I'll sing you a new ballad, and I'll warrant it first-rate,
Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate;
When they spent the public money at a bountiful old rate
On ev'ry mistress, pimp, and scamp, at ev'ry noble gate,
In the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!
The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips, and chains,
With fine old English penalties, and fine old English pains,
With rebel heads, and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins;
For all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains
Of the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!
This brave old code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes,
And ev'ry English peasant had his good old English spies,
To tempt his starving discontent with fine old English lies,
Then call the good old Yeomanry to stop his peevish cries,
In the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!
The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need,
The good old times for hunting men who held their fathers' creed,
The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed,
Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed . . .
Oh the fine old English Tory times;
When will they come again!
In those rare days, the press was seldom known to snarl or bark,
But sweetly sang of men in pow'r, like any tuneful lark;
Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark;
And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark.
Oh the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!
Those were the days for taxes, and for war's infernal din;
For scarcity of bread, that fine old dowagers might win;
For shutting men of letters up, through iron bars to grin,
Because they didn't think the Prince was altogether thin,
In the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!
But Tolerance, though slow in flight, is strong-wing'd in the main;
That night must come on these fine days, in course of time was plain;
The pure old spirit struggled, but its struggles were in vain;
A nation's grip was on it, and it died in choking pain,
With the fine old English Tory days,
All of the olden time.
The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land,
In England there shall be dear bread — in Ireland, sword and brand;
And poverty, and ignorance, shall well the rich and grand.
So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand,
Of the fine old English Tory days;
Hail to the coming time!
Tune – A Cobbler there was.
An astonishing doctor has just come to town,
Who will do all the faculty perfectly brown:
He knows all diseases, their causes, and ends;
And he ‘begs to appeal to his medical friends.’
Tol de rol:
Diddle doll:
Tol de rol, de dol,
Diddle doll
Tol de rol doll.
He’s a magnetic doctor, and knows how to keep
The whole of a Government snoring asleep
To popular clamours; till popular pins
Are stuck in their midriffs – and then he begins.
Tol de rol.
He’s a clairvoyant subject, and readily reads
His countrymen’s wishes, conditions, and needs,
With many more fine things I can’t tell in rhyme
– And he keeps both his eyes shut, the whole of the time.
Tol de rol.
You mustn’t expect him to talk; but you’ll take
Most particular notice the doctor’s awake,
Though for aught from his words, or his looks that you reap, he
Might just as well be most confoundedly sleepy.
Tol de rol.
Homëopathy too, he has practiced for ages;
(You’ll find his prescriptions in Luke Hansard’s pages)
Just giving his patient when maddened by pain, -
Of Reform the ten thousandeth part of a grain.
Tol de rol.
He’s a med’cine for Ireland, in portable papers;
The infallible cure for political vapours;
A neat label round it his ‘prentices tie –
‘Put your trust in the Lord, and keep this powder dry!’
Tol de rol.
He’s a corn doctor also, of wonderful skill,
– No cutting, no rooting-up, purging, or pill –
You’re merely to take, ‘stead of walking or riding,
The sweet schoolboy exercise – innocent sliding.
Tol de rol.
There’s no advice gratis. If high ladies send
His legitimate fee, he’s their soft spoken friend.
At the great public counter with one hand behind him,
And one in his waistcoat, they’re certain to find him.
Tol de rol.
He has only to add he’s the real Doctor Flam,
All others being purely fictitious and sham;
The house is a large one, tall, slated, and white,
With a lobby; and lights in the passage at night.
Tol de rol:
Diddle doll:
Tol de rol, de doll,
Diddle doll
Tol de rol doll.
(After Peter Pindar.)
To you, SIR MARTIN, and your co. R.A.’s,
I dedicate in meek, suggestive lays,
Some subjects for your academic palettes;
Hoping, by dint of these my scanty jobs,
To fill with novel thoughts your teeming nobs,
As though I beat them in with wooden mallets.
To you, MACLISE, who Eve’s fair daughters paint
With Nature’s hand, and want the maudlin taint
Of the sweet Chalon school of silk and ermine:
To you, E. LANDSEER, who from year to year
Delight in beasts and birds, and dogs and deer,
And seldom give us any human vermin: –
– To all who practice art, or make believe,
I offer subjects they may take or leave.
