History of English Humour Volume II Part 13

The "Anti-Jacobin" was commenced in 1797, with a view of counteracting the baneful influences of those revolutionary principles which were already rampant in France. The periodical, supported by the combined talent of such men as Gifford, Ellis, Hookham Frere, Jenkinson (Lord Liverpool), Lord Clare, Dr. Whitaker, and Lord Mornington, would no doubt have had a long and successful career, had not politics led it into a vituperative channel, through which it came to an untimely end in eight months. The following address to Jacobinism will give some idea of its spirit:--

"Daughter of h.e.l.l, insatiate power, Destroyer of the human race, Whose iron scourge and maddening hour Exalt the bad, the good debase: Thy mystic force, despotic sway, Courage and innocence dismay, And patriot monarchs vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone."

There were pictorial ill.u.s.trations consisting of political caricatures of a very gross character, representing men grotesquely deformed, and sometimes intermixed with monsters, demons, frogs, toads, and other animals.

One part of the paper was headed "Lies," and another was devoted to correcting less culpable mis-statements. Some prose satirical pieces were introduced, such as "Fox's Birthday," in which a mock description of a grand dinner is given, at which all the company had their pockets picked. After the delivery of revolutionary orations, and some attempts at singing "Paddy Whack," and "All the books of Moses," the festival terminates in a disgusting scene of uproar. Several similar reports are given of "The Meeting of the Friends of Freedom," upon which occasions absurd speeches are made, such as that by Mr. Macfurgus, who declaims in the following grandiloquent style:--

"Before the Temple of Freedom can be erected the surface must be smoothed and levelled, it must be cleared by repeated revolutionary explosions, from all the lumber and rubbish with which aristocracy and fanaticism will endeavour to enc.u.mber it, and to impede the progress of the holy work. The completion of the edifice will indeed be the more tardy, but it will not be the less durable for having been longer delayed. Cemented with the blood of tyrants and the tears of the aristocracy, it will rise a monument for the astonishment and veneration of future ages. The remotest posterity with our children yet unborn, and the most distant portions of the globe will crowd round its gates, and demand admission into its sanctuary. 'The Tree of Liberty' will be planted in the midst, and its branches will extend to the ends of the earth, while the friends of freedom meet and fraternize and amalgamate under its consolatory shade. There our infants shall be taught to lisp in tender accents the revolutionary hymn, there with wreaths of myrtle, and oak, and poplar, and vine, and olive and cypress, and ivy, with violets and roses and daffodils and dandelions in our hands, we will swear respect to childhood and manhood, and old age, and virginity, and womanhood, and widowhood; but above all to the Supreme Being. There we will decree and sanction the immortality of the soul, there pillars and obelisks, and arches, and pyramids will awaken the love of glory and of our country. There painters and statuaries with their chisels and colours, and engravers with their engraving tools will perpetuate the interesting features of our revolutionary heroes."

The next extract is called "The Army of England," written by the ci-devant Bishop of Autun, and represents a French invasion as imminent:--

"Good republicans all The Directory's call Invites you to visit John Bull; Oppressed by the rod Of a king and a G.o.d The cup of his misery's full;

"Old Johnny shall see What makes a man free, Not parchments, or statutes, or paper; And stripped of his riches, Great charter and breeches, Shall cut a free citizen's caper.

"Then away, let us over To Deal or to Dover, We laugh at his talking so big; He's pampered with feeding, And wants a sound bleeding, _Par Dieu_! he shall bleed like a pig.

"John tied to a stake A grand baiting will make When worried by mastiffs of France, What republican fun To see his blood run As at Lyons, La Vendee and Nantes.

"With grape-shot discharges, And plugs in his barges, With national razors good store, We'll pepper and shave him And in the Thames lave him-- How sweetly he'll bellow and roar!

"What the villain likes worse We'll vomit his purse And make it the guineas disgorge, For your Raphaels and Rubens We would not give twopence; Stick, stick to the pictures of George."

The following is on "The New Coalition" between Fox and Horne Tooke.

_Fox._ When erst I coalesced with North And brought my Indian bantling forth In place--I smiled at faction's storm, Nor dreamt of radical reform.

_Tooke._ While yet no patriot project pus.h.i.+ng Content I thumped old Brentford's cus.h.i.+on, I pa.s.sed my life so free and gaily, Not dreaming of that d--d Old Bailey.

_Fox._ Well, now my favourite preacher's Nickle, He keeps for Pitt a rod in pickle; His gestures fright the astonished gazers, His sarcasms cut like Packwood's razors.

_Tooke._ Thelwall's my name for state alarm; I love the rebels of Chalk Farm; Rogues that no statutes can subdue, Who'd bring the French, and head them too.

_Fox._ A whisper in your ear John Horne, For one great end we both were born, Alike we roar, and rant and bellow-- Give us your hand my honest fellow.

_Tooke._ Charles, for a shuffler long I've known thee, But come--for once I'll not disown thee, And since with patriot zeal thou burnest, With thee I'll live--or hang in earnest.

But the most celebrated of these poems is "The Friend of Humanity, and The Knife-Grinder"--

_Friend of Humanity._ Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going?

Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order, Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't, So have your breeches!

Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones, Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-road, What hard work 'tis crying all day, "knives and Scissors to grind, O!"

Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?

Did some rich man tyranically use you?

