The Dogs
TO THE ABUSERS OF THE LIBERAL.
“GENTLEMEN,”
THIS little poem is dedicated to you. It is not the wish
of the Liberal to write satire and personal politics; but if
you insist upon our earning a right to be heard with the
sword, it must be so. Some persons, it seems, must either
do this, or consent to be trampled into silence, let them be
as forbearing as they may. That we can forbear, we know
well, and so do you:—that we can make you cry out again
with non-forbearance, we know also:—but we fight, like the
Greeks and Spaniards, to obtain the right and the tranquil-
lity of speech, and not to trample on every body in turn.
The satire in the first number of the Liberal was produced
by those who attacked us before-hand:—the satire in the
second is the result of the attacks on the first. It will
be for yourselves to judge how soon we are to leave off this
boy’s-play and cutting of knuckles. The moment we can turn
our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning-
hooks, we shall be happy to cultivate those calmer fields of
knowledge, which (with your leave be it spoken) you are
a set of prodigious fools for not knowing how to look to at
once.
THE DOGS.
____
THE DOGS.
____
“I at this time got a post, being for fatigue, with other four. We were
sent to break biscuit, and make a mess for Lord Wellington’s(2) Hounds. I was
very hungry, and thought it a good job at the time; as we got our own fill,
while we broke the biscuit—a thing I had not got for some days. When thus
engaged, the Prodigal Son(3) was never once out of my mind; and I sighed, as
I fed the Dogs, over my humble situation and my ruined hopes.”—Journal of
a Soldier of the 71st Regt. during the War in Spain.(4)
1.
I SING a matter of some sixty dogs,
That dined in the Peninsula(5) on biscuit.
Under the old regime the French eat frogs;
Under the new some Englishmen would frisk it
If they had any thing besides their fogs.
I’d thank Apollo(6) therefore to touch his kit,
While I strike up a dance, that I’ve a notion
Will set the whole of Puppydom in motion.
2.
Attend then to me, puppies of all sorts,
All by whom hangs a tale; including you,
The blacker kind, who practise in the courts,
And from the back of whose strange curls hang two:(7)
And you, of whom I hear such bad reports
In these great times, ye poor inferior crew,
Ye Men—do you too listen to my song:
I mean to shew you that your claims are wrong.
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3.
And you, red-coated dogs,(8) not commonly
So call’d, for ye are men,—but ye alone,
Who only when the drum sounds fidget ye,
And rise like men; and soon as it is done,
Fall to the earth like proper puppies, quæ
Ventri obedientia sunt,(9) and prone,
As Sallust(10) has it,—hear what your Bard says,
And then (I ask no better) go your ways.
4.
And thou, thou other lucky dog, and diner,
Who from the Frenchman’s biscuit-guiding hand
Munch’d out side faces of Voltaire,(11) none finer,
Look from the dog-star down, that rules thy land!
’Twas thine to eat, no king’s bitch embonpoint-er,(12)
When good-old-times’-men’s legs could hardly stand:
And then thou bit’st, as some would say, for snacks,
Men out of countenance behind their backs! (1)
5.
5.
Nor thou, great Duke of Wellington, disdain
To hear about the curs, for they are thine:
Nay, pardon my poor words, my common strain,
Disdain thou can’st not, though the strain is mine:
The subject will excuse me for my brain:
To write’s but human, but of dogs divine.
I shamefully forgot, great Sir, that when
6.
Many a jolly dog has been renown’d,
Especially for eating people’s dinners:
E’en men have merit when like them they’re found (2)
To hold well out, and make their masters winners:
But all the dogs on earth, cur, whelp, and hound,
To these I speak of, have but been beginners.
Even the pack recorded by Herodotus(14)
Knuckles before them; I declare to God it does.
7.
Herodotus says only that there were
Four villages alloted for their dogs-meat; (3)
A handsome pension, I allow: but here
Warriors stand by, wanting, like proper rogues, meat,
Bread being even for a few too dear,
While the Duke’s hounds to their respective progs meet.
Warriors, mind—hollow squares—without whom, marry! an
Arbiter I could name had now been carrion. (4)
8.
Yes, “Heav’n be prais’d! Thanks to our lucky stars!
Thanks to our wounds!” the five fatigued men said,
“This day, the happiest one of all our wars,
This day, this glorious day, we dine on bread!”
For why? “For why? look at these glorious scars,
This one, and this, and this upon my head;
To day’s our turn, by reason of these wounds,
To break up biscuit for the General’s hounds.”
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9.
“Good God!” says one, “I fancy the bread here!
I think it’s one o’clock—I think it’s two—
I think I see my company appear—
Ah! Jowler,(15) boy—and Towler, how dy’e do?—
And then the biscuit comes—excuse this tear,
But I’m to break it—oh, if you but knew—
But never mind—I know, and that’s enough
To make me think no biscuit bad or tough.
10.
“A word, Sir, in your ear—The other day,
I longed to eat a piece of the Duke’s horse.
Another time, beside a ditch, there lay
Something,—I hate to think of it—but worse:
All said,—but never mind what people say—
The man who eat of it, felt no remorse. (5)
Twasn’t, he said, like biscuit; and ’twas true:
But that was for the dogs—the happy few.
11.
