The Project Gutenberg eBook of Terrible Tractation and Other Poems, by Christopher Caustic This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Terrible Tractation and Other Poems Author: Christopher Caustic Release Date: April 12, 2021 [eBook #65068] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 Produced by: deaurider, Karin Spence and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TERRIBLE TRACTATION AND OTHER POEMS *** GRAND ATTACK. Page 168 TERRIBLE TRACTORATION, AND OTHER P O E M S . BY CHRISTOPHER CAUSTIC, M. D. FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, ABERDEEN, AND HONORARY MEMBER OF NO LESS THAN NINETEEN VERY LEARNED SOCIETIES. THIRD AMERICAN EDITION. BOSTON: RUSSELL, SHATTUCK & CO. AND TUTTLE, WEEKS AND DENNETT. 1836. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, By Thomas Green Fessenden, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. Tuttle, Weeks & Dennett, Printers....School Street. PREFACE. In submitting the present edition of the following poem, entitled Terrible Tractoration, to the American public, the author complies not only with solicitations of personal friends, but with expressed wishes of many gentlemen to whom he is personally a stranger. They say that by stripping folly of some of its disguises, and plucking the mask of deception from that impudent charlatanry, which encumbers the “march of improvement,” this burlesque production may be of service to mankind. The origin of the poem entitled Tractoration, is as follows: In the year 1801 the author, (who is a native of Walpole, New Hampshire,) was in London, on business as an agent for a Company in Vermont. In that Metropolis he became acquainted with Mr Benjamin Douglas Perkins, proprietor of a patent right for making and using certain implements, called Metallic Tractors. These were said to cure diseases in all or nearly all cases of topical inflammation, by conducting from the diseased part the surplus of electric fluid which in such cases, causes or accompanies the morbid affection. At the request of that gentleman, the author undertook to make the Tractors the theme of a satirical effusion in Hudibrastic verse. This was originally intended for the corner of a newspaper, but subsequently in the first edition enlarged to a pamphlet of about fifty pages royal octavo. It was published in the summer of 1803, well received, and a second edition called for in less than two months. A new and enlarged edition was put to press, and met with a favorable reception both from the public and the reviewers. From the success which attended Tractoration, the author was induced to publish in London a small volume of Original Poems, which was well received and favorably reviewed. The author never would have written a syllable intended to give Metallic Tractors favorable notoriety, had he not believed in their efficacy. As conductors of what is called animal electricity, and in principle allied to Galvanic stimulants, even their modus operandi, he thought, might be in a great measure explained. Respectable English Reviews and other periodicals gave favorable notices of the Tractors, and Mr Perkins exhibited to the author testimonials in favor of those implements from several professors of universities, many regular physicians, surgeons, clergymen, and others, men of as high standing and influence as any in community. But although the author was willing to aid the proprietor of the tractors, he did not confine himself to topics connected with those implements. He made use of Tractoration as the title, and the tractors as the apology for a poem, in which he essayed to paint ——“every idle thing Which Fancy finds in her excursive flight.” Although many of the subjects alluded to, or animadverted on were intended to be satirized, others were introduced merely to give them notoriety, or honorable mention in a humorous way; to laugh with rather than to laugh at the inventors, and rather to advertise than to stigmatise their inventions, &c. Persons of this description will perceive our objects, appreciate our motives, and recollect that Dr Caustic, by virtue of a figure in rhetoric, called irony, can speak one thing and mean another, without uttering falsehood. The author conceives that he was fortunate as regards the plan of Tractoration. Dr Caustic, who may be styled the hero of the poem, is represented as a visionary, eccentric, would-be philosopher, endeavoring to effect “grand discoveries and inventions” of most “immense utility,” but had received so little encouragement that he was impelled by necessity to petition the Royal College of Physicians in London, for relief from penury, and assistance in his projects. In pursuance of this plan, every thing novel, singular, relating to any human pursuit, it was competent for Dr Caustic to make the object of discussion or animadversion. The miscellaneous