How many sing of wars,
Of Greek and Trojan jars—
The butcheries of men!
The Muse hath a "Perpetual Ruby Pen!"
Dabbling with heroes and the blood they spill;
But no one sings the man
That, like a pelican,
Nourishes Pity with his tender Bill!
Thou Wilberforce of hacks!
Of whites as well as blacks,
Pyebald and dapple gray,
Chestnut and bay—
No poet's eulogy thy name adorns!
But oxen, from the fens,
Sheep—in their pens,
Praise thee, and red cows with their winding horns!
Thou art sung on brutal pipes!
Drovers may curse thee,
Knackers asperse thee,
And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel wipes;
But the old horse neighs thee,
And zebras praise thee,—
Asses, I mean—that have as many stripes!
Hast thou not taught the Drover to forbear,
In Smithfield's muddy, murderous, vile environ,—
Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air!
Bullocks don't wear
Oxide of iron!
The cruel Jarvy thou hast summon'd oft,
Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo,
That thought his horse the courser of the two—
Whilst Swift smiled down aloft!—
O worthy pair! for this, when ye inhabit
Bodies of birds—(if so the spirit shifts
From flesh to feather)—when the clown uplifts
His hands against the sparrow's nest, to grab
it,—
He shall not harm the MARTINS and the Swifts!
Ah! when Dean Swift was quick, how he enhanc'd
The horse!—and humbled biped man like Plato!
But now he's dead, the charger is mischanc'd—
Gone backward in the world—and not advanc'd,—
Remember Cato!
Swift was the horse's champion—not the King's,
Whom Southey sings,
Mounted on Pegasus—would he were thrown!
He'll wear that ancient hackney to the bone,
Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things!
Ah well-a-day! the ancients did not use
Their steeds so cruelly!—let it debar men
From wanton rowelling and whip's abuse—
Look at the ancients' Muse!
Look at their Carmen!
O, Martin I how thine eyes—
That one would think had put aside its lashes,—
That can't bear gashes
Thro' any horse's side, must ache to spy
That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane,—
For there's a nag the crows have pick'd for victual,
Or some man painted in a bloody vein—
Gods! is there no Horse-spital!
That such raw shows must sicken the humane!
Sure Mr. Whittle
Loves thee but little,
To let that poor horse linger in his pane!
O build a Brookes's Theatre for horses!
O wipe away the national reproach—
And find a decent Vulture for their corses!
And in thy funeral track
Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach!
Steeds that confess "the luxury of wo!"
True mourning steeds, in no extempore black,
And many a wretched hack
Shall sorrow for thee,—sore with kick and blow
And bloody gash—it is the Indian knack—
(Save that the savage is his own tormentor)—
Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf—
The biped woe the quadruped shall enter,
And Man and Horse go half and half,
As if their griefs met in a common Centaur!
Thou Great Unknown!
I do not mean Eternity, nor Death,
That vast incog!
For I suppose thou hast a living breath,
Howbeit we know not from whose lungs 'tis blown,
Thou man of fog!
Parent of many children—child of none!
Nobody's son!
Nobody's daughter—but a parent still!
Still but an ostrich parent of a batch
Of orphan eggs,—left to the world to hatch
Superlative Nil!
A vox and nothing more,—yet not Vauxhall;
A head in papers, yet without a curl!
Not the Invisible Girl!
No hand—but a handwriting on a wall—
A popular nonentity,
Still call'd the same,—without identity!
A lark, heard out of sight,—
A nothing shin'd upon,—invisibly bright,
"Dark with excess of light!"
Constable's literary John-a-nokes—
The real Scottish wizard—and not which,
Nobody—in a niche;
Every one's hoax!
Maybe Sir Walter Scott—
Perhaps not!
Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks?
Thou,—whom the second-sighted never saw,
The Master Fiction of fictitious history!
Chief Nong-tong-paw!
No mister in the world—and yet all mystery!
The "tricksy spirit" of a Scotch Cock Lane—
A novel Junius puzzling the world's brain—
A man of Magic—yet no talisman!
A man of clair obscure—not he o' the moon!
A star—at noon.