“We are but human beings,—common men;
They are uncommon puppies, real riches;
We do but fight, and fight, and fight again;
They sometimes take surprising leaps o’er ditches:
We only are of use to the Duke, when
Unoccupied with his delightful bitches:
They are his ornaments, his dogs, his dulce,(16)
“Again, we only sav’d his officers;
They sometimes got them taken by the French;
Our names were always in despatches; theirs
Were modest, and kept back, like any wench;
In short, we had the impudence, the bears!
(For which our necks I own deserve a wrench)
To save the Duke from Old Mortality:(19)
13.
“Accordingly ’twas just that we should fight,
Hack, hew, stick, kick, be kick’d, stuck, hack’d and hew’d,
Drown’d also, lose our shoulder-blades and sight,
Our legs, arms, knee-pans, comforts, friends, and blood,
And then have nothing, Sir, to eat at night:
And, on the contrary, ’twas right and good
That the Duke’s puppies, being no such sinners,
Should, like good boys, go in and have their dinners.”
14.
Thus spoke the Soldier from the Frith of Forth,(21)
Who wrote the “Journal” t’other day; which see;
He did not say it all—he’s “frae the North,”—(22)
But then his inward man spoke, if not he.
However, what’s a common soldier worth?
Or fifty thousand such, ’twixt you and me?
The man may stuff him with his native fogs:
But where, I want to know, where are the dogs?
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15.
Other great brutes concerned in that campaign
Are kept before the public: others have
Their lives and deeds recorded, to a sprain,
Their genealogies, and faces brave,
Their huntings too, and when they’ll hunt again,
And how in drawing-rooms the dogs behave:
I’ve seen a Paris print of one o’ the brutes
Betwixt two ladies, actually in boots. (6)
16.
Now those I speak of are not less than they,
Be sure of that: just as great brutes they are:
Have as good coats and faces, have their day,
At least have had, and should have time to spare;
Live just such lives, now hunting down one’s prey,
Now all agog for their respective fair;
And above all, though men should want a dinner,
The dev’l a bit will they grow any thinner.
17.
The best of us are proud of being thought
To have the qualities of dogs like these:
The Duke himself, I doubt not, might be caught,
Doing things equally well form’d to please.
I wouldn’t swear, that if you went and bought
You wouldn’t see him come, through thick and thin,
Leaping and panting to you, all a-grin.
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18.
Which was kept up, and is so I’ve no doubt on’t;
Lord Chesterfield(27) most tenderly brought up his,
And would have made his son one, but he couldn’t:
Though music comes next to it, which it shouldn’t;
For next to pointers, guns, and such resources,
Long before anything like men, come horses.
19.
“Talk,” cries a wag, “of parting with one’s studs,
In decency to Irish famishings,
At least of lessening them! Why, d—n their bloods,
Or rather no bloods, for they’ve no such things,
(In fact they are but two such precious floods,
In horses’ families, and those of kings) (7)
I’d not have giv’n them What’s-his-name’s “quietus,”
And stopt one gilded oat from Incitatus.” (8)
20.
May render this suspected—for it’s(32) reading;
I own it seems some Irishman’s invention,
Light in the head perhaps, for want of feeding:
But then it somehow meets one’s apprehension
In times of human starving and brute breeding:
And as to learning, you would cease to stare
21.
There (not to waste the family-head in books)
A youth may learn much Latin appellation;
Much French too, and Italian, if he looks,
Besides the sense, sly supererogation!
There he may learn, how Dolthead match’d the Duke’s,
And Blacklegs was thrown out by Acclamation:(34)
How Olive was own cousin to Old Cupid,(35)
And how Legitimate was got out of Stupid.
22.
But what he’ll find, which is the best of all,
Is how completely there the human creatures
Are cast in shade, I mean in general,
By the dear horses and their Houhyhnm(36) natures:
The Gullivers obey their proper call,
And wait aloof, and doat upon their features;
By no means the worst thing they do, poor rogues!
And this again reminds me of my dogs.
23.
My dogs! Yes, mine—every one’s dogs—the nation’s,
For were they not of extreme use to it?
Did they not give the Great Lord relaxations,
When taken with his minor slaughtering fit? (9)
And had they not their proper mastications,
Of which occasional Scotchmen filch’d a bit?
“Can such things overcome us like a summer
24.
I like that patriot in Tiberius’(38) days,
Who having propos’d to make him absolute,
Apologized for such presumptuous ways;
But said, that being a man, it did not suit
With his free soul to dread the court’s dispraise,
And in the commonwealth’s(39) great cause be mute.
There was another such as bold to Cromwell;(40)
Fellows I much prefer to Kettledrumle. (10)
25.
I’ll be as free: there’s not a stick at court
Shall beat me in a thing I have to say;
Tailors sha’nt cut me out, nor tongues cut short,
Envying my very independent way;
Croker(41) himself shall cry out “That’s your sort,”
And loads of “lofty Scotchmen” cry, Huzza! (11)
At least if they do not, ’twill only shew
How far one’s rivals’ jealousy can go.
26.
’Tis true, the Duke, at my free proposition,
May think fit to be modest, like a woman;
May say his brutes are not of that condition
To warrant it, being only more than human;
And that base men might get up a petition:
To all which I should humbly answer, “True, mun;”
But then, though more than both, a Prince himself
There was a prince in Italy, call’d Can Grande,(44)
Which means Great Dog, the lord too of Verona,
A mighty petty sovereign, and a dandy,
Who in his wit once threw a bard a bone a-
Cross his high board,(45) which made ’em every man die.
