"His pocket and his skull are brothers, / They thrive by borrowing from others; / I thank my stars, with heart sincere, / I was not born to be a Peer."
— Burrell [née Raymond, later Clay], Sophia, Lady Burrell (1750-1802)
Work Title
Date
w. 1776, 1793
Metaphor
"His pocket and his skull are brothers, / They thrive by borrowing from others; / I thank my stars, with heart sincere, / I was not born to be a Peer."
Metaphor in Context
'Behold that macaroni Lord!
So gay in clothes--profuse in board,
His fine apparel marks the fool,
And points him out for ridicule;
Proud as a peacock he appears,
Though to his tradesmen he arrears;
I know that his estate is dipped,
His name disgraced, his woodlands stripped,
To dress that carcase, and support
An idle puppy of the court,
A useless brawler in the House,
Whose brains would hardly serve a louse.
His pocket and his skull are brothers,
They thrive by borrowing from others;
I thank my stars, with heart sincere,
I was not born to be a Peer;
Make me an Alderman, kind fate!
And let these glory in their state.'
(ll. 59-76, p. 342)
So gay in clothes--profuse in board,
His fine apparel marks the fool,
And points him out for ridicule;
Proud as a peacock he appears,
Though to his tradesmen he arrears;
I know that his estate is dipped,
His name disgraced, his woodlands stripped,
To dress that carcase, and support
An idle puppy of the court,
A useless brawler in the House,
Whose brains would hardly serve a louse.
His pocket and his skull are brothers,
They thrive by borrowing from others;
I thank my stars, with heart sincere,
I was not born to be a Peer;
Make me an Alderman, kind fate!
And let these glory in their state.'
(ll. 59-76, p. 342)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
2 entries in ESTC (1793).
Poems. Dedicated to the Right Honourable the Earl of Mansfield, 2 vols. (London: Printed by J. Cooper, 1793). <Link to Hathi Trust>
Reading Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Poems. Dedicated to the Right Honourable the Earl of Mansfield, 2 vols. (London: Printed by J. Cooper, 1793). <Link to Hathi Trust>
Reading Roger Lonsdale's Eighteenth Century Women Poets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Date of Entry
07/28/2003
Date of Review
10/22/2003
