Читать книгу Terrible Tractoration, and Other Poems - Thomas Green Fessenden - Страница 7

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The Bard proceeds like one that’s striving

To practise Arnall’s art of diving;[50]

Presents sublime and strange narrations

Of wizards, ghosts, and conjurations;

Next towers in Della Cruscan style

Above old Homer half a mile;

And flutters round in airy region,

Just like a wild goose or a pigeon;

Fired, with the theme of Haygarth’s praises

Until his rapture fairly blazes;

Then, in a duel, shows more prowess,

Than Vandal that e’er was or now is!

But I’m a man so meek and humble,[51]

I do n’t allow myself to grumble,

Am loth your patience thus to batter,

Though starving is a serious matter.[52]

Another reason too, may’t please ye,

Why thus I dare presume to tease ye;

If you my wrongs should not redress,

We all must be in one sad mess![53]

The credit of our craft is waning,

Then rouse at this my sad complaining;

For, though my fate now seem the rougher,

Still you as well as I must suffer.

Behold! a rising Institution,[54]

To spread Perkinean delusion;

Supported in their vile designs,

By doctors, quakers, dukes, divines.

Unless these villainous Perkineans

Are forthwith hurl’d to Nick’s dominions,

Those wicked tractors, I’m afraid,

Will overturn the doctor’s trade.

And then, alas! your worships may

Be forced to moil the live long day,

With hammer, pickaxe, spade, or shovel,

And nightly tenant some old hovel.

Or, destitute of food and lodging,

Through dark and dirty lanes be dodging,

Unless t’avoid such dismal lurkings,

You put a powerful paw on Perkins.

Behold what ought to raise your spleen high,

Perkins supported by Aldini![55]

It must have been most sad, foul weather,

From Italy to blow him hither.

My wrath, indeed, is now so keen, I

Ev’n wish, for sake of that Aldini,

This ink were poison for the wizard,

This pen a dagger in his gizzard!

For he (’tis told in public papers)

Can make dead people cut droll capers;

And shuffling off death’s iron trammels,

To kick and hop like dancing camels.

To raise a dead dog he was able,[56]

Though laid in quarters on a table,

And led him yelping, round the town,

With two legs up, and two legs down;[57]

And, in the presence of a posse

Of our great men, and Andreossi,

He show’d black art of worse description,

Than e’er did conjuring Egyptian.

He cut a bullock’s head I ween,

Sheer off, as if by guillotine;

Then (Satan aiding the adventure)

He made it bellow like a Stentor![58]

And this most comical magician

Will soon, in public exhibition,

Perform a feat he’s often boasted,

And animate a dead pig—— roasted.

With powers of these Metallic Tractors,

He can revive dead malefactors;

And is reanimating daily,

Rogues that were hung once, at Old Bailey![59]

And sure I am, he’ll break the peace,

Unless secured by our police;

For such a chap, as you’re alive,

Full many a felon will revive.

And as he can (no doubt of that)

Give rogues the nine lives of a cat;

Why then, to expiate their crimes,

These rogues must all be hung nine times.

What more enhances this offence is,

’Twill ninefold government’s expenses;

And such a load, in name of wonder,

Pray how can Johnny Bull stand under?

Theft why not rise, and make a clatter,

And put a stop to all this matter—

Why don’t you rouse, I say, in season,

And cut the wicked wizard’s weasand?

’Tis true, alas! I’m loth to say,

That you forsake the good old way,

And tread a path so very odd,

So unlike that your fathers trod.

With what delight the poet fancies

He sees their worships plague old Francis;[60]

While he, sad wight, wo-worn and pale,

Is dragg’d about from jail to jail!

For he was such a stubborn dragon,

He would not down and worship Dagon;

That is to say, would not acknowledge

Supremacy of your great college!

And what was worse, if worse could be,

And raised their ire to such degree,

That they to Tyburn swore they’d cart him;

He cured folks “non secundum artem.”

His patients saved, from mere compassion,

Though killing was the most in fashion!

Then well your father’s ire might burn as

Hot as the famed Chaldean furnace!

Thus, when the heretic Waldenses,

With their co-working Albigenses,

Found, what they thought they might rely on,

A nearer way to go to Zion,

Those saints who trod the beaten path,

Were fill’d so full of godly wrath,

They burnt them off, nor thought it cruel,

As one would burn a load of fuel!

