The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Part 205

1826.

Tho' many great Doctors there be, There are three that all Doctors out-top, Doctor Eady, that famous M. D., Doctor Southey, and dear Doctor Slop.[1]

The purger, the proser, the bard-- All quacks in a different style; Doctor Southey writes books by the yard.

Doctor Eady writes puffs by the mile![2]

Doctor Slop, in no merit outdone By his scribbling or physicking brother, Can dose us with stuff like the one.

Ay, and _doze_ us with stuff like the other.

Doctor Eady good company keeps With "No Popery" scribes, on the walls; Doctor Southey as gloriously sleeps With "No Popery" scribes on the stalls.

Doctor Slop, upon subjects divine, Such bedlamite slaver lets drop, Taat if Eady should take the _mad_ line, He'll be sure of a patient in Slop.

Seven millions of Papists, no less, Doctor Southey attacks, like a Turk; Doctor Eady, less bold, I confess, Attacks but his maid-of-all-work

Doctor Southey, for _his_ grand attack, Both a laureate and pensioner is; While poor Doctor Eady, alack, Has been _had up_ to Bow-street for his!

And truly, the law does so blunder, That tho' little blood has been spilt, he May probably suffer as, under The _Chalking_ Act, _known_ to be guilty.

So much for the merits sublime (With whose catalogue ne'er should I stop) Of the three greatest lights of our time, Doctor Eady and Southey and Slop!

Should you ask me, to _which_ of the three Great Doctors the preference should fall, As a matter of course I agree Doctor Eady must go to _the wall_.

But as Southey with laurels is crowned, And Slop with a wig and a tail is, Let Eady's bright temples be bound With a swingeing "Corona _Muralis_!"[3]

[1] The editor of the Morning Herald, so nicknamed.

[2] Alluding to the display of this doctor's name, in chalk, on all the walls round the metropolis.

[3] A crown granted as a reward among the Romans to persons who performed any extraordinary exploits upon wall, such as scaling them, battering them, etc.--No doubt, writing upon them, to the extent Dr. Eady does, would equally establish a claim to the honor.

EPITAPH ON A TUFT-HUNTER.

Lament, lament, Sir Isaac Heard, Put mourning round thy page, Debrett, For here lies one who ne'er preferred A Viscount to a Marquis yet.

Beside him place the G.o.d of Wit, Before him Beauty's rosiest girls, Apollo for a _star_ he'd quit, And Love's own sister for an Earl's.

Did n.i.g.g.ard fate no peers afford, He took of course to peers' relations; And rather than not sport a Lord Put up with even the last creations;

Even Irish names could he but tag 'em With "Lord" and "Duke," were sweet to call; And at a pinch Lord Ballyraggum Was better than no Lord at all.

Heaven grant him now some n.o.ble nook, For rest his soul! he'd rather be Genteelly d.a.m.ned beside a Duke, Than saved in vulgar company.

ODE TO A HAT.

--_altum aedificat caput_."

JUVENAL

1826.

Hail, reverent Hat!--sublime mid all The minor felts that round thee grovel;-- Thou that the G.o.ds "a Delta" call While meaner mortals call the "shovel."

When on thy shape (like pyramid, Cut horizontally in two)[1]

I raptured gaze, what dreams unbid Of stalls and mitres bless my view!

That brim of brims so sleekly good-- Not flapt, like dull Wesleyans', down, But looking (as all churchmen's should) Devoutly upward--towards the _crown_.

G.o.ds! when I gaze upon that brim, So redolent of Church all over, What swarms of t.i.thes in vision dim,-- Some-pig-tailed, some like cherubim, With ducklings' wings--around it hover!

Tenths of all dead and living things, That Nature into being brings, From calves and corn to chitterlings.

Say, holy Hat, that hast, of c.o.c.ks, The very c.o.c.k most orthodox.

To _which_ of all the well-fed throng Of Zion,[2] joy'st thou to belong?

Thou'rt _not_ Sir Harcourt Lees's--no- For hats grow like the heads that wear 'em: And hats, on heads like his, would grow Particularly _harum-scarum_.

Who knows but thou mayst deck the pate Of that famed Doctor Ad-mth-te, (The reverend rat, whom we saw stand On his hind-legs in Westmoreland,) Who changed so quick from _blue_ to _yellow_, And would from _yellow_ back to _blue_, And back again, convenient fellow, If 'twere his interest so to do.

Or haply smartest of triangles, Thou art the hat of Doctor Owen; The hat that, to his vestry wrangles, That venerable priest doth go in,-- And then and there amid the stare Of all St. Olave's, takes the chair And quotes with phiz right orthodox The example of his reverend brothers, To prove that priests all fleece their flocks And _he_ must fleece as well as others.

Blest Hat! (whoe'er thy lord may be) Thus low I take off mine to thee, The homage of a layman's _castor_, To the spruce _delta_ of his pastor.

Oh mayst thou be, as thou proceedest, Still smarter c.o.c.kt, still brusht the brighter, Till, bowing all the way, thou leadest Thy sleek possessor to a mitre!

[1] So described by a Reverend Historian of the Church:--"A Delta hat like the horizontal section of a pyramid."--GRANT'S "History of the English Church."

[2] Archbishop Magee affectionately calls the Church Establishment of Ireland "the little Zion."

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