Was it the squire? or parson of the parish?

Or the attorney?

Was it the squire for killing of his game? or Covetous parson for his t.i.thes distraining?

Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little All in a lawsuit?

(Have you not read the "Rights of Man" by Tom Paine?) Drops of compa.s.sion tremble on my eyelids, Ready to fall as soon as you have told your Pitiful story.

_Knife-grinder._ Story! G.o.d bless you! I have none to tell, Sir; Only last night a-drinking at the 'Chequers,'

This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were Torn in a scuffle.

Constables came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the justice, Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish- Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honour's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence, But for my part I never love to meddle With politics, Sir.

_Friend of Humanity._ I give thee sixpence! I will see thee d----d first!

Wretch! whom no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance!

Sordid! unfeeling! reprobate! degraded!

Spiritless outcast!

(_Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy._)

This poem, written as a parody of "The Widow" of Southey, is said to have annihilated English Sapphics. Various attempts were formerly made to adapt cla.s.sic metres to English; not only Gabriel Harvey but Sir Philip Sydney tried to bring in hexameters. Beattie says the attempt was ridiculous, but since Longfellow's "Evangeline" we look upon them with more favour, though they are not popular. Dr. Watts wrote a Sapphic ode on the "Last Judgment," which notwithstanding the solemnity of the subject, almost provokes a smile.

Frere was a man of great taste and humour. He wrote many amusing poems.

Among his contributions, jointly with Canning and Ellis, to the "Anti-Jacobin," is the "Loves of the Triangles," and the scheme of a play called the "Double Arrangement," a satire upon the immorality of the German plays then in vogue. Here a gentleman living with his wife and another lady, Matilda, and getting tired of the latter, releases her early lover, Rogero, who is imprisoned in an abbey. This unfortunate man, who has been eleven years a captive on account of his attachment to Matilda, is found in a living sepulchre. The scene shows a subterranean vault in the Abbey of Quedlinburgh, with coffins, scutcheons, death's heads and cross-bones; while toads and other loathsome reptiles are seen traversing the obscurer parts of the stage. Rogero appears in chains, in a suit of rusty armour, with his beard grown, and a cap of grotesque form upon his head. He sings the following plaintive ditty:--

"Whene'er with haggard eyes I view This dungeon that I'm rotting in, I think of those companions true Who studied with me at the U- -niversity of Gottingen, -niversity of Gottingen.

(_Weeps and pulls out a blue kerchief with which he wipes his eyes; gazing tenderly at it he proceeds:_)

"Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue, Which once my love sat knotting in!

Alas! Matilda then was true!

At least, I thought so at the U- -niversity of Gottingen, -niversity of Gottingen.

(_Clanks his chains._)

"Barbs! barbs! alas! how swift you flew, Her neat post waggon trotting in, Ye bore Matilda from my view; Forlorn I languished in the U- -niversity of Gottingen, -niversity of Gottingen.

"This faded form! this pallid hue!

This blood my veins is clotting in, My years are many--they were few, When first I entered at the U- -niversity of Gottingen, -niversity of Gottingen.

"There first for thee my pa.s.sion grew, Sweet! sweet Matilda Pottingen!

Thou wast the daughter of my tu- -tor, law professor at the U- -niversity of Gottingen, -niversity of Gottingen.

"Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu, That kings and priests are plotting in; Here doomed to starve on water gru- -el, never shall I see the U- -niversity of Gottingen, -niversity of Gottingen."

The idea of making humour by the division of words may have been original in this case, but it was conceived and adopted by Lucilius, the first Roman satirist.

The "Progress of Man," by Canning and Hammond, is an ironical poem, deducing our origin and development according to the natural, and in opposition to the religious system. The argument proceeds in the following vein:--

"Let us a plainer, steadier theme pursue, Mark the grim savage scoop his light canoe, Mark the fell leopard through the forest prowl, Fish prey on fish, and fowl regale on fowl; How Lybian tigers' chawdrons love a.s.sails, And warms, midst seas of ice, the melting whales; Cools the crimpt cod, fierce pangs to perch imparts, Shrinks shrivelled shrimps, but opens oysters' hearts; Then say, how all these things together tend To one great truth, prime object, and good end?

"First--to each living thing, whate'er its kind, Some lot, some part, some station is a.s.signed The feathered race with pinions skim the air; Not so the mackerel, and still less the bear....

Ah! who has seen the mailed lobster rise, Clap her broad wings, and soaring claim the skies?

When did the owl, descending from her bower, Crop, midst the fleecy flocks the tender flower; Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb, In the salt wave, and fish-like strive to swim?

The same with plants--potatoes 'tatoes breed-- Uncostly cabbage springs from cabbage seed, Lettuce from lettuce, leeks to leeks succeed, Nor e'er did cooling cuc.u.mbers presume To flower like myrtle, or like violets bloom; Man, only--rash, refined, presumptuous man, Starts from his rank, and mars Creation's plan; Born the free heir of Nature's wide domain, To art's strict limits bounds his narrowed reign, Resigns his native rights for meaner things, For faith and fetters, laws, and priests, and kings."

The "Anti-Jacobin" was continued under the name of the "Anti-Jacobin Review," and in this modified form lasted for upwards of twenty years.

It was mostly a journal of pa.s.sing events, but there were a few attempts at humour in its pages.