"Yet when he bawl'd for sense, he bawl'd, I wot, / For furniture the head had never got."
— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
G. Kearsley and W. Forster
Date
1787
Metaphor
"Yet when he bawl'd for sense, he bawl'd, I wot, / For furniture the head had never got."
Metaphor in Context
His portrait by some famous hand was done,
And then exhibited at the Salon--
At once a courtly critic criticises--
'Where is the brilliant eye, the charming grace,
The sense profound that marks the royal face;
The soul of Lewis, that so very wise is?'
Yet when he bawl'd for sense, he bawl'd, I wot,
For furniture the head had never got.
Reader, believe me that this gentleman
Was form'd on nature's very homely plan.--
Clumsy in legs and shoulders, head and gullet,
His mouth abroad in seeming wonder lost,
As if its meaning had given up the ghost:
His eye far duller than a leaden bullet;
Nature so slighting the poor royal nob,
As if she bargain'd for it by the job.
(cf. pp. 34-5 in 1787, 5th ed.)
And then exhibited at the Salon--
At once a courtly critic criticises--
'Where is the brilliant eye, the charming grace,
The sense profound that marks the royal face;
The soul of Lewis, that so very wise is?'
Yet when he bawl'd for sense, he bawl'd, I wot,
For furniture the head had never got.
Reader, believe me that this gentleman
Was form'd on nature's very homely plan.--
Clumsy in legs and shoulders, head and gullet,
His mouth abroad in seeming wonder lost,
As if its meaning had given up the ghost:
His eye far duller than a leaden bullet;
Nature so slighting the poor royal nob,
As if she bargain'd for it by the job.
(cf. pp. 34-5 in 1787, 5th ed.)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "furniture" and "head" in HDIS (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.
Citation
14 entries in ESTC. Collection expanded from 1782 to 1790; see also More Lyric Odes. Hits in ECCO and ESTC (1787, 1788, 1789, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795).
The first eight odes published as Lyric Odes, to the Royal Academicians. By Peter Pindar, a Distant Relation to the Poet of Thebes. (London: Printed for the author, and sold by T. Egerton, Charing Cross; Baldwin, Pater-Noster Row; and Debrett, opposite Burlington House, Piccadilly, 1782). <Link to ESTC>
Earliest hit in ECCO: Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians, for M,Dcc,Lxxxii. by Peter Pindar, a Distant Relation of the Poet of Thebes., 5th ed., enlarged (London: Printed for G. Kearsley, No. 46, Fleet-Street; and W. Forster, No. 348, near Exeter-Change, in the Strand, 1787). <Link to ECCO>
Text from The Works of Peter Pindar, 4 vols. (London: Printed for Walker and Edwards, 1816).
The first eight odes published as Lyric Odes, to the Royal Academicians. By Peter Pindar, a Distant Relation to the Poet of Thebes. (London: Printed for the author, and sold by T. Egerton, Charing Cross; Baldwin, Pater-Noster Row; and Debrett, opposite Burlington House, Piccadilly, 1782). <Link to ESTC>
Earliest hit in ECCO: Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians, for M,Dcc,Lxxxii. by Peter Pindar, a Distant Relation of the Poet of Thebes., 5th ed., enlarged (London: Printed for G. Kearsley, No. 46, Fleet-Street; and W. Forster, No. 348, near Exeter-Change, in the Strand, 1787). <Link to ECCO>
Text from The Works of Peter Pindar, 4 vols. (London: Printed for Walker and Edwards, 1816).
Date of Entry
01/24/2006
Date of Review
06/27/2012