The bard agreed ’twas princely. (12)(46) I have known a-
Nother, of whom the people used to say,
A greater puppy never had his day.
28.
I do propose then, that a deputation
First wait upon the dogs and bring them out,
To glad the eyes of public admiration;
It being a shame that beasts so cared about,
And by such hearts, are not before the nation.
Only conceive the enthusiastic shout
That would be raised at sight of their sweet faces,
In all their pride of jowl, in public places!
29.
Fancy the beasts, or any one of them,
At Drury-Lane,(47) or in an Opera-box:
The proper masters have accomplish’d him,
The dancing ones I mean, and such-like folks!
He rises, bows, looks mutual esteem;
The band strikes up; and players and “hearts of oaks”
(Save here and there a Jacobinic(48) growler)
30.
Then a procession, with the dogs all seated,
Is what I next propose. Rouge-Lion(51) first
Prepares the way, looking extremely heated;
Sir William Curtis(52) then, ready to burst
With beef and joy at being so finely treated.
He’s drest in dog-skin. (13) May the man be curst
Who does not, as the King does (who’s no fool)
31.
Besides, he’s biscuit-baker. Next the trumpets
Appear, some blowing in F sharp and some in E;
And then the bishops, plump as plates of crumpets,
Singing the psalm beginning with “Cur, Domine:”(54)
A kettle-drummer next with many a thump hits
His brass, to shew, betwixt those Piccolomini
Of the Church Militant,(55) and the state’s forces,
The delicate connexion there of course is.
32.
Then come the soldiers,—but what’s this? How odd
And thin they look, unfit for such a show?
Excuse me: they look just as soldiers should;
They’ve had no dinners for this week or so;
Just to insinuate, by their want of blood,
The heroic privilege they have to go
Without their food, and if required, be starv’d,
Till all the puppies in the land are serv’d.
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33.
Last come the dogs, the climax of the sight,
All in their coaches, all in due decorum,
All seated, a la “Sifflé,”(56) bolt upright,
The Master of the Hounds being set before ’em.
They grin, they bow, look sidelong and polite;
The ladies at the windows all adore ’em.
See—there’s the King too bowing—and look! there is
Her Royal Highness Mrs. Wilmot Serres. (14)
34.
After processions, people have a feast:
The brutes of course must have theirs at Guildhall;(57)
There’s precedent: so heralds say, at least.
’Twas merry formerly, when beards wagg’d all;
Now tails proclaim the pleasure of the beast:
The grace is said, the turtle groweth small,
The talk then rises, but let that be sunk;
As usual, after dinner, the King’s drunk.
35.
The glee succeeds of “Glorious Apollo”(58)
By Messrs. Southey(59) and the Makingfaces;
“The Duke of York and Army”(60) used to follow,
But now the soldiers better know their places:
The Duke of Wellington and his View Hollow
Is given, and “May heav’n prosper all their graces:”
Hip—Hip—Guildhall resounds through all its logs,
36.
The puppy in the chair returns his thanks,
Like Doctor Johnson, “in his bow-wow way:”(62)
Then Eldon(63) (cursing, first of all, his shanks)
Gets up, and weeps(64) to see this blessed day:
Then his gilt chain the new old Lord Mayor clanks;
Then Mr. Some-one has his blessed say,
In which he proves that ’tis to save the nation
When puppies flourish during men’s starvation.
37.
I see all England flocking to the sight:
Peers quit their parks, the peasantry the poor-house;
Some drive, some die upon the road: it’s flight
All Scotland takes, like “hairpies coming o’or uz:” (15)
All Wales puts forth, to see to what a height
Arthur’s great name can go, and join in chorus:
And missing England, as they pierce the fogs,
Ask where its gone:—cries Echo, “To the Dogs.”
38.
But eager most, lo! lo! all Ireland comes—
All that is left of it at least,—sharp set
With hungry joy to think upon the crumbs,
And see how the brutes jollify, and get
A sight of their great Duke, who picks his gums;
And wonder if the Absentees have yet
Any similitude to human faces,
Seeing them countenanc’d like the canine races.
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39.
All eyes, a moment, even on that day,
Turn at the name of Ireland, to look at
The nation whom a king’s nod made so gay:(65)
Even some certain members cry “What’s that?”
“Only the Irish.”—“Oh—the Irish—eh?
What do they want? I’d thank ye for some fat.”
“The Irish, eh? Send ’em the soldiery
And eighteen-pence. Hock, if you please, for me.” (16)
40.
Such is the way to treat those sorry fellows,
Call’d fellow creatures: one should be above
One’s fellows, as all true aspirers tell us,
And then we rank with dogs, and get the love
Of hearts enough to make a turnspit(66) jealous.
So to return—The next thing that I move,
Is, that the puppies and their heirs for ever
Have settlements: for men may want, brutes never.
41.
I say (to use the words of a great poet)
“That adequate provision should be made” (17)
For all the race to have their biscuit to eat
For ever.—Next, that money should be paid
Into the hands of those here, that cry “go it,”
For kennels,—palaces I should have said,—
To be new built (Mem. workmen to be bustled)
Where every puppy may have his own household
S
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42.