poems, which, in this little volume succeed Tractoration, are, in part, selected from a volume first published in London, and partly from poems written in this country since the author’s return from Europe. He hopes not to be condemned for unpardonable egotism, if he quotes a passage or two from English and American reviews relative to his poetical productions. If a traveller produces passports, or a candidate for office exhibits recommendations, we do not condemn him for pride, nor chastise him for presumption. The Gentleman’s Magazine, published in London, Jan. 1804, contains a long notice of Tractoration, from which the following passages are extracted: [iii] [iv] [v] “In the first Canto the author, in an inimitable strain of irony, ridicules those pretended discoveries and inventions of certain pseudo-philosophers both of the natural and moral class, which have no tendency to meliorate the condition of man.” After many extracts from the work, and encomiums on each of the four cantos, the reviewers conclude, “Whatever may be the merits of the Metallic Tractors, or the demerits of their opponents, we have no hesitation to pronounce this performance to be far superior to the ephemeral productions of ordinary dealers in rhyme. The notes, which constitute more than half the book, are not behind the verse in spirit. Who the author can be we have not the least conception; but from the intimate acquaintance he discovers with the different branches of medical science, we should imagine him to be some jolly son of Galen, who, not choosing to bestow all his arts upon his PATIENTS, has humanely applied a few ESCHAROTICS for the benefit of his brethren.” The following is extracted from a review written by the Hon. Daniel Webster, while a student at law in Boston. “In commending Christopher Caustic, we are only subscribing to the opinions expressed by the people of another country. To be behind that country in our appreciation of his merits, were a stigma; it is very pardonable to go beyond it. National vanity may be a folly, but national ingratitude is a crime. Terrible Tractoration was successful on its first appearance in England, and as yet seems to have lost none of its popularity. It belongs to that class of productions which have the good fortune to escape what Johnson angrily, but too justly, denominates the general conspiracy of human nature against cotemporary merit.” Monthly Anthology for April, 1805. The eminence of Mr Webster, whose acquisitions as a scholar are scarcely exceeded by his qualifications as a statesman, is our apology for exhibiting the above testimony of his approbation. We might add to the above, other extracts from about twenty English and American Reviewers, in which the poems contained in this little volume have been taken notice of with much commendation; but we hope the work may meet a favorable reception without such extraneous assistance. In the present edition of Tractoration several new subjects are introduced and thrown into the crucible of Dr Caustic. Among these are Phrenology, Abolition, Amalgamation, Temperance, Reformation, &c. &c. These parts were written expressly for this edition of Tractoration, were intended to “shoot folly as it flies,” and adapt the strictures of satire to the topics of the times. THOMAS GREEN FESSENDEN. Boston, March 25, 1836. [vi] [vii] CONTENTS. Page. Terrible Tractoration. Canto 1.—Ourself. 1 Canto 2.—Conjurations. 79 Canto 3.—Manifesto. 111 Canto 4.—Grand Attack. 149 Additional Notes. 185 An Ode. 193 The Morning. 197 An Ode. 199 On the Death of Washington. 201 Directions for Doing Poetry. 203 Horace Surpassed. 207 Song. 210 Tabitha Towzer. 212 The Splendors of the Setting Sun. 216 The Sleep of the Sluggard. 218 “A Soft Answer turneth away Wrath.” 221 “Having Food and Raiment, let us therewith be Content.” 223 Harvest—Intemperance. 225 Lines Written in a Young Lady’s Album. 227 The Independent Farmer. 229 The Cultivator’s Art. 231 An Ode. 237 The Course of Culture. 240 A Song. 243 The Evils of a Mischievous Tongue. 246 Cheerfulness. 248 Eulogy on the Times. 251 The Art of Printing. 255 The Old Bachelor. 257 Caloric. 260 The Ills of Idleness. 