Tune, I have a Tenement to let.
The Comet passed its perehelion on the 20th of June, 1797, and was seen in the Southern Hemisphere, passing from Argo through Orion, up towards Auriga; near the head of which, it was seen by Miss Caroline Herschell, and to her wonder and disappointment, without a tail.
What’s all this bustle and alarm,
This buzzing ’bout the nation,
A Comet crop’d, now heaves in sight,
A stranger constellation;
Tho’ Newton, Tycho Brahe, Des Cartes,
Concerning Comets vary,
Yet Comets, call them what you will,
Are stars both rough and hairy.
CHORUS.
And some are crop’d,
Nick’d, hog’d, fig’d, dock’d,
Fir’d, bearded, tail’d, and whisker’d,
Doodle, doodle, doodle doo,
Doodle, doodle, dil do.
But truce to all the learned trash,
All vague and loose conjecture,
And take from me, ye Comet skill’d,
A plain and simple lecture;
If this foul fact I fully prove,
No odds will be between us,
This Comet got his tail close crop’d,
By stroking planet Venus.
Now where d’ye think when last you peep’d,
This Comet was a posting,
When he had lost his fiery tail,
Left Venus orbit roasting;
Why? to the planet Mercury,
To state his woeful case, sir,
And rubbing in his recipe,
His nose dropt off his face, sir.
It seems this Comet oft was seen,
With Venus cutting capers,
And Mars had heard his damag’d tail
Emitted noxious vapours;
So off he went to Jupiter,
About his wife’s ellipsis,
For he didn’t like to see her have
So many strange eclipses.
How came, quoth Jupiter to Mars,
Fair Venus out of order,
For I suspect ’twas you old boy
Who gave her this disorder;
It may be so, said planet Mars,
To Jupiter, his king, sir,
For I’ve been in the milky way,
And Saturn’s filthy ring, sir.
This Comet crop’d hangs o’er our heads,
I wish he’d travel faster,
For in his course eccentrical,
He dealeth dire disaster;
Pale Luna’s got the clap of him,
Bright Sol’s reflecting mopsey,
With water too, he’s fill’d our earth,
And given her the dropsy.
Piss M—k, B—m, both M. D. D.
Ascend by a balloon, sir,
The first, the Comet has call’d in,
The last attends the Moon, sir;
Humbug B. cures her clap,
And Humbug M. gratis,
Undertakes the Comet’s case,
A dreadful Diabetes.
Now if I’m wrong, sirs, set me right,
Banks, Herschell, Loft, and Walkers,
All you who of cropt Comets are,
The astronomic talkers;
Go tell the town I’m nebulous,
Word “caviare to the million,”
Swear radiant Phœbus Cromwell cropt,
The Comet’s perehelion.
Enquirers into nature say,
That bucks, when rutting’s over,
Inter their old-tails in the park,
And new ones soon discover;
The Comet and the buck alike,
With new tails bound and jump, sir,
While old DUKE Q., not I or you,
Wags on with his old stump, sir.
This Comet, timid people talk,
Forebodes a revolution,
A total change and overthrow
Of Britain’s constitution;
But still I think we’ve nought to fear,
Tho’ enemies divide us,
Our leading light of freedom is,
THE STEADY GEORGIUM SIDUS.