HAIL! multifarious man!
Thou Wondrous, Admirable Kitchen Crichton!
Born to enlighten
The laws of Optics, Peptics, Music, Cooking—
Master of the Piano—and the Pan—
As busy with the kitchen as the skies!
Now looking
At some rich stew through Galileo’s eyes,—
Or boiling eggs—timed to a metronome—
As much at home
In spectacles as in mere isinglass—
In the art of frying brown—as a digression
On music and poetical expression,—
Whereas, how few, of all our cooks, alas!
Could tell Calliope from “Callipee!”
How few there be
Could cleave the lowest for the highest stories,
(Observatories,)
And turn, like thee, Diana’s calculator,
However cook’s synonymous with Kater![5]
Alas! still let me say,
How few could lay
The carving knife beside the tuning fork,
Like the proverbial Jack ready for any work!

Oh, to behold thy features in thy book!
Thy proper head and shoulders in a plate,
How it would look!
With one raised eye watching the dial’s date,
And one upon the roast, gently cast down—
Thy chops—done nicely brown—
The garnish’d brow—with “a few leaves of bay”—
The hair—“done Wiggy’s way!”
And still one studious finger near thy brains,
As if thou wert just come
From editing of some
New soup—or hashing Dibdin’s cold remains!
Or, Orpheus-like,—fresh from thy dying strains
Of music,—Epping luxuries of sound,
As Milton says, “in many a bout
Of linkëd sweetness long drawn out,”
While all thy tame stuff’d leopards listen’d round!

Oh, rather thy whole proper length reveal,
Standing like Fortune,—on the jack—thy wheel.
(Thou art, like Fortune, full of chops and changes,
Thou hast a fillet too before thine eye!)
Scanning our kitchen, and our vocal ranges,
As though it were the same to sing or fry—
Nay, so it is—hear how Miss Paton’s throat
Makes “fritters” of a note!
And how Tom Cook (Fryer and Singer born
By name and nature) oh! how night and morn
He for the nicest public taste doth dish up
The good things from that Pan of music—Bishop!
And is not reading near akin to feeding,
Or why should Oxford Sausages be fit
Receptacles for wit?
Or why should Cambridge put its little, smart,
Minced brains into a Tart?
Nay, then, thou wert but wise to frame receipts,
Book-treats,
Equally to instruct the Cook and cram her—
Receipts to be devour’d, as well as read,
The Culinary Art in gingerbread—
The Kitchen’s Eaten Grammar!

Oh, very pleasant is thy motley page—
Aye, very pleasant in its chatty vein—
So—in a kitchen—would have talk’d Montaigne.
That merry Gascon—humourist, and sage!
Let slender minds with single themes engage,
Like Mr. Bowles with his eternal Pope,—
Or Haydon on perpetual Haydon,—or
Hume on—“Twice three make four.”
Or Lovelass upon Wills,—Thou goest on
Plaiting ten topics, like Tate Wilkinson!
Thy brain is like a rich Kaleidoscope,
Stuff’d with a brilliant medley of odd bits,
And ever shifting on from change to change,
Saucepans—old Songs—Pills—Spectacles—and Spits!
Thy range is wider than a Rumford range!
Thy grasp a miracle!—till I recall
Th’ indubitable cause of thy variety—
Thou art, of course, th’ Epitome of all
That spying—frying—singing—mix’d Society
Of Scientific Friends, who used to meet
Welsh Rabbits—and thyself—in Warren Street!