262 CANTO I. O U R S E L F ! ARGUMENT. Great Doctor Caustic is a sage Whose merit gilds this iron age, And who deserves, as you’ll discover When you have conn’d this canto over, For grand discoveries and inventions, A dozen peerages and pensions; But, having met with rubs and breakers, From Perkins’ metal mischief makers; With but three halfpence in his pocket, In verses blazing like sky rocket, He first sets forth in this petition His high deserts but low condition. From garret high, with cobwebs hung, The poorest wight that ever sung, Most gentle Sirs, I come before ye, To tell a lamentable story. What makes my sorry case the sadder, I once stood high on Fortune’s ladder;[1] From whence contrive the fickle jilt did, That your petitioner should be tilted. And soon th’ unconscionable flirt, Will tread me fairly in the dirt, Unless, perchance, these pithy lays Procure me pence as well as praise. Already doom’d to hard quill-driving, ’Gainst spectred poverty still striving, When e’er I doze, from vigils pale, Dame Fancy locks me fast in jail. Necessity, though I am no wit, Compels me now to turn a poet; Not born, but made, by transmutation, And chymick process, call’d—starvation! Though poet’s trade, of all that I know, Requires the least of ready rhino, I find a deficit of cash is An obstacle to cutting dashes. For gods and godesses, who traffic In cantos, odes, and lays seraphic, Who erst Arcadian whistle blew sharp, Or now attune Apollo’s jews-harp, Have sworn they will not loan me, gratis, Their jingling sing-song apparatus, Nor teach me how, nor where to chime in My tintinabulum of rhyming.[2] What then occurs? A lucky hit— I’ve found a substitute for wit; On Homer’s pinions mounting high, I’ll drink Pierian puddle dry.[3] Beddoes (bless the good doctor) has Sent me a bag full of his gas,[4] Which snuffed the nose up, makes wit brighter, And eke a dunce an airy writer. With this a brother bard, inflated, Was so stupendously elated, [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Was so stupendously elated, He tower’d, like Garnerin’s balloon, Nor stopp’d, like half wits, at the moon: But scarce had breath’d three times before he Was hous’d in heaven’s high upper story,[5] Where mortals none but poets enter, Above where Mah’met’s ass dar’d venture. Strange things he saw, and those who know him Have said that, in his Epic Poem,[6] To be complete within a year hence, They’ll make a terrible appearance. And now, to set my verses going, Like “Joan of Arc,” sublimely flowing, I’ll follow Southey’s bold exemple, And snuff a sconce full, for a sample. Good Sir, enough! enough already! No more, for Heaven’s sake!—steady!—steady! Confound your stuff!—why how you sweat me! I’d rather swallow all mount Etna! How swiftly turns this giddy world round, Like tortur’d top, by truant twirl’d round; While Nature’s capers wild amaze me, The beldam’s crack’d or Caustic crazy![7] I’m larger grown from head to tail Than mammoth, elephant, or whale!— Now feel a “tangible extension” Of semi-infinite dimension!— Inflated with supreme intensity, I fill three quarters of immensity! Should Phœbus come this way, no doubt, But I could blow his candle out! This earth’s a little dirty planet, And I’ll no longer help to man it, But off will flutter, in a tangent, And make a harum scarum range on’t! Stand ye appall’d! quake! quiver! quail! For lo I stride a comet’s tail! If my deserts you fail t’ acknowledge, I’ll drive it plump against your college! But if your Esculapian band Approach my highness, cap in hand, And show vast tokens of humility, I’ll treat your world with due civility. But now, alas! a wicked wag Has pull’d away the gaseous bag: From heaven, where thron’d, like Jove I sat, I’m fall’n! fall’n! fall’n! down, flat! flat! flat![8] Thus, as the ancient story goes, When o’er Avernus flew the crows, They were so stench’d in half a minute, They giddy grew and tumbled in it: And thus a blade, who is too handy To help himself to wine or brandy, At first gets higher, then gets lower, Then tumbles dead drunk on the floor! Such would have been my sad case, if I’d taken half another tiff; [6] [7] [8] I’d taken half another tiff; And even now, I cannot swear, I’m not as mad as a March hare! How these confounded gases serve us! But Beddoes says that I am nervous, And that this oxyd gas of nitre Is bad for such a nervous writer! Indeed, Sir, Doctor, very odd it is That you should deal in such commodities, Which drive a man beside his wits, And women to hysteric fits![9] Now, since this wildering gas inflation Is not the thing for inspiration, I’ll take a glass of cordial gin, Ere my sad story I begin; And then proceed with courage stout, From “hard-bound brains” to hammer out My case forlorn, in doleful ditty, To melt your worships’ hearts to pity. Sirs, I have been in high condition, A right respectable Physician; And passed, with men of shrewd discerning, For wight of most prodigious learning; For I could quote, with flippant ease, Grave Galen and Hippocrates, Brown, Cullen, Sydenham and such men, Besides a shoal of learned Dutchmen.[10] In all disorders was so clever, From tooth ache, up to yellow fever, That I by learned men was reckon’d Don Esculapius the second! No case to me was problematic; Pains topical or symptomatic, From aching head, to gouty toes, The hidden cause I could disclose. Minute examiner of Nature, And most sagacious operator, I could descern, prescribe, apply And cure[11] disease in louse’s eye. And insects smaller, ten degrees Than those which float in summer’s breeze, Drugg’d with cathartics and emetics, Then doctor’d off with diuretics. I had a curious little lancet, Your worship could not help but fancy it, By which I show’d with skill surprising, The whole art of flea-botomizing!