HUMOROUS AND SATIRICAL POEMS. SIR Hudson Lowe, Sir Hudson Low, (By name, and ah! by nature so) As thou art fond of persecutions, Perhaps thou'st read, or heard repeated, How Captain Gulliver was treated When thrown among the Lilliputians. They tied him down-these little men did And having valiantly ascended Upon the Mighty Man's protuberance, They did so strut!-upon my soul, It must have been extremely droll To see their pigmy pride's exuberance! And how the doughty mannikins Amus'd themselves with sticking pins, And needles in the great man's breeches : And how some very little things, Alas, alas! that it should happen For Gulliver, there, took the nap, FRAGMENT OF A CHARACTER. HERE lies Factotum Ned at last; Whoe'er was in, whoe'er was out, 'Twas all, at least, contriv'd by Ned. With NAP, if Russia went to war, 'Twas owing, under Providence, To certain hints Ned gave the Czar(Vide his pamphlet-price, sixpence). If France was beat at Waterloo As all but Frenchmen think she was To Ned, as Wellington well knew, Its wooden finger, but Ned knew it. Such tales he had of foreign plots, With foreign names, one's ear to buzz in! From Russia, chefs and ofs in lots, From Poland, owskis by the dozen. When George, alarm'd for England's creed, Turn'd out the last Whig ministry, And men ask'd Who advis'd the deed? Ned modestly confess'd 'twas he. For though, by some unlucky miss, He had not downright seen the King, He sent such hints through Viscount This, To Marquis That, as clench'd the thing. The same it was in science, arts, The Drama, Books, MS. and printedKean learn'd from Ned his cleverest parts, And Scott's last work by him was hinted. Childe Harold in the proofs he read, And, here and there, infus'd some soul in't BUT whither have these gentle ones, I promised that I would give the remainder of this poem; but as my critics do not seem to relish the sublime learning it contains, they shall have no more of it. With a view, however, to the edification of these gentlemen, i have prevailed on an industrious friend of mine, who has read a great number of unnecessary books, to illuminate the extract with a little of his precious erudition. 2 Bombastus was one of the names of that scholar and quack Paracelsus. Philippus Bombastus latet sub splendido tegmine Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi,' says Stadelius de Circumforaneâ Literatorum Vanitate. He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil, Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance. Paracelsus had but a poor opinion of Galen. 'My very beard,' (says he, in his "Paragrænum ") has more learning in it than either Galen or Aviccuna,' 3 The angel, who scolded St. Jerome for reading Cicero, as Gratian tells the story in his 'Concordantia discordantium Canonum,' and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics: Episcopus The angel's3 were on Hieronymus, Saying, 'twas just as sweet to kiss heroh! Far more sweet than reading Cicero ! Gentilium libros non legat.'-Distinct. 37. But Gratian is notorious for lying-besides, angels have got no tongues, as the illustrious pupil of Pantenus assures us. Oux' ws nμiv ta WTα, ούτως εκείνοις ή γλωττα ουδ' αν οργανα τις δω owns ayyeλois.--Clem. Alexand. Stromat. How an angel could scold without a tongue, I leave the angelic Mrs. -to determine. The idea of the Rabbins, respecting the origin of woman, is singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage, and made woman of it. Upon this extraordinary supposi tion the following reflection is founded:If such is the tie between women and men, The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf, For he takes to his tail like an idiot again, A branch of Dagon's family 1 Scaliger. de Emendat. Tempor.-Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry.-See Jacques Gaffarel ('Curiosités Inouïes,' chap. i.), who says he thinks this story of the sea-monster carries little show of probability with it.' 2 I wish it were known with any degree of certainty whether the Commentary on Boethius' attributed to Thomas Aquinas be really the work of this Angelic Doctor. There are some bold assertions hazarded in it: for instance, he says that Plato kept school in a town called Academia, and that Alcibiades was a very beautiful woman whom some of Aristotle's pupils fell in love with: Alcibiades mulier fuit pulcherrima, quam videntes quidam discipuli Aristotelis, &c. See Freytag Adparat. Litterar. art. 86, tom. i. 3 The following compliment was paid to Laurentius Valla, upon his accurate knowledge of the Latin language: Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit, His nouns and pronouns all so pat in, To ask even 'what's o'clock ?' in Latin! These lines may be found in the Auctorum Censio of Du Verdier (page 29), an excellent critic, if he could have either felt or understood any one of the works which he criticises. It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek. 