Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock
Page 141
By huckstering and jobbing,
And sharing gulls and gudgeons
Among muckworms and curmudgeons)
Being each a flimsy funny
On the stream of paper money,
All riding by sheet anchors,
Of balances at Bankers;
Look out! for squalls are coming,
That if you stand hum-drumming,
Will burst with vengeance speedy,
And leave you like the needy
Who have felt your clutches greedy,
All beggarly and seedy
And not worth a maravedi.
CHORUS.
Our balances, our balances,
Our balances, our balances:
Our balances we crave for:
Our balances we rave for:
Our balances we rush for:
Our balances we crush for:
Our balances we call for:
Our balances we bawl for:
Our balances we run for:
Our balances we dun for:
Our balances we pour for:
Our balances we roar for:
Our balances we shout for:
Our balances we rout for:
Our balances, our balances,
We bellow all about for.
OBADIAH NINE-EYES.
The mighty men of Gad, yea,
Are all upon the pad, yea,
Bellowing with lungs all brazen,
Even like the bulls of Basan;
With carnal noise and shout, yea,
They compass me about, yea;
I am full of tribulation
For the sinful generation;
I shrink from the abiding
Of the wrath of their back-sliding;
Lest my feet should be up-tripp-ed,
And my outward man be stripp-ed,
And my pockets be out-clean-ed
Of the fruits which I have glean-ed.
CHORUS.
Our balances, our balances,
Our balances, our balances,
Pay — pay — pay — pay —
Without delay —
Our balances, our balances.
MAC FUNGUS.
A weel sirs, what’s the matter?
An’ hegh sirs, what’s the clatter?
Ye dinna ken,
Ye seely men.
Y’ur fortunes ne’er were batter.
There’s too much population,
An’ too much cultivation,
An’ too much circulation,
That’s a’ that ails the nation.
Ye’re only out o’ halth, sirs,
Wi’ a plathora o’ walth, sirs,
Instead of glourin’ hither,
Ye’d batter, I conjacture,
Just hoot awa’ thegither,
To hear our braw chiel lacture:
His ecoonoomic science
Wad silence a’ your clanking,
An’ teach you some reliance,
On the preenciples o’ banking.
CHORUS.
Our balances, our balances,
Our balances, our balances.
SIR ROGER REDNOSE (Banker).
Be quiet, lads, and steady,
Suspend this idle racket,
Your balances are ready,
Each wrapped in separate packet,
All ticketed and docketed,
And ready to be pocketed.
FIRST CITIZEN.
As of cash you’ve such a heap, sir,
My balance you may keep, sir;
Have troubled you I shouldn’t,
Except in the belief
That you couldn’t pay or wouldn’t. [Exit.
SIR ROGER REDNOSE.
How there’s a pretty thief.
(A scroll appears over a door.)
“Tick, Nick, Tick, Trick, and Company,
Are deeply grieved to say,
They are under the necessity
Of suspending for the day.”
SECOND CITIZEN.
This evil I portended.
THIRD CITIZEN.
How all my hopes are ended.
FOURTH CITIZEN.
I’m quite aground.
FIFTH CITIZEN.
I’m all astound.
SIXTH CITIZEN.
Would they were all suspended.
CHORUS.
Our balances, our balances,
Our balances, our balances,
Pay, pay, pay, pay,
Without delay,
Lest ere to-morrow morning
To pot you go;
Tick, Nick, and Co.
Have given us all a warning.
SIR FLIMSY KITE.
Sirs, we must stop;
We shut up shop,
Though assets here are plenty.
When up we’re wound,
For every pound
We’ll pay you shillings twenty.
SEVENTH CITIZEN.
What assets, sir, I pray you?
SIR FLIMSY KITE.
Sir, quite enough to pay you.
EIGHTH CITIZEN.
May it please you to say what, sir?
SIR FLIMSY KITE.
Good bills a monstrous lot, sir;
And Spanish Bonds a store, sir;
And Mining Shares still more, sir;
Columbian Scrip, and Chilian;
And Poyais half a million:
And what will make you sleek, sir,
Fine picking from the Greek, sir.
NINTH CITIZEN.
I think it will appear, sir,
The greatest Greek is here, sir.
SENTIMENTAL COCKNEY.
Oh how can Plutus deal so
By his devout adorer?
NERVOUS COCKNEY.
This hubbub makes me feel so.
FANCY COCKNEY.
Now this I call a floorer!
NEWSPAPER MAN.
The respectable old firm,
(We have much concern in saying),
Kite, Grubbings, and Muckworm,
Have been forced to leave off paying.
BYSTANDER.
The loser and the winner,
The dupe and the impostor,
May now both go to dinner
With Humphrey, Duke of Glo’ster.
