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Tune—“O’er the vine-covered hills and gay regions of France”.

I.

From the blood-bedew’d valleys and mountains of France,

See the Genius of Gallic INVASION advance!

Old ocean shall waft her, unruffled by storm,

While our shores are all lined with the “Friends of Reform”.^[13]

Confiscation and Murder attend in her train,

With meek-eyed Sedition, the daughter of Paine;^[14]

While her sportive Poissardes with light footsteps are seen

To dance in a ring round the gay Guillotine.^[15]

II.

To London, “the rich, the defenceless”^[16] she comes—

Hark! my boys, to the sound of the Jacobin drums!

See Corruption, Prescription, and Privilege fly,

Pierced through by the glance of her blood-darting eye.

While patriots, from prison and prejudice freed,

In soft accents shall lisp the Republican creed,

And with tri-colour’d fillets, and cravats of green,

Shall crowd round the altar of Saint Guillotine.

III.

See the level of Freedom sweeps over the land—

The vile Aristocracy’s doom is at hand!

Not a seat shall be left in a House that we know,

But for Earl Buonaparte and Baron Moreau.

But the rights of the Commons shall still be respected,

Buonaparte himself shall approve the elected;

And the Speaker shall march with majestical mien,

And make his three bows to the grave Guillotine.

IV.

Two heads, says the proverb, are better than one,

But the Jacobin choice is for Five Heads or none.

By Directories only can Liberty thrive;

Then down with the One, Boys! and up with the Five!

How our bishops and judges will stare with amazement,

When their heads are thrust out at the National Casement!^[17]

When the National Razor^[17] has shaved them quite clean,

What a handsome oblation to Saint Guillotine!

[The following Lines were written by an ardent reformer, W. Roscoe, the accomplished author of the “Life of Leo X.,” and other works, to commemorate the taking of the Bastille (14th July, 1789), and the publication by the National Assembly (on 20th August following) of the famous “Declaration of Rights”—a manifesto which became the creed of the Revolution, and which promulgated, as the basis of social government, the specious but impracticable doctrines of liberty, equality, and the sovereignty of the people exercised by universal suffrage. How the hopes and anticipations of moderate reformers, as embodied in these lines, were falsified by the spoliations and massacres which rapidly followed are but too well known.

When, therefore, the Anti-Jacobin was established to combat the principles of the Revolution, these Lines were, for party purposes, maliciously referred to, and significantly recommended to be “recited on the anniversary of the 14th August”. To make this allusion more clear, it must be remembered that on the 10th August, 1792, after frightful massacres, the Hotel de Ville was seized and the Tuileries stormed. On the 13th the king and family were imprisoned in the Temple. His deposition, the dismissal of the Ministers, and the formation of a National Convention, on more popular principles than the Legislative Assembly, were decreed by the victors. On the 14th Le Brun became Minister for Foreign Affairs, Danton for Justice, and Monge for Marine; while the Girondist Ministers, Roland, Servan, and Clavière, resumed their former functions as Ministers of the Interior, War, and Finance respectively.

The Song, La Sainte Guillotine, was evidently written as a Contrast, and not as a Parody—a few lines at the beginning only excepted, which serve as an introduction to verses on another promised phase of the Revolution, the invasion of England.—Ed.]