Broadside ballad entitled 'A Pointed and Poetic Appeal to the People!'

Transcription

A POINTED AND POETIC

Appeal to the People!

Will the people submit to the horrid disgrace,
Than which I can't fancy a greater,
Of a Member whose nose is agee on his face,
(And his principles not one whit straighter ;)
And looks, by the powers, as it stands all agog,
As if it had quarrelled with half his phizog !

A straight forward Tory is not what I mean,
One whose deeds and whose pledges agree,
For that is a creature that never has been,
And never is likely to be !
But surely the Tories at least might have chose
A lad who could boast of a straightforward nose.

If to " follow his nose '' any one should advise,
'Twill be well that he never should heed him,
For if with such counsel he rashly complies,
What a deuc'd crooked course it will lead him !
So let them advise, Jack, but don't you obey,
Or nil you, or will you, you can't choose but stray.

And then see its bridge ! what a terrible height!
So towering ! fleshless ! and lean !
Just almost as high, altho' not perhaps quite,
As its counterpart over the Dean !
Why, the Cockneys, in utter amaze, will exclaim,
My eye! Is the nose of each Scotchman the same?

Why, my lads, 'tis both proper the man we select,
The cause of his country should plead ;
And one who may likewise some credit reflect
On the Scotch, as a swatch of the breed ;
'Or else they'll suppose, (G-d forbid it's the case),
That the Celts have become a degenerate race.

Old Topboots, whatever his principles be,
(And I can't say I greatly admire them ;)
Yet when he rose up in the House, six feet three,
With alarm he'd be sure to inspire them ;
Atoning, perhaps, by his stature immense,
For what was deficient in logic or sense.

But really, friend Coachy, I can't see the use,
Of your bothering folk with your prosin',
For the great Hoose of Commons, depend on't's a hoose,
To which you never will thrust your wry nose in:
So stick to the wheels of your coaches about ye,
And Government's wheels will go quite weel without ye.

previous