Richard Harris Barham

'Statim sacerdoti apparuit diabolus in specie puell pulchritudinis mir, et ecce Divus, fide catholica et cruce et aqua benedicta armatus, venit, et aspersit aquam in nomine Sanct et Individu Trinitatis, quam, quasi ardentem, diabolus, nequaquam sustinere valens, mugitibus fugit.'
Roger Hoveden.

Lord Abbot! Lord Abbot! I'd fain confess;
I am a-weary, and worn with woe;
Many a grief doth my heart oppress,
And haunt me whithersoever I go!'

On bended knee spake the beautiful Maid;
'Now lithe and listen, Lord Abbot, to me!'
'Now naye, Fair Daughter,' the Lord Abbot said,
'Now naye, in sooth it may hardly be;

'There is Mess Michael, and holy Mess John,
Sage Penitauncers I ween be they!
And hard by doth dwell, in St. Catherine's cell,
Ambrose, the anchorite old an...

Oh, my head! my head! my head!
Lack! for my poor unfortunate head!
Mister de Ville
Has been to feel,
And what do you think he said?
He felt it up, and he felt it down,
Behind the ears, and across the crown,
Sinciput, occiput, great and small,
Bumps and organs, he tickled 'em all;
And he shook his own, as he gravely said,
'Sir, you really have got a most singular head!

'Why here's a bump,
Only feel what a lump;
Why the organ of "Sound" is an absolute hump;
And only feel here,
Why, behind each ear,
There's a bump for a butcher or a bombardier;
Such organs of slaughter
Would spill blood like water;
Such "lopping and topping" of heads and of tails,
Why, you'll cut up a jackass with Alderman S—.'
[Caetera desunt.]

Och! the Coronation! what celebration
For emulation can with it compare?
When to Westminster the Royal Spinster,
And the Duke of Leinster, all in order did repair!
'Twas there you'd see the New Polishemen
Making a skrimmage at half after four,
And the Lords and Ladies, and the Miss O'Gradys,
All standing round before the Abbey door.

Their pillows scorning, that self-same morning
Themselves adorning, all by the candle light,
With roses and lilies, and daffy-down-dillies,
And gould, and jewels, and rich di'monds bright.
And then approaches five hundred coaches,
With Giniral Dullbeak. Och! 'twas mighty fine
To see how asy bould Corporal Casey,
With his swoord drawn, prancing, made them kape the line.

Then the Guns' alarums, and the King of Arums,

O Summer Hill! if thou wert mine,
I'd order in a pipe of wine,
And ask a dozen friends to dine.
In faith, I would not spare the guineas,
But send for Pag and other ninies,
Flutes, hautboys, fiddles, pipes, and tabors,
Hussars with moustaches and sabres,
Quadrilles, and that grand waltz of Weber's,
And give a dance to all my neighbours;
And here I'd sit and quaff my fill
Among the trees of Summer Hill.
Then with bland eye careering slowly,
O'er bush-crowned ridge end valley lowly;
I'd drain the cup to thee, old Rowley!
To thee, and to thy courtly train,
Once tenants of thy fair domain;
Soft Stewart, haughtiest Castlemaine,
Pert Nelly Gwynne, and Lucy Waters,
Old England's fairest, frailest daughters.
E'en now, 'midst yonder leafy glade,
Meth...

Whene'er with pitying eye I view
Each operative sot in town.
I smile to think how wondrous few
Get drunk who study at the University we've Got in town,

What precious fools 'The People' grew,
Their alma mater not in town;
The 'useful classes' hardly knew
Four was composed of two and two,
Until they learned it at the University we've Got in town.

But now they're taught by Joseph Hume, by far the cleverest Scot in town,
Their items and their tottles too
Each may dissect his sister Sue,
From his instructions at the University we've Got in town.

Then L—E comes, like him how few
Can caper and can trot in town,
In pirouette or pas de deux
He beats the famed Monsieur Giroux,
And teaches dancing at the University we've Got in town.

And...

Poor Tray charmant!
Poor Tray de mon Ami!
Dog-bury, and Vergers.


Oh! where shall I bury my poor dog Tray,
Now his fleeting breath has pass'd away?
Seventeen years, I can venture to say,
Have I seen him gambol, and frolic, and play,
Evermore happy, and frisky, and gay,
As though every one of his months was May,
And the whole of his life one long holiday
Now he's a lifeless lump of clay,
Oh! where shall I bury my faithful Tray?

I am almost tempted to think it hard
That it may not be there, in yon sunny churchyard,
Where the green willows wave
O'er the peaceful grave,
Which holds all that once was honest and brave,
Kind, and courteous, and faithful, and true;
Qualities, Tray, that were found in you.
But it may not beyou sacred gro...

My Lord Tomnoddy got up one day;
It was half after two,
He had nothing to do,
So his Lordship rang for his cabriolet.

Tiger Tim
Was clean of limb,
His boots were polish'd, his jacket was trim
With a very smart tie in his smart cravat,
And a smart cockade on the top of his hat;
Tallest of boys, or shortest of men,
He stood in his stockings just four foot ten
And he ask'd, as he held the door on the swing,
'Pray, did your Lordship please to ring?'

My Lord Tomnoddy he raised his head,
And thus to Tiger Tim he said,
'Malibran's dead,
Duvernay's fled,
Taglioni has not yet arrived in her stead;
Tiger Tim, come tell me true,
What may a Nobleman find to do?

Tim look'd up, and Tim look'd down,
He paused, and he put on a though...

