Note 46 — Chapter IV · JOSH. HUDSON, “THE JOHN BULL FIGHTER.”—1816–1826.
Reading edition
As a sample of what our fathers thought smart writing, we give a contemporary specimen or two of les impromptus fait à loisir which appeared in the leading papers of the day:
“IMPROMPTU ON SAMPSON AND HUDSON’S MATCH.
“If what the ancients say be true,
That Samson many thousands slew,
And with a single bone;
How can Josh. Hudson’s skill in fight,
Avail ’gainst modern Sampson’s might,
Who carries two ’tis known?”
Another, alluding to a rife topic of the day—the treatment of Napoleon the Great by the Governor of St. Helena, Sir Hudson Lowe, whom Byron has damned to everlasting fame in the lines—
“Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go,
With turncoat Hudson for my turnkey Lowe,”
runs thus; the plagiarism in idea is manifest.
“Josh. Hudson now is high in fame;
Should this against him go,
His glory passes like a dream,
He’ll then be—Hudson Low-e.”