dear;But I can’t help asking, though the lady’s guilt was all too clear,And though guilty the defendant, wasn’t the plaintiff rather queer?First the lady’s mother spoke, and said she’d seen her daughter cryBut a fortnight after marriage – early times for piping eye;Six months after, things were worse, and the piping eye was black,And this gallant British husband caned his wife upon the back.Three months after they were married, husband pushed her to the door,Told her to be off and leave him, for he wanted her no more.As she would not go, why, he went: thrice he left his lady dear —Left her, too, without a penny, for more than a quarter of a year.Mrs. Frances Duncan knew the parties very well indeed;She had seen him pull his lady’s nose, and make her lip to bleed;If he chanced to sit at home, not a single word he said;Once she saw him throw the cover of a dish at his lady’s head.Sarah Green, another witness, clear did to the jury noteHow she saw this honest fellow seize his lady by the throat;How he cursed her and abused her, beating her into a fit,Till the pitying next-door neighbours crossed the wall and witnessed it.Next door to this injured Briton Mr. Owers, a butcher, dwelt;Mrs. Owers’s foolish heart toward this erring dame did melt(Not that she had erred as yet – crime was not developed in her),But, being left without a penny, Mrs. Owers supplied her dinner —God be merciful to Mrs. Owers, who was merciful to this sinner!Caroline Naylor was their servant, said they led a wretched life;Saw this most distinguished Briton fling a teacup at his wife;He went out to balls and pleasures, and never once, in ten months’ space,Sat with his wife, or spoke her kindly. This was the defendant’s case.Pollock, C. B., charged the jury; said the woman’s guilt was clear:That was not the point, however, which the jury came to hear;But the damage to determine which, as it should true appear,This most tender-hearted husband, who so used his lady dear —Beat her, kicked her, caned her, cursed her, left her starving, year by year.Flung her from him, parted from her, wrung her neck, and boxed her ear —What the reasonable damage this afflicted man could claimBy the loss of the affections of this guilty, graceless dame?Then the honest British twelve, to each other turning round,Laid their clever heads together with a wisdom most profound:And towards his lordship looking, spoke the foreman wise and sound:“My Lord, we find for this here plaintiff, damages two hundred pound.”So, God bless the special jury! pride and joy of English ground,And the happy land of England, where true justice does abound!British jurymen and husbands, let us hail this verdict proper:If a British wife offends you, Britons, you’ve a right to whop her.Though you promised to protect her, though you promised to defend her,You are welcome to neglect her; to the devil you may send her;You may strike her, curse, abuse her; so declares our law renowned;And if after this you lose her, why, you’re paid two hundred pound.William Makepeace Thackeray.

THE LOST LEADER

IJUST for a handful of silver he left us,Just for a riband to stick in his coat —Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,Lost all the others, she lets us devote;They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,So much was theirs who so little allowed:How all our copper had gone for his service!Rags – were they purple, his heart had been proud!We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,Made him our pattern, to live and to die?Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,Burns, Shelley, were with us – they watched from their graves!He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!IIWe shall march prospering, not thro’ his presence;Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre;Deeds will be done, while he boasts his quiescence,Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.Blot out his name, then; record one lost soul more,One task more declined, one more footpath untrod;One more devils’ triumph, and sorrow for angels,One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!Life’s night begins; let him never come back to us!There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,Forced praise on our part – the glimmer of twilight,Never glad, confident morning again!Best fight on well, for we taught him – strike gallantly,Menace our heart ere we master his own;Then let him receive the new knowledge, and wait us,Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!Robert Browning.

THE POPE AND THE NET

WHAT! he on whom our voices unanimously ran,Made Pope at our last Conclave? Full low his life began:His father earned the daily bread as just a fisherman.So much the more his boy minds book, gives proof of mother-wit,Becomes first Deacon, and then Priest, then Bishop; see him sitNo less than Cardinal ere long, while no one cries “Unfit!”But some one smirks, some other smiles, jogs elbow, and nods head;Each winks at each: “I’ faith, a rise! Saint Peter’s net, insteadOf swords and keys, is come in vogue!” You think he blushes red?Not he, of humble, holy heart! “Unworthy me,” he sighs;“From fisher’s drudge to Church’s prince – it is indeed a rise!So, here’s my way to keep the fact forever in my eyes!”And straightway in his palace-hall, where commonly is setSome coat-of-arms, some portraiture ancestral, lo, we metHis mean estate’s reminder in his fisher-father’s net!Which step conciliates all and some, stops cavil in a trice:“The humble, holy heart that holds of new-born pride no spice,He’s just the saint to choose for Pope!” Each adds. “’Tis my advice.”So Pope he was; and when we flocked – its sacred slipper on —To kiss his foot we lifted eyes, alack, the thing was gone —That guarantee of lowlihead – eclipsed that star which shone!Each eyed his fellow; one and all kept silence. I cried “Pish!I’ll make me spokesman for the rest, express the common wish:Why, Father, is the net removed?” “Son, it hath caught the fish.”Robert Browning.