’Tis cheap,—these ways of doing public good,
The world can’t do without ’em, take my word for it;
Besides, if the world could, could isn’t should,
And those who say it is, are a base herd for it.
The Americans, for instance, have no food,
No cash, no ships, no land (although preferred for it)
No name; and all because they want such things
As puppies with huge pensions, Dukes, and Kings.
43.
Our dogs then have establishments: tis done:
Recorded too, of course, as others are,
In a new Red-book,(67) which may bind in one
(Calf-gilt)(68) the Sporting and Court Calendar.
Exempli gra:—Establishment of Hun:
Comptroller,—No one; Baker and Purvey’r,
Sir William Curtis; Groom, Sir Hudson Lowe;(69)
Surveyors of the Collars, George and Co.;
44.
Bed-maker, Mrs. Leech;(70) Scratcher Extr’or’nary,
Right Honourable the Earl of Lauderdale;(71)
Breakers of Bones and Biscuits, Men in or’nary;
Tickler and Tail-bearer, (some spell it Tale)
J. W. Croker, chiefly when its borne awry;
Chaplain (Church Dog-Vane, going with the gale)
The Reverend Nero Wilson; (18) Scavengers,
The Beacons, Blackwoods, Bulls, and Gazetteers. (19)
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45.
The names of their Canine-nesses—Prince, Jowler,
Jolly, and Folly, Tippler, Fop, and Tough,
Duke, Dunder, Slim, Fang, Whistler, Gamester, Growler,
Standfast, and Steady, Waterloo, Chance, Rough,
Charge, Trooper, Glutton, Hollo-boy, Old Towler,
Blucher,(72) Spot, Shriek, Jump, Victor, Old Boy, Puff,
Rascal, Force, Bourbon, Throat, Spite, Promise, Viper,
Moonshine, and Betty, Riot, Rage, and Piper:
46.
Hungry, Old England, Hot, Shot, Scot, and Lot,
Old Soldier, Gaunt, and Grim, Seize-him-boy, Eat-’em,
Tally-ho, Thief, Fool, Devil, Brute, and Sot.
A pretty list. Ovid(73) has one (See Metam.
Lib. Ter.)(74) but Ovid’s pack of hounds was not
The moral, order-loving, plump, legitim-
Ate hounds, that these are. These, to run the faster,
Eat but one’s men, but those eat up their master.
47.
And at the last (for oh! indecent fate,
And envious! even dogs, like men, must die!)
But at the last (for ah! may it be late,
And every dog have many days, say I!)
Then with huge shouts, I vote that we translate,
Exalt, and raise them to the starry sky!
Men’s pious notions have already given,
To welcome them, much brute renown to heav’n.
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48.
The Bull, Crab, Serpent, Scorpion, Wolf, are there,
The Lion and Unicorn, and glorious Goose;
Canis the Major too, by which it’s clear
That army-rank with dogs is of old use:
Canicula(75) stands next him, little dear!
Nay, things are there which absolute blocks produce.
The Altar’s next the Wolf: then, there’s the Chair,
49.
But what is most remarkable, the book
In which I study my astronomy
(The new Guide to the Stars by Henry Brooke)(77)
Shew’d me a thing enough to make a stone o’me,
So very much astonish’d did I look.
I saw there, bright as the Duke’s physiognomy,
His dogs, by some divine anticipation,
Shining already in their proper station.
50.
It’s fact. The Dogs, the glorious dogs, are there
In soul at least, right claimants of the sky:
Betwixt his namesake Arthur and the Bear
The whole pack stands—“Canes Venatici:”(78)
And twixt the dogs and the above Head of Hair
Stands, as it ought to do, “Cor Caroli:” (20)
That is to say, the Heart of Charles the Second:
Were ever souls, bound heav’nwards, finelier beacon’d?
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51.
So here I stop, covering beneath the sight
My fancy’s cowering eyes, dash’d with the blaze:
But don’t, I beg of you, ye suns of night,
Ye flaming brutes, ’dont hide your precious ways.
Shine on, shine on, and be a burning light
To help us onward to our better days;
And shew us (never to want proof again)
What very different things are brutes and men.
NOTES TO THE DOGS.
______
NOTES TO THE DOGS.
______
(1) Men out of countenance behind their backs.
(2) Like them stand fast and make their masters winners.
(3) Four villages allotted for their dog’s-meat.
(4) Arbiter I could name had now been carrion.
See Note 2.
(5) The man who eat of it felt no remorse.
“The short time we remained at Tormes, we were very ill off for provi-
sions. One of our men, Thomas Cadwell, found a piece of meat, near the hos-
pital, on the face of the brae: he brought it home, and cooked it. A good
part of it was eaten, before one of the men, perceiving him, said, “What is
that you are eating?” Tom said, it was meat he had found. The others
looked, and knew it to be the fore-arm of a man: the hand was not at it; it
was only the part from a little below the elbow, and above the wrist. The
man threw it away, but never looked squeamish; he said it was very sweet,
and was never a bit the worse.”—Journal of a Soldier of the 71st Regiment,
p. 158.
(6) Betwixt two ladies, actually in boots.
A French caricature of a Great Personage, in his boots and cocked hat;
shewing how certain animals conduct themselves in drawing-rooms.
(7) In horses’ families and those of kings.
