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Appendix E - Holograph Manuscript of ‘Touchandgo’ (Watermark 1828)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2022

Freya Johnston
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Matthew Bevis
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

HOLOGRAPH manuscript of ‘Touchandgo’, with numerous corrections, on a double folio sheet of blue-grey Whatman paper (dated 1828 in watermark). The first page is numbered ‘199’ and the third ‘201’. The poem is reprinted in Halliford, 7.494–6.

Location: Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library (TLP 55).

My feelings have

been very much hurt

by reading some wicked

verses about you in a

newspaper. I could not

help copying them, because

they were about you; and

so I send them to you;

but it is very inconsiderate

and cruel in people, to

amuse themselves in this

way with other people’s

misfortunes. To be sure there

is some comfort in the last verse.

Ho ho! ho ho! pray who can shew,

Whither has fled great Touchandgo?

He's gone off in a chaise and pair,

And not a soul on earth knows where.

In his own chariot off he ran,

And there was not a turnpike man

’Twixt London and the western channel,

Could see his arms upon the pannel.

Some says he took the road to Bris

he took the road to Milford,

With lots to of sovereigns which he pilfered,

With hidden jewels well apparelled

And others swear he's gone to Bristol

Equipped with And blunderbusses double-barrelled.

With only sixpence and a pistol.

Others aver, he tried to pop

His brains out in my uncle's shop,

set off for

And, missing fire, went post Bristol,

Equipped with sixpence and a pistol.

Others affirm, he still doth dwell

Deep in a fishing-vessel's well,

Croaking, while cold his utterance clogs,

Like Aristophanes's frogs.

Some say, his assignée's attorney,

Has sailed on Sir Richard Birnie,

With a request that Mr. Bishop

Him from said fishing-smack may fish up.

Some say, his creditors are frantic,

halfway seas o’er

To think he's safe across th’ Atlantic:

Some say, a fleet has just weighed anchor,

moon-shooting

To chase the great sky-scraping banker.

Type
Chapter
Information
Crotchet Castle , pp. 164 - 166
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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