Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities Part 20

"'_Morituri te salutant!_' say the soldiers as they pa.s.s; Not in uttered words they say it, but we feel it as they pa.s.s-- 'We, who are about to perish, we salute thee as we pa.s.s!'

Nought of golden pomp and glitter mark the veterans as they pa.s.s-- Travel-stained, but bronzed and sinewy, firmly, proudly, how they pa.s.s; And we hear them, '_Morituri te salutant!_' as they pa.s.s.

On his pawing steed, the General marks the waves of men that pa.s.s, And his eyes at times are misty, now are blazing, as they pa.s.s, For his breast with pride is swelling, as the stalwart veterans pa.s.s, Gallant chiefs their swords presenting, trail them proudly as they pa.s.s-- Battle banners, torn and glorious, dip saluting as they pa.s.s; Brazen clangours shake the welkin, as the manly squadrons pa.s.s.

Oh, our comrades! gone before us, in the last review to pa.s.s, Never more to earthly chieftain dipping colours as you pa.s.s, Heaven accord you gentle judgment when before the Throne you pa.s.s!"

"About the year 1775 there was a performer named Cervetti in the orchestra of Drury Lane Theatre, to whom, the G.o.ds had given the appropriate name of Nosey, from his enormous staysail, that helped to carry him before the wind. 'Nosey!' shouted from the galleries, was the signal, or word of command, for the fiddlers to strike up. This man was originally an Italian merchant of good repute; but failing in business, he came over to England, and adopted music for a profession. He had a notable knack of loud yawning, with which he sometimes unluckily filled up Garrick's expressive pauses, to the infinite annoyance of Garrick and the laughter of the audience. In the summer of 1777 he played at Vauxhall, at the age of ninety-eight." Upon such another nose was the following lines written:

THE ROMAN NOSE.

"That Roman nose! that Roman nose!

Has robbed my bosom of repose; For when in sleep my eyelids close, It haunts me still, that Roman nose!

Between two eyes as black as sloes The bright and flaming ruby glows: That Roman nose! that Roman nose!

And beats the blush of damask rose.

I walk the streets, the alleys, rows; I look at all the Jems and Joes; And old and young, and friends and foes, But cannot find a Roman nose!

Then blessed be the day I chose That nasal beauty of my beau's; And when at last to Heaven I goes, I hope to spy his Roman nose!"

--_Merrie England._

Mrs. Thrale, on her thirty-fifth birthday, remarked to Dr. Johnson, that no one would send her verses now that she had attained that age, upon which the Doctor, without the least hesitation, recited the following lines:

THIRTY-FIVE.

"Oft in danger, yet alive, We are come to thirty-five; Long may better years arrive, Better years than thirty-five.

Could philosophers contrive Life to stop at thirty-five, Time his hours should never drive O'er the bounds of thirty-five.

High to soar, and deep to dive, Nature gives at thirty-five; Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five; For, howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five; He that ever hopes to thrive, Must begin by thirty-five; And all who wisely wish to wive, Must look on Thrale at thirty-five."

Moore, in his "Life of Sheridan," says that he (Sheridan) "had a sort of hereditary fancy for difficult trifling in poetry; particularly to that sort which consists in rhyming to the same word through a long string of couplets, till every rhyme that the language supplies for it is exhausted," a task which must have required great patience and perseverance. Moore quotes some dozen lines ent.i.tled "To Anne," wherein a lady is made to bewail the loss of her trunk, and she thus rhymes her lamentations:

"Have you heard, my dear Anne, how my spirits are sunk?

Have you heard of the cause? Oh, the loss of my trunk!

From exertion or firmness I've never yet slunk, But my fort.i.tude's gone with the loss of my trunk!

Stout Lucy, my maid, is a damsel of s.p.u.n.k, Yet she weeps night and day for the loss of my trunk!

I'd better turn nun, and coquet with a monk, For with whom can I flirt without aid from my trunk?

Accursed be the thief, the old rascally hunks, Who rifles the fair, and lays hold on their trunks!

He who robs the king's stores of the least bit of junk, Is hanged--while he's safe who has plundered my trunk!

There's a phrase among lawyers when _nunc_'s put for _tunc_; But _nunc_ and _tunc_ both, must I grieve for my trunk!

Huge leaves of that great commentator, old Brunck, Perhaps was the paper that lined my poor trunk!" &c. &c.

From another of these trifles of Sheridan, Moore gives the following extracts:

"Muse, a.s.sist me to complain, While I grieve for Lady Jane; I ne'er was in so sad a vein, Deserted now by Lady Jane.

Lord Petre's house was built by Payne, No mortal architect made Jane.

If hearts had windows, through the pane Of mine, you'd see Lady Jane.