It is remarkable that these are the only two races of beings, whose purity
of descent has been reckoned of national consequence. Considering the
scrupulous delicacy with which the procreation of the former is conducted,
there may be some grounds for concluding their descents legitimate: but
little as it surpasses in sentiment the nicety of royal arrangements, it is but
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too probable that the success is not equal in both instances. Who, in fact,
that considers the manners of courts, the lives and loves of queens, &c. &c.
shall say, that there is a single legitimate prince now living, our own of course
excepted? Who shall say, that thrones are not occupied by a set of invo-
in other countries, and so forth? To be sure, look, character, and other
evidences, say much, especially in extreme cases of countenance: but there
may be enough legitimacy for all this, though not enough legitimacy itself
and “all that.”
(8) To stop one gilded oat from Incitatus.
The horse whom Caligula made a consul, and assigned an establishment.
(9) When taken with his minor slaughtering fit.
Hunting, they say, is the image of war, and therefore the favourite pastime
of kings, and other great personages, when they cannot be hunting men:
just as an ogre might keep a picture of a man to gloat over, when he could
not get the original to eat.
(10) Fellows I much prefer to Kettledrumle.(87)
See the Roman historians, Noble’s Memoirs of the House of Cromwell,
and the novel of Old Mortality.
(11) And loads of lofty Scotchmen cry huzza!
I see by the Examiner of October 6th, that it is proclaimed in Blackwood’s
Magazine, that “A loftier and a wiser people (than the Scotch) are not to
be found now upon the earth, nor do the records of any such survive.”
See the state of the Scotch Boroughs, the Beacon and its patrons, and Mr.
Blackwood(88) himself as a crowning specimen. Tory writers tell you, that the
French are a frivolous people; the Italians a people unfit for a constitution;
and the Americans, or “Jonathan,” a vulgar and insolent people; but if you
characterize a favourite nation of their own with similar freedom, they beg
you will make “no national reflections.” Even this maxim may be made a
cant of. Nobody can admire more than I do some things about Scotland,—
it’s music and poetry, it’s Wallaces(89) and other strugglers of old for freedom,
it’s present strugglers against it’s infamous Borough system, and (for their
talents though not for their politics) “the Scotch novels.” But all this does
not blind any one to the fact, that Scotland as it now is, notwithstanding the
strait-laced look of its morality in general, has no pretension whatever to the
character of as “pure and lofty” a nation as any existing. The English, the
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Americans, the Spaniards, all beat it hollow. How can a nation be called
“pure” which has no character for purity of sentiment, or popular cleanli-
ness, or conversational cleanliness? How can it be called “lofty,” when it
is at the very feet of the Borough-mongers? How can it be called either pure
or lofty, when the writers of such a magazine as Blackwood’s, a book full of
falsehoods, impurities, and cowardice, can fancy themselves, even for a mo-
ment, its representatives? When Scotland sweeps away all this filth, and
raises its head again in opposition to the slaves in power, it may deserve all
the epithets which the admirers of its Wallaces and Burnses(90) can wish it.—
With respect to the fact mentioned in the text, it is truly a national stain.
I have met with otherwise amiable Scotchmen, and with intelligent and
eminent Scotchmen; but I never met with one, who was not more or less
filthy in his talk;—I do not mean merely indecent, much less voluptuous;
but absolutely filthy, in the style of Swift. It is most probably owing to
certain modes of life; but it is high time for them to get rid of it, if they
would not render a publication like Blackwood’s as injurious to their cha-
racter by its praises, as it is by it’s abuse of others.
(13)(91) He’s drest in dog-skin.
When Sir William Curtis went with the King to Edinburgh, he was ac-
coutred like his Illustrious Friend, “all in the Highland dress.” I think the
Scotch must have felt this.
(14) Her Royal Highness Mrs. Wilmot Serres.(92)
I am far from insinuating any thing against the pretensions of this lady.
Quite the contrary. They are every way royal, saving and excepting perhaps
that she has a suspicious amount of wit. Her documents have every right, on
the face of them, to be seriously inquired into.
(15) All Scotland takes, like “hairpies coming o’or uz.”
That is to say in English, “like harpies coming o’er us.” I should not
have made this apparently invidious translation (especially as I am fond
of the Scottish dialect in its proper place) if the Scotch of late had not taken
it into their heads to give their Southern neighbours lessons in writing! This,
I suppose, is a part of the “purity” which their friend Blackwood speaks
of. The modesty, as usual, is equal to it.
(16) And eighteen-pence. Hock, if you please, for me.
I do not mean to insinuate that nothing has been done in answer to the
frenzied cries of the Irish for bread. When hanging and violence were
[Page 267]
[Page 267]
found to be of no use, even with the addition of all the continued recommen-
dation of those amiable and judicious modes of cure, a subscription certainly
did take place; and some of the subscribers have a right to think themselves
humane. But I say, that in point of the real spirit of the whole treatment
of Ireland, past and present, the description in the text is no caricature.
(17) That adequate provision should be made.
A line, I am sorry to say, of Mr. Wordsworth.(93) The one that follows it, is
“For the whole people to be taught and trained.”
And there is a third before it in the same style, which I forget. When
Mr. Wordsworth first wrote about Milton and Marvell, and his other old
republican friends, he did better than when he joined the Straffords and
(18) The Reverend Nero Wilson.(95)
A silly Calvinistic Preacher, who frightens timid constitutions, gets the
good will of callous ones, and maintaineth that if Nero were now reigning,
every one ought to obey him. O the satire of these toad-eaters!
