Where Scots can get it, who can tell?
The English loons have silver spoons,
And golden watches bonnie, oh!
But we’ll have nought that’s worth a groat,
Without our paper money, oh!
IX.
GRAND CHORUS OF SCOTCHMEN.
Then up claymore and down with gun,
And up with promises to pay,
And down with every Saxon’s son,
That threatens us with reckoning day.
To promise aye, and never pay,
We’ve sworn by Scotland’s fiddle, oh!
Who calls a Scot “to cash his not.”
We’ll cut him through the middle, oh!
CHORUS OF SCOTCH ECONOMISTS, ON A PROSPECT OF SCOTCH BANKS IN ENGLAND.
To the air of The Campbells are coming.
Quickly. He pay? Alack! he is poor.
Falstaff. Look on his face. What call you rich? Let him coin his face.
THE braw lads are coming — Oho! Oho!
The braw lads are coming — Oho! Oho!
The highways they’re treadin’
From bonnie Dun-Edin,
With cousins by dozens — Oho! Oho!
No shoon have the braw lads — Oh no! Oh no!
No hose have the braw lads — Oh no? Oh no!
No breeks for the wearing,
No shirts for the airing,
No coin for the bearing — Oh no! Oh no!
Each leaves a braw lassie — Oho! Oho!
Each face is all brassy — Oho! Oho!
They are bound for soft places,
Where coining their faces
Will mend their lean cases — Oho! Oho!
The English they’ll settle — Oho! Oho!
They’ll harry their metal — Oho! Oho!
They’ll coin muckle paper,
They’ll make a great vapour,
To their fiddle we’ll caper — Oho! Oho!
Come riddle my riddle — Oho! Oho!
The cat and the fiddle — Oho! Oho!
Sing high diddle diddle,
It is the Scotch fiddle,
Then lead down the middle — Oho! Oho!
The cat is the miller — Oho! Oho!
Grinds paper to siller — Qho! Oho!
He plays the Scotch fiddle,
Sing high diddle diddle,
We’ve riddled the riddle — Oho! Oho!
The English we’ll saddle — Oho! Oho!
We’ll ride them a-straddle — Oho! Oho!
They beat us in battle,
When money would rattle,
But now they’re our cattle — Oho! Oho!
In parley metallic — Oho! Oho!
They bothered our Gaelic — Oho! Oho!
But with sly disputation,
And rag circulation,
We’ve mastered their nation — Oho! Oho!
Come, Johnny Bull, hither — Oho! Oho!
We’ll make you quite lither — Oho! Oho!
Come dance for your betters
A hornpipe in fetters,
We’ll teach you your letters — Oho! Oho!
Come, sing as we’ve said it — Oho! Oho!
Sing “Free trade and credit” — Oho! Oho!
Sing “Scotch education,”
And “ O’er-population,”
And “ Wealth of the nation” — Oho! Oho!
Then scrape the Scotch fiddle — Oho! Oho!
Here’s John in the middle — Oho! Oho!
There’s nothing so bonny
As Scotch paper money,
Now dance away, Johnny — Oho! Oho!
YE KITE-FLYERS OF SCOTLAND.
BY T. C.
Quel ch’io vi debbo posso di parole
Pagare in parte, e d’opera d’inchiostro. — ARIOSTO.
YE kite-flyers of Scotland,
Who live from home at ease;
Who raise the wind, from year to year,
In a long and strong trade breeze:
Your paper-kites let loose again
On all the winds that blow;
Through the shout of the rout
Lay the English ragmen low;
Though the shout for gold be fierce and bold,
And the English ragmen low.
The spirits of your fathers
Shall peep from every leaf;
For the midnight was their noon of fame,
And their prize was living beef.
Where Deloraine on Musgrave fell,
Your paper kites shall show,
That a way to convey
Better far than theirs you know,
When you launch your kites upon the wind
And raise the wind to blow.
Caledonia needs no bullion,
No coin in iron case;
Her treasure is a bunch of rags
And the brass upon her face;
With pellets from her paper mills
She makes the Southrons trow,
That to pay her sole way
Is by promising to owe,
By making promises to pay
When she only means to owe.
The meteor rag of Scotland
Shall float aloft like scum,
Till credit’s o’erstrained line shall crack,
And the day of reckoning come:
Then, then, ye Scottish kite-flyers,
Your hone-a-rie must flow,
While you drink your own ink
With your old friend Nick below,
While you burn your bills and singe your quills
In his bonny fire below.
CHORUS OF NORTHUMBRIANS ON THE PROHIBITION OF SCOTCH ONE-POUND NOTES IN ENGLAND.
MARCH, march, Make-rags of Borrowdale,
Whether ye promise to bearer or order;
March, march, Take-rag and Bawbee-tail,
All the Scotch flimsies must over the border:
Vainly you snarl anent
New Act of Parliament,
Bidding you vanish from dairy and “lauder
Dogs, you have had your day,
Down tail and slink away;
You’ll pick no more hones on this side of the border.
