The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Part 237

SKETCH OF THE FIRST ACT OF A NEW ROMANTIC DRAMA.

"And now," quoth the G.o.ddess, in accents jocose, "Having got good materials, I'll brew such a dose "Of Double X mischief as, mortals shall say, "They've not known its equal for many a long day."

Here she winkt to her subaltern imps to be steady, And all wagged their fire-tipt tails and stood ready.

"So, now for the ingredients:--first, hand me that bishop;"

Whereupon, a whole bevy of imps run to fish up From out a large reservoir wherein they pen 'em The blackest of all its black dabblers in venom; And wrapping him up (lest the virus should ooze, And one "drop of the immortal"[1] Right Rev.[2] they might lose) In the sheets of his own speeches, charges, reviews, Pop him into the caldron, while loudly a burst From the by-standers welcomes ingredient the first!

"Now fetch the Ex-Chancellor," muttered the dame-- "He who's called after Harry the Older, by name."

"The Ex-Chancellor!" echoed her imps, the whole crew of 'em-- "Why talk of _one_ Ex, when your Mischief has _two_ of 'em?"

"True, true," said the hag, looking arch at her elves, "And a double-_Ex_ dose they compose, in themselves."

This joke, the sly meaning of which was seen lucidly, Set all the devils a laughing most deucedly.

So, in went the pair, and (what none thought surprising) Showed talents for sinking as great as for rising; While not a grim phiz in that realm but was lighted With joy to see spirits so twin-like united-- Or (plainly to speak) two such birds of a feather, In one mess of venom thus spitted together.

Here a flashy imp rose--some connection, no doubt, Of the young lord in question--and, scowling about, "Hoped his fiery friend, Stanley, would not be left out; "As no schoolboy unwhipt, the whole world must agree, "Loved mischief, _pure_ mischief, more dearly than he."

But, no--the wise hag wouldn?t hear of the whipster; Not merely because, as a shrew, he eclipst her, And nature had given him, to keep him still young, Much tongue in his head and no head in his tongue; But because she well knew that, for change ever ready, He'd not even to mischief keep properly steady: That soon even the _wrong_ side would cease to delight, And, for want of a change, he must swerve to the _right_; While, on _each_, so at random his missiles he threw, That the side he attackt was most safe, of the two.-- This ingredient was therefore put by on the shelf, There to bubble, a bitter, hot mess, by itself.

"And now," quoth the hag, as her caldron she eyed.

And the tidbits so friendlily rankling inside, "There wants but some seasoning;--so, come, ere I stew 'em, "By way of a relish we'll throw in John Tuam.'

"In cooking up mischief, there's no flesh or fish "Like your meddling High Priest, to add zest to the dish."

Thus saying, she pops in the Irish Grand Lama-- Which great event ends the First Act of the Drama.

[1] To lose no drop of the immortal man.

[2] The present Bishop of Exeter.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

Tho' famed was Mesmer, in his day, Nor less so, in ours, is Dupotet, To say nothing of all the wonders done By that wizard, Dr. Elliotson, When, standing as if the G.o.ds to invoke, he Up waves his arm, and--down drops Okey![1]

Tho' strange these things, to mind and sense, If you wish still stranger things to see-- If you wish to know the power immense Of the true magnetic influence, Just go to her Majesty's Treasury, And learn the wonders working there-- And I'll be hanged if you don?t stare!

Talk of your animal magnetists, And that wave of the hand no soul resists, Not all its witcheries can compete With the friendly beckon towards Downing Street, Which a Premier gives to one who wishes To taste of the Treasury loaves and fishes.

It actually lifts the lucky elf, Thus acted upon, _above_ himself;-- He jumps to a state of _clairvoyance_, And is placeman, statesman, all, at once!

These effects, observe (with which I begin), Take place when the patient's motioned _in_; Far different of course the mode of affection, When the wave of the hand's in the _out_ direction; The effects being then extremely unpleasant, As is seen in the case of Lord Brougham, at present; In whom this sort of manipulation, Has lately produced such inflammation, Attended with constant irritation, That, in short--not to mince his situation-- It has workt in the man a transformation That puzzles all human calculation!

Ever since the fatal day which saw That "pa.s.s" performed on this Lord of Law-- A pa.s.s potential, none can doubt, As it sent Harry Brougham to the right about-- The condition in which the patient has been Is a thing quite awful to be seen.

Not that a casual eye could scan This wondrous change by outward survey; It being, in fact, the _interior_ man That's turned completely topsy-turvy:-- Like a case that lately, in reading o'er 'em, I found in the _Acta Eruditorum_, Of a man in whose inside, when disclosed, The whole order of things was found transposed; By a _lusus naturae_, strange to see, The liver placed where the heart should be, And the _spleen_ (like Brougham's, since laid on the shelf) As diseased and as much _out of place_ as himself.