(19) The Beacons, Blackwoods, Bulls, and Gazetteers.
A set of Dunciad(96) gentry, one or two of them cleverer than the others, but
all of the same pitch of natural impudence, and sordidness of mind. The
Literary Gazetteers are promoted because they had the luck to be noticed by
Lord Byron, before his Lordship was informed, to his great mortification,
that nobody else thought them worth notice. The others have had similar
good fortune in other quarters, or I should certainly not have polluted my
ink with any of them.
(20) Stands, as it ought to do, “Cor Caroli.”
See the work mentioned in the text, a guide which had long been wanting
to the lovers of the starry heavens. Mr. Brooke does his illustrious duty
with great care and circumspection. We only miss, to complete the work,
an account of the origin of the different names; some of which however,
such as the Arabian, it might be difficult, perhaps impossible, to trace. But
the meanings of the mere words might be found. The rest would exhibit
some curious matter; such as the deification, here recorded, of the heart of
Charles the Second!
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EDITORIAL NOTES
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EDITORIAL NOTES
[1] “The Dogs”, by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). Edited by Franca Dellarosa.
[2] Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington (1769-1852, DNB), was commander of the British army during the Napoleonic wars, and a Tory prime minister (1828-30). Born in Dublin to an Irish aristocratic family he joined a Highland regiment, fighting at Flanders in 1794, and led the campaign in in India (1796-1805). In 1806 he was elected Member of Parliament and soon after appointed Chief Secretary of Ireland. He was commander of the British Army during the Peninsular War in Spain (1808-14), and was given the title Duke of Wellington in 1814. He played a key role in the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo (1815).
[3] Luke, 15:11-32: “And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him” (KJV, 16).
[4] [Thomas Pococke], Journal of a Soldier of the 71st or Glasgow Regiment, Highland Light Infantry, from 1806 to 1815 (Edinburgh: W & C. Tait, 1819). The ‘War in Spain’ is the Peninsular War (1808-14), part of the Napoleonic wars fought in the Iberian Peninsula, and opposing the British, under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, in support of Spanish and Portuguese forces, against the French army. Strachan identifies the editor of the memoir as Thomas Howell (Strachan 2003, 6:1), as does the entry in the British Library catalogue; the same source, however, indicates Thomas Pococke as author.
[5] The Iberian Peninsula, which includes the territories of Spain and Portugal.
[6] Apollo, the Olympian god of the Arts – music, song and poetry – prophecy and oracles, archery, healing, and the protection of the young. He was represented as a handsome, long-haired youth, with a wreath and branch of laurel, carrying a lyre, or a bow and a quiver of arrows.
[7] A reference to lawyer wigs. Imported from Europe, the wig became an admired fashion article among the aristocracy during the reign of King Charles II (1660-85), and has been used in the courtroom since as a symbol of authority, status, and power.
[8] “Red Coats” is a common synecdoche for the British soldiers, from the military garment formerly used by the regiments of the British Army.
[9] Quæ Ventri obedientia sunt: “Who are obedient to their stomachs”, Sall, Bellum Catilinae, 1-4.
[10] Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Roman historian and politician (86-34 BCE).
[11] The pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, historian and satirist.
[12] embonpoint-er: pun on “embonpoint”, meaning well-fed and plump, and “pointer”, the English breed of dogs.
[13] Misprint: full stop missing from the copy-text.
[14] Herodotus, Greek historian and geographer (c. 484- c. 425 BCE). He was the author of the History of the Greco-Persian Wars, the first great narrative history produced in the ancient world.
[15] Jowler: “A heavy-jawed dog. Used also as quasi-proper name for a dog of this kind” (OED).
[16] dulce (Latin): sweetness.
[17] The coarse material of the soldiers’ uniforms.
[18] Misprint: full stop missing from the copy-text.
[19] In the first chapter of Walter Scott’s homonymous novel (1816), the fictional author Peter Pattieson describes meeting Robert Paterson, known as ‘Old Mortality’, who, towards the end of the 18th century, wandered about Scotland cleaning and repairing the tombs of seventeenth-century Covenanters, who fought against King Charles II.
[20] ennui (French): boredom.
[21] Firth of Forth, estuary of the Scottish River Forth.
[22] That is, introverted, as Scotsmen are said to be.
[23] This may be Love Farewell, which is described as having been popular during the Napoleonic Wars: “So Molly dear do not grieve for me, | I’m going to fight for England’s glory. | And if we live we live victorious, | And if we die our souls are glorious, | Love, farewell!”. References available at https://mainlynorfolk.info/folk/songs/lovefarewell.html#mickhennessey
The song is also known under the title Britain’s Glory, as collected with the lyrics of three other songs on the same theme in an Edinburgh printed, undated chapbook, digitized by the National Library of Scotland, and available at https://deriv.nls.uk/dcn23/1177/9601/117796014.23.pdf
[24] Untraced reference.
[25] King Charles II Stuart of England (1630-85), king of Scotland from 1649 to 1651, and king of Scotland, Ireland and England from the Stuart Restoration in 1660 to his death in 1685.
[26] King Charles II was famously fond of toy spaniels; the breed was named after him.
[27] Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773, DIB), British statesman, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and man of letters.