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER

GR-R-R – there go, my heart’s abhorrence!Water your damned flower-pots, do!If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,God’s blood, would not mine kill you!What! your myrtle-bush wants trimming?Oh, that rose has prior claims —Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?Hell dry you up with its flames!At the meal we sit together:Salve tibi! I must hearWise talk of the kind of weather,Sort of season, time of year;Not a plenteous cork-crop; scarcelyDare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:What’s the Latin name for “parsley”?What’s the Greek name for swine’s snout?Whew! we’ll have our platter burnished,Laid with care on our own shelf;With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,And a goblet for ourself,Rinsed like something sacrificialEre ’tis fit to touch our chapsMarked with L for our initial!(He-he! There his lily snaps!)Saint, forsooth! While brown DoloresSquats outside the convent bankWith Sanchicha, telling stories,Steeping tresses in the tank,Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,Can’t I see his dead eye glowBright as ’t were a Barbary corsair’s?(That is, if he’d let it show!)When he finishes refection,Knife and fork he never laysCrosswise, to my recollection,As do I, in Jesu’s praise.I the Trinity illustrate,Drinking watered orange pulp —In three sips the Arian frustrate,While he drains his at one gulp.Oh, those melons! If he’s able,We’re to have a feast, so nice!One goes to the abbot’s table,All of us get each a slice.How go on your flowers? None double?Not one fruit-sort can you spy?Strange! And I, too, at such troubleKeep them close-nipped on the sly!There’s a great text in Galatians,Once you trip on it, entailsTwenty-nine distinct damnations,One sure, if another fails.If I trip him just a-dying,Sure of heaven as sure can be,Spin him round and send him flyingOff to hell, a Manichee?Or, my scrofulous French novelOn gray paper, with blunt type!Simply glance at it, you grovelHand and foot in Belial’s gripe.If I double down its pagesAt the woful sixteenth print,When he gathers his greengages,Ope a sieve and slip it in’t?Or, there’s Satan! One might venturePledge one’s soul to him, yet leaveSuch a flaw in the indentureAs he’d miss till, past retrieve,Blasted lay that rose-acaciaWe’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine…’St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratia,Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r – you swine!Robert Browning.

CYNICAL ODE TO AN ULTRA-CYNICAL PUBLIC

YOU prefer a buffoon to a scholar,A harlequin to a teacher,A jester to a statesman,An anonyma flaring on horsebackTo a modest and spotless woman —Brute of a public!You think that to sneer shows wisdom;That a gibe outvalues a reason;That slang, such as thieves delight in,Is fit for the lips of the gentle,And rather a grace than a blemish —Thick-headed public!You think that if merit’s exalted,’Tis excellent sport to decry it,And trail its good name in the gutter;And that cynics, white-gloved and cravatted,Are the cream and quintessence of all things —Ass of a public!You think that success must be merit;That honour and virtue and courageAre all very well in their places,But that money’s a thousand times better —Detestable, stupid, degradedPig of a public!Charles Mackay.

THE GREAT CRITICS

WHOM shall we praise?Let’s praise the dead!In no men’s waysTheir heads they raise,Nor strive for breadWith you or me.So, do you see,We’ll praise the dead!Let living menDare but to claimFrom tongue or penTheir meed of fame,We’ll cry them down,Spoil their renown,Deny their sense,Wit, eloquence,Poetic fire,All they desire.Our say is said,Long live the dead!Charles Mackay.