— And with it oft inoculated (At which friend Jenner’ll be elated) Flies, fleas, and gnats, with cow-pock matter, And not one soul took small-pox a’ter!— Could take a microscopic mite, Invisible to naked sight; Ad infinitum, could divide it, For times unnumber’d have I tried it. With optic glass, of great utility, Could make the essence of nihility [9] [10] [11] [12] Could make the essence of nihility To cut a most enormous figure, As big as St Paul’s church, or bigger! Could tell, and never be mistaken, What future oaks were in an acorn; And even calculate, at pleasure, The cubic inches they would measure. Scotland could never boast a wight, Could match OURSELF at second sight.[12] Nor Wales a wizard, who so well Could destiny’s decrees foretel. For we’d a precious knack at seeing, Not only matters not in being, But ever and anon would still be Foreseeing things which never will be—[13] Great manufacturer of weather Nine Lapland witches, clubb’d together, With all the elements a stewing, Are not our match at tempest brewing. For many a popular almanac, Within say half a century back, We foretold every shine and storm Which heaven can burnish or deform. Though no two calendars agreed, All were infallible indeed; Of course no conjurer can stand higher Than Caustic as a prophesier. Discover’d worlds within the pale Of tip-end of a tadpole’s tail, And took possession of the same In our good friend, Sir Joseph’s name;[14] And soon shall publish, by subscription, A topographical description Of worlds aforesaid, which shall go forth In fool’s cap folio, gilt, and so forth,— Could tell how far a careless fly Might chance to turn this globe awry, If flitting round, in giddy circuit, With leg or wing, he kick or jerk it!—[15] The mystic characters of Nature, We read like Spurtzheim or Lavater, To us her lineaments are labels, Which stare like capitals on play bills. From bearings of the different osses, And shapes of forehead, chin, proboscis, The frons and occiput’s topography, Can write a man’s complete biography. Have drawn nine million diagrams, Which wags denominate flim flams, Though worth your worshipful reliance For shortest outlines of the science. By dint of scientific thumps Made famous phrenologic bumps, And always found the effect was greater Than when such bumps were made by nature. Developements, thus manufactured, Caused many a thick skull to be fractured [13] [14] [15] [16] Caused many a thick skull to be fractured But pity well deserves defiance When e’er she thwarts the march of science. Thus Rousseau, Voltaire, Paine, and others, Our revolutionizing brothers, Got up French freedom’s cruel farces, And made worse bumps than ours in masses. And Godwin, too, in substance said, Our bodies politic must be bled; Man’s only mode of melioration Is doctoring off one generation,—[16] And substituting in its place A spotless super-human race, Pure as an unborn infant’s dream, Of moonshine made, and moved by steam. We have for sale the seeds of bumps, Which, dibbled in the heads of gumps, Take root without the aid of thumps And grow as large as camels’ humps. Can take a wicked ugly tyke, And every organ we dislike Pull out or drive in, at a venture, Thus change each bump to an indenture. Protuberant destructiveness, Placed in our phrenologic press, Is render’d, by its power immense, Exuberant benevolence. In infancy, in half a trice, We thus extinguish every vice, Before it has had time to harden, As easily as weed a garden. We keep fine faculties ready made, Thus beat dame Nature at her trade Of manufacturing mental powers, For hers are not half up to ours. We make a thing we call Nousometer, Or Phrenological Micrometer; The grand quintessence of inventions For measuring the mind’s dimensions. This shows men’s vices and propensities, Their aggravations and intensities, By marks indelible, and plain- Ly legible as that on Cain. Nousometers, our hope and trust is, Will supersede our courts of justice, By proving guilt in all gradations, In style of Euclid’s demonstrations. To crown our cheap mode of conviction By ready punishment’s infliction, The rabblement will string up gratis The convicts of our apparatus. By said machine and foresaid books, Rogues, stigmatized with hanging looks, We whip and kick and hang ad libitum, Or take the liberty to gibbet ’em. If you’re dissatisfied with that, Our all-efficient verbum sat Will presto raise almighty mobs, [17] [18] [19] Will presto raise almighty mobs, Inured to cruel dirty jobs. Those LL. D.s’ of Lynch’s law[17] Don’t value dignity a straw, Will thump your worships into chowder To save expense of ropes and powder. Those ne plus ultras of atrocity, By blind and tiger-like ferocity