Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock

by Thomas Love Peacock

  IN a bowl to sea went wise men three,

  On a brilliant night of June:

  They carried a net, and their hearts were set

  On fishing up the moon.

  The sea was calm, the air was balm,

  Not a breath stirred low or high,

  And the moon, I trow, lay as bright below,

  And as round as in the sky.

  The wise men with the current went,

  Nor paddle nor oar had they,

  And still as the grave they went on the wave,

  That they might not disturb their prey.

  Far, far at sea, were the wise men three,

  When their fishing-net they threw;

  And at the throw, the moon below

  In a thousand fragments flew.

  The sea was bright with a dancing light

  Of a million million gleams,

  Which the broken moon shot forth as soon

  As the net disturbed her beams.

  They drew in their net: it was empty and wet,

  And they had lost their pain,

  Soon ceased the play of each dancing ray,

  And the image was round again.

  Three times they threw, three times they drew,

  Aud all the while were mute;

  And evermore their wonder grew,

  Till they could not but dispute.

  Their silence they broke, and each one spoke

  Full long, and loud, and clear;

  A man at sea their voices three

  Full three leagues off might hear.

  The three wise men got home again

  To their children and their wives:

  But, touching their trip, and their net’s vain dip,

  They disputed all their lives.

  The wise men three could never agree,

  Why they missed the promised boon;

  They agreed alone that their net they had thrown,

  And they had hot caught the moon.

  I have thought myself pale o’er this ancient tale,

  And its sense I could not ken;

  But now I see that the wise men three

  Were paper money men.

  “Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub,”

  Is a mystic burthen old,

  Which I’ve pondered about till my fire went out,

  And I could not sleep for cold.

  I now divine each mystic sign,

  Which robbed me oft of sleep,

  Three men in a bowl, who went to troll,

  For the moon in the midnight deep.

  Three men were they who science drank

  From Scottish fountains free;

  The cash they sank in the Gotham bank,

  Was the moon beneath the sea.

  The breaking of the imaged moon,

  At the fishing-net’s first splash,

  Was the breaking of the bank as soon

  As the wise men claimed their cash.

  The dispute which lasted all their lives,

  Was the economic strife,

  Which the son’s son’s son of every one

  Will maintain through all his life.

  The son’s son’s sons will baffled be,

  As were their sires of old;

  But they’ll only agree, like the wise men three,

  That they could not get their gold.

  And they’ll build systems dark and deep,

  And systems broad and high;

  But two of three will never agree

  About the reason why.

  And he who at this day will seek

  The Economic Club,

  Will find at least three sages there,

  As ready as any that ever were

  To go to sea in a tub.

  CHORUS OF BUBBLE BUYERS.

  “When these practisers come to the last decoction, blow, blow,

  puff, puff, and all flies in fumo. Poor wretches! I rather pity their

  folly and indiscretion, than their loss of time and money: for these

  may be restored by industry: but to be a fool bora is a disease incurable.” — BEN JONSON’S Volpone.

  Oh! where are the hopes we have met in the morning,

  As we hustled and bustled around Capel Court?

  When we laughed at the croakers that bade us take warning,

  Who once were our scorn, and now make us their sport.

  Oh! where are the regions where well-paid inspectors.

  Found metals omnigenous streaked and embossed?

  So kindly bought for us by honest directors,

  Who charged us but three times as much as they cost.

  Oh! where are the riches that bubbled like fountains,

  In places we neither could utter nor spell,

  A thousand miles inland, ‘mid untrodden mountains,

  Where silver and gold grew like heath and blue-bell!

  Oh! where are the lakes overflowing with treasure!

  The gold-dust that rolled in each torrent and stream!

  The mines that held water by cubic-mile measure,

  So easily pumped up by portable steam!

  That water our prospects a damp could not throw on;

  We had only a million-horse power to prepare,

  Make a thousand-mile road for the engine to go on,

  And send coals from Newcastle to boil it when there.

  Oh! where are the bridges to span the Atlantic!

  Oh! where is the gas to illumine the poles!

  They came to our visions; that makes us half-frantic:

  They came to our pockets; that touches our souls.

  Oh! there is the seat of most exquisite feeling:

  The first pair of nerves to the pocket doth dive:

  A wound in our hearts would be no time in healing,

  But a wound in our pockets how can we survive!

  Now curst be the projects, and curst the projectors,

  And curst be the bubbles before us that rolled,

  Which, bursting, have left us like desolate spectres,

  Bewailing our bodies of paper and gold.

  For what is a man but his coat and his breeches,

  His plate and his linen, his land and his house!

  Oh! we had been men had we won our mock riches,

  But now we are ghosts, each as poor as a mouse.

  But shades as we are, we, with shadowy bubbles,

  When the midnight bell tolls, will through Capel Court glide,

  And the dream of the Jew shall be turmoils and troubles,

  When he sees each pale ghost on its bubble astride.

