11. Byron’s ‘Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill,’ Morning Chronicle, 2 March 1812
Transcript
Byron’s ‘Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill’ was published anonymously in the Morning Chronicle four days after his speech on this topic in the House of Lords on 27 February 1812.
AN ODE
TO THE FRAMERS OF THE FRAME BILL.
—Oh well done Lord E—N! and better Lord R—R!
Britannia must prosper with councils like yours;
HAWKESBