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Title: Ode To Don Miguel
Author: Thomas Moore [
More Titles by Moore]
Et tu, _Brute_!
1828.[1]
What! Miguel, _not_ patriotic! oh, fy!
After so much good teaching 'tis quite a _take-in_, Sir;
First schooled as you were under Metternich's eye,
And then (as young misses say) "finisht" at Windsor![2]
I ne'er in my life knew a case that was harder;--
Such feasts as you had when you made us a call!
Three courses each day from his Majesty's larder,--
And now to turn absolute Don after all!!
Some authors, like Bayes, to the style and the matter
Of each thing they _write_ suit the way that they _dine_,
Roast sirloin for Epic, broiled devils for Satire,
And hotchpotch and _trifle_ for rhymes such as mine.
That Rulers should feed the same way, I've no doubt;--
Great Despots on _bouilli_ served up _a la Russe_,[3]
Your small German Princes on frogs and sour crout,
And your Viceroy of Hanover always on _goose_.
_Some_ Dons too have fancied (tho' this may be fable)
A dish rather dear, if in cooking they blunder it;--
Not content with the common _hot_ meat _on_ a table,
They're partial (eh, Mig?) to a dish of _cold under_ it![4]
No wonder a Don of such appetites found
Even Windsor's collations plebeianly plain;
Where the dishes most _high_ that my Lady sends round
Are here _Maintenon_ cutlets and soup _a la Reine_.
Alas! that a youth with such charming beginnings,
Should sink all at once to so sad a conclusion,
And what is still worse, throw the losings and winnings
Of worthies on 'Change into so much confusion!
The Bulls, in hysterics--the Bears just as bad--
The few men who _have_, and the many who've _not_ tick,
All shockt to find out that that promising lad,
Prince Metternich's pupil, is--_not_ patriotic!
NOTE:
[1] At the commencement of this year, the designs of Don Miguel and his partisans against the constitution established by his brother had begun more openly to declare themselves.
[2] Don Miguel had paid a visit to the English court at the close of the year 1827.
[3] Dressed with a pint of the strongest spirits--a favorite dish of the Great Frederick of Prussia, and which he persevered in eating even on his death-bed, much to the horror of his physician Zimmerman.
[4] This quiet case of murder, with all its particulars--the hiding the body under the dinner-table, etc.--is, no doubt, well known to the reader.
[The end]
Thomas Moore's poem: Ode To Don Miguel
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