A non-descriptus in a caravan,
A private—of no corps—a northern light
In a dark lantern,—Bogie in a crape—
A figure—but no shape;
A vizor—and no knight;
The real abstract hero of the age;
The staple Stranger of the stage;
A Some One made in every man's presumption,
Frankenstein's monster—but instinct with gumption;
Another strange state captive in the north,
Constable-guarded in an iron mask—
Still let me ask,
Hast thou no silver platter,
No door-plate, or no card—or some such matter,
To scrawl a name upon, and then cast forth?
Thou Scottish Barmecide, feeding the hunger
Of Curiosity with airy gammon!
Thou mystery-monger,
Dealing it out like middle cut of salmon,
That people buy and can't make head or tail of it;
(Howbeit that puzzle never hurts the sale of it;)
Thou chief of authors mystic and abstractical,
That lay their proper bodies on the shelf—
Keeping thyself so truly to thyself,
Thou Zimmerman made practical!
Thou secret fountain of a Scottish style,
That, like the Nile,
Hideth its source wherever it is bred,
But still keeps disemboguing
(Not disembroguing)
Thro' such broad sandy mouths without a head!
Thou disembodied author—not yet dead,—
The whole world's literary Absentee!
Ah! wherefore hast thou fled,
Thou learned Nemo—wise to a degree,
Anonymous LL.D.!
Thou nameless captain of the nameless gang
That do—and inquests cannot say who did it!
Wert thou at Mrs. Donatty's death-pang?
Hast thou made gravy of Weare's watch—or hid it?
Hast thou a Blue-Beard chamber? Heaven forbid it!
I should be very loth to see thee hang!
I hope thou hast an alibi well plann'd,
An innocent, altho' an ink-black hand.
Tho' that hast newly turn'd thy private bolt on
The curiosity of all invaders—
I hope thou art merely closeted with Colton,
Who knows a little of the Holy Land,
Writing thy next new novel—The Crusaders!
Perhaps thou wert even born
To be Unknown.—Perhaps hung, some foggy morn,
At Captain Coram's charitable wicket,
Pinn'd to a ticket
That Fate had made illegible, foreseeing
The future great unmentionable being.—
Perhaps thou hast ridden
A scholar poor on St. Augustine's Back,
Like Chatterton, and found a dusty pack
Of Rowley novels in an old chest hidden;
A little hoard of clever simulation,
That took the town—and Constable has bidden
Some hundred pounds for a continuation—
To keep and clothe thee in genteel starvation.
I like thy Waverley—first of thy breeding;
I like its modest "sixty years ago,"
As if it was not meant for ages' reading.
I don't like Ivanhoe,
Tho' Dymoke does—it makes him think of clattering
In iron overalls before the king
Secure from battering, to ladies flattering,
Tuning, his challenge to the gauntlet's ring—
Oh better far than all that anvil clang
It was to hear thee touch the famous string
Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang,
Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan,
Like Sagittarian Pan!
I like Guy Mannering—but not that sham son
Of Brown:—I like that literary Sampson,
Nine-tenths a Dyer, with a smack of Porson.
I like Dirk Hatteraick, that rough sea Orson
That slew the Gauger;
And Dandie Dinmont, like old Ursa Major;
And Merrilies, young Bertram's old defender,
That Scottish Witch of Endor,
That doom'd thy fame. She was the Witch, I take it,
To tell a great man's fortune—or to make it!
I like thy Antiquary. With his fit on,
He makes me think of Mr. Britton,
I like thy Antiquary. With Ins fit on,
It makes me think
Who has—or had—within his garden wall,
A miniature Stone Henge, so very small
That sparrows find it difficult to sit on;
And Dousterwivel, like Poyais' M'Gregor;
And Edie Ochiltree, that old Blue Beggar,
Painted so cleverly,
I think thou surely knowest Mrs. Beverly!
I like thy Barber—him that fir'd the
Beacon—
But that's a tender subject now to speak on!
I like long-arm'd Rob Roy.—His very charms
Fashion'd him for renown!—In sad sincerity,
The man that robs or writes must have long arms,
If he's to hand his deeds down to posterity!
Witness Miss Biffin's posthumous prosperity,
Her poor brown crumpled mummy (nothing more)
Bearing the name she bore,
A thing Time's tooth is tempted to destroy!
But Roys can never die—why else, in verity,
Is Paris echoing with "Vive le Roy"!