These things I note, to bring to view

Some noble precedents for you:

The chapter needs not any comment;

Then pray don’t hesitate a moment.

But, hark! what means that moaning sound!

That thunder rumbling under ground!

What mean those blue sulphureous flashes,

That make us all turn pale as ashes!

Why in the air this dreadful drumming,

As though the devil himself were coming;

Provoked by magical impostors,

To carry off a doctor Faustus!

Why scream the bats! why hoot the owls!

While Darwin’s midnight bull-dog howls![61]

Say, what portends this mighty rumpus,

To fright our senses out of compass!

’Tis Radcliffe’s sullen sprite now rising,[62]

To warn you by a sight surprising,

More solemn than a curtain lecture,

Or Monk-y Lewis’ Spanish Spectre![63]

Now, in a sort of moody mutter,

These awful sounds I hear him utter,

Which make my heart to beat and thwack it,

And burst the buttons off my jacket!

“’Tis not from motives of endearment

That I have burst my marble cearment;

No; I’m from Hades, in a hurry,

To make above ground one d—d flurry![64]

“Arm’d, as the dread occasion urges,

With Ate’s borrow’d snakes and scourges,

I come to rouse ye into action,

To crush the Perkinising faction.

“I tell you, these detested tractors,

The worst of Satan’s manufactures,

Will set themselves to supersede us,

Will even blister, cup, and bleed us;

“And they’ll be used as diuretics,

Cathartics, anodynes, emetics,

And will begin, before they’re done,

To tap for dropsy, cut for stone.

“The self-same metal, it is said,

With friar Bacon’s brazen head,

Each point’s a more mysterious thing

Than Goodman Gyges’ brazen ring.

“And they will mend a wooden leg

Much better than a walnut peg,

Will make a rogue a pair of ears,

Who’s had them clipp’d by Justice’s shears.

“Make Hydra heads spring up, I ween,

For people shaved by guillotine;

Thus force our freedom loving neighbors

To recommence their humane labors.

“Why stand ye now, with stupid stare,

Hen-hearted cowards, as you are?

Arise! and quickly gird your might on,

And into battle then rush right on!

“Go! teach Perkineans their errors,

In tampering with the king of terrors!

Go! teach the varlets to defy

Our great and terrible ally!

No pusilanimous responses

That you’re not fond of broken sconces;

Don’t say to me, you’ve no delight in

The dreadful, awful, trade of fighting.

“For you might chase them many a mile, and

E’en bid them, scampering, quit our island,

And still your carcases be strangers

To troublous toils, and desperate dangers.

“Appear in field, the battle’s won;

Your phizzes show—L—d how they’ll run!

But you’re like sheep, a sort of cattle,

That one can’t well drive into battle.

“O could I but affairs contrive

To be for one half hour alive,

What flaming shafts of indignation

I’d hurl at imps of Tractoration!

“I’ll batter ye with Pluto’s bludgeon,

Unless to battle you now budge on,

And make more bluster with your train,

Than devils in a hurricane!

“I’ll drive ye down”—but dawning day

Bids bullying phantom hie away;

While horror makes each hair stand steadfast,

Like quill of hedgehog in our head fast!

So stood the Premier of your nation,

When Robson bawl’d out “Defalcation!

Government’s robb’d by wicked men,

And cannot pay NINETEEN POUNDS TEN”!!![65]

So petrified stood bull and bear,

Of Stock Exchange, when the lord mayor,

With vile chagrin and terror quaking,

Found Hawkesbury’s letter all a take-in.[66]

Now should you slight the dire monition

Of this ill boding apparition,

You truly will be well deserving

The dreadful destiny of starving!

O then, dread sirs, brimful of rage,

War! horrid war! is yours to wage,

To extirpate the deadly schism,

The heresy of Perkinism!

Pursue the steps that learned sage hath,

The most redoubted doctor Haygarth,

Who erst o’er Perkins’s sconce at Bath,

Broke a whole gallipot of wrath![67]

Oh! could I sing Haygarth’s chef d’œuvre,

That mighty magical manœuvre,

That feat, thn which, you’ll own, if candid,

None greater ever mortal man did!

But ere I “sweep the sounding lyre,”

Or tune Apollo’s fiddle higher,

I’ll steal (although it cost a halter)

A brand from Della Crusca’s altar.

