Title: The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder
Author: William Hone
Illustrator: George Cruikshank
Release date: January 14, 2014 [eBook #21565]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger from page scans obtained from the
Internet Archive
"The question is not merely whether the Queen shall have her
rights, but whether the rights of an individual in the
kingdom shall be free from violation."
Her Majesty's Answer to the Norwich Addrest.
"Here is a Gentleman, and a friend of mine!"
Measure for Measure.
"It is a wonderful thing to consider the strength of
Princes' wills when they are bent to have their Pleasure
fulfilled, wherein no reasonable persuasions will serve
their turn: how little do they regard the dangerous sequels,
that ensue as well as to themselves as to their Subjects.
And amongst all things there is nothing that makes them
more wilful than Carnal Love, and various affecting of
Voluptuous desires."
Cavendish's Memoirs of Card. Wolsey.
CONTENTS
In love, and in drink, and o'ertoppled by debt;
With women, with wine, and with duns on the fret.
The Prodigal Son, by his perils surrounded,
Vex'd, harass'd, bewilder'd, asham'd, and confounded,
Fled for help to his Father,
confessed his ill doing,
And begged for salvation
from stark staring ruin;
The sire urged—"The People
your debts have twice paid,
And, to ask a third time,
even Pitt is afraid;
"But he shall if you'll marry, and lead a new life,—
"You've a cousin in Germany—make her your
wife!"
From the high halls of Brunswick, all youthful and
gay,
From the hearth of her fathers, he lured her away:
How joy'd she in coming—
how smiling the bower;
How sparkling their nuptials—
how welcome her dower.
Ah! short were her pleasures—full soon came her
cares—
Her husbandless bride-bed was wash'd with her
tears.
Near a million of debts gone,
all gone were her charms—
What! an Epicure have his own wife
in his arms?
She was not to his taste—
what car'd he for the 'form,'
'To love and to cherish'
could not mean reform:
'To love' meant, of course, nothing else
but neglect
'To cherish' to leave her,
and shew disrespect.
Was it manly, when widow'd,
to spy at her actions;
"To listen to eaves-droppers,
whisp'ring detractions;
And, like an old Watchman,
with faults to conceal,
Get up a false Charge,
as a proof of his zeal?
If desertion was base, Oh base be his name,
Who, having deserted, would bring her to shame!
Undaunted in spirit, her courage arose,
With encrease of charges, and encrease of foes.
Despising the husband,
who thus had abused her,
She proved to his father,
his son had ill used her:—
Her conduct examin'd, and sifted, shone bright,
Her enemies fled, as the shadows of night.
Her father and king, while with reason yet blest,
Protected her weakness, and shielded her rest;
Infirmity seizes him, false friends draw near,
Then spies gather round, and malignants appear;
And cajole, wait, watch, insult,
alarm, and betray,
Till from home, and her daughter,
they force her away.
Still pursued, when a 'wanderer,'
her child sleeps in death,
And her best friend, in England, her king,
yields his breath;
This gives her new rights—
they neglect and proscribe her;
She threatens returning—they then try to bribe her!
The bullies turn slaves, and, in meanness, fawn on her:
They feel her contempt, and they vow her dishonour;
But she 'steers her own course,' comes indignantly
over,
And the shouts of the nation salute her at Dover!
Ah, what was that groan!—
'twas the Head of the Church,
When he found she was come—
for he dreaded a search
Into what he'd been doing:
and sorely afraid, for
What she might find out,
cried 'I'll not have her pray'd for';
And the B———ps, obeying their pious Head,
care took
That the name of his wife
should be out of the prayer book!
On searching for precedents, much to their dread,
They found that they could n't well cut off her head;
And the 'House of Incurables' raised a 'Report'
She was not a fit person to live in his Court.
How like an OLD CHARLEY
they then made him stand,
In his lanthorn a leech,
the 'Report' in his hand.
'Good folks be so good as not go near that door
'For, though my own wife, she is—I could say more
'But it's all in this Bag, and there'll be a fine pother,
'I shall get rid of her, and I'll then get another!'
Yet he thought, to himself,—
'twas a thought most distressing,—
'If she should discover
I've been M—ch—ss—g,
'There's an end of the whole!
D—rs C—ns, of course,
'If my own hands are dirty,
won't grant a D———ce!'
He tried to look wise, but he only look'd wild;
The women laugh'd out, and the grave even smiled;
The old frown'd upon him—the children made sport,
And his wife held her ridicule at his 'Report'!
