Ancestral Enormities

Three thousand years, if I count right,Have heard the critics Homer cite,(His poem's good 'tis true;)

But what can hide the Poet's shame,—No one can tell from whence he came—The son of Lord-knows-who!

Virgil, who sang of war and farming,His case is nearly as alarming,Though Cesar spoke him well:Much did the thoughtless Muse mistake her,Who chose the issue of a bakerSuch wond'rous tales to tell.

Alas! who into hist'ry pushesWill find perpetual cause for blushes—There's Athens—shocking place!Demosthenes declaim'd with pith,But he was gotten by a smith,To Attica's disgrace.

I'm really puzzled to proceed;—To write what 'tis n't fit to readAll decent pens refuse:There's Socrates, so wise and pure,Was born of an old accoucheur,—I should say accoucheuse.

So with the ancients let's have done,Who, every man and mother's son,Were but of yesterday;One more—that Esop—was there ever!—A slave write fables—I shall never!—'Tis now high time to stay!

But with the moderns shall we gain?Faith, that's a case that's not quite plain;Piron's papa sold drugs;A mere upholsterer got Moliere,And Rollin was a cutler's heir,And What's-his-name made jugs.

Rousseau—(not Jacques, but Jean Baptiste)Whose odes to read are quite a feast—His ancestor made shoes;

And is not Jaques himself as bad,Who took a watchmaker for dad,Our patience to abuse?

At home, if curious to knowThe parent-stocks of So-and-so,We'll find the bad turn'd worse;Milton, for all his epic fire,Claims but a scriv'ner for his sire—And he to write blank verse!

Some folks affirm the proof is full,That Shakspeare senior dealt in wool—Let's hope it is the case:For, though one scorns in fleece to deal,Were he a butcher all must feel'Twould his poor son disgrace.

I'm glad to find there is a doubtFrom what trunk Chaucer was a sprout;—A noble one some say:But whispers go, that Chaucer's fatherA vintner was—or cobler rather—Hence his French name—Chaucier.

In short, the man of generous mindWho views the world, must loathe his kind;Such facts his feelings hurting:The elder Pope, whose boy wrote satires,Kept a cheap warehouse next a hatter's,Where he sold Irish shirting!

Nought then remains, but hope—which stillLurks, as of old, behind each ill,Close to the box's bottom:And, after all, the hazard runs,That, though they're all their mothers' sons,Their fathers mayn't have got 'em!