by Coleridge · Cluster: Satire of Society · Epigram · Satire
Abstract
Comic Sapphic verses imitating Horace and Sappho, urging rich patrons to win immortality by patronising the young versifier Gillman; parody of classical form and satire of patronage.
Connections
Topoi: Immortality Through Verse Themes & Concepts: Satire of Society, Artist and Society Forms & Genres: Parody Historical References: Ancient Rome, Classical Antiquity
Testo integrale / Full text
Here’s Jem’s first copy of nonsense verses,
All in the antique style of Mistress Sappho,
Latin just like Horace the tuneful Roman,
Sapph’s imitator:
But we Bards, we classical Lyric Poets,
Know a thing or two in a scurvy Planet:
Don’t we, now? Eh? Brother Horatius Flaccus,
Tip us your paw, Lad: —
Here’s to Mæcenas and the other worthies;
Rich men of England! would ye be immortal?
Patronise Genius, giving Cash and Praise to
Gillman Jacobus;
Gillman Jacobus, he of Merchant Taylors’,
Minor ætate, ingenio at stupendus,
Sapphic, Heroic, Elegiac, — what a
Versificator!
First published in Essays, &c., 1850, iii. 987. First collected 1893.