The Splendid Shilling

An Imitation of Milton

[Ed. Note: Philips had great respect for Milton and for the "Miltonic style" of blank verse which Milton had used in writing Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and, in fact, he would employ that style in his own more serious poems such Cider and Blenheim. In this poem, however, Philips clearly makes fun of some of the potential excesses that Milton's blank verse can lead to: he parodies Milton's lengthy catalogs of exotic, polysyllabic names, as in lines 30-32, and he parodies Satan's reaction to his own sins ("Me miserable! Which way shall I fly/ Infinite wrath and infinite despair?"-- Paradise Lost, Book IV, ll. 73-74) in the speaker's reaction to a dun (i. e., professional debt collector) in lines 42-43; he also parodies Milton's inversion of word order by inverting the normal order of noun and adjective as in line 12, "Or pun ambiguous or conundrum quaint"; and he parodies Milton's frequent separation of subject and verb, as in lines 13-16, where the verb "sustain" is separated from its subject "I" by four lines. Philips parodies Milton's lengthy "epic similes," especially in the poem's final fifteen lines with the long comparison of the winds that threaten and finally sink a ship to the winds that will blow through the hole in his breeches; two other epic similes appear in lines 22-34 and lines 73-92. Finally, he parodies Milton by using Milton's grand style to write about a trivial subject, his own poverty and its consequences, a device that would come to be called the "mock heroic" and which would form the basis of some of the 18th century's finest satires. Joseph Addison said of this poem that it was "the finest burlesque poem in the British language." --Nelson]

HAPPY the man who, void of cares and strife,

In silken or in leathern purse retains

A Splendid Shilling; he nor hears with pain

New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;

But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,

To Juniper's, Magpye, or Town-Hall* repairs:          [popular taverns]

Where, mindful of the nymph whose wanton eye

Transfix'd his soul and kindl'd amorous flames,

Chloe, or Phyllis, he each circling glass

Wisheth her health, and joy, and equal love.

Meanwhile he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,

Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint.

But I, whom griping penury surrounds,

And hunger, sure attendant upon want,

With scanty offals, and small acid tiff*          [cheap ale]

(Wretch'd repast!) my meagre corpse sustain:

Then solitary walk, or doze at home

In garret vile, and with a warming puff

Regale chill'd fingers; or from tube* as black          [pipe]

As winter chimney or well polish'd jet

Exhale Mundungus*, ill-perfuming scent:          [cheap tobacco]

Not blacker tube nor of a shorter size

Smokes Cambro-Britain* (vers'd in pedigree,           [ Welshman]

Sprung from Cadwalader and Arthur, kings

Full famous in romantic tale) when he

O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff

Upon a cargo of fam'd Cestrian* cheese          [from Chester]

High over-shadowing rides, with a design

To vend his wares, or at the Arvonian* mart,          [in Arvon]

Or Maridunum, or the ancient town

Yclept Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream

Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil,

Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie

With Massic, Setin, and renown'd Falern*.          [famous wines]

Thus while my joyless minutes tedious flow

With looks demure and silent pace, a dun,

Horrible monster! hated by gods and men,

To my aerial citadel ascends;

With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gates,

With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know

The voice ill-boding and the solemn sound.

What should I do? or whither turn? Amaz'd,

Confounded, to the dark recess I fly

Of woodhole; straight my bristling hairs erect

Through sudden fear; a chilly sweat bedews

My shuddering limbs, and, wonderful to tell,

My tongue forgets her faculty of speech,

So horrible he seems; his faded brow

Entrench'd with many a frown and conic beard

And spreading band, admir'd by modren saints,

Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand

Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,

With characters and figures dire inscrib'd

Grievous to mortal eyes; (ye gods avert

Such plagues from righteous men!) behind him stalks

Another monster, not unlike himself,

Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar call'd

A catchpole*, whose polluted hands          [sheriff's deputy]

With force incredible and magic charms

Erst have indu'd; if he his ample palm

Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay

Of debtor, straight his body to the touch

Obsequious*, as whilom knights were wont,          [cringing submission]

To some enchanted castle is convey'd,

Where gates impregnable and coercive chains

In durance strict detain him, till in form

Of money Pallas sets the captive free.

Beware, ye debtors, when ye walk beware,

Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken

This caitiff* eyes your steps aloof, and oft          [wretch]

Lies perdue* in a nook or gloomy cave,          [hidden]

Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch

With his unhallow'd touch. So, poets sing,

Grimalkin*, to domestic vermin sworn          [a cat]

An everlasting foe, with watchful eye

Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,

Protending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice

Sure ruin. So her disemboweled web

Arachne* in a hall or kitchen spreads,          [a spider]

Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands

Within her woven cell; the humming prey,

Regardless* of their fate, rush on the toils          [heedless]

Inextricable, nor will aught avail

Their arts, nor arms, nor shapes of lovely hue:

The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,

And butterfly proud of expanded wings

Distinct with gold, entangl'd in her snares,

Useless resistance make. With eager strides

She, towering, flies to her expected spoils;

Then with envenom'd jaws the vital blood

Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave

Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.

So pass my days. But when nocturnal shades

This world envelop, and the inclement air

Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts

With pleasant wines and crackling blaze of wood,

Me lonely sitting, nor the glimmering light

Of make-weight candle*, nor the joyous talk          [small candle]

Of loving friend delights; distress'd, forlorn,

Amidst the horrors of the tedious night

Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts

My anxious mind; or sometimes mournful verse

Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades,

Or desperate lady near a purling stream,

Or lover pendent on a willow tree*.          [having hanged himself]

Meanwhile I labour with eternal drought,

And restless wish and rave; my parched throat

Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose:

But if a slumber haply does invade

My weary limbs, my fancy's still awake,

Thoughtful of drink, and eager in a dream

Tipples imaginary pots of ale;

In vain; awake, I find the settled thirst

Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse.

Thus do I live from pleasure quite debarr'd,

Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays

Mature, John-apple, nor the downy peach,

Nor walnut in rough-furrow'd coat secure,

Nor medlar*, fruit delicious in decay.          [a pear]

Afflictions great! yet greater still remain:

My galligaskins* that have long withstood          [breeches]

The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,

By Time subdu'd, (what will not Time subdue!)

An horrid chasm disclose, with orifice

Wide, discontinuous; at which the winds

Eurus and Auster*, and the dreadful force          [east and south winds]

Of Boreas*, that congeals the Cronian** waves,            [north wind]   [polar ocean]

Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts

Portending agues. Thus a well-fraught ship

Long sail'd secure, or through the Aegean deep,

Or the Ionian, till cruising near

The Lilybean shore, with hideous crush

On Scylla or Charybdis, dangerous rocks,

She strikes rebounding, whence the shatter'd oak,

So fierce a shock unable to withstand,

Admits the sea; in at the gaping side

The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,

Resistless, overwhelming; horrors seize

The mariners, death in their eyes appears,

They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear, they pray:

Vain efforts! still the battering waves rush in

Implacable, till delug'd by the foam,

The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.

John Philips