Disgraceful deeds and ruthless ravages Have shown themselves outrageous savages. Yet, whereas Justice has’nt yet hung them, Nor showers of grape-shot rain’d among them, We’ll use the rogues, when we think best, For executing our behest. Thus reptiles of the worst descriptions Coerced the obstinate Egyptians; And serpents erst by stings and bites Punish’d backsliding Israelites. Judge Lynch, thou dephlegmated evil, Double distill’d essence of the devil, Total depravity, we would Hit you still harder if we could. It makes one truly melancholic To see your mobs, most diabolic, Plunder and murder, with impunity, Innocent members of community. You talk of liberty, what stuff! A mob’s a monarch, sure enough, And one true liberty most dreads, A tyrant with ten thousand heads. There is no despot in creation However high and firm his station, Who feels not more responsibility Than Lynch’s terrible mobility. Our institutes of education Are under moral obligation To use said implement of ours For graduating mental powers. This criminal and dunce detector May save from many a useless lecture, From toiling quarter after quarter In filling riddle sieves with water. We license none for teaching schools, Unless by Gall’s and Spurzheim’s rules We find his sconce, in every section, Bears phrenological inspection. We apprehended Brougham’s schoolmaster, And took his head sheer off—in plaster, And found his bumps with ours accord Before we let him “go abroad.” Our said mind-measurer may be set To sound the cunningest coquette, And ascertain by mensuration The limits of her inclination. Heu quantum suff, we are afraid this Developement will shock the ladies; But, hush, my dears, for time to come, No mummy ever was more mum. [20] [21] [22] No mummy ever was more mum. Our far-famed system also suits The physiology of brutes; Its application never fails From mammoth down to snakes and snails. Have fourteen folios, stereotypes Call’d craniology of snipes,[18] All which will figure, with propriety, In annals of a learn’d society. As manufacturing Phrenologist Our articles need no apologist, Because our skill is ten times greater, As said before, than that of Nature. Nature, although in some things clever, Has but the fulcrum and the lever To her friend Doctor Caustic given, To elevate this world to heaven. We have made many a clever notion To perpetrate perpetual motion Which went to perpetuity’s borders, Then stopp’d a bit for further orders. Though said machines would hardly trace The farthest links of time or space, We never knew them fail to wend Quite to eternity’s hither end. For women, uglier than Gorgons, We manufacture beauty’s organs, And give them splendid shapes and faces Which might be envied by the Graces. Pimples like pepper pods, warts like squashes, Vanish before our beauty washes;[19] By help of corsets, stays and boddices, We transform dowdies into goddesses.[20] Nice ladies’ minds we manufacture, Cast in a mould without a fracture, And sell the precious things in lots, An art we learn’d of Doctor Watts. And o’er the shop where these are made, In nine inch letters is portray’d, Fine female faculties form’d and furnished, With genteel educations burnished. This shop supplies the place, no doubt, Of seminaries talk’d about, But never put in operation, Fitted for female education.[21] We fabricate spruce dandy noddies, With souls adapted to their bodies, To wit so exquisitely small They might as well have none at all.[22] When we discern an abstract right, We press it ever main and might; Hold all correct, which suits our fancies, And never yield to circumstances. We cannot brook the serpentine, Our march is onward, one straight line, Nor flood nor fire impedes our way, [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] Nor flood nor fire impedes our way, Lickitacut—devil to pay! We prompt or sanction all procedures Of Slavery-Abolition-Leaders, Who “go ahead” with more display Than a whirlwind’s march o’er a dusty way. Though southern blacks, to all appearances, Are injured by our interferences, Still right is right, your most obedient Cares not a fig about th’ expedient. Let loose the blacks at any rate, Without delay, without debate, Their clanging chains asunder snap Suddenly as by thunder clap. Huzza then, for amalgamation To change our “dough-faced population,” In course of one more generation, To a nice copper-color’d nation. Reader it may be you’re a lady, Fair as the blush of morn in May day,— And not much smitten with our plan Of union with a color’d man. Bah! bah! my dear, I tell you this is The silliest of prejudices; Cupid will duly elevate him, And Hymen will amalgamate him. Thus one Othello was, you know, Black as the plumage of a crow, And yet the white Miss Desdemona Loved him as well as flies love honey. The car of Venus, bards have sung, Was drawn by doves, when I was young, But then, were black