FullReads

Well, that, sir, is the racket; and the more the sin and shame
Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same;
Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup,–
But they’ll be the House’s ruin, or the shutting of it up,
With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears,
While they’ve damaged many articles and broken lots of squares,
And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother,
By throwing Morning Heralds, Times, and Standards at each other;
Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn’t to repeat,
And the names they call each other–for I’ve heard ’em in the street–
Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judasses, and Vipers and what not,
For Pasley and his divers ain’t so blowing-up a lot.
And then such awful swearing!–for there’s one of them that cusses
Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition ‘busses;
For he cusses every member that’s agin him at the poll,
As I wouldn’t cuss a donkey, tho’ it hasn’t got a soul;
And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob or Jim,
To the babby in the cradle, if they don’t agree with him.
Whereby, altho’ as yet they have not took to use their fives,
Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives,
I’m bound they’ll be some milling yet, and shakings by the collars,
Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!

To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall,
Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call–
And as if there wasn’t Whigs enough and Tories to fall out,
Besides polities in plenty for our splits to be about,–
Why, a cornfield is sufficient, sir, as anybody knows,
For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows–
Not to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews,
To agitate society and loosen all its screws;
And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres,–
But it’s not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears.
And as to College larning, my opinion for to broach,
And I’ve had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach,
And so knows the University, and all as there belongs,
And he says that Oxford’s famouser for sausages than songs,
And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant,
As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want,
Or other Tavern Melodists I can’t just call to mind–
But it’s not the classic system for to propagate the kind,
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!

For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice,
It’s the best among the vocalists I’d honor with the choice;
Or a Poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch;
Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch;
‘Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics–
And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec’s.
But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud,
And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd,
Have brought their jangling voices, and as far as they can compass,
Have turn’d a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus,
And him as knows most hymns–altho’ I can’t see how it follers–
They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

Well, that’s the row–and who can guess the upshot after all?
Whether Harmony will ever make the “Arms” her House of call,
Or whether this here mobbing–as some longish heads foretell it,
Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it,
Howsomever, for the present, there’s no sign of any peace,
For the hubbub keeps a-growing, and defies the New Police;–
But if I was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of Man,
Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan,
Why, I’d settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle,
For I’d have another candidate–and that’s the Parish Beadle,
Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy,
And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy;
Whereby–if folks was wise–instead of either of them Scholars,
And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers,
They’ll lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as follers,
Namely–Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!