'Master Joachim (says Anu never para a ill or balance Say, to be At-tick's to be on tick! At once upon the hip he had you right! Sweet blooming girl, whose name was Oft, when his heart was in a merry key, he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand.'-'Græca sunt, legi non possunt,' is the ignorant speech attributed to Accursius, but very unjustly. Far from asserting that Greek could not be read, that worthy jurisconsult upon the Law 6. D. de Bonor. possess. expressly says, 'Græcæ literæ possunt intelligi et legi.' (Vide Nov. Libror. Rarior. Collection. Fascicul. IV.)-Scipio Carteromachus seems to think that there is no salvation out of the pale of Greek literature: Via prima And the zeal salutis Graia pandetur ab urbe.' of Laurentius Rhodomannus cannot be sufficiently admired, when he exhorts his countrymen, 'per gloriam Christi, per salutem patriæ, per reipublicæ decus et emolumentum,' to study the the excellent Bishop of Nocera, who, careless of Greek language. Nor must we forget Phavorinus, all the usual commendations of a Christian, required no further eulogium on his tomb than 'Here lieth a Greek Lexicographer.' 5 'O HANY.-The introduction of this language into English poetry has a good effect, and ought to be more universally adopted. A word or two of Greek in a stanza would serve as ballast to the most light o' love' verses. Ausonius, among the ancients, may serve as a model: Ου γαρ μοι θεμις εστιν in hac regione μένοντε Αξιον ab nostris επιδενεα csse καμήναις. Ronsard, the French poet, has enriched his sonnets and odes with many an exquisite morsel from the Lexicon. His Chère Entelechie, in addressing his mistress, is admirable, and can be only matched by Cowley's Antiperistasis. How far their zeal let him and her go Our chronicles do not determine us; But, as for all your warbling Delias, He owned he thought them much surpassed By that redoubted Hyaloclast,3 Likewise to show his mighty knowledge, he, Un things unknown in physiology, fair The first figure of simple syllogisms, to which Barbara belongs, together with Celarent, Darii, and Ferio. 2 Because the three propositions in the mood of Barbara are universal affirmatives.-The poet borrowed this equivoque upon Barbara from a curious Epigram which Menckenius gives in a note upon his Essays de Charlataneria Eruditorum. In the Nuptia Peripatetica of Caspar Barlaus, the reader will find some facetious applications of the terms of logic to matrimony. Crambe's Treatise on Syllogisms, in Martinus In point of science astronomical, Yet leave her Virgo, as he found her! He held that sunshine passes quicker To steady light and pure reflection, mon, on, As a more rare and rich phenomenon! In many an optical proceeding, For instance, when we ogle women (A trick which Barbara tutored him in), Although the dears are apt to get in a Strange position on the retina; Yet instantly the modest brain Doth set them on their legs again !5 Our doctor thus with 'stuffed suffi ciency' Of all omnigenous omnisciency, 3 Or Glass Breaker.-Morhofius has given an account of this extraordinary man, in a work published 1682. De vitreo scypho fracto,' etc. This is translated almost literally from a passage in Albertus de Secretis, etc.-I have not the book by me, or I would transcribe the words. 5 Alluding to that habitual act of the judg ment, by which, notwithstanding the inversion of the image upon the retina, a correct impression of the object is conveyed to the sensorium. To let it out in books of all sorts, In which the Greeks and Romans And o'er her figure, swoln and antic, Epics he wrote, and scores of rebuses, Did I but tell the half, to follow me ; E'er filled with lumber such a wareroom To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. SIR,-In order to explain the following Fragment, it is necessary to refer your readers to a late florid description of the Pavilion at Brighton, in the apartments of which, we are told, Fum, The Chinese Bird of Royalty,' is a principal ornament. I am, Sir, yours, &c., FUM AND HUM, THE TWO BIRDS OF ROYALTY. ONE day the Chinese Bird of Royalty, Fum, In that Palace or China-shop (Brighton, which is it?) MUM. thanking Atticus for having sent him a work of Serapion, ex quo (says he) quidem ego (quod inter nos liceat dicere) millesimam partem vix intelligo.'-Lib. 2, epist. 4. And we know that Avicen, the learned Arabian, read Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times over, for the supreme pleasure of being able to inform the world that he could not comprehend one syllable throughout them.-Nicolas Mossa in Vit. Avicen. |