[To face the Title.CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN.
A Poem.
BY LEIGH HUNT.
WITH SOME REMARKS ON
WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.
WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.
—If there be in glory aught of good,
It may by means far different be attained,
Without ambition, war, or violence.—Milton.
It may by means far different be attained,
Without ambition, war, or violence.—Milton.
LONDON:
CHARLES KNIGHT, LUDGATE STREET.
1835.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE
LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX,
WITH WHOM THE WRITER HUMBLY DIFFERS ON SOME POINTS,
BUT DEEPLY RESPECTS FOR HIS MOTIVES ON ALL;
GREAT IN OFFICE FOR WHAT HE DID FOR THE WORLD,
GREATER OUT OF IT IN CALMLY AWAITING HIS TIME TO DO MORE;
THE PROMOTER OF EDUCATION; THE EXPEDITER OF JUSTICE;
THE LIBERATOR FROM SLAVERY;
AND (WHAT IS THE RAREST VIRTUE IN A STATESMAN)
ALWAYS A DENOUNCER OF WAR,
These Pages are Inscribed
BY HIS EVER AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
Jan. 30, 1835. LEIGH HUNT.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE
LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX,
WITH WHOM THE WRITER HUMBLY DIFFERS ON SOME POINTS,
BUT DEEPLY RESPECTS FOR HIS MOTIVES ON ALL;
GREAT IN OFFICE FOR WHAT HE DID FOR THE WORLD,
GREATER OUT OF IT IN CALMLY AWAITING HIS TIME TO DO MORE;
THE PROMOTER OF EDUCATION; THE EXPEDITER OF JUSTICE;
THE LIBERATOR FROM SLAVERY;
AND (WHAT IS THE RAREST VIRTUE IN A STATESMAN)
ALWAYS A DENOUNCER OF WAR,
These Pages are Inscribed
BY HIS EVER AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
Jan. 30, 1835. LEIGH HUNT.
ADVERTISEMENT.
This Poem is the result of a sense of duty,which has taken the Author from quieter studiesduring a great public crisis. He obeyed theimpulse with joy, because it took the shape ofverse; but with more pain, on some accounts,than he chooses to express. However, he hasdone what he conceived himself bound to do;and if every zealous lover of his species wereto express his feelings in like manner, to thebest of his ability, individual opinions, little in[viii]themselves, would soon amount to an overwhelmingauthority, and hasten the day of reasonand beneficence.
The measure is regular with an irregularaspect,—four accents in a verse,—like that ofChristabel, or some of the poems of Sir WalterScott:
Càptain Swòrd got ùp one dày—
And the flàg full of hònour, as thòugh it could feèl—
And the flàg full of hònour, as thòugh it could feèl—
He mentions this, not, of course, for readersin general, but for the sake of those dailyacceders to the list of the reading public, whoseknowledge of books is not yet equal to theirlove of them.
