Poem of the week: The Fine Old English Gentleman by Charles Dickens

It would be a pity to let the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens pass by without including an example of his verse on Poem of the week. The novelist's poetic output was small: a few songs in The Pickwick Papers, poems for plays, and a brilliant trio of political squibs which appeared in the liberal journal The Examiner in 1841. This week's poem, "The Fine Old English Gentleman: New Version", is one of the latter, and the pick of the crop.

The poem was published on 7 August, signed simply "W". It embodies the writer's angry response to the election of Sir Robert Peel as British prime minister, replacing Lord Melbourne and his Whig ministry. The power shift was a serious threat to the liberal cause and its reforms, personified by Dickens as "strong-wing'd" Tolerance, who triumphs briefly over "the pure old spirit" of repression in verse seven.

Dickens's model was a song by Henry Russell, a popular composer, pianist, singer and lyricist and the great-nephew of the British chief rabbi, Solomon Hirschel. Russell's song, "The Fine Old English Gentleman" (1835) is taken to be an encomium to the good old days, but a closer look at the lyrics suggests Russell had some radical ideas of his own. His reference, for instance, to "the poor old English gentleman" who "kept a brave old mansion / At a bountiful old rate" is clearly ironical. It's significant that Dickens initially takes up Russell's rhymes and some of his phrases. It's as if he makes the original a launch-pad for his own fiercer and more extensive political battery.

Dickens attacks Tory stupidity in his very subtitle: "To be said or sung at all Conservative dinners". Only idiots would chant this litany of self-mockery at a celebratory dinner. The poem runs tirelessly through a roster of political injustice and corrupt practice, and every verse hits its targets. Sometimes, there's a sketched-in backstory: verse three suggests a connection between the spy network, embodied in the "brave old code", and the mythological, many-eyed monster Argus, and the Peterloo Massacre, when "the good old yeomanry" attacked a peaceful crowd of demonstrators. The corruption of the press is not forgotten. Neither is the repression of fellow literary liberals. The imprisonment of Leigh and John Hunt for their satire on the Prince Regent as "The Prince of Whales" prompts a particularly nice piece of ridicule: "For shutting men of letters up, through iron bars to grin / Because they didn't think the Prince was altogether thin".

The heptameter lines of the "new ballad", which, with lighter material, would suggest a comic "patter song", enhance the urgent pell-mell rhythm, the flow of energetic tirade. Quadruple rhymes underline the accumulation and in-breeding of the dirty deeds. The refrain, a mock-toast and a warning, constantly rubs in the almost-abusive title "Tory". Well before 1841 the party had renamed itself Conservative. The word Tory comes from the Irish tōraidhe, pursuer, and originally denoted the Catholic rebels who sought to rid Ireland of the English. Dickens heightens the ironical about-turn in the word's usage, depicting the Tories as "hunting men" in verse four, bringing war and starvation to Ireland in verse eight.

It's in verse four that Dickens names names – not Peel, of course, but the younger William Pitt, who had heartened the reactionaries of his era through his election as prime minister at the tender age of 24. Dickens's depiction of his rapid rise as a descent "direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed" is a masterstroke of bathos and a great piece of punning, alluding to the new mode of high-speed travel, and to "railroad" as a verb, meaning to force an action or outcome at undue speed.

Dickens's irony is deliberately heavy, and he may, after all, exceed rationality in blaming the Tories for all the ills of the past. But he drives the narrative forward with a storyteller's flair, seen both in the whole poem and in the individual verses, and, most importantly, his targets are real ones, and truly worthy of the cudgel. While appearing to generalise, he keeps his eye on historical detail. There's no doubt of an extraordinary skill in conveying and evoking strong feeling – as if the young writer, who had earlier thought of standing for the Liberals in Reading, seriously intended his pen to rally a band of "rebel heads" against the renewed Tory times. For us, the poem may, of course, gain further edge from a certain topicality.

The Fine Old English Gentleman: New Version

(To be said or sung at all Conservative dinners)

I'll sing you a new ballad, and I'll warrant it first-rate,
Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate;
When they spent the public money at a bountiful old rate
On ev'ry mistress, pimp, and scamp, at ev'ry noble gate,
In the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!

The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips, and chains,
With fine old English penalties, and fine old English pains,
With rebel heads, and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins;
For all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains
Of the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!

This brave old code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes,
And ev'ry English peasant had his good old English spies,
To tempt his starving discontent with fine old English lies,
Then call the good old Yeomanry to stop his peevish cries,
In the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!

The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need,
The good old times for hunting men who held their fathers' creed,
The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed,
Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed …
Oh the fine old English Tory times;
When will they come again!

In those rare days, the press was seldom known to snarl or bark,
But sweetly sang of men in pow'r, like any tuneful lark;
Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark;
And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark.
Oh the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!

Those were the days for taxes, and for war's infernal din;
For scarcity of bread, that fine old dowagers might win;
For shutting men of letters up, through iron bars to grin,
Because they didn't think the Prince was altogether thin,
In the fine old English Tory times;
Soon may they come again!

But Tolerance, though slow in flight, is strong-wing'd in the main;
That night must come on these fine days, in course of time was plain;
The pure old spirit struggled, but its struggles were in vain;
A nation's grip was on it, and it died in choking pain,
With the fine old English Tory days,
All of the olden time.

The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land,
In England there shall be dear bread — in Ireland, sword and brand;
And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand,
So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand,
Of the fine old English Tory days;
Hail to the coming time!