[28] At the time of writing, Naples was the capital city of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which was proclaimed in 1816. The city, which had been under the Napoleonic rule since 1806, was restored to the Bourbon monarch Ferdinand IV in 1815, following the Austro-Neapolitan war.
[29] Baldassarre Galuppi (1706-85, Treccani), Italian composer.
[30] Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, or Heliogabalus (c. 204- 222 CE); Roman emperor from 218 to 222 CE, famous for his being eccentric and sexually promiscuous.
[31] Heliogabalus translates “Horse of the Sun.”
[32] it’s: regional and nonstandard variant form of its from 1600s to 1800s (OED), frequently used in Hunt’s writings.
[33] Racing Calendar, the official horseracing publication of the Jockey Club as of 1773.
[34] Names of racehorses.
[35] As John Strachan points out, “Hidden in this genealogy of the turf is a subtle dig at the king.” (Strachan 2003, 6:285). Olivia Serres (1772-1834), painter and writer, was the daughter of Robert Wilmot, a London housepainter. She made the unlikely claim that she was in fact Princess Olive, legitimate daughter of the Duke of Cumberland, and the ‘Princess of Cumberland’. In 1823, Sir Robert Peele, Home secretary, affirmed in Parliament that Serres’ assertions were baseless.
[36] Houhyhnm: misspelling of Houyhnhnm, the race of intelligent horses in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726).
[37] William Shakespeare, Macbeth, III.iv.110-11.
[38] Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (42 BCE-37 CE), second Roman emperor from 14 to 37 CE.
[39] The government period between the execution of King Charles I in 1649 and the reign of King Charles II, beginning in 1660.
[40] Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), English politician and general, Lord Protector of England, Ireland and Scotland during the republican Commonwealth.
[41] John Wilson Croker (1780-1857, DIB), conservative politician and author, he was First Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1827, and was an opponent of the 1832 Reform Bill. A founder of the Quarterly Review, to which he contributed over 250 articles, he published a scathing review of Keats’s Endymion in the issue of April 1818. The article, “often and misleadingly cited as the blow that broke Keats’s spirits and hastened his death, condemns Keats because of his political as well as his aesthetic associations with Hunt.” (Cox and Kucich 2003, 2:170).
[42] Guelph, medieval political faction supporting the Pope against the Holy Roman Emperor.
[43] Misprint: full stop missing from the copy-text.
[44] Can Grande della Scala (1291-1329), Lord and ruler of Verona from 1311 to 1329, and the leading figure of the Ghibelline faction.
[45] Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Dante was in the service of Cangrande I della Scala between 1313 and 1318. Cangrande, who was Dante’s patron, is the addressee of his Epistle XIII, in which the poet dedicated his Paradise cantica to him.
[46] Note 12 is missing in the source text.
[47] One of the two patent theatres, i.e., the London playhouses endowed with a royal license at the time of writing.
[48] Jacobinic: of or relating to the Jacobins of France; revolutionary. The Jacobins were members of a radical French political club founded in 1789. The group played a crucial role during the French Revolution. The earliest known use of the adjective Jacobinic is in the late 1700s (OED).
[49] Perfo m: misprint for Perform.
[50] Also called “Old Jowler”, a Scottish march written by John O’Keefe (1747-1833) and composed by William Shield (1748-1829), and published in the early 1790s. See stanza 9, above.
[51] Rouge-Lion, a heraldic dignitary.
[52] Sir William Curtis, 1st Baronet (1752-1829), Lord Mayor of London (1795-96); a businessman, banker and politician. His family originated in Nottinghamshire, but his grandfather had established a business at Wapping as a ships’ biscuit baker (see stanza 31, below). “A portly and bottlenosed bon vivant and unconscious buffoon, Curtis was the best-known of the City Members in this period, the leading spokesman for the corporation and mercantile interests and the most irresistible butt of the caricaturists” (The History of Parliament, accessed 4 March 2025 https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/curtis-william-1752-1829 ). His friendship with the King is satirized in Byron’s Don Juan, X. 685-8: “Tell them Sir W—ll— C—t—s is a bore | Too dull even for the dullest of excesses – | The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal, | A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all; —”.
[53] John Bull, a national personification of England, or English culture, represented as a middle-aged gentleman wearing a Union Jack waistcoat, and often appearing in cartoons and caricatures. Leigh Hunt evokes John Bull satirically in the ‘Preface’ to Volume 1 of The Liberal.
[54] See the Golden Calf episode in Exodus 32:11: “Moyses autem orabat Dominum Deum suum dicens: ‘Cur, Domine, irascitur furor tuus contra populum tuum, quem eduxisti de terra Aegypti in fortitudine magna et in manu robusta?’” A ferocious pun may be intended in the use of the word “cur” – standing for “why” in Latin.
[55] The House of Piccolomini was an Italian noble family in Siena, whose influence extended from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and had among its members a Pope of the Catholic Church, Pius II (1405-64). Given the heavily ironic context and the collocation, a pun on the surname, meaning ‘Little Men’ in Italian, may be intended.
[56] Sifflé, meaning “by the whistle” – i.e., ready to spring on their paws.
[57] Guildhall, home to the City of London Corporation, and still the centre of government in the City of London. Its Great Hall has been the setting of Lord Mayor’s Annual Banquet since 1502.
[58] English air composed by Samuel Webbe in 1787.