Aye, Rob shall live again, and deathless Di
Vernon, of course, shall often live again—
Whilst there's a stone in Newgate, or a chain,
Who can pass by
Nor feel the Thief's in prison and at hand?
There be Old Bailey Jarvies on the stand!
I like thy Landlord's Tales!—I like that Idol
Of love and Lammermoor—the blue-eyed maid
That led to church the mounted cavalcade,
And then pull'd up with such a bloody bridal!
Throwing equestrian Hymen on his haunches—
like the family (not silver) branches
That hold the tapers
To light the serious legend of Montrose.—
I like M'Aulay's second-sighted vapors,
As if he could not walk or talk alone,
Without the devil—or the Great Unknown,—
Dalgetty is the dearest of Ducrows!
I like St. Leonard's Lily—drench'd with dew!
I like thy Vision of the Covenanters,
That bloody-minded Grahame shot and slew.
I like the battle lost and won;
The hurly-burlys bravely done,
The warlike gallop and the warlike canters!
I like that girded chieftain of the ranters,
Ready to preach down heathens, or to grapple,
With one eye on his sword,
And one upon the Word,—
How he would cram the Caledonian Chapel!
I like stern Claverhouse, though he cloth dapple
His raven steed with blood of many a corse—
I like dear Mrs. Headrigg, that unravels
Her texts of scripture on a trotting horse—
She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels!
I like thy Kenilworth—but I'm not going
To take a Retrospective Re-Review
Of all thy dainty novels—merely showing
The old familiar faces of a few,
The question to renew,
How thou canst leave such deeds without a name,
Forego the unclaim'd Dividends of fame,
Forego the smiles of literary houris—
Mid-Lothian's trump, and Fife's shrill note of praise,
And all the Carse of Gowrie's,
When thou might'st have thy statue in Cromarty—
Or see thy image on Italian trays,
Betwixt Queen Caroline and Buonaparté,
Be painted by the Titian of R.A's,
Or vie in signboards with the Royal Guelph!
P'rhaps have thy bust set cheek by jowl with Homer's,
P'rhaps send out plaster proxies of thyself
To other Englands with Australian roamers—
Mayhap, in Literary Owhyhee
Displace the native wooden gods, or be
The china-Lar of a Canadian shelf!
It is not modesty that bids thee hide—
She never wastes her blushes out of sight:
It is not to invite
The world's decision, for thy fame is tried,—
And thy fair deeds are scatter'd far and wide,
Even royal heads are with thy readers reckon'd,—
From men in trencher caps to trencher scholars
In crimson collars,
And learned serjeants in the Forty-Second!
Whither by land or sea art thou not beckon'd?
Mayhap exported from the Frith of Forth,
Defying distance and its dim control;
Perhaps read about Stromness, and reckon'd worth
A brace of Miltons for capacious soul—
Perhaps studied in the whalers, further north,
And set above ten Shakspeares near the pole!
Oh, when thou writest by Aladdin's lamp,
With such a giant genius at command,
Forever at thy stamp,
To fill thy treasury from Fairy Land,
When haply thou might'st ask the pearly hand
Of some great British Vizier's eldest daughter,
Tho' princes sought her,
And lead her in procession hymeneal,
Oh, why dost thou remain a Beau Ideal!
Why stay, a ghost, on the Lethean Wharf,
Envelop'd in Scotch mist and gloomy fogs?
Why, but because thou art some puny Dwarf,
Some hopeless Imp, like Biquet with the Tuft,
Fearing, for all thy wit, to be rebuff'd,
Or bullied by our great reviewing Gogs?
What in this masquing age
Maketh Unknowns so many and so shy?
What but the critic's page?
One hath a cast, he hides from the world's eye;
Another hath a wen,—he won't show where;
A third has sandy hair,
A hunch upon his back, or legs awry,
Things for a vile reviewer to espy!
Another hath a mangel-wurzel nose,—
Finally, this is dimpled,
Like a pale crumpet face, or that is pimpled,
Things for a monthly critic to expose—
Nay, what is thy own case—that being small,
Thou choosest to be nobody at all!