LAWYER.
That we the fruits may pocket,
Let’s go and strike a docket.
CHORUS (Da Capo).
Our balances, our balances,
Our balances, our balances.
SIR ROGER REDNOSE,
Some are gone to-day
More will go to-morrow:
But I will stay and pay,
And neither beg nor borrow,
Tick and Kite,
That looked so bright,
like champagne froth have flown, sirs;
But I can tell
They both worked well
While well was let alone, sirs.
THE THREE LITTLE MEN.
“Base is the slave that pays.” — PISTOL.
THERE were Three Little Men,
And they made a Little Pen,
And they said, “Little Pen, you must flow, flow, flow,
And write our names away
Under promises to pay,
Which how we are to keep we do not know.”
Then said the Little Pen: —
“My pretty Little Men,
If you wish your pretty promises to pass, pass, pass,
You must make a little flash,
And parade a little cash,
And you’re sure of every neighbour that’s an ass, ass, ass.”
Then said the Little Three,
“If wiseacres there he,
They are not the sort of folks for me, me, me.
Let us have but all the fools — .
And the wise ones and their rules,
May just go to the devil and be d — , d — , d—”
Then the Little Men so gay,
Wrote their promises to pay,
Till there came a stormy day,
And they vanished all away,
Leaving many shoals of gudgeons high and dry, dry, dry.
They who sought the Little Men,
Only found the Little Pen,
Which they instantly proceeded to condemn, demn, demn;
“But,” said the Little Pen,
“Use me like the Little Men,
And I’ll make you as good money as I made for them.”
The seekers with long faces,
Returned upon their traces,
They earned in the van the little Pen, Pen, Pen;
And they hung it on the wall
Of their reverend Town-hall,
As an eloquent memorial of the Little Men.
PROŒMIUM OF AN EPIC
WHICH WILL SHORTLY APPEAR IN QUARTO, UNDER THE TITLE OF “FLY-BY-NIGHT.”
By R — S — , Esq., Poet Laureate.
“His promises were, as he once was, mighty;
And his performance, as he is now, nothing.” — HEN. VIII.
How troublesome is day!
It calls us from our sleep away;
It bids us from our pleasant dreams awake,
And sends us forth to keep or break
Our promises to pay.
How troublesome is day!
Now listen to my lay;
Much have I said,
Which few have heard or read,
And much have I to say,
Which hear ye while ye may.
Come listen to my lay,
Come, for ye know me, as a man
Who always praises, as he can,
All promisers to pay.
So they and I on terms agree,
And they but keep their faith with me,
Whate’er their deeds to others be,
They may to the minutest particle
Command my fingers for an ode or article.
Come listen while I strike the Epic string,
And, as a changeful song I sing,
Before my eyes
Bid changeful Proteus rise,
Turning his coat and skin in countless forms and dyes.
Come listen to my lay,
While I the wild and wondrous tale array, — ;
How Fly-by-Night went down,
And set a hank up in a country town;
How like a king his head he reared; —
And how the Coast of Cash he cleared;
And how one night he disappeared,
When many a scoffer jibed and jeered;
And many an old man rent his beard;
And many a young man cursed and railed;
And many a woman wept and wailed;
And many a mighty heart was quailed;
And many a wretch was caged and gaoled:
Because great Fly-by-Night had failed.
And many a miserable sinner
Went without his Sunday dinner,
Because he had not metal bright,
And waved in vain before the butcher’s sight,
The promises of Fly-by-Night.
And little Jackey Homer
Sate sulking in the corner,
And in default of Christmas pie
Whereon his little thumb to try,
He put his finger in his eye,
And blubbered long and lustily.
Come listen to my lay,
And ye shall say,
That never tale of errant knight,
Or captive damsel bright,
Demon, or elf, or goblin sprite,
Fierce crusade, or feudal fight,
Or cloistral phantom all in white,
Or castle on accessless height,
Upreared by necromantic might,
Was half so full of rare delight,
As this whereof I now prolong,
The memory in immortal song —
The wild and wondrous tale of Fly-by-Night.
A MOOD OF MY OWN MIND
OCCURRING DURING A GALE OF WIND AT MIDNIGHT, WHILE I WAS WRITING A PAPER ON THE CURRENCY, BY THE LIGHT OF TWO MOULD CANDLES.
By William Wordsworth, Esq., Distributor of Stamps.
“Quid distent æra lupinis?” — HOR.
MUCH grieved am I in spirit by the news of this day’s post,
Which tells me of the devil to pay with the paper money host:
’Tis feared that out of all their mass of promises to pay,
The devil alone will get his due: he’ll take them at his day.