Hence to the hills where your fathers stole cattle;
Hence to the glens where they skulked from the law;
Hence to the moors where they vanished from battle,
Crying, “De’il tak the hindmost,” and “Charlie’s awa’.”
Metal is clanking here;
Off with your banking gear;
Off, ere you’re paid “to Old Harry or order
England shall many a day
Wish you’d been far away,
Long ere your kite’s-wings flew over the border.
March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale,
Pay-day’s the word, lads, and gold is the law,
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale;
Tagdale, and Ragdale, and Bobdale, and a’:
Person or purse, they say;
Purse you have none to pay;
Your persons who’ll deal with, except the Recorder?
Yet, to retrieve your freaks,
You can just leave your breeks;
You’ll want them no more when you’re over the border.
High on a pole in the vernal sun’s baskings,
When April has summoned your ragships away,
We’ll hoist up a pair of your best galligaskins,
Entwined with young thistles to usher in May
Types of Scotch “copital,”
They shall o’ertop-it-all,
Stripped off from bearer and brushed into order;
Then if you tarry, rogues,
Nettles you’ll get for brogues,
And to the Rogue’s March be drummed o’er the border.
MARGERY DAW.
Agite: inspicite: aurum est. Profecto, spectator es, Comicum.
Verum ad nano rem agundam Philipp um est.
Plautus in Pœnulo.
CHORUS
OF PAPER MONEY MAKERS.
SEE-SAW, Margery Daw,
Spent all her gold and made money of straw.
Margery Daw was our prototype fair:
She built the first bank ever heard of:
Her treasury ripened and dried in the air,
And governments hung on the word of
Margery Daw, Margery Daw,
Who spent all her gold and made money of straw.
Mother Goose was a blue of exceeding éclat,
She wielded a pen, not a thimble:
She made a fine ode about Margery Daw,
Which was but a mystical symbol:
“See-saw, Margery Daw,
Sold her bed and lay upon straw.”
Margery borrowed the little folks’ gold,
And lent it the great folks to fight with:
They shot it abroad over woodland and wold,
Till things began not to go right with
Margery Daw, Margery Daw,
Who spent all her gold and made money of straw.
The little folks roared for their gold back again,
And Margery trembled with terror;
She called for relief to the land’s mighty men,
And they said she must pay for her error;
“See-saw, look to your straw:
We’ve nothing to say to you, Margery Daw.”
Margery Daw was alarmed for her straw:
Her wishes this speech didn’t suit with,
“Oho! mighty men!” said Margery then,
“You’ll get no more money to shoot with;
See-saw, pile up the straw;
Bring me a flambeau,” said Margery Daw.
They looked very bold, but they very soon saw
That their coffers began to look drossy;
So they made it a law that fair Margery’s straw,
Should be gold both in esse and posse.
a See-saw, Margery’s straw,
Is golden by nature, and gold by the law.”
Margery Daw struck the sky with her head,
And strode o’er the earth like a goddess;
And the sword of the conqueror yielded like lead,
When it smote upon Margery’s bodice.
See-saw, plenty of straw
Will make us all glorious as Margery Daw.
The conqueror fell, and the mighty men saw
That they seemed to be safer and stronger;
And then they turned round upon Margery Daw,
Saying, “Straw shall be metal no longer.
See-saw, Margery Daw,
Get your gold back again, chop up your straw.”
Margery wearied her eloquent lips:
They had never received her so coldly:
A-kimbo they stood, with their hands on their hips,
And their right feet put forward most boldly:
“See-saw, Margery Daw,
Get your gold back again, chop up your straw.”
Margery put forth her powerful hand,
She seized on the straw all around her;
And up rose a flame at her word of command,
Like the furnace of any brass-founder.
“See-saw, Margery Daw
Wants her gold back again: flames to the straw.”
The omnipotent straw, that had been the world’s law,
Was soon only cinder and ember:
Such a blaze was ne’er seen round Guy Faux on a green,
On the night of the fifth of November.
“See-saw, pile up the straw,
There’s a brave bonfire,” said Margery Daw.
Down fell, as beneath mighty Juggernaut’s car,
The small fry of straw-money makers,
The tumult of ruin, from near and from far,
Once more made the mighty men Quakers:
“See-saw, Margery Daw,
Off with the gold again: give us more straw.”
The Jews made a project for Margery Daw,
She thought it too ticklish for trying;
But they sent her a Scotchman exceedingly braw,
To prove ’twas as easy as lying:
“See-saw, Margery Daw,
A wee bit o’ gold and a mickle of straw.”
Margery heard the Mac Puzzlehead preach,
And she was no whit a logician,
She knew little more than the eight parts of speech,
Though she wrote with amazing precision
“Margery Daw,”
“Margery Daw,”
The prettiest writing the world ever saw.