Oh, hast thou still those Conversazioni,
Where learnëd visitors discoursed—and fed?
There came Belzoni,
Fresh from the ashes of Egyptian dead—
And gentle Poki—and that Royal Pair,
Of whom thou didst declare—
“Thanks to the greatest Cooke we ever read—
They were—what Sandwiches should be—half bred?”
There famed M‘Adam from his manual toil
Relax’d—and freely own’d he took thy hints
On “making Broth with Flints”—
There Parry came, and show’d thee polar oil
For melted butter—Combe with his medullary
Notions about the Skullery,
And Mr. Poole, too partial to a broil—
There witty Rogers came, that punning elf!
Who used to swear thy book
Would really look
A Delphic “Oracle,” if laid on Delf—
There, once a month, came Campbell and discuss’d
His own—and thy own—“Magazine of Taste”—
There Wilberforce the Just
Came, in his old black suit, till once he traced
Thy sly advice to Poachers of Black Folks,—
That “do not break their yolks,”—
Which huff’d him home, in grave disgust and haste!

There came John Clare, the poet, nor forbore
Thy Patties—thou wert hand-and-glove with Moore,
Who call’d thee “Kitchen Addison”—for why?
Thou givest rules for Health and Peptic Pills,
Forms for made dishes, and receipts for Wills,
“Teaching us how to live and how to die?”
There came thy Cousin-Cook, good Mrs. Fry—
There Trench, the Thames Projector, first brought on
His sine Quay non,—
There Martin would drop in on Monday eves,
Or Fridays, from the pens, and raise his breath
‘Gainst cattle days and death,—
Answer’d by Mellish, feeder of fat beeves,
Who swore that Frenchmen never could be eager
For fighting on soup meagre—
“And yet (as thou wouldst add) the French have seen
A Marshal Tureen?”
Great was thy Evening Cluster!—often graced
With Dollond—Burgess—and Sir Humphry Davy!
’Twas there M’Dermot first inclined to Taste,—
There Colburn learn’d the art of making paste
For puffs—and Accum analysed a gravy.
Colman—the Cutter of Coleman Street, ’tis said,
Came there,—and Parkins with his Ex-wise-head,
(His claim to letters)—Kater, too, the Moon’s
Crony,—and Graham, lofty on balloons,—
There Croly stalked with holy humour heated,
(Who wrote a light-horse play, which Yates completed)—
And Lady Morgan, that grinding organ,
And Brasbridge telling anecdotes of spoons,—
Madame Valbrèque thrice honour’d thee, and came
With great Rossini, his own bow and fiddle,—
The Dibdins,—Tom, Charles, Frognall, came with tuns
Of poor old books, old puns!
And even Irving spared a night from fame,
And talk’d—till thou didst stop him in the middle,
To serve round Tewah-diddle! [6]
Then all the guests rose up, and sighed good-bye!
So let them:—thou thyself art still a Host!
Dibdin—Cornaro—Newton—Mrs. Fry!
Mrs. Glasse, Mr. Spec!—Lovelass and Weber,
Mathews in Quot’em—Moore’s fire-worshipping Gheber—
Thrice-worthy Worthy! seem by thee engross’d!
Howbeit the Peptic Cook still rules the roast,
Potent to hush all ventriloquial snarling,—
And ease the bosom pangs of indigestion!
Thou art, sans question,
The Corporation’s love—its Doctor Darling!
Look at the Civic Palate—nay, the Bed
Which set dear Mrs. Opie on supplying
“Illustrations of Lying!”
Ninety square feet of down from heel to head
It measured, and I dread
Was haunted by a terrible night Mare,
A monstrous burthen on the corporation!—
Look at the Bill of Fare for one day’s share,
Sea-turtles by the score—oxen by droves.
Geese, turkeys, by the flock—fishes and loaves
Countless, as when the Lilliputian nation
Was making up the huge man-mountain’s ration!

Oh! worthy Doctor! surely thou hast driven
The squatting Demon from great Garratt’s breast—
(His honour seems to rest!—)
And what is thy reward?—Hath London given
Thee public thanks for thy important service?
Alas! not even
The tokens it bestow’d on Howe and Jervis!—
Yet could I speak as Orators should speak
Before the Worshipful the Common Council
(Utter my bold bad grammar and pronounce ill,)
Thou shouldst not miss thy Freedom for a week,
Richly engross’d on vellum:—Reason urges
That he who rules our cookery—that he
Who edits soups and gravies, ought to be
A Citizen, where sauce can make a Burgess!