“O thou!” who soar’dst to heights sublimer

Than e’er before attain’d by rhymer,

Till even my good friend Apollo

At distance gazed, but dared not follow,

“Genius or MUSE,” who had’st propensity

To seem to strive to stretch immensity,

Whose “airy lays,” quoth Bell’s fraternity,

Would last through more than one eternity,

(Although it seems, the deuce is in ’t,

Those very lays are out of print,

A proof this age does not inherit

One ounce of true poetic spirit)

O come, and bring (delightful things)

A pair of Della Cruscan wings,

That we, by sublimated flight,

May “STEM THE CATARACT OF LIGHT.”

Then condescend to be my crony,

And guide my wild Parnassian pony,

Till our aerial cutter runs[68]

Athwart “A WILDERNESS OF SUNS!”[69]

But Gifford comes, with why and wherefore;[70]

And what the devil are you there for?

Then tells a tale about the town,

Contrived to lessen our renown.

Says, if we rise but one inch higher,

We set our hat and wig on fire;

And that he’ll bet us ten to one

We shall be scorch’d like Phaeton.

Then I and Clio, as the case is,

Must now resume our former places;

But still, to keep up our renown,

We ride a “gairish sun-beam” down!

And now once more, in humble station,

We’ll jog along in plain narration;

And tollutate o’er turnpike path,[71]

To view the conjuring crew at Bath.

Behold! great Haygarth and his corps[72]

Of necromancers, just a score,

Enter the drear abodes of pain,

Like death of old and horrid train!

He comes! he comes! good heaven defend us!

With magic rites, and things tremendous!

With such as served the witch of Endor

To make the powers of hell surrender!

Now draws full many a magic circle;

Now stamps, and foams, and swears meherc’le!

As old Canidia used to mutter once,

Just as her demon gave her utterance!

Now tells each trembling bed-rid zany

Terrific tales of one Galvani;

How Franklin kept, to make folks wonder,

A warehouse full of bottled thunder!

Thus Shakspeare’s Macbeth’s wicked witches

Even carry’d matters to such pitches,

In hoity-toity midnight revel,

The old hags almost raised the devil!

And now our tragi-comic actors

Torment a pair of wooden tractors;

All which, with many things they more did,

In Haygarth’s book you’ll find recorded.

Since doctor Haygarth, as we’ve stated,

These points pernicious has prostrated,

Our college ought to canonize him;

Instead of that, the rogues despise him.

And there’s a certain doctor Caldwell

May calculate on being maul’d well,

Unless, since he’s presumed to flout him,

He unsays all he’s said about him.

What right could he have to berate his

Opinions, which were given gratis,

Or state a plausible objection

Against his doctrine of infection?

O man of mineral putrefaction,[73]

In spite of imps of fell detraction,

We greet thee on our bended knees

Great Britain’s great Hippocrates.

But if Haygarthian rites infernal

Should fail our foes to overturn all,

Seek ways and means to lay them level,

Without one conjurer, witch, or devil.

If you can find some one among

You, who don’t value being hung,

Perhaps the readiest mode would be

To kill the conjuring patentee.

But still I have some hesitation

To recommend assassination;

Although I’m sure ’twould not be cruel,

To pop off Perkins in a DUEL.

For this you’ve precedents quite ample,

Full many a glorious example,

From Goths and Vandals, out of temper, or

A certain crazy Russian emperor.[74]

For if the conjurer were shot dead,

By some rude harum-scarum hot-head;

Then might we quickly crush the flummery

Of tract’ring mischief-making mummery.

Perkins destroy’d, the INSTITUTION

Will be o’erwhelm’d in dire confusion;

And we shall easily be able

To overturn this modern Babel.

So, if a wolf should silent creep

T’ attack by night a flock of sheep,

He’d not attempt the whole together,

But first invade the old bell-wether.[75]

Let not the thought of Jack Ketch scare ye,

But at him like brave Mac Namara,

Avenge our wrongs in mode as summary

As he adopted with Montgomery.

For if said Mac be crown’d with laurel,

Who kill’d a colonel in a quarrel

About two dogs, between two puppies,

Most mighty sirs, my trust and hope is,

That nobody will think it is hard

For us to shoot a conjuring wizard,

Since all allow, sans hesitation,

That we’ve received vast provocation.

And if our champion’s full of fury,

When he kills Perkins, then the jury

(Provided they are made to fit him)

Will most assuredly acquit him.[76]

And when the foe is sent to Hades,

Our champion will please the ladies,

Because the pretty things delight in

The man who kills his man in fighting.