The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 487, April 30, 1831

Or, past all doubt, the Poet’s theme
Had never been the “White Capote,”
Had he once view’d, in Fancy’s dream,
The glories of Dick’s long-tail’d Coat.

We also know on Highland kilt
Poor dear Glengary used to dote,
And had esteem’d it actual guilt
I’ “the Gael” to wear a long-tail’d Coat,

No wonder ’twould his eyes annoy,
Monkbarns himself would never quote
“Sir Robert Sibbald,” “Gordon,” “Roy,”
Or “Stukely” for a long-tail’d Coat.

Jackets may do to ride a race,
Or row in, when one’s in a boat;
But, in the Boudoir, sure, for grace
There’s nothing like Dick’s long-tail’d Coat.

Of course, in climbing up a tree,
On terra firma, or afloat.
To mount the giddy top-mast, he
Would doff awhile his long-tail’d Coat.

What makes you simper, then, and sneer?
From out your own eye pull the mote;
A pretty thing for you to jeer!
Haven’t you, too, got a long-tail’d Coat?

Oh! “Dick’s scarce old enough,” you mean?
Why, though too young to give a vote,
Or make a will, yet, sure, Fifteen
’s a ripe age for a long-tail’d Coat.

What! would you have him sport a chin
Like Colonel Stanhope, or that goat
O’Gorman Mahon, ere begin
To figure in a long-tail’d Coat?

Suppose he goes to France—can he
Sit down at any table d’hôte,
With any sort of decency,
Unless he’s got a long-tail’d Coat?

Why Louis Philippe, Royal Cit,
There soon may be a sans culotte;
And Nugents self must then admit
The advantage of a long-tail’d Coat.

Things are not now as when, of yore,
In Tower encircled by a moat,
The lion-hearted chieftain wore
A corselet for a long-tail’d Coat.

Then ample mail his form embraced,
Not, like a weazel, or a stoat,
“Cribb’d and confined” about the waist,
And pinch’d in, like Dick’s long-tail’d Coat;—

With beamy spear, orbiting axe,
To right and left he thrust and smote—
Ah! what a change! no sinewy thwacks
Fall from a modern long tail’d Coat.

For stalwart knights, a puny race
In stays, with locks en papillote,
While cuirass, cuisses, greaves give place
To silk-net Tights, and long-tail’d Coat.

Worse changes still! now, well-a-day!
A few cant phrases learnt by rote
Each beardless booby spouts away,
A Solon, in a long-tail’d Coat.

Prates of “The march of intellect”—
—“The schoolmaster” a Patriote
So noble, who could ere suspect
Had just put on a long-tail’d Coat?

Alack! Alack! that every thick-
skull’d lad must find an antidote
For England’s woes, because, like Dick.
He has put on a long-tail’d Coat.

But lo! my rhymes begin to fail,
Nor can I longer time devote;
Thus rhyme and time cut short the tale,
The long tale of Dick’s long-tail’d Coat.

    Blackwood’s Magazine.

SIR JOHN HAWKINS’S HISTORY OF MUSIC

The fate of this work was decided like that of many more important things, by a trifle, a word, a pun. A ballad, chanted by a fille-de-chambre, undermined the colossal power of Alberoni; a single line of Frederic the Second, reflecting not on the politics but the poetry of a French minister, plunged France into the seven years’ war; and a pun condemned Sir John Hawkins’s sixteen years’ labour to long obscurity and oblivion. Some wag wrote the following catch, which Dr. Callcott set to music:—

“Have you read Sir John Hawkins’s History? Some folks think it quite a mystery; Both I have, and I aver That Burney’s History I prefer.”

Burn his History was straightway in every one’s mouth; and the bookseller, if he did not follow the advice à pied de la lettre, actually wasted, as the term is, or sold for waste paper, some hundred copies, and buried the rest of the impression in the profoundest depth of a damp cellar, as an article never likely to be called for, so that now hardly a copy can be procured undamaged by damp and mildew. It has been for some time, however, rising,—is rising,—and the more it is read and known, the more it ought to rise in public estimation and demand.—Harmonicon.