  And the lecturing Scots that upheld the delusion,

  By prating of paper, and wealth, and free trade,

  Shall see us by night, to their awe and confusion,

  Grim phantoms of wrath that shall neper be laid.

  A BORDER BALLAD.

  BY AN ENCHANTER UNKNOWN. (SIR WALTER SCOTT)

  “The Scot, to rival realms a mighty bar,

  Here fixed his mountain home: a wide domain,

  And rich the soü, had purple heath been grain;

  But what the niggard ground of wealth denied,

  From fields moreblest his fearless arm supplied.”

  LEYDEN.

  THE Scotts, Kerrs, and Murrays, and Deloraines all,

  The Hughies o’ Hawdon, and Wills-o’-the-Wall,

  The Willimonds wicks, and the hard-riding Dicks,

  Are staunch to the last to their old border tricks;

  Wine flows not from heath, and bread grinds not from stone,

  They must reeve for their living, or life they’ll have none.

  When the Southron’s strong arm with the steel and the law,

  Had tamed the moss-troopers, so bonny and braw;

  Though spiders wove webs in the rusty sword-hilt,

  In the niche of the hall which their forefathers built;

  Yet with sly paper-credit and promise to pay,

  they still drove the trade which the wise call conv
ey.

  They whitewashed the front of their old border fort;

  They widened its loop-holes, and opened its court;

  They put in sash-windows where none were before,

  And they wrote the word “BANK” o’er the new-painted door;

  The cross-bow and matchlock aside they did lay,

  And they shot the proud Southron with promise to pay.

  They shot him from far, and they shot him from near,

  And they laid him as flat as their fathers laid deer:

  Their fathers were heroes, though some called them thieves

  When they ransacked their dwellings, and drove off their beeves;

  But craft undermined what force battered in vain,

  And the pride of the Southron was stretched on the plain.

  Now joy to the Hughies and Willies so bold!

  The Southron, like Dickon, is bought and is sold;

  To his goods and his chattels, his house and his land,

  Their promise to pay is as Harlequin’s wand:

  A touch and a word, and pass, presto, begone,

  The Southron has lost, and the Willies have won.

  The Hughies and Willies may lead a glad life:

  They reap without sowing, they win without strife:

  The Bruce and the Wallace were sturdy and fierce,

  But where Scotch steel was broken Scotch paper can pierce;

  And the true meed of conquest our minstrels shall fix,

  On the promise to pay of our Willimondswicks.

  ST. PETER OF SCOTLAND.

  “Si bene calculnm ponaa, ubique naufragium est.”

  PETRONIUS ARBITER.

  ST. PETER of Scotland set sail with a crew

  Of philosophers, picked from the Bluecap Review:

  His boat was of paper, old rags were her freight,

  And her bottom was sheathed with a spruce copper-plate.

  Her mast was a quill, and to catch the fair gale

  The broad gray goose feather was spread for a sale;

  So he ploughed his blithe way through the surge and the spray,

  And the name of his boat was the Promise-to-Pay.

  And swiftly and gaily she went on her track,

  As if she could never be taken a-back,

  As if in her progress there never could be

  A chop of the wind or a swell of the sea.

  She was but a fair-weather vessel, in sooth,

  For winds that were gentle, and waves that were smooth;

  She was built not for storm, she was armed not for strife,

  But in her St. Peter risked fortune and life.

  His fortune, ’tis true, was but bundles of rag,

  That no pedlar, not Scotch, would have put in his bag;

  The worth of his life none could know but the few;

  Who insured it on sailing from Sweet Edinbroo.”

  St. Peter seemed daft, and he laughed and he quaffed;

  But an ill-boding wave struck his vessel right aft:

  It stove in his quarters and swamped his frail boat,

  Which sunk with an eddy and left him afloat.

  He clung to his goose-quill and floated all night,

  And he landed at daybreak in pitiful plight;

  And he preached a discourse when he reached the good town,

  To prove that his vessel should not have gone down.

  The nautical science he took for his guide

  Allowed no such force as the wind or the tide:

  None but blockheads could think such a science o’erthrown,

  By the breath of a gale which ought not to have blown.

  LAMENT OF SCOTCH ECONOMISTS ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE ONE-POUND NOTES.

  Do not halloo before you are out of the wood.

  CASTLEREAGH, of blessed memory.

  OH hone-a-rie! Oh hone-a-rie!

  The pride of papers reign is o’er,

  And fall’n the flower of credit’s tree:

  We ne’er shall see a flimsy more.

  Oh! sprung from great I-will-not-pay,

  The chief that never feared a dun,

  How hopeful was thy ne’er-come-day,

  How comely thy symbolic ONE!

  The country loons with wonder saw

  The magic type perform its rounds,

  Transforming many a man of straw

  To men of many thousand pounds.

  For northern lads blithe days were those;

  They wanted neither beef nor ale,

  Surprised their toes with shoes and hose,

  And made Scotch broo’ of English call.

  Oh! Johnny Groat, we little thought,

  Tow’rds thee our noses e’er would point;

  But flimsies burned, and cash returned,

  Will put said noses out of joint.