Well, thou art prudent, with such puny bones—
E'en like Elshender, the mysterious elf,
That shadowy revelation of thyself—
To build thee a small hut of haunted stones—
For certainly the first pernicious man
That ever saw thee, would quickly draw thee
In some vile literary caravan—
Shown for a shilling
Would be thy killing,
Think of Crachami's miserable span!
No tinier frame the tiny spark could dwell in
Than there it fell in—
But when she felt herself a show, she tried
To shrink from the world's eye, poor dwarf! and died!
O since it was thy fortune to be born
A dwarf on some Scotch Inch, and then to flinch
From all the Gog-like jostle of great men,
Still with thy small crow pen
Amuse and charm thy lonely hours forlorn—
Still Scottish story daintily adorn,
Be still a shade—and when this age is fled,
When we poor sons and daughters of reality
Are in our graves forgotten and quite dead,
And Time destroys our mottoes of morality—
The lithographic hand of Old Mortality
Shall still restore thy emblem on the stone,
A featureless death's head,
And rob Oblivion ev'n of the Unknown!
"This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit."
Twelfth Night.
Joseph! they say thou'st left the stage,
To toddle down the hill of life,
And taste the flannel'd ease of age,
Apart from pantomimic strife—
"Retir'd—(for Young would call it so)—
The world shut out"—in Pleasant Row!
And hast thou really wash'd at last
From each white cheek the red half-moon!
And all thy public Clownship cast,
To play the private Pantaloon?
All youth—all ages—yet to be
Shall have a heavy miss of thee!
Thou didst not preach to make us wise—
Thou hadst no finger in our schooling—
Thou didst not "lure us to the skies"—
Thy simple, simple trade was—Fooling!
And yet, Heav'n knows! we could—we can
Much "better spare a better man!"
Oh, had it pleased the gout to take
The reverend Croly from the stage,
Or Southey, for our quiet's sake,
Or Mr. Fletcher, Cupid's sage,
Or, damme! namby-pamby Poole,—
Or any other clown or fool!
Go, Dibdin—all that bear the name,
Go, Byeway Highway man! go! go!
Go, Skeffy—man of painted fame,
But leave thy partner, painted Joe!
I could bear Kirby on the wane,
Or Signor Paulo with a sprain!
Had Joseph Wilfrid Parkins made
His gray hairs scarce in private peace—
Had Waithman sought a rural shade—
Or Cobbett ta'en a turnpike lease—
Or Lisle Bowles gone to Balaam Hill—
I think I could be cheerful still!
Had Medwin left off, to his praise,
Dead lion kicking, like—a friend!—
Had long, long Irving gone his ways,
To Muse on death at Ponder's End
Or Lady Morgan taken leave
Of Letters—still I might not grieve!
But, Joseph—everybody's Jo!—
Is gone—and grieve I will and must!
As Hamlet did for Yorick, so
Will I for thee (though not yet dust),
And talk as he did when he miss'd
The kissing-crust that he had kiss'd!
Ah, where is now thy rolling head!
Thy winking, reeling, drunken eyes,
(As old Catullus would have said),
Thy oven-mouth, that swallow'd pies—
Enormous hunger—monstrous drowth!
Thy pockets greedy as thou mouth!
Ah, where thy ears, so often cuff'd!—
Thy funny, flapping, filching hands!—
Thy partridge body, always stuff'd
With waifs, and strays, and contrabands!—
Thy foot—like Berkeley's Foote—for why?
'Twas often made to wipe an eye!
Ah, where thy legs—that witty pair!
For "great wits jump"—and so did they!
Lord! how they leap'd in lamplight air!
Caper'd—and bounc'd—and strode away!—
That years should tame the legs—alack!
I've seen spring thro' an Almanack!
But bounds will have their bound—the shocks
Of Time will cramp the nimblest toes;
And those that frisk'd in silken clocks
May look to limp in fleecy hose—
One only—(Champion of the ring)
Could ever make his Winter,—Spring!
And gout, that owns no odds between
The toe of Czar and toe of Clown,
Will visit—but I did not mean
To moralize, though I am grown
Thus sad,—Thy going seem'd to beat
A muffled drum for Fun's retreat!
And, may be—'tis no time to smother
A sigh, when two prime wags of London
Are gone—thou, Joseph, one,—the other
A Joe!—"sic transit gloria Munden!"
