My Boy Hobbie O- Lord Byron (Parody) 1820
[Lord Byron's poem, My Boy Hobbie O, is a parody of My Boy Tammy (Billy Boy) popularized by Macneill in 1791.]
My Boy Hobbie O- by Lord Byron 1820
My Boy Hobbie O.[1]
New Song to the tune of
"_Whare hae ye been a' day,
My boy Tammy O!
Courting o' a young thing
Just come frae her Mammie O._"
1. HOW came you in Hob's pound to cool,
My boy Hobbie O?
Because I bade the people pull
The House into the Lobby O.
2. What did the House upon this call,
My boy Hobbie O?
They voted me to Newgate all,
Which is an awkward Jobby O.
3. Who are now the people's men,
My boy Hobbie O?
There's I and Burdett--Gentlemen
And blackguard Hunt and Cobby O.
4. You hate the house--_why_ canvass, then?
My boy Hobbie O?
Because I would reform the den
As member for the Mobby O.
5. Wherefore do you hate the Whigs,
My boy Hobbie O?
Because they want to run their rigs,
As under Walpole Bobby O.
6. But when we at Cambridge were
My boy Hobbie O,
If my memory don't err
You founded a Whig Clubbie O.
7. When to the mob you make a speech,
My boy Hobbie O,
How do you keep without their reach
The watch within your fobby O?
8. But never mind such petty things,
My boy Hobbie O;
God save the people--damn all Kings,
So let us Crown the Mobby O!
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]