At breakfast I could scarce refrain From tears at missing Lady Jane; Nine rolls I ate, in hope to gain The roll that might have fallen to Jane."

John Skelton, a poet of the fifteenth century, in great repute as a wit and satirist, was inordinately fond of writing in lines of three or four syllables, and also of iteration of rhyme. This perhaps was the cause of his writing much that was mere doggerel, as this style scarcely admits of the conveyance of serious sentiment. Occasionally, however, his miniature lines are interesting, as in this address to Mrs. Margaret Hussey:

"Merry Margaret, As midsummer flower, Gentle as falcon, Or hawk of the tower, With solace and gladness, Much mirth and no madness, All good and no badness, So joyously, So maidenly, So womanly, Her demeaning, In everything Far, far pa.s.sing That I can indite Or suffice to write Of merry Margaret, As midsummer flower, Gentle as falcon, Or hawk of the tower."

The following national pasquinade we find in Egerton Brydges' "Censura Literaria Rest.i.tuta," written in commemoration of the failure of Spain by her Invincible Armada to invade Britain. The iteration of metre is all that approaches in it to the style of Skelton, of whose verse it is an imitation:

"A Skeltonical salutation Or condign gratulation, At the just vexation Of the Spanish nation, That in a bravado Spent many a crusado In setting forth an Armado England to invado.

Pro cujus memoria Ye may well be soria, Full small may be your gloria When ye shall hear this storia, Then will ye cry and roria, We shall see her no moria.

O king of Spaine!

Is it not a paine To thy hearte and braine, And every vaine, To see thy traine For to sustaine Withouten gaine, The world's disdaine; Which despise As toies and lies, With shoutes and cries, Thy enterprise; As fitter for pies And b.u.t.terflies Then men so wise?

O waspish king!

Where's now thy sting.

The darts or sling, Or strong bowstring, That should us wring, And under bring?

Who every way Thee vexe and pay And beare the sway By night and day, To thy dismay In battle array, And every fray?

O pufte with pride!

What foolish guide Made thee provide To over-ride This land so wide, From side to side; And then untride, Away to slide, And not to abide; But all in a ring Away to fling?"

&c. &c.

EPITAPH ON DR. WILLIAM MAGINN.

"Here, early to bed, lies kind William Maginn, Who with genius, wit, learning, life's trophies to win, Had neither great lord, nor rich cit of his kin, Nor discretion to set himself up as to tin; So his portion soon spent, like the poor heir of Lynn, He turned author, ere yet there was beard on his chin; And whoever was out, or whoever was in, For your Tories his fine Irish brains he would spin; Who received prose and verse with a promising grin, 'Go a-head, you queer fish, and more power to your fin!'

But to save from starvation stirr'd never a pin.

Light for long was his heart, tho' his breeches were thin, Else his acting, for certain, was equal to Quin: But at last he was beat, and sought help of the bin: (All the same to the doctor, from claret to gin!) Which led swiftly to gaol, with consumption therein.

It was much, when the bones rattled loose in the skin, He got leave to die here, out of Babylon's din.[8]

Barring drink and the girls, I ne'er heard of a sin,-- Many worse, better few, than bright, broken Maginn!"

THE MUSICAL a.s.s.

"The fable which I now present, Occurred to me by accident: And whether bad or excellent, Is merely so by accident.

A stupid a.s.s this morning went Into a field by accident: And cropped his food, and was content, Until he spied by accident A flute, which some oblivious gent Had left behind by accident; When, sniffing it with eager scent, He breathed on it by accident, And made the hollow instrument Emit a sound by accident.

'Hurrah, hurrah!' exclaimed the brute, 'How cleverly I play the flute!'

A fool, in spite of nature's bent, May s.h.i.+ne for once,--by accident."

The above is a translation from the "Fabulas Litterarias" of Tomaso de Yriarte (1750-1790). Yriarte conceived the idea of making moral truths the themes for fables in the style of aesop, and these he composed in every variety of verse which seemed at all suitable. Even when the leading idea presents no remarkable incident, Yriarte's fables please by their simplicity.

BOXIANA.

"I hate the very name of box; It fills me full of fears; It minds me of the woes I've felt Since I was young in years.

They sent me to a Yorks.h.i.+re school, Where I had many knocks; For there my schoolmates box'd my ears, Because I could not box.

I packed my box; I picked the locks, And ran away to sea; And very soon I learnt to box The compa.s.s merrily.

I came ash.o.r.e; I called a coach And mounted on the box: The coach upset against a post, And gave me dreadful knocks.

I soon got well; in love I fell, And married Martha Box; To please her will, at famed Box Hill I took a country box.