The Bijou;
or Annual of Literature and the Arts
compiled by William Fraser
London: William Pickering,
1828
pp. pp. 176-90
BEFORE I yet assume the band, | 1 |
Or dare to tread on lawyer- land, | 2 |
(A rich champaign that's never bleak | 3 |
Nor bare to those who boldly speak; | 4 |
Where neither cold, nor rain, nor drought | 5 |
Can ever turn the crops to nought:) — | 6 |
Before I venture on a brief, — | 7 |
Before I hang a single theif, — | 8 |
Or plunge my goose- quill into ink, — | 9 |
Or purse my mouth and seem to think, | 10 |
While clients stare, and rustics wonder, | 11 |
Like young pigs when they shrink from thunder, — | 12 |
I'll call on thee, renowned wig! | 13 |
(In self- importance justly big) | 14 |
Beneath whose ample curls men sit, | 15 |
Disfigured by thy weight of wit: — | 16 |
(For thou still dost the lawyer fire, | 17 |
As Phoebus' rays bards' brains inspire; | 18 |
Making mere man thrice vast and learn'd, | 19 |
Like water into vapour turned.) — | 20 |
[Page 177]
— Spirit of wisdom, cramped and curled! | 21 |
Type of the thoughts that fill the world! | 22 |
(Tortured to every quirk and shift | 23 |
That lawyers into fortune lift:) | 24 |
What garland, wrought of barren bays? — | 25 |
What "order," rich with martial rays? — | 26 |
What knightly cross, or riband red? | 27 |
What key,— — what collar ever shed | 28 |
Such honours on man's honoured head? | 29 |
Vittoria's splendours! — what are they | 30 |
To Eldon's powder waxing grey? | 31 |
What black King Charles's black peruke? | 32 |
What Villers' locks, 'though twice a duke'? | 33 |
What Malborough's waggon- load of hair? | 34 |
Or Lely's loves all frizz'd and fair? — | 35 |
And thou — Greatwig! — white — powdered — flowing | 36 |
O'er eyebrows knit and foreheads knowing, | 37 |
Upon what skull, on law intent, | 38 |
Did'st perch, — thou, King of wigs! — content, | 39 |
When wisest BELL, (so keen and kind) | 40 |
Left law but left no peer behind, — | 41 |
Not one so sage, and yet so meek, | 42 |
Of all the tribes that love to speak? | 43 |
Before what jaded judge, (who sits, | 44 |
And sighs, and nods, and yawns by fits,) | 45 |
Dost thou now shake thy Gorgon terrors, | 46 |
Doubling some damned defendant's errors? | 47 |
[Page 178]
If, on some huge block's head and shoulders, | 80 |
Thou hang'st, the laugh of all beholders, | 81 |
Forc'd, when thou canst inspire no more, | 82 |
To hear the trash thou scorn'dst before, | 83 |
Quick! leave the block (the head) — whose hum | 84 |
Comes out as from some empty drum, | 85 |
Which one who should be beaten beats, — | 86 |
Where noisy nonsense, nonsense meets, — | 87 |
Where blunders bump 'midst lawyer's quirks, — | 88 |
And not one ounce of wisdom lurks: | 89 |
Quick, leave the lackwit's skull all free, | 90 |
And send the rogue to — Coventry1 . | 91 |
And must I see the poet's pages | 102 |
No more? — ne'er dream of bright bright-ages, | 103 |
When inspiration, like a sun, | 104 |
Came down and deathless deed were done? | 105 |
Farewell, then — (in Sir Blackstone's vein, | 106 |
I'll bid the muse farewell again) — | 107 |
Farewell, then, to the dangerous muse, | 108 |
Whom lawyers love yet aye abuse! | 109 |
Farewell unto the poets crowned! | 110 |
Farewell, where laurel leaves abound, — | 111 |
Thessalian Pindus! — Tempe's plains! — | 112 |
Parnassus, where Apollo reigns! | 113 |
And farewell O Castalian river! | 114 |
Upon whose fringed banks for ever | 115 |
Lie clustering still the dark-eyed daughters, | 116 |
Singing to all thy running waters | 117 |
Strange music like the Sybil's spell, — | 118 |
Farewell, — to all and each — Farewell! | 119 |
1. [Note to "An Address to the Lost Wig of John Bell, Esq.":]Not the town, (which would be of little service to a dunce) but a learned and ingenious conveyancer of that name. [Fraser or Author.] Back