MORAL.
Be warn'd, by his fate
Married, single, and all;
Ye elderly Gentlemen,
Pity his fall!
As yon bright orb, that vivifies our ball,
Sees through our system, and illumines all;
So, sees and shines, our Moral Sun, The Press,
Alike to vivify the mind, and bless;
Sees the rat Leech turn towards Milan's walls,
'Till the black slime betrays him as he crawls;
Sees, from that recreant, vile, and eunuch-land,
Where felon-perjurers hold their market-stand,
Cooke, with his 'cheek of parchment, eye of stone,'
Get up the evidence, to go well down;
Sees who, with eager hands, the Green Bag cram,
And warns the nation of the frightful flam;
Sees Him, for whom they work the treacherous
task,
With face, scarce half conceal'd, behind their mask.
Fat, fifty-eight, and frisky, still a beau,
Grasping a half-made match; by Leech-light go;
Led by a passion, prurient, blind, and letter'd,
Lame, bloated, pointless, flameless, age'd and
shatter'd;
Creeping, like Guy Fawkes, to blow up his wife,
Whom, spurn'd in youth, he dogs through after-life.
Scorn'd, exiled, baffled, goaded in distress,
She owes her safety to a fearless Press:
With all the freedom that it makes its own,
It guards, alike, the people and their throne;
While fools with darkling eye-balls shun its gaze,
And soaring villains scorch beneath its blaze.
The day will soon come, when the Judge and the
Ponderer,'
Will judge between thee, and the charge-daring
'Wanderer;'
Will say—'Thou who cast the first stone at thy wife,
Art thou without sin, and is spotless thy life?'
Ah! what if thy faults should 'outrival the sloe,'
And thy wife's, beside thine, should look 'whiter
than snow'!
Bethink thee! the old British Lion awoke,
Turns indignant, and treads out thy bag-full of smoke.
Spurn thy minions—the traitors, who counsel thee,
banish;
And the soldiers will quickly forget all their Spanish!
Shakspeare says, in King John, it's a curse most
abhorrent,
That 'Slaves take the humours of Kings for a warrant.'
A more useful truth never fell from his pen,
If Kings would apply it like sober-bred men.
The Slaves of your will,
will make your reign, in History,
A misrule of force, folly, taxing, and mystery:
Indulging your wish for
what, with law, 's incompatible,
For the present, they've render'd your crown
not come-at-able;
And the tongues of old women and infancy wag,
With, 'He call'd for his crown—and
they gave him the Bag!'
To this have they brought thee, at last!
Exposed thee, for all men to see!
Ah, surely, their pandering
shall quickly be past:
'How wretched their portion
shall be!
Derision shall strike them
forlorn,
'A mockery that never shall die:
'The curses of hate and the hisses
of scorn,
'Shall follow wherever they fly;
'And proud o'er their ruin
for ever be hurl'd,
'The laughter of triumph,
the jeers of the world!'
An Extract of an overland, Dispatch.
I stare at it from out my casement,
And ask for what is such a place meant.
Byron.
July 29, 1820.
—The queerest of all the queer sights
I've set sight on;—
Is, the what d'ye-call-t thing, here,
THE FOLLY at Brighton
The outside—huge teapots,
all drill'd round with holes,
Relieved by extinguishers,
sticking on poles:
The inside—all tea-things,
and dragons, and bells, t
The show rooms—all show,
the sleeping rooms—cells.
But the grand Curiosity
's not to be seen—
The owner himself—
an old fat Mandarin;
A patron of painters
who copy designs,
That grocers and tea-dealers
hang up for signs:
Hence teaboard-taste artists
gain rewards and distinction,
Hence his title of 'Teapot'
shall last to extinction.
I saw his great chair
into which he falls—soss—
And sits, in his China Shop,
like a large Joss;
His mannikins round him,
in tea-tray array,
His pea-hens beside him,
to make him seem gay.
It is said when he sleeps
on his state Eider-down,
And thinks on his Wife,
and about half a Crown;
That he wakes from these horrible dreams
in a stew;
And that, stretching his arms out,
he screams, Mrs. Q!
He's cool'd on the M—ch-ss,
but I'm your debtor
For further particulars—
in a C letter.
You must know that he hates his own wife,
to a failing;—
And it 's thought, it's to shun her,
he's now gone out
SAILING.