Malefica quaedam auguriatrix in Anglia fuit, quam demones horribiliter extraxerunt, et imponentes super equum terribilem, per aera rapuerunt; Clamoresque terribiles (ut ferunt) per quatuor ferme miliaria audiebantur.

Nuremb. Chron.

On the lone bleak moor,
At the midnight hour,
Beneath the Gallows Tree,
Hand in hand
The Murderers stand
By one, by two, by three!
And the Moon that night
With a grey, cold light
Each baleful object tips;
One half of her form
Is seen through the storm,
The other half 's hid in Eclipse!
And the cold Wind howls,
And the Thunder growls,
And the Lightning is broad and bright;
And altogether
It 's very bad weather,
And an unpleasant sort of a night!
'Now mount who list,
And close by the wrist
Sev...

The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!
Bishop, and abbot, and prior were there;
Many a monk, and many a friar,
Many a knight, and many a squire,
With a great many more of lesser degree,
In sooth a goodly company;
And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.
Never, I ween,
Was a prouder seen,
Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,
Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims!

In and out
Through the motley rout,
That little Jackdaw kept hopping about;
Here and there
Like a dog in a fair,
Over comfits and cates,
And dishes and plates,
Cowl and cope, and rochet and pall,
Mitre and crosier! he hopp'd upon all!
With saucy air,
He perch'd on the chair
Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat
In the great Lord Cardi...

Odille was a maid of a dignified race;
Her father, Count Otto, was lord of Alsace;
Such an air, such a grace,
Such a form, such a face,
All agreed 'twere a fruitless endeavour to trace
In the Court, or within fifty miles of the place.
Many ladies in Strasburg were beautiful, still
They were beat all to sticks by the lovely Odille.

But Odille was devout, and, before she was nine,
Had 'experienced a call' she consider'd divine,
To put on the veil at St. Ermengarde's shrine.
Lords, Dukes, and Electors, and Counts Palatine
Came to seek her in marriage from both sides the Rhine;
But vain their design,
They are all left to pine,
Their oglings and smiles are all useless; in fine,
Not one of these gentlefolks, try as they will,
Can draw 'Ask my papa' from t...

The Captain is walking his quarter-deck,
With a troubled brow and a bended neck;
One eye is down through the hatchway cast,
The other turns up to the truck on the mast;
Yet none of the crew may venture to hint
'Our Skipper hath gotten a sinister squint!'

The Captain again the letter hath read
Which the bum-boat woman brought out to Spithead
Still, since the good ship sail'd away,
He reads that letter three times a-day;
Yet the writing is broad and fair to see
As a Skipper may read in his degree,
And the seal is as black, and as broad, and as flat,
As his own cockade in his own cock'd hat:
He reads, and he says, as he walks to and fro,
'Curse the old womanshe bothers me so!'

He pauses now, for the topmen hail
'On the larboard quarter a sail! a ...

Oh! the balloon, the great balloon!
It left Vauxhall one Monday at noon,
And every one said we should hear of it soon
With news from Aleppo or Scanderoon.
But very soon after, folks changed their tune:
'The netting had burst the silk the shalloon;
It had met with a trade-wind a deuced monsoon
It was blown out to sea it was blown to the moon
They ought to have put off their journey till June;
Sure none but a donkey, a goose, or baboon,
Would go up, in November, in any balloon!'

Then they talk'd about Green' Oh! where's Mister Green?
And where's Mister Hollond who hired the machine?
And where is Monk Mason, the man that has been
Up so often before twelve times or thirteen
And who writes such nice letters describing the scene?
And where's the cold fowl, and...

Quæque ipse miserrima vidi. Virgil.

Catherine of Cleves was a Lady of rank,
She had lands and fine houses, and cash in the Bank;
She had jewels and rings,
And a thousand smart things;
Was lovely and young,
With a rather sharp tongue,
And she wedded a Noble of high degree
With the star of the order of St. Esprit;
But the Duke de Guise
Was, by many degrees,
Her senior, and not very easy to please;
He'd a sneer on his lip, and a scowl with his eye,
And a frown on his brow, and he look'd like a Guy,
So she took to intriguing
With Monsieur St. Megrin,
A young man of fashion, and figure, and worth,
But with no great pretensions to fortune or birth;
He would sing, fence, and dance
With the best man in France,
And took his rappee with genteel...

(MAGAZINE PUBLISHER AND MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT)

BEING A TRUE AND PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE GRAND MILLING MATCH THAT DIDN'T TAKE PLACE

SAYS Tom D— to F—r
T'other morning, 'I say, Sir,
You've call'd me a Roué, a Dicer, and Racer,
Now I'd have you to know, Sir,
Such names are "No Go," Sir;
By Jove, Sir, I never knew anything grosser.

'And then Madame,
Extremely distrest is
At your calling her Lais, she's more like Thalestris,
As you'll find, my fine joker,
If once you provoke her,
She's a d—l if once she gets hold of a poker.

'For myself, to be candid,
And not underhanded,
I write thus to say I'll be hang'd if I stand it.
So give up the name
Of the man or the dame
Who has made this infernal attack on my fame,
And recall w...

Too late! though flowerets round me blow,
And clearing skies shine bright and fair;
Their genial warmth avails not now
Thou art not here the beam to share.

Through many a dark and dreary day,
We journeyed on 'midst grief and gloom;
And now at length the cheering ray
Breaks forth, it only gilds thy tomb.

Our days of hope and youth are past,
Our short-lived joys for ever flown;
And now when Fortune smiles at last,
She finds me cheerless, chilled alone!

Ah! no; too late the boon is given,
Alike the frowns and smiles of Fate;
The broken heart by sorrow riv'n,
But murmurs now, 'Too late! Too late!'