Here many a pensive pilgrim, brought
By reverence for those learnëd bones,
Shall often come and walk your short
Two-shilling fare upon the stones—[7]
Ye have that talisman of Wealth
Which puddling chemists sought of old
Till ruin’d out of hope and health—
The Tomb’s the stone that turns to gold!

Oh, licensed cannibals, ye eat
Your dinners from your own dead race,
Think Gray, preserved—a “funeral meat,”
And Dryden, devil’d—after grace,
A relish;—and you take your meal
From Rare Ben Jonson underdone,
Or, whet your holy knives on Steele,
To cut away at Addison!

Oh say, of all this famous age,
Whose learnëd bones your hopes expect,
Oh have ye number’d Rydal’s sage,
Or Moore among your Ghosts elect?
Lord Byron was not doom’d to make
You richer by his final sleep—
Why don’t ye warn the Great to take
Their ashes to no other heap!

Southey’s reversion have ye got?
With Coleridge, for his body, made
A bargain?—has Sir Walter Scott,
Like Peter Schlemihl, sold his shade?
Has Rogers haggled hard, or sold
His features for your marble shows,
Or Campbell barter’d ere he’s cold,
All interest in his “bone repose?”

Rare is your show, ye righteous men!
Priestly Politos,—rare, I ween;
But should ye not outside the Den
Paint up what in it may be seen?
A long green Shakspeare, with a deer
Grasp’d in the many folds it died in,—
A Butler stuff’d from ear to ear,
Wet White Bears weeping o’er a Dryden!

Paint Garrick up like Mr. Paap,
A Giant of some inches high;
Paint Handel up, that organ chap,
With you, as grinders, in his eye;
Depict some plaintive antique thing,
And say th’ original may be seen;—
Blind Milton with a dog and string
May be the Beggar o’ Bethnal Green!

Put up in Poet’s Corner, near
The little door, a platform small;
Get there a monkey—never fear,
You’ll catch the gapers, one and all!
Stand each of ye a Body Guard,
A Trumpet under either fin,
And yell away in Palace Yard
“All dead! All dead! Walk in! Walk in!”

(But when the people are inside,
Their money paid—I pray you, bid
The keepers not to mount and ride
A race around each coffin lid.—
Poor Mrs. Bodkin thought, last year,
That it was hard—the woman clacks—
To have so little in her ear—
And be so hurried through the Wax!—)

“Walk in! two shillings only! come!
Be not by country grumblers funk’d!—
Walk in, and see th’ illustrious dumb,
The Cheapest House for the defunct!”
Write up, ’twill breed some just reflection,
And every rude surmise ’twill stop—
Write up, that you have no connection
(In large)—with any other shop!

And still, to catch the Clowns the more,
With samples of your shows in Wax,
Set some old Harry near the door
To answer queries with his axe.—
Put up some general begging-trunk—
Since the last broke by some mishap,
You’ve all a bit of General Monk,
From the respect you bore his Cap!

I aimed at higher growth; and now
My leaves are withered on the bough,
I’m choked by bitter shrubs!
O Mr. F. C. W.!
What can I christen thy review
But one of “Wormwood Scrubs?”

The very man that sought me once—
(Can I so soon be grown a dunce?)
He now derides my verse;
But who, save me, will fret to find
The editor has changed his mind,—
He can’t have got a worse.

Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann’d—
That’s Weippert’s band.
Oh Peace! now glad I welcome thy approaches—
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace!—another carriage stops—
It’s early for the Blenkinsops.

Oh Peace! with thee I love to wander,
But wait till I have show’d up Lady Squander,
And now I’ve seen her up the stair,
Oh Peace!—but here comes Captain Hare.
Oh Peace! thou art the slumber of the mind,
Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken,—
If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken,
Alderman Gobble won’t be far behind;
Oh Peace! serene in worldly shyness,—
Make way there for his Serene Highness!