A third departure some insist on,—
Stage-apoplexy threatens Liston!—
Nay, then, let Sleeping Beauty sleep
With ancient "Dozey" to the dregs—
Let Mother Goose wear mourning deep,
And put a hatchment o'er her eggs!
Let Farley weep—for Magic's man
Is gone,—his Christmas Caliban!
Let Kemble, Forbes, and Willet rain,
As tho' they walk'd behind thy bier,—
For since thou wilt not play again,
What matters,—if in heav'n or here!
Or in thy grave, or in thy bed!—
There's Quick might just as well be dead!
Oh, how will thy departure cloud
The lamplight of the little breast!
The Christmas child will grieve aloud
To miss his broadest friend and best,—
Poor urchin! what avails to him
The cold New Monthly's Ghost of Grimm?
For who like thee could ever stride!
Some dozen paces to the mile!—
The motley, medley coach provide—
Or like Joe Frankenstein compile
The vegetable man complete!—
A proper Covent Garden feat!
Oh, who like thee could ever drink,
Or eat,—swill, swallow—bolt—and choke!
Nod, weep, and hiccup—sneeze and wink?—
Thy very yawn was quite a joke!
Tho' Joseph, Junior, acts not ill,
"There's no Fool like the old Fool" still!
Joseph, farewell! dear funny Joe!
We met with mirth,—we part in pain!
For many a long, long year must go
Ere Fun can see thy like again—
For Nature does not keep great stores
Of perfect Clowns—that are not Boors!
"Archer. How many are there, Scrub?"
"Scrub. Five-and-forty, Sir." Beaux' Stratagem.
"For shame—let the linen alone!" M. W. of
Windsor.
Mr. Scrub—Mr. Slop—or whoever you be!
The Cock of Steam Laundries,—the head Patentee
Of Associate Cleansers,—Chief founder and prime
Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime—
Co-partners and dealers, in linen's propriety—
That make washing public—and wash in society—
O lend me your ear! if that ear can forego,
For a moment, the music that bubbles below,—
From your new Surrey Geisers all foaming and hot,—
That soft "simmer's sang" so endear'd to the
Scot—
If your hands may stand still, or your steam without
danger—
If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger,
Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub,—
O wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub,—
And lend me your ear,—Let me modestly plead
For a race that your labors may soon supersede—
For a race that, now washing no living affords—
Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards,
Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease,
Not with bread in the funds—or investments of
cheese,—
But to droop like sad willows that liv'd by a stream,
Which the sun has suck'd up into vapor and steam.
Ah, look at the laundress, before you begrudge—
Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge—
When chanticleer singeth his earliest matins,
She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens,
And beginneth her toil while the morn is still gray,
As if she was washing the night into day—
Not with sleeker or rosier fingers Aurora
Beginneth to scatter the dewdrops before her;
Not Venus that rose from the billow so early,
Look'd down on the foam with a forehead more
pearly—
Her head is involv'd in an aërial mist,
And a bright-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist;
Her visage glows warm with the ardor of duty;
She's Industry's moral—she's all moral beauty!
Growing brighter and brighter at every rub—
Would any man ruin her?—No, Mr. Scrub!
No man that is manly would work her mishap—
No man that is manly would covet her cap—
Nor her apron—her hose—nor her gown made of
stuff—
Nor her gin—nor her tea—nor her wet pinch of
snuff!
Alas! so she thought—but that slippery hope
Has betrayed her—as tho' she had trod on her soap!
And she,—whose support,—like the fishes that fly,
Was to have her fins wet, must now drop from her sky—
She whose living it was, and a part of her fare,
To be damp'd once a day, like the great white sea bear,
With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop—
Quite a living absorbent that revell'd in slop—
She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand,
And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land!
Lo, then, the poor laundress, all wretched she stands,
Instead of a counterpane wringing her hands!
All haggard and pinch'd, going down in life's vale,
With no fagot for burning, like Allan-a-dale!
No smoke from her flue—and no steam from her pane,
There once she watch'd heaven, fearing God and the
rain—
Or gaz'd o'er her bleach-field so fairly engross'd,
Till the lines wander'd idle from pillar to post!
