‘St Stephen's Chapel: a satirical poem’ by Horatius (1807)

St Stephen's Chapel (1807) by Horace Twiss (1787-1849), under the not-really-a-pseudonum Horatius, is a pro-Fox, anti-Pitt satirical portrait of the then-current crop of British politicians (the title refers to the chapel in the original Palace of Westminster, served as the chamber of the House of Commons, until it was destroyed in the fire of 1834 and a new dedicated chamber was built). The poem opens with a dig at ‘poets’ who are also ‘prosers’, writers of contemporary journalism, who have changed their political allegience, from, as it were, red to blue. Coleridge is not named, but presumably he is whom Twiss is targeting.

Twiss laments the passing of ‘great Fox’, who had died September the previous year, and attacks Pitt as ‘the Quixote of the State’. One other oblique reference to Coleridge comes in a footnote on p.26: ‘By way of deprecating Lord H-nry P-tty we have heard wretched puns and wretched rhymes, comparing his to Master Betty, the theatrical Tom Thumb. But the only reason for attaching ridicule to the name of Master Betty … is that he has never attempted any for which he was not fit. On the contrary he has done more for us … than has been affected since the organization fo the Sinking Fund.’ This can only refer to Coleridge's anti-Petty political squib ‘The Taste of the Times’, printed in the Morning Chronicle 25th February 1807, about which I have previously written on this blog.