Margery scattered her treasures abroad,
And who was so glorious as she then?
He who was backward in Margery’s laud,
Mac Puzzlehead proved, was a Heathen.
See-saw, gold in the straw,
Who was so glorious as Margery Daw?
Up started the small fry of straw money men,
Who seemed to have fallen for ever;
They scattered their straw o’er the nation again,
And chorused as yet they had never:
“See-saw, plenty of straw,
Will make us all glorious as Margery Daw.”
Margery’s glory was darkened afresh,
The great men again stood a-kimbo;
She feared she was caught in Mac Puzzlehead’s mesh,
Who had argued her gold out of limbo.
“See-saw, pile up the straw,
Bring me a flambeau,” said Margery Daw.
Again in her anger she darkened the air
With the smoke of a vast conflagration,
And again to the earth in dismay and despair,
Tell the heroes of straw circulation.
“See-saw, Margery Daw
Owes you no courtesy: burn your own straw.”
Around and about came a glad rabble rout,
The flames from a distance discerning;
And shouting they saw, in the midst of the straw,
Mac Puzzlehead’s effigy burning.
“See-saw, pile up the straw,
Roast the Mac Puzzlehead, Margery Daw.”
But then to the sky rose a terrible cry,
A long and a loud lamentation;
Aud Margery’s halls rang with wailings and calls
That filled her with deep consternation:
“Straw, straw, give us some straw;
Straw, or we perish, sweet Margery Daw.”
And what happened then? Oh, what happened then?
Oh! where is the rest of the story?
And what was devised by the land’s mighty men,
To renovate Margery’s glory?
Oh, there is a flaw in the volume of straw,
That tells the true story of Margery Daw.
But we find if we pore ancient manuscripts o’er
With deep antiquarian endeavour,
That Margery’s straw became metal once more,
And she was as glorious as ever.
See-saw, plenty of straw
Will make us all glorious as Margery Daw.
RICH AND POOR.
OR, SAINT AND SINNER.
THIS IS A correct copy of a little poem which has been often printed, and not quite accurately. It first appeared, many years ago, in the “Globe” and “Traveller,” and was suggested by a speech in which Mr. Wilberforce, replying to an observation of Dr. Lushington, that “the Society for the Suppresion of Vice meddled with the poor alone,” said that “the offences of the poor came more under observation than those of the rich.” — T. L. P.
THE poor man’s sins are glaring;
In the face of ghostly warning
He is caught in the fact
Of an overt act —
Buying greens on Sunday morning.
The rich man’s sins are hidden
In the pomp of wealth and station;
And escape the sight
Of the children of light,
Who are wise in their generation.
The rich
man has a kitchen,
And cooks to dress his dinner;
The poor who would roast
To the baker’s must post,
And thus becomes a sinner.
The rich man has a cellar,
And a ready butler by him;
The poor must steer
For his pint of beer
Where the saint can’t choose but spy him.
The rich man’s painted windows
Hide the concerts of the quality;
The poor can but share
A crack’d fiddle in the air,
Which offends all sound morality.
The rich man is invisible
In the crowd of his gay society;
But the poor man’s delight
Is a sore in the sight,
And a stench in the nose of piety.
The rich man has a carriage
Where no rude eye can flout him;
The poor man’s bane
Is a third class train,
With the day-light all about him.
The rich man goes out yachting.
Where sanctity can’t pursue him;
The poor goes afloat
In a fourpenny boat,
Where the bishop groans to view him.
THE FATE OF A BROOM.
AN ANTICIPATION.
THESE LINES WERE published in the “Examiner” of August, 1831. They were then called an anticipation. They may now be fairly entitled a prophecy fulfilled. — T. L. P., 1837.
LO! in Corruption’s lumber-room,
The remnants of a wondrous broom,
That walking, talking, oft was seen,
Making stout promise to sweep clean,
But evermore, at every push,
Proved but a stump without a brush.
Upon its handle-top, a sconce,
Like Brahma’s looked four ways at once:
Pouring on king, lords, church, and rabble,
Long floods of favour-currying gabble;
From four-fold mouth-piece always spinning
Projects of plausible beginning,
Whereof said sconce did ne’er intend
That any one should have an end;
Yet still, by shifts and quaint inventions,
Got credit for its good intentions,
Adding no trifle to the store
Wherewith the Devil paves his floor.
Found out at last, worn bare and scrubbish,
And thrown aside with other rubbish,
We’ll e’en hand o’er the enchanted stick,
As a choice present for Old Nick,
To sweep, beyond the Stygian lake,
The pavement it has helped to make.
BYP AND NOP.
PROMOTION BY PURCHASE and by NO PURCHASE; or a Dialogue between Captain A. and Colonel Q.
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 143