Ah, where are the playful young pinners—ah, where
The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air—
The brisk waltzing stockings—the white and the black,
That danced on the tight-rope, or swung on the slack—
The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinn'd,
That blew into shape, and embodied the wind!
There was white on the grass—there was white on the
spray—
Her garden—it looked like a garden of May!
But now all is dark—not a shirt's on a shrub—
You've ruin'd her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub!
You've ruin'd her custom—now families drop her—
From her silver reduc'd—nay, reduc'd from her
copper!
The last of her washing is done at her eye,
One poor little kerchief that never gets dry!
From mere lack of linen she can't lay a cloth,
And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth,—
But her children come round her as victuals grow scant,
And recall, with foul faces, the source of their want—
When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed,
And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead,
And even its pearlashes laid in the grave—
Whilst her tub is a dry rotting, stave after stave,
And the greatest of Coopers, ev'n he that they dub
Sir Astley, can't bind up her heart or her tub,—
Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub!
Need you wonder, when steam has depriv'd her of bread,
If she prays that the evil may visit your head—
Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee,—
If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the city—
In short, not to mention all plagues without number,
If she wishes you all in the Wash at the Humber!
Ah, perhaps, in some moment of drowth and despair,
When her linen got scarce, and her washing grew rare—
When the sum of her suds might be summ'd in a bowl,
And the rusty cold iron quite enter'd her soul—
When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye
Had caught "the Cock Laundresses' Coach" going by,
Or her lines that hung idle, to waste the fine weather,
And she thought of her wrongs and her rights both together,
In a lather of passion that froth'd as it rose,
Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose,
On her sheet—if a sheet were still left her—to
write,
Some remonstrance like this then, perchance, saw the
light—
LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE
FROM BRIDGET JONES
TO THE NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN FORMING THE WASHING COMMITTEE.
It's a shame, so it is,—men can't Let alone
Jobs as is Woman's right to do—and go about there
Own—
Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools
For washing to sit Up,—and push the Old Tubs from their
stools!
But your just like the Raddicals,—for upsetting of the
Sudds
When the world wagged well enuff—and Wommen washed your
old dirty duds,
I'm Certain sure Enuff your Ann Sisters had no steem Indians,
that's Flat,—
But I warrant your Four Fathers went as Tidy and gentlemanny
for all that—
I suppose your the Family as lived in the Great Kittle
I see on Clapham Commun, some times a very considerable
period back when I were little,
And they Said it went with Steem,—But that was a joke!
For I never see none come of it,—that's out of
it—but only sum Smoak—
And for All your Power of Horses about your Indians you never
had but Two
In my time to draw you About to Fairs—and hang you, you
know that's true!
And for All your fine Perspectuses,—howsomever you
bewhich 'em,
Theirs as Pretty ones off Primerows Hill, as ever a one at
Mitchum,
Tho' I cant sea What Prospectives and washing has with one
another to Do—
It aint as if a Bird'seye Hankicher could take a Birds-high
view!
But Thats your look out—I've not much to do with
that—But pleas God to hold up fine,
I'd show you caps and pinners and small things as lilliwhit
as Ever crosst the Line
Without going any Father off then Little Parodies Place,
And Thats more than you Can—and I'll say it behind your
face—
But when Folks talks of washing, it aint for you to
Speak,—
As kept Dockter Pattyson out of his Shirt for a Weak!
Thinks I, when I heard it—Well there's a pretty go!
That comes o' not marking of things or washing out the marks,
and Huddling 'em up so!
Till Their friends conies and owns them, like drownded
corpeses in a Vault,
But may Hap you havint Larn'd to spel—and That aint
your Fault,
Only you ought to leafe the Linnins to them as has
Larn'd,—
For if it warnt for Washing,—and whare Bills is
concarned
What's the Yuse, of all the world, for a Womans Headication,
And Their Being maid Schollards of Sundays—fit for any
Cityation.
Well, what I says is This—when every Kittle has its
spout,
Theirs no nead for Companys to puff steem about!