In short, 'tis a case for consultation, If e'er there was one, in this thinking nation; And therefore I humbly beg to propose, That those _savans_ who mean, as the rumor goes, To sit on Miss Okey's wonderful case, Should also Lord Parry's case embrace; And inform us, in _both_ these patients' states, Which _ism_ it is that predominates, Whether magnetism and somnambulism, Or, simply and solely, mountebankism.

[1] The name of the heroine of the performances at the North London Hospital.

THE SONG OF THE BOX.

Let History boast of her Romans and Spartans, And tell how they stood against tyranny's shock; They were all, I confess, in _my_ eye, Betty Martins Compared to George Grote and his wonderful Box.

Ask, where Liberty now has her seat?--Oh, it isn't By Delaware's banks or on Switzerland's rocks;-- Like an imp in some conjuror's bottle imprisoned, She's slyly shut up in Grote's wonderful Box.

How snug!--'stead of floating thro' ether's dominions, Blown _this_ way and _that_, by the "_populi vox_,"

To fold thus in silence her sinecure pinions, And go fast asleep in Grote's wonderful Box.

Time was, when free speech was the life-breath of freedom-- So thought once the Seldens, the Hampdens, the Lockes; But mute be _our_ troops, when to ambush we lead 'em, "For Mum" is the word with us Knights of the Box.

Pure, exquisite Box! no corruption can soil it; There's Otto of Rose in each breath it unlocks; While Grote is the "Betty," that serves at the toilet, And breathes all Arabia around from his Box.

'Tis a singular fact, that the famed Hugo Grotius (A namesake of Grote's--being both of Dutch stocks), Like Grote, too, a genius profound as precocious, Was also, like him, much renowned for a Box;--

An immortal old clothes-box, in which the great Grotius When suffering in prison for views heterodox, Was packt up incog. spite of jailers ferocious,[1]

And sent to his wife,[2] carriage free, in a Box!

But the fame of old Hugo now rests on the shelf, Since a rival hath risen that all parallel mocks;-- _That_ Grotius ingloriously saved but himself, While _ours_ saves the whole British realm by a Box!

And oh! when, at last, even this greatest of Grotes Must bend to the Power that at every door knocks, May he drop in the urn like his own "silent votes,"

And the tomb of his rest be a large Ballot-Box.

While long at his shrine, both from county and city, Shall pilgrims triennially gather in flocks, And sing, while they whimper, the appropriate ditty, "Oh breathe not his _name_, let it sleep--in the Box."

[1] For the particulars of this escape of Grotius from the Castle of Louvenstein, by means of a box (only three feet and a half long, it is said) in which books used to be occasionally sent to him and foul linen returned, see any of the Biographical Dictionaries.

[2] This is not quite according to the facts of the case; his wife having been the contriver of the stratagem, and remained in the prison herself to give him time for escape.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF A NEW THALABA.

ADDRESSED TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ.

When erst, my Southey, thy tuneful tongue The terrible tale of Thalaba sung-- Of him, the Destroyer, doomed to rout That grim divan of conjurors out, Whose dwelling dark, as legends say, Beneath the roots of the ocean lay, (Fit place for deep ones, such as they,) How little thou knewest, dear Dr. Southey, Altho' bright genius all allow thee, That, some years thence, thy wondering eyes Should see a second Thalaba rise-- As ripe for ruinous rigs as thine, Tho' his havoc lie in a different line, And should find this new, improved Destroyer Beneath the wig of a Yankee lawyer; A sort of an "alien," _alias_ man, Whose country or party guess who can, Being c.o.c.kney half, half Jonathan; And his life, to make the thing completer, Being all in the genuine Thalaba metre, Loose and irregular as thy feet are;-- First, into Whig Pindarics rambling, Then in low Tory doggrel scrambling; Now _love_ his theme, now _Church_ his glory (At once both Tory and ama-tory), Now in the Old Bailey-_lay_ meandering, Now in soft _couplet_ style philandering; And, lastly, in lame Alexandrine, Dragging his wounded length along, When scourged by Holland's silken thong.

In short, dear Bob, Destroyer the Second May fairly a match for the First be reckoned; Save that _your_ Thalaba's talent lay In sweeping old conjurors clean away, While ours at aldermen deals his blows, (Who no great conjurors are, G.o.d knows,) Lays Corporations, by wholesale, level, Sends Acts of Parliament to the devil, Bullies the whole Milesian race-- Seven millions of Paddies, face to face; And, seizing that magic wand, himself, Which erst thy conjurors left on the shelf, Transforms the boys of the Boyne and Liffey All into _foreigners_, in a jiffy-- Aliens, outcasts, every soul of 'em, Born but for whips and chains, the whole of 'em?