The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1,
July 31, 1841, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841

Author: Various

Release Date: February 7, 2005 [EBook #14921]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

FOR THE WEEK ENDING JULY 31, 1841.

* * * * *

POETRY ON AN IMPROVED PRINCIPLE.

Let me earnestly implore you, good Mr. PUNCH, to give publicity to a new
invention in the art of poetry, which I desire only to claim the merit of
having discovered. I am perfectly willing to permit others to improve upon
it, and to bring it to that perfection of which I am delightedly aware, it
is susceptible.

It is sometimes lamented that the taste for poetry is on the decline--that
it is no longer relished--that the public will never again purchase it as a
luxury. But it must be some consolation to our modern poets to know (as no
doubt they do, for it is by this time notorious) that their productions
really do a vast deal of service--that they are of a value for which they
were never designed. They--I mean many of them--have found their way into
the pharmacopoeia, and are constantly prescribed by physicians as
soporifics of rare potency. For instance--

"---- not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world.
Shall ever usher thee to that sweet sleep"

to which a man shall be conducted by a few doses of Robert Montgomery's
Devil's Elixir, called "Satan," or by a portion, or rather a potion, of
"Oxford." Apollo, we know, was the god of medicine as well as of poetry.
Behold, in this our bard, his two divine functions equally mingled!

But waiving this, of which it was not my intention to speak, let me remark,
that the reason why poetry will no longer go down with the public, _as
poetry_, is, that the whole frame-work is worn out. No new rhymes can be
got at. When we come to a "mountain," we are tolerably sure that a
"fountain" is