Oh Peace! if you do not disdain
To dwell amongst the menial train,
I have a silent place, and lone,
That you and I may call our own;
Where tumult never makes an entry—
Susan, what business have you in my pantry?

Oh Peace! but there is Major Monk,
At variance with his wife—Oh Peace!
And that great German, Vander Trunk,
And that great talker, Miss Apreece;
Oh Peace! so dear to poets’ quills—
They’re just beginning their quadrilles—
Oh Peace! our greatest renovator;—
I wonder where I put my waiter—
Oh Peace!—but here my Ode I’ll cease;
I have no peace to write of Peace.

O LUD! O Lud! O Lud!
I mean of course that venerable town,
Mention’d in stories of renown,
Built formerly of mud;—
O Lud, I say, why didst thou e’er
Invent the office of a Mayor,
An office that no useful purpose crowns,
But to set Aldermen against each other,
That should be Brother unto Brother,—
Sisters at least, by virtue of their gowns?
But still if one must have a Mayor
To fill the Civic chair,
O Lud, I say,
Was there no better day
To fix on, than November Ninth so shivery
And dull for showing off the Livery’s livery?
Dimming, alas!
The Brazier’s brass,
Soiling th’ Embroiderers and all the Saddlers,
Sopping the Furriers,
Draggling the Curriers,
And making Merchant Tailors dirty paddlers:
Drenching the Skinners’ Company to the skin,
Making the crusty Vintner chiller,
And turning the Distiller
To cold without instead of warm within;—
Spoiling the bran-new beavers
Of Wax-chandlers and Weavers,
Plastering the Plasterers and spotting Mercers,
Hearty November-cursers—
And showing Cordwainers and dapper Drapers
Sadly in want of brushes and of scrapers;
Making the Grocer’s company not fit
For Company a bit;
Dying the Dyers with a dingy flood,
Daubing incorporated Bakers,
And leading the Patten-makers,
Over their very pattens in the mud,—
O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!

“This is a sorry sight,”
To quote Macbeth—but oh, it grieves me quite
To see your Wives and Daughters in their plumes—
White plumes not white—
Sitting at open windows catching rheums,
Not “Angels ever bright and fair,”
But angels ever brown and sallow,
With eyes—you cannot see above one pair,
For city clouds of black and yellow—
And artificial flowers, rose, leaf, and bud,
Such sable lilies
And grim daffodilies
Drooping, but not for drought, O Lud! O Lud!

I may as well, while I’m inclined,
Just go through all the faults I find:
O Lud! then, with a bitter air, say June,
Could’st thou not find a better tune
To sound with trumpets, and with drums,
Than “See the Conquering Hero comes,”
When he who comes ne’er dealt in blood?
Thy May’r is not a War Horse, Lud,
That ever charged on Turk or Tartar,
And yet upon a march you strike
That treats him like—
A little French if I may martyr—
Lewis Cart-Horse or Henry Carter!
O Lud! I say
Do change your day
To some time when your Show can really show;
When silk can seem like silk, and gold can glow.
Look at your Sweepers, how they shine in May
Have it when there’s a sun to gild the coach,
And sparkle in tiara—bracelet—brooch—
Diamond—or paste—of sister, mother, daughter;
When grandeur really may be grand—
But if thy Pageant’s thus obscured by land—
O Lud! it’s ten times worse upon the water!
Suppose, O Lud, to show its plan,
I call, like Blue Beard’s wife, to sister Anne,
Who’s gone to Beaufort Wharf with niece and aunt
To see what she can see—and what she can’t;
Chewing a saffron bun by way of cud,
To keep the fog out of a tender lung,
While perch’d in a verandah nicely hung
Over a margin of thy own black mud,
O Lud!