Great Sibthorp and his butler, in debate
(Arcades ambo) on affairs of state,
Not altogether ‘gone,’ but rather funny;
Cursing the Whigs for leaving in the lurch
Our d–d, good, pleasant, gentlemanly Church,
Would make a picture – cheap at any money.
Or Sibthorp as the Tory Sec.–at–War,
Encouraging his mates with loud ‘Yhor! Yhor!'
From Treas’ry benches’ most conspicuous end;
As an expectant Premier without guile,
Calls him his honourable and gallant friend.
Or Sibthorp travelling in foreign parts,
Through that rich portion of our Eastern charts
Where lies the land of popular tradition;
And fairly worshipp’d by the true devout
In all his comings in and goings out,
Because of the old Turkish superstition.
Fame with her trumpet, blowing very hard,
And making earth rich with celestial lard,
In puffing deeds done through Lord Chamberlain Howe;
While some few thousand persons of small gains,
Who give their charities without such pains,
Look up, much wondering what may be the row.
Behind them Joseph Hume, who turns his pate
To where great Marlbro’ House in princely state
Shelters a host of lacqueys, lords, and pages,
And says he knows of dowagers a crowd,
Who, without trumpeting so very loud,
Would do so much, and more, for half the wages.
Limn, sirs, the highest lady in the land,
When Joseph Surface, fawning cap in hand,
Delivers in his list of patriot mortals;
Those gentlemen of honour, faith, and truth,
Who, foul-mouthed, spat upon her maiden youth,
And dog-like did defile her palace portals.
Paint me the Tories, full of grief and woe,
Weeping (to voters) over Frost and Co.,
Their suff’ring, erring, much-enduring brothers.
And in the background don’t forget to pack,
Each grinning ghastly from its bloody sack,
The heads of Thistlewood, Despard, and others.
Paint, squandering the club’s election gold,
Fierce lovers of our Constitution old,
Lords who’re that sacred lady’s greatest debtors;
And let the law, forbidding any voice
Or act of Peer to influence the choice
Of English people, flourish in bright letters.
Paint that same dear old lady, ill at ease,
Weak in her second childhood, hard to please,
Unknowing what she ails or what she wishes;
With all her Carlton nephews at the door,
Deaf’ning both aunt and nurses with their roar,
– Fighting already, for the loaves and fishes.
Leaving these hints for you to dwell upon,
I shall presume to offer more anon.
A NEW SONG, BUT AN OLD STORY
TUNE. - The Great Sea-Snake.
Oh, p’raps you may heard, and if not, I’ll sing,
Of the British Lion free,
That was constantly a-going for to make a spring
Upon his en-e-me;
But who, being rather groggy at the knees,
Broke down, always before;
And generally gave a feeble wheeze
Instead of a loud roar.
Right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum,
The British Lion bold!
That was always a-going for to do great things,
And was always being “sold”!
He was carried about, in a caravan,
And was show'd in country parts,
And they said “Walk-up! Be in time! He can
Eat Corn-Law-Leagues like tarts!”
And his showmen, shouting there and then,
To puff him didn’t fail;
And they said, as they peep'd into his den,
“Oh, Don’t he wag his tail!”
Now, the principal keeper of this poor old beast,
WAN HUMBUG was his name,
Would once ev’ry day stir him up - at least -
And wasn’t that a Game!
For he hadn’t a tooth, and he hadn’t a claw,
In that “Struggle” so “Sublime;”
And, however sharp they touch’d him on the raw,
He couldn’t come up to time.
And this, you will observe, was the reason why
WAN HUMBUG, on weak grounds,
Was forced to make believe that he heard his cry
In all unlikely sounds.
So there wasn’t a bleat from an Essex Calf,
Or a Duke, or a Lordling slim;
But he said, with a very triumphant laugh,
“I’m blest if that ain’t him.”
At length, wery bald in his mane and tail,
This British Lion growed:
He pined, and declined, and he satisfied
The last debt which he owed.
And when they came to examine the skin,
It was a wonder sore,
To find that the an-i-mal within
Was nothing but a BOAR!
Right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum,
The British Lion bold!
That was always a-going for to do great things,
And was always being "sold"!
OLD England, she has great warriors,
Great princes, and poets great;
But the Blacksmith is not to be quite forgot,
In the history of the State.