[59] Robert Southey (1774-1843), British poet and man of letters, and English poet laureate. He was the constant target of satire for his political apostasy of his early radical stances (See Craig 2007; Andrews 2011).
[60] Possibly “The Duke of York’s March”, composed towards the end of the eighteenth century.
[61] Bread-street, a street in the City of London, where the ancient city’s bread market was located.
[62] “Lord Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry, and some truth, that ‘Dr. Johnson’s sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way:’ but I admit the truth of this only on some occasions” (Boswell [1785] 1852, 5).
[63] John Scott, First Earl of Eldon (1751-1838), British politician, Lord High Chancellor of Britain between 1801 and 1806, then again from 1807 to 1827. Together with Castlereagh and Sidmouth, he backed all the government’s most reactionary measures. The three of them famously appear in the opening stanzas of Shelley’s Mask of Anarchy, as the embodiments of, respectively, Fraud, Murder, and Hypocrisy, in a form of reversed allegory.
[64] Eldon’s inclination to tears was well known. See The Mask of Anarchy (1832), stanza 4: “Next came Fraud, and he had on, | Like Eldon, an ermined gown; | His big tears, for he wept well, | Turned to mill-stones as they fell.”
[65] King George IV (1762-1830, reigned 1820-30) visited Ireland to great acclaim between August and September 1821.
[66] Turnspit, a dog trained to run within a tread-wheel made to turn a rod on which meat was skewered, to cook it.
[67] Red-book: “A title given to any of various official books, usually distinguished by having a red binding, of political, administrative, or economic significance” (OED).
[68] Calf-gilt, the most common form of leather book binding.
[69] Sir Hudson Lowe (1769-1844), Napoleon’s jailer at Saint Helena.
[70] Untraced reference.
[71] James Maitland, Eighth Earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839), a Scottish representative in the House of Lords, he shifted from his early radical political stance to staunch conservatism.
[72] Marshall Blucher (1742-1819), the formidable Prussian general.
[73] Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE- 17/18 CE), Augustan Roman poet, and author of Metamorphoses.
[74] In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Actaeon’s hunting dogs eat him alive after the goddess Diana turns him into a stag as a punishment for seeing her bathe (III.138-255).
[75] Sirius, the Dog Star.
[76] Still other constellations.
[77] Henry Brooke, Guide to the Stars (London: Printed for Taylor and Hessey, 1820).
[78] New punning intended: Canes Venatici (‘Hunting Dogs’) is a constellation that lies between Ursa Major and Coma Berenices.
[79] As John Strachan notes, there is no relevant reference in Grimm’s four volumes of Historical and Literary Memoirs and Anecdotes (1815), though an anecdote about M. de Saint Fargeau’s dog biting Jean-Jacques Rosseau is reported (Cf. Strachan 2003, 6:286, n. 33).
[80] The battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815).
[81] “He [“The governor of Babylon”] kept, too, such a number of Indian dogs that four considerable towns in the plains were exempted from all other taxes, and appointed to find food for the dogs.” The Histories of Herodotus, vol. I: Clio, 192 (tr. Henry Cary, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899, 75).
[82] Gil Blas, the protagonist of Alain-René Lesage’s picaresque novel L’Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (1715-35).
[83] Louis II de Bourbon, 4e Prince de Condé (1621-86), a French general and prince who led the last in the series of aristocratic insurrections in France branded as La Fronde (1648-53). He later became one of the greatest generals in the service of King Louis XIV.
[84] Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-61), who served as chief minister in France from 1642.
[85] La Fleur, Yorick’s French servant in Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey (1768).
[86] A likely reference to Count Philip Christoph von Königsmarck (1665-94), the alleged German lover of Sophia Dorothea, who was married to the Hanoverian electoral prince George (later King George I of England). Their assumed liaison led to Königsmark’s probable murder; George divorced Sophia Dorothea, who died after a thirty-two-year imprisonment at Schloss Ahlden, Lower Saxony.
[87] Kettledrumle: misspelling of Kettledrummle, a character from Scott’s Old Mortality.
[88] William Blackwood (1776-1834), British publisher and owner of the William Blackwood and Sons firm. He was the founder of Tory British magazine and miscellany Blackwood’s Magazine, the arch-enemy of Leigh Hunt and his circle. See also 267n and 371n below.
[89] William Wallace (c. 1270-1305), the epitome of Scotland’s national heroes and symbol of Scottish resistance against the English rule.
[90] Robert Burns (1759-96), considered as Scotland’s national poet.
[91] Note 12 is not present in the copytext. See stanza 27, p. 255.
[92] I.e., Princess Olive.
[93] Misquoted from William Wordsworth’s The Excursion (1814), IX.358.
[94] That is, supporters of the Church and King, the likes of Charles I’s chief minister and adviser Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford (1593-1641), and Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford (1640-88).
[95] John Wilson (1785-1854), Scottish poet, literary critic and novelist. Hunt’s longtime rival, Wilson was a key contributor to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, for which he wrote hundreds of articles under the pseudonym of ‘Christopher North’. He and J. G. Lockhart were behind the fierce ‘Cockney School’ articles on Hunt and his circle.
[96] The masterpiece of mock-heroic poetry by Alexander Pope, first published in 1728, and in its final four-book form, in 1743, The Dunciad carries out a fierce critique of literary mediocrity.
Ultimo aggiornamento
27.08.2025