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A poem by Lord Byron |
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My Boy Hobbie O. |
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Title: My Boy Hobbie O. Author: Lord Byron [More Titles by Byron] My Boy Hobbie O.[1] New Song to the tune of "_Whare hae ye been a' day, 1. HOW came you in Hob's pound to cool, 2. What did the House upon this call, 3. Who are now the people's men, 4. You hate the house--_why_ canvass, then? 5. Wherefore do you hate the Whigs, 6. But when we at Cambridge were 7. When to the mob you make a speech, 8. But never mind such petty things, Yours truly, (Signed) INFIDUS SCURRA. March 23d, 1820. FOOTNOTES: [1] [John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869) (see _Letters_, 1898, i. 163, _note_ 1) was committed to Newgate in December, 1819, for certain passages in a pamphlet entitled, _A Trifling Mistake in Thomas Lord Erskine's recent Preface_, which were voted (December 10) a breach of privilege. He remained in prison till the dissolution on the king's death, February 20, 1820, when he stood and was returned for Westminster. Byron's Liberalism was intermittent, and he felt, or, as Hobhouse thought, pretended to feel, as a Whig and an aristocrat with regard to the free lances of the Radical party. The sole charge in this "filthy ballad," which annoyed Hobhouse, was that he had founded a Whig Club when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge. He assured Murray (see his letter, November, 1820, _Letters_, vol. iv. Appendix XI. pp. 498-500) that he was not the founder of the club, and that Byron himself was a member. "As for his Lordship's vulgar notions about the _mob_" he adds, "they are very fit for the Poet of the _Morning Post_, and for nobody else." There is no reason to suppose that Byron was in any way responsible for the version as sent to the _Morning Post_.] [The end] GO TO TOP OF SCREEN |