He is rich in the best of all metals,
Yet silver he lacks and gold;
And he payeth his due, and his heart is true,
Though he bloweth both hot and cold.
The boldest is he of incendiaries
That ever the wide world saw,
And a forger as rank as e’er robbed the Bank,
Though he never doth break the law.
He hath shoes that are worn by strangers,
Yet he laugheth and maketh more;
And a share (concealed) in the poor man’s field,
Yet it adds to the poor man’s store.
Then, hurrah for the iron Blacksmith!
And hurrah for his iron crew!
And whenever we go where his forges glow,
We’ll sing what A MAN can do.
They have a superstition in the East,
That ALLAH, written on a piece of paper,
Is better unction than can come of priest,
Of rolling incense, and of lighted taper;
Holding, that any scrap which bears that name,
In any characters, its front imprest on,
Shall help the finder through the purging flame,
And give his toasted feet a place to rest on.
Accordingly, they make a mighty fuss,
With ev’ry wretched tract and fierce oration,
And hoard the leaves – for they are not, like us,
A highly civilized and thinking nation:
And, always stooping in the miry ways,
To look for matter of this earthy leaven,
They seldom, in their dust-exploring days,
Have any leisure to look up to Heaven.
So have I known a country on the earth,
Where darkness sat upon the living waters,
And brutal ignorance, and toil, and dearth
Were the hard portion of its sons and daughters:
And yet, where they who should have ope’d the door
Of charity and light, for all men’s finding,
Squabbled for words upon the altar-floor,
And rent the Book, in struggles for the binding.
The gentlest man among these pious Turks,
God’s living image ruthlessly defaces;
Their best high-churchman, with no faith in works,
Bowstrings the Virtues in the market-places:
The Christian Pariah, whom both sects curse
(They curse all other men, and curse each other),
Walks thro’ the world, not very much the worse –
Does all the good he can, and loves his brother.
Of all the months in the twelve that fly
So lightly on, and noiselessly by,
There is not one who can show so fair
As this, with its soft and balmy air.
The light graceful corn waves to and fro,
Tinging the earth with its richest glow;
The forest trees in their state and might
Proclaim that Summer is at his height.
Of all the months in the twelve that speed
So quickly by, with so little heed
From man, of the years that swiftly pass
As an infant’s breath from a polished glass,
There is not one whose fading away
Bears such a lesson to mortal clay,
Warning us sternly, when in our prime,
To look for the withering winter time.
I stood by a young girl’s grave last night,
Beautiful, innocent, pure, and bright,
Who, in the bloom of her summer’s pride,
And all its loveliness, drooped and died.
Since the sweetest flow’rs are soonest dust,
As truest metal is quick to rust,
Look for a change in that time of year,
When Nature’s works at their best appear.
"Don't you all think that we have a great need to Cry to our God to put it in the hearst of our greacious Queen and her Members of Parlerment to grant us free bread." - LUCY SIMPKINS, AT BREMHILL.
“Oh GOD, who by thy Prophet’s hand
Didst smite the rocky brake,
Whence water came, at thy command,
They people’s thirst to slake;
Strike, now, upon this granite wall,
Stern, obdurate, and high;
And let some drops of pity fall
For us who starve and die!
The GOD, who took a little child,
And set him in the midst,
And promised him His mercy mild,
As, by Thy Son, Thou didst:
Look down upon our children dear,
So gaunt, so cold, so spare,
And let their images appear,
Where Lords and Genry are!
Oh GOD, teach them to feel how we,
When our poor infants droop,
Are weakened in our trust in Thee,
And how our spirits stoop;
For, in thy rest, so bright and fair,
All tears and sorrows sleep:
And their young looks, so full of care,
Would make Thine Angels weep!
The GOD, who with His finger drew
The Judgment coming on,
Write, for these men, what must ensure,
Ere many years be gone!
Oh GOD whose bow is in the sky,
Let them not brave and dare,
Until they look (too late) on high,
And see An Arrow there!
Oh GOD remind them! In the bread
They break upon the knee,
Those sacred words may yet be read,
“In memory of Me”!
Oh GOD remind them! of His sweet
Compassion for the poor,
And how He gave them Bread to eat,
And went from door to door!
CHARLES DICKENS