I have a pleasant little nook secured from colds and damps,
From whence to paper money men I serve out many stamps;
From thence a fair per-centage gilds my dwelling in the glen;
And therefore do I sympathize with the paper money men.
I muse, I muse, for much this news my spirit doth perplex,
But whilst I muse I can’t refuse a pint of double X,
Which Mrs W. brings to me, which she herself did brew,
Oh! doubly sweet is double X from Mistress double U.
The storm is on the mountain side, the wind is all around;
It sweeps across the lake and vale, it makes a mighty sound;
A rushing sound, that makes me think of what I’ve heard at sea,’
“The devü in a gale of wind is as busy as a bee.”
I Fear the devil is busy now with the paper money men:
I listen to the tempest’s roar through mountain pass and glen;
I hear amid the eddying blast a sound among the hills,
Which to my fancy seems the sound of bursting paper mills.
A money-grinding paper mill blows up with such a sound,
As shakes the green geese from their nests for many miles around;
Oh woe to him who seeks the mill pronouncing sternly “Pay!”
A spell like “open sesame” which evil sprites obey.
The word of power up-blows the mill, the miller disappears:
The shattered fragments fall in showers about the intruder’s ears;
And leave no trace to mark the place of what appeared so great,
But shreds of rags, and ends of quills, and bits of copper-plate.
I love the paper money, and the paper money men;
My hundred, if they go to pot, I fear would sink to ten;
The country squires would cry “[Retrench!” and then I might no doubt,
Be sent about my business; yea, even right about.
I hold the paper money men say truly, when they say
They ought to pay their promises, with promises to pay;
And he is an unrighteous judge, who says they shall or may,
Be made to keep their promises in any other way.
The paper money goes about, by one, and two, and five,
A circulation like the blood, that keeps the land alive:
It pays the rent of country squires, and makes them think they thrive,
When else they might be lighting fires to smoke the loyal hive.
The paper money goes about: it works extremely well:
T find it buys me everything that people have to sell:
Bread, beef, and breeches, coals and wine, and all good things in store,
The paper money buys for me: and what could gold do more?
The promise works extremely well, so that it be but broken:
’Tis not a promise to be kept, but a solemn type and token,
A type of value gone abroad on travel long ago;
And how it’s to come back again, God knows, I do not know.
If ignorant impatience makes the people ran for gold,
Whatever’s left that paper bought must be put up and sold;
If so, perhaps they’ll put up me as a purchase of the Crown;
I fear I shan’t fetch sixpence, but I’m sure to be knock’d down.
The promise is not to be kept, that point is very clear;
’Twas proved so by a Scotch adept who
dined with me last year,
I wish, instead of viands rare, which were but thrown away,
I had dined him on a bill of fare, to be eaten at Doomsday.
God save the paper money and the paper money men!
God save them all from those who call to have their gold again;
God send they may be always safe against a reckoning day;
And then God send me plenty of their promises to pay!
LOVE AND THE FLIMSIES.
BY T. M., ESQ.
LITTLE Cupid one day on a sunbeam was floating,
Above a green vale where a paper mill played;
And he hovered in ether, delightedly noting
The whirl and the splash that the water-wheel made.
The air was all filled with the scent of the roses,
Round the miller’s veranda that clustered and twined;
And he thought if the sky were all made up of noses,
This spot of the earth would be most to its mind.
And forth came the miller, a Quaker in verity,
Rigid of limb and complacent of face,
And behind him a Scotchman was singing “Prosperity,”
And picking his pocket with infinite grace.
And “Walth and prosparity,”
“Walth and prosparity,”
His bonny Scotch burthen arose on the air,
To a song all in praise of that primitive charity,
Which begins with sweet home and which terminates there.
But sudden a tumult arose from a distance,
And in rushed a rabble with steel and with stone,
And ere the scared miller could call for assistance,
The mill to a million of atoms was blown.
Scarce mounted the fragments in ether to hurtle,
When the Quaker was vanished, no eye had seen where;
And the Scotchman thrown flat on his back, like a turtle,
Was sprawling and bawling, with heels in the air.
Little Cupid continued to hover and flutter,
Pursuing the fragments that floated on high,
As light as the fly that is christened from butter,
Till he gathered his hands full and flew to the sky.
“Oh, mother,” he cried, as he showed them to Venus,
“What are these little talismans cyphered — One — One?
If you think them worth having, we’ll share them between us,
Though their smell is like, none of the newest, poor John.”
“My darling,” says Venus, “away from you throw them,
They’re a sort of fool’s gold among mortals ’tis true;
But we want them not here, though I think you might know them,
Since on earth they so often have bought and sold you.”
THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge., ESQ. Professor of Mysticism.