birds substituted, Ourself for one were better suited. We’re rather darkish hued ourself, Yet will annihilate the elf, Who says in earnest, or in jokes We’re not as good as whiter folks. The only color of objection To our said tawny predilection Is this, ’t will ruin the machinery Of amatory poets’ scenery. Bright eyes, pink lips, and cheeks of roses, Lily-complexions, Grecian noses, Fine necks, and so forth, alabasters, No more be themes for poetasters. But then the Muse’s votary may In rhymes like these his fair portray,— My Phillis has a natural varnish Which time nor accident can’t tarnish; No sickly, pale, unripen’d maid, “Dyed in the wool,” she cannot fade; Essence of ebony and logwood, And sweeter than the flowers of dogwood. Lives there a bard who would not glory In such epistles amatory, Possessing that uncommon quality, A sprinkling of originality. [28] [29] A sprinkling of originality. On advocates of colonization Shower demi-johns of indignation!— Annihilate the knaves and dolts, With Caustic’s Patent Thunderbolts! And, be it known, with due civility, To our Columbian nobility, Fewer black hearts and more black faces Would much improve their waning races. To lose our jetty population Would take the shine from our great nation, And make us all like old shoes, lacking A coat of Day and Martin’s blacking. We’re glad to find New England beauties For black men’s rights and white men’s duties Enlisting their resistless charms, For all men yield to ladies’ arms. Do, dears, make us your generalissimo, An all important trust that is, you know, And we the hero, who can fill it With dazzling glory, if you will it. Bostonia’s beautiful brigade, With Doctor Caustic’s flag display’d, Suppose you make a general levy To swell the columns of your bevy. Bright key-stones of the Social Arch, Left foot foremost, forward march! Our spunk is up, our prowess ample On anti-union rogues to trample. Ourself will lead the ladies’ army on, Charge at its head like Scott’s brave Marmion; You fight as angels fought before In heaven, so Milton says, of yore. The swart south shivers like a leaf, M’Stuffie shoots himself for grief At finding all resistance vain, As battling with a hurricane. We hold in utter execration What ’s styled the Temperance Reformation. To live without good alcohol Is tantamount to tol-de-rol;— For nine tenths of our doctors’ fees From Bacchanalian devotees And votaries of Sir Richard Rum Have ever, and will ever come. Incipient inebriation From vinous alcoholization Is indispensable now-a-days To make our patriotism blaze. Dinner harangues would be so so, Stump oratory would not go If wine and whiskey did not aid The speechifying and parade. And where’s the patriot, who boasts Of excellent cold water toasts? If such things were, and had some merit, They must be destitute of spirit. If Temperance should turn the scale, [30] [31] [32] If Temperance should turn the scale, And total abstinence prevail, Rhyme-mongers would be flatter still, A million lines, not worth a mill. Lord Byron’s verse, so highly prized, Had fail’d to be immortalized, Unless the noble bard had been Exalted on the wings of gin. As to Anacreontic lays, A Moore could make no more displays, Ay, Thomas Moore could never more Make Bacchanalians shout encore. If Temperance chaps wont suffer wine Nor gin t’ inspire the maudlin nine, Some verse by critics dubb’d divine Will seem almost as flat as mine. Horace says dulce est desipere,[23] Drink till your way home’s rather slippery, But don’t indulge in gross ebriety, Save in the very best society. The lower orders too, we think, Unless addicted to strong drink, Might rise to riches and renown, Thus turn society up side down. Let paupers, therefore, swig away, With gin and whiskey soak their clay, For beggars, somebody says or sings, When drunk as lords are rich as kings. And if by temperance and frugality, Shoe binding should be changed to quality, The mounting mobocratic masses May over-top US UPPER CLASSES. The readiest way to keep them down Is this, give every jade and clown “Lots” of intoxicating stuff, Gin, whiskey, and new rum enough; And in that case, I’ll bet my eyes, The rogues will never, never rise; Though placed in heaven, they could not fail To be Sir Richard Rum’s canaille. If ardent spirit is not handy, Cider’s almost as good as brandy, And strong beer serves to drench one’s dust, And keep alive the drunkard’s thirst. There’s nothing like intoxication To thin off extra population, And keep it at respectful distance Behind the means of man’s subsistence. By your good leave, I question whether War, famine, pestilence, together, Could fill, of alcohol, the place, In doctoring off the human race. Then, paltry pauper, swig away, With gin and whiskey soak your clay, Till you’ve diluted it to mortar, Á filthy mass of mud and water. Drink till th’ experiment you make [33] [34] [35]