THE LAUREATE

WHO would not beThe Laureate bold,With his butt of sherryTo keep him merry,And nothing to do but to pocket his gold?’Tis I would be the Laureate bold!When the days are hot, and the sun is strong,I’d lounge in the gateway all the day long,With her Majesty’s footmen in crimson and gold.I’d care not a pin for a waiting-lord;But I’d lie on my back on the smooth greensward,With a straw in my mouth, and an open vest,And the cool wind blowing upon my breast,And I’d vacantly stare at the clear blue sky,And watch the clouds that are listless as I,Lazily, lazily!And I’d pick the moss and the daisies white,And chew their stalks with a nibbling bite;And I’d let my fancies roam abroadIn search of a hint for a birthday ode,Crazily, crazily!Oh, that would be the life for me,With plenty to get and nothing to do,But to deck a pet poodle with ribbons of blue,And whistle all day to the Queen’s cockatoo,Trance-somely, trance-somely!Then the chambermaids, that clean the rooms,Would come to the windows and rest on their brooms,With their saucy caps and their crispéd hair,And they’d toss their heads in the fragrant air,And say to each other, “Just look down there,At the nice young man, so tidy and small,Who is paid for writing on nothing at all,Handsomely, handsomely!”They would pelt me with matches and sweet pastilles,And crumpled-up balls of the royal bills,Giggling and laughing, and screaming with fun,As they’d see me start, with a leap and a run,From the broad of my back to the points of my toes,When a pellet of paper hit my nose,Teasingly, sneezingly.Then I’d fling them bunches of garden flowers,And hyacinths plucked from the castle bowers;And I’d challenge them all to come down to me,And I’d kiss them all till they kisséd me,Laughingly, laughingly.Oh, would not that be a merry life,Apart from care and apart from strife,With the Laureate’s wine and the Laureate’s pay,And no deductions at quarter-day?Oh, that would be the post for me!With plenty to get and nothing to do,But to deck a pet poodle with ribbons of blue,And whistle a tune to the Queen’s cockatoo,And scribble of verses remarkably few,And empty at evening a bottle or two,Quaffingly, quaffingly!’Tis I would beThe Laureate bold,With my butt of sherryTo keep me merry,And nothing to do but to pocket my gold!William E. Aytoun.

WOMAN’S WILL

MEN, dying, make their wills, but wivesEscape a work so sad;Why should they make what all their livesThe gentle dames have had?John Godfrey Saxe.

THE MOURNER À LA MODE

I  SAW her last night at a party(The elegant party at Mead’s),And looking remarkably heartyFor a widow so young in her weeds;Yet I know she was suffering sorrowToo deep for the tongue to express —Or why had she chosen to borrowSo much from the language of dress?Her shawl was as sable as night;And her gloves were as dark as her shawl;And her jewels – that flashed in the light —Were black as a funeral pall;Her robe had the hue of the rest,(How nicely it fitted her shape!)And the grief that was heaving her breastBoiled over in billows of crape!What tears of vicarious woe,That else might have sullied her face,Were kindly permitted to flowIn ripples of ebony laceWhile even her fan, in its play,Had quite a lugubrious scope,And seemed to be waving awayThe ghost of the angel of Hope!Yet rich as the robes of a queenWas the sombre apparel she wore;I’m certain I never had seenSuch a sumptuous sorrow before;And I couldn’t help thinking the beauty,In mourning the loved and the lost,Was doing her conjugal dutyAltogether regardless of cost!One surely would say a devotionPerformed at so vast an expenseBetrayed an excess of emotionThat was really something immense;And yet, as I viewed, at my leisure,Those tokens of tender regard,I thought: It is scarce without measure —The sorrow that goes by the yard!Ah, grief is a curious passion;And yours – I am sorely afraidThe very next phase of the fashionWill find it beginning to fade;Though dark are the shadows of grief,The morning will follow the night;Half-tints will betoken relief,Till joy shall be symboled in white!Ah, well! it were idle to quarrelWith fashion, or aught she may do;And so I conclude with a moralAnd metaphor – warranted new:When measles come handsomely out,The patient is safest, they say;And the sorrow is mildest, no doubt,That works in a similar way!John Godfrey Saxe.

THERE IS NO GOD

“THERE is no God,” the wicked saith,“And truly it’s a blessing,For what he might have done with usIt’s better only guessing.”“There is no God,” a youngster thinks,“Or really, if there may be,He surely didn’t mean a manAlways to be a baby.”“There is no God, or if there is,”The tradesman thinks, “’twere funnyIf he should take it ill in meTo make a little money.”“Whether there be,” the rich man says“It matters very little,For I and mine, thank somebody,Are not in want of victual.”Some others, also, to themselves,Who scarce so much as doubt it,Think there is none, when they are well,And do not think about it.But country folks who live beneathThe shadow of the steeple;The parson and the parson’s wife,And mostly married people;Youths green and happy in first love,So thankful for illusion;And men caught out in what the worldCalls guilt, in first confusion;And almost every one when age,Disease, or sorrows strike him,Inclines to think there is a God,Or something very like him.Arthur Hugh Clough.