To be sure its very Well, when Their aint enuff Wind
For blowing up Boats with,—but not to hurt human kind
Like that Pearkins with his Blunderbush, that's loaded with
hot water,
Tho' a X Sherif might know Better, than make things for
slaughtter,
As if War warnt Cruel enuff—wherever it befalls,
Without shooting poor sogers, with sich scalding hot
balls,—
But thats not so Bad as a Sett of Bare Faced Scrubbs
As joins their Sopes together, and sits up Steem rubbing
Clubs,
For washing Dirt Cheap,—and eating other Peple's grubs!
Which is all verry Fine for you and your Patent Tea,
But I wonders How Poor Wommen is to get Their Beau-He!
They must drink Hunt wash (the only wash God nose there will
be!)
And their Little drop of Somethings as they takes for their
Goods,
When you and your Steem has ruined (G—d forgive mee)
their lively Hoods,
Poor Wommen as was born to Washing in their youth!
And now must go and Larn other Buisnesses Four Sooth!
But if so be They leave their Lines what are they to go
at—
They won't do for Angells—nor any Trade like That,
Nor we cant Sow Babby Work,—for that's all
Bespoke,—
For the Quakers in Bridle! and a vast of the confined Folk
Do their own of Themselves—even the better-most of
em—aye, and evn them of middling degrees—
Why Lauk help you Babby Linen aint Bread and Cheese!
Nor we can't go a hammering the roads into Dust,
But we must all go and be Bankers,—like Mr. Marshes and
Mr. Charnberses,—and that's what we must!
God nose you oght to have more Concern for our Sects,
When you nose you have suck'd us and hanged round our
Mutherly necks,
And remembers what you Owes to Wommen Besides washing—
You aint, blame you! like Men to go a slushing and sloshing
In mop caps, and pattins, adoing of Females Labers
And prettily jear'd At you great Horse God Meril things, aint
you now by your next door naybors—
Lawk I thinks I see you with your Sleaves tuckt up
No more like Washing than is drownding of a Pupp,
And for all Your Fine Water Works going round and round
They'll scruntch your Bones some day—I'll be bound
And no more nor be a gudgement,—for it cant come to
good
To sit up agin Providince, which your a doing,—nor not
fit It should,
For man warnt maid for Wommens starvation,
Nor to do away Laundrisses as is Links of the Creation—
And cant be dun without in any Country But a naked Hottinpot
Nation.
Ah, I wish our Minister would take one of your Tubbs
And preach a Sermon in it, and give you some good rubs—
But I warrants you reads (for you cant spel we nose) nyther
Bybills or Good Tracks,
Or youd no better than Taking the close off one's
Backs—
And let your neighbors oxin an Asses alone,—
And every Thing thats hern,—and give every one their
Hone!
Well, its God for us All, and every Washer Wommen for
herself,
And so you might, without shoving any on us off the shelf,
But if you warnt Noddis youd Let wommen abe
And pull off Your Pattins,—and leave the washing to we
That nose what's what—Or mark what I say,
Youl make a fine Kittle of fish of Your Close some Day—
When the Aulder men wants Their Bibs and their aint nun at
all,
And Cristmass cum—and never a Cloth to lay in Gild
Hall,
Or send a damp shirt to his Woship the Mare
Till hes rumatiz Poor Man, and cant set uprite to do good in
his Harm-Chare—
Besides Miss-Matching Larned Ladys Hose, as is sent for you
not to wash (for you don't wash)
And make Peples Stockins yeller as oght to be Blew,
With a vast more like That,—and all along of Steem
Which warnt meand by Nater for any sich skeam—
But thats your Losses and youl have to make It Good,
And I cant say I'm Sorry afore God if you shoud,
For men mought Get their Bread a great many ways
Without taking ourn,—aye, and Moor to your Prays
You might go and skim the creme off Mr. Muck-Adam's milky
ways—that's what you might,
Or bete Carpets—or get into Parleamint,—or drive
Crabrolays from morning to night,
Or, if you must be of our sects, be Watchmen, and slepe upon
a poste!
(Which is an od way of sleping, I must say,—and a very
hard pillow at most,)
Or you might be any trade, as we are not on that I'm awares,
Or be Watermen now, (not Water-wommen) and roe peple up and
down Hungerford stares,
Or if You Was even to Turn Dust Men a dry sifting
Dirt!
But you oughtint to Hurt Them as never Did You no Hurt!
Yourn with Anymocity,
BRIDGET JONES.