  Improvements vast will then be past:

  The march of mind will backward lead;

  For how can mind be left behind,

  When we march back across the Tweed?

  Scotch logic floats on one-pound notes:

  When rags are cash our shirts are ore:

  What else would go to scare the crow,

  Becomes a myriad pounds and more.

  A scarecrow’s suit would furnish forth

  A good Scotch bank’s whole stock in trade:

  The wig, for coinage nothing worth,

  Might “surplus capital” be made.

  Oh! happy land, by Scotchmen taught!

  Thy fete was then indeed divine,

  When every scarecrow’s pole was thought

  A true Beal del Monte mine.

  Oh mystic ONE, that turned out NONE,

  When senseless panic pressed thee hard!

  Who thee could hold and call out “Gold!”

  Would he had feathered been and tarred.

  Thy little fly-wheel kept in play

  The mighty money-grinding mill;

  When thou art rashly torn away,

  The whole machine will stand stock still.

  The host of promisers to pay

  That fill their jugs on credit’s hill,

  Will each roll down and crack his crown,

  As certainly as Jack and Jill.

  And we, God knows, may doff our hose

  And sell our shoes for what they’re worth,

  And trudge again with naked toes

  Back to our land of Nod, the north.

  For, should we strain our lecturing throats,

  We might to walls and doors discuss:

  When John Bull sees through one-pound notes,

  ’Tis very clear he’ll see through us.

  That rare hotch-potch, the College Scotch,

  Reared by our art in London town,

  Will be at best a standing jest,

  At least until it tumbles down.

  Of those day-dreams, our free-trade schemes,

  That laid in sippets goslings green,

  The world will think less brain than drink

  In skulls that hatched them must have been.

  Then farewell, shirts, and breeks, and coats,

  Cloth, linen, cambric, silk, and lawn!

  Farewell! with you, dear one-pound notes,

  Mac Banquo’s occupation’s gone.

  The man who thrives with tens and fives

  Must have some coin, and none have we (

  Roast beef, adieu! come, barley broo’!

  Oh hone-a-rie! Oh hone-a-rie!

  CALEDONIAN WAR WHOOP.

  By the Coat of our House, which is an ass rampant, I am ready to fight under this banner.

  SHADWELL’S Humourists.

  I.

  CHORUS OF WRITERS TO THE SIGNET.

  EH, laird! Eh, laird! an’ ha’ ye haird,

  That we’re to hae nae ae poond nots?

  Ye weel may say the Hooses tway

  Wad play the de’il wi’ a’ the Scots.

  Ha’ they nae fears when Scotland’s tears

  Flow fast as ony bumie, oh!

/>   But they shall find we’ve a’ one mind,

  The mind of one attorney, oh!

  II.

  De’il take us a’ if we can ca’

  To mind the day wherein we got

  The idle croons o’ seely loons

  In ony medium but a not.

  De’il take us as we hop’ to be

  Wi’ spoils o’ clients bonny, ho!

  If e’er we look to touch a fee

  When there’s nae paper money, oh!

  III.

  Solo — SIR MALACHI MALAGROWTHER.

  Quoth Hudibras — Friend Ralph, thou hast

  (Hunt’s blacking shines on Hyde park wall)

  OUTRUN THE CONSTABLE at last,

  For gold will still be lord of all.

  The ups and downs of paper poun’s

  Have made the English weary, oh!

  And ’tis their will old Scotland’s mill

  Shall e’en gae Tapsalteerie, oh!

  IV.

  Old Scotland brags, she kens of rags

  Far more than all the world beside:

  Her ancient mint with naught else in’t,

  Is all her wealth, and power, and pride.

  Her ancient flag is all a rag,

  So oft in battle bloody, oh!

  Now well I think her blood is ink,

  And rags her soul and body, oh!

  V.

  Beneath that rig, our ancient flag,

  We’ll draw for rags our old claymore:

  Our arrows still, with gray goose quill

  Well fledged and tipped, in showers we’ll pour:

  Our ink we’ll shed, both black and red,

  In strokes, and points, and dashes, oh!

  Ere laws purloin our native coin,

  And turn it all to ashes, oh!

  VI.

  The poorest rats of all the earth,

  Were ragged Scots in days of yore,

  Till paper coining’s happy birth,

  Made cash of all the rags they wore;

  Though but the shade of smoke, ’tis plain,

  Said cash is Scotland’s glory, oh!

  To make it real rags again

  Would be a tragic story, oh!

  VII.

  What Scot would tack in herring smack,

  His living from the deep to snatch,

  Without a ragman at his back

  To take per-centage on his catch?

  Who thinks that gold a place would hold

  On Scotland’s soil a minute, oh!

  Unless of rag we make a bag

  That’s full with nothing in it, oh!

  VIII.

  Our Charley lad we bought and sold,

  But we’ve no Charley now to sell:

  Unless the de’il should rain up gold,