THE LATEST DECALOGUE

THOU shalt have one God only; whoWould be at the expense of two?No graven images may beWorshipped, except the currency.Swear not at all; for, for thy curseThine enemy is none the worse.At church on Sunday to attendWill serve to keep the world thy friend.Honour thy parents; that is, allFrom whom advancement may befall.Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not striveOfficiously to keep alive.Do not adultery commit;Advantage rarely comes of it.Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,When it’s so lucrative to cheat.Bear not false witness; let the lieHave time on its own wings to fly.Thou shalt not covet, but traditionApproves all forms of competition.Arthur Hugh Clough.

FROM “A FABLE FOR CRITICS”

“THERE is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignifiedAs a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is ignified,Save when by reflection ’tis kindled o’ nights,With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights.He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation(There’s no doubt that he stands in supreme ice-olation);Your topmost Parnassus he may set his heel on,But no warm applauses come, peal following peal on;He’s too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on;Unqualified merits, I’ll grant, if you choose, he has ’em,But he lacks the one merit of kindling enthusiasm;If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul,Like being stirred up with the very North Pole.…“Mr. Quivis, or somebody quite as discerning,Some scholar who’s hourly expecting his learning,Calls B. the American Wordsworth; but WordsworthMay be rated at more than your whole tuneful herd’s worth.No, don’t be absurd, he’s an excellent Bryant;But, my friends, you’ll endanger the life of your clientBy attempting to stretch him up into a giant.…“There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heartStrains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart,And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erectUnderneath the bemummying wrappers of sect;There was ne’er a man born who had more of the swingOf the true lyric bard, and all that kind of thing;And his failures arise (though he seem not to know it)From the very same cause that has made him a poet —A fervour of mind which knows no separation’Twixt simple excitement and pure inspiration,As my pythoness erst sometimes erred from not knowingIf ’twere I, or mere wind, through her tripod was blowing;Let his mind once get head in its favourite direction,And the torrent of verse bursts the dams of reflection,While, borne with the rush of the metre along,The poet may chance to go right or go wrong,Content with the whirl and delirium of song;Then his grammar’s not always correct, nor his rhymes,And he’s prone to repeat his own lyrics sometimes,Not his best, though, for those are struck off at white-heats,When the heart in his breast like a trip-hammer beats,And can ne’er be repeated again any moreThan they could have been carefully plotted before:Like old What’s-his-name there at the battle of Hastings(Who, however, gave more than mere rhythmical bastings),Our Quaker leads off metaphorical fightsFor reform and whatever they call human rights,Both singing and striking in front of the war,And hitting his foes with the mallet of Thor:Anne haec, one exclaims, on beholding his knocks,Vestis filii tui, O leather-clad Fox?Can that be my son, in the battle’s mid din,Preaching brotherly love and then driving it inTo the brain of the tough old Goliath of sin,With the smoothest of pebbles from Castaly’s springImpressed on his hard moral sense with a sling?…“There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rareThat you hardly at first see the strength that is there;A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet,So earnest, so graceful, so lithe and so fleet,Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet;’Tis as if a rough oak that for ages had stood,With his gnarled bony branches like ribs of the wood,Should bloom, after cycles of struggle and scathe,With a single anemone trembly and rathe;His strength is so tender, his wildness so meek,That a suitable parallel sets one to seek —He’s a John Bunyan Fouqué, a Puritan Tieck;When nature was shaping him, clay was not grantedFor making so full-sized a man as she wanted,So, to fill out her model, a little she sparedFrom some finer-grained stuff for a woman prepared,And she could not have hit a more excellent planFor making him fully and perfectly man.The success of her scheme gave her so much delight,That she tried it again, shortly after, in Dwight;Only, while she was kneading and shaping the clay,She sang to her work in her sweet, childish way,And found, when she’d put the last touch to his soul,That the music had somehow got mixed with the whole.…“There’s Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit —A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from which flitThe electrical tingles of hit after hit;In long poems ’tis painful sometimes, and invitesA thought of the way the new telegraph writes,Which pricks down its little sharp sentences spitefully,As if you got more than you’d title to rightfully,And you find yourself hoping its wild Father LightningWould flame in for a second and give you a fright’ning.He has perfect sway of what I call a sham metre,But many admire it, the English pentameter,And Campbell, I think, wrote most commonly worse,With less nerve, swing, and fire in the same kind of verse,Nor e’er achieved aught in’t so worthy of praiseAs the tribute of Holmes to the grand ‘Marseillaise.’You went crazy, last year, over Bulwer’s ‘New Timon’;Why, if B., to the day of his dying, should rhyme on,Heaping verses on verses and tomes upon tomes,He could ne’er reach the best point and vigour of Holmes.His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyricFull of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satyricIn a measure so kindly, you doubt if the toesThat are trodden upon are your own or your foes.”James Russell Lowell.