Now Sister Anne, I call to thee,
Look out and see:
Of course about the bridge you view them rally
And sally,

With many a wherry, sculler, punt, and cutter;
The Fishmongers’ grand boat, but not for butter,
The Goldsmiths’ glorious galley,—
Of course you see the Lord Mayor’s coach aquatic,
With silken banners that the breezes fan,
In gold all glowing,
And men in scarlet rowing,
Like Doge of Venice to the Adriatic;
Of course you see all this, O Sister Anne?
“No, I see no such thing!
I only see the edge of Beaufort Wharf,
With two coal lighters fasten’d to a ring:
And, dim as ghosts,
Two little boys are jumping over posts;
And something farther off,
That’s rather like the shadow of a dog,
And all beyond is fog.
If there be any thing so fine and bright,
To see it I must see by second sight.
Call this a Show? It is not worth a pin!
I see no barges row,
No banners blow;
The show is merely a gallanty-show,
Without a lamp or any candle in.”

But sister Anne, my dear,
Although you cannot see, you still may hear?
Of course you hear, I’m very sure of that,
The “Water parted from the Sea” in C,
Or “Where the Bee sucks,” set in B;
Or Huntsman’s chorus from the Freyschutz frightful,
Or Handel’s Water Music in A flat.

Oh music from the water comes delightful!
It sounds as no where else it can:
You hear it first,
In some rich burst,
Then faintly sighing,
Tenderly dying
Away upon the breezes, Sister Anne.

“There is no breeze to die on;
And all their drums and trumpets, flutes and harps,
Could never cut their way with ev’n three sharps
Through such a fog as this, you may rely on.
I think, but am not sure, I hear a hum,

Like a very muffled double drum,
And then a something faintly shrill,
Like Bartlemy Fair’s old buz at Pentonville.
And now and then hear a pop,
As if from Pedley’s Soda Water shop.

I’m almost ill with the strong scent of mud,
And, not to mention sneezing,
My cough is, more than usual, teasing;
I really fear that I have chill’d my blood,
O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!”

She wants no Noise of mobbing Throats
To tell that She is drawing nigh:
Why this Parade of scarlet Coats,
When War has closed his bloodshot Eye?

Returning to Domestic Loves,
When War has ceased with all its Ills,
Captains should come like sucking Doves,
With Olive Branches in their Bills.

No need there is of vulgar Shout,
Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife, and Drum,
And Soldiers marching all about,
To let Us know that Peace is come.

Oh mild should be the Signs and meek,
Sweet Peace’s Advent to proclaim!
Silence her noiseless Foot should speak,
And Echo should repeat the same.

Lo! where the Soldier walks, alas!
With Scars received on Foreign Grounds;
Shall we consume in Coloured Glass
The Oil that should be pour’d in Wounds?

The bleeding Gaps of War to close,
Will whizzing Rocket-Flight avail?
Will Squibs enliven Orphans’ Woes?
Or Crackers cheer the Widow’s Tale?

MR. WALTON, it’s harsh to say it, but as a Parent I can’t help wishing
You’d been hung before you publish’d your book, to set all the young people a fishing!
There’s my Robert, the trouble I’ve had with him it surpasses a mortal’s bearing,
And all thro’ those devilish angling works—the Lord forgive me for swearing!
I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his nasty angle!
For “oh dear,” says he, and burst out in a cry, “oh my gut is all got of a tangle!”
It’s a shame to teach a young boy such words—whose blood wouldn’t chill in their veins
To hear him, as I overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing out brains?
And didn’t I quarrel with Sally the cook, and a precious scolding I give her,
“How dare you,” says I, “for to stench the whole house by keeping that stinking liver?”
Twas enough to breed a fever, it was! they smelt it next door at the Bagots’,—
But it wasn’t breeding no fever—not it! ’twas my son a breeding of maggots!
I declare that I couldn’t touch meat for a week, for it all seemed tainting and going,
And after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all buzzing and blowing;
Boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without putting live things in their craniums;
Well, what next? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along with my choice geraniums.
And another fine trick, tho’ it wasn’t found out, till the housemaid had given us warning,
He fished at the golden fish in the bowl, before we were up and down in the morning.
I’m sure it was lucky for Ellen, poor thing, that she’d got so attentive a lover,
As bring her fresh fish when the others deceas’d, which they did a dozen times over!
Then a whole new loaf was short! for I know, of course, when our bread goes faster,—
And I made a stir with the bill in my hand, and the man was sent off by his master;
But, oh dear, I thought I should sink thro’ the earth, with the weight of my own reproaches,
For my own pretty son had made away with the loaf, to make pastry to feed the roaches!
I vow I’ve suffered a martyrdom—with all sorts of frights and terrors surrounded!
For I never saw him go out of the doors but I thought he’d come home to be drownded.
And, sure enough, I set out one fine Monday to visit my married daughter,
And there he was standing at Sadler’s Wells, a-performing with real water,
It’s well he was off on the further side, for I’d have brain’d him else with my patten,
For I thought he was safe at school, the young wretch! a studying Greek and Latin,
And my ridicule basket he had got on his back, to carry his fishes and gentles;
With a belt I knew he’d made from the belt of his father’s regimentals—
Well, I poked his rods and lines in the fire, and his father gave him a birching,
But he’d gone too far to be easy cured of his love for chubbing and perching.
One night he never came home to tea, and altho’ it was dark and dripping,
His father set off to Wapping, poor man! for the boy had a turn for shipping;
As for me I set up, and I sobbed and I cried for all the world like a babby,
Till at twelve o’clock he rewards my fears with two gudging from Waltham Abbey!
And a pretty sore throat and fever he caught, that brought me a fortnight’s hard nussing,
Till I thought I should go to my grey-hair’d grave, worn out with the fretting and fussing;
But at last he was cur’d, and we did have hopes that the fishing was cured as well,
But no such luck! not a week went by before we’d have another such spell.
Tho’ he never had got a penny to spend, for such was our strict intentions,
Yet he was soon set up in tackle agin, for all boys have such quick inventions:
And I lost my Lady’s Own Pocket Book, in spite of all my hunting and poking,
Till I found it chuck full of tackles and hooks, and besides it had got a good soaking.
Then one Friday morning, I gets a summoning note from a sort of a law attorney,
For the boy had been trespassing people’s grounds while his father was gone a journey,
And I had to go and hush it all up by myself, in an office at Hatton Garden;
And to pay for the damage he’d done, to boot, and to beg some strange gentleman’s pardon.
And wasn’t he once fished out himself, and a man had to dive to find him,
And I saw him brought home with my motherly eyes and a mob of people behind him?
Yes, it took a full hour to rub him to life—whilst I was a-screaming and raving,
And a couple of guineas it cost us besides, to reward the humane man for his saving,
And didn’t Miss Crump leave us out of her will, all along of her taking dudgeon?
At her favourite cat being chok’d, poor Puss, with a hook sow’d up in a gudgeon?
And old Brown complain’d that he pluck’d his live fowls, and not without show of reason,
For the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn’t their moulting season;
And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause for their screeching and cackles,
For the mischief confess’d he had picked them a bit, for I think he called them the hackles.
A pretty tussle we had about that! but as if it wasn’t picking enough,
When the winter comes on, to the muff-box I goes, just to shake out my sable muff—
“O mercy!” thinks I, “there’s the moth in the house!” for the fur was all gone in patches;
And then at Ellen’s chinchilly I look, and its state of destruction just matches—
But it wasn’t no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies—sham flies to go trolling and trouting,
For his father’s great coat was all safe and sound, and that first set me a-doubting.
A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery danglers!
And after all that you’ll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world about anglers!
And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we’ve never had nothing worth dishing;
So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book about fishing.
As for Robert’s, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago; but it turned up too late to be lucky,
For he’d got it by heart, as I found to the cost of
Your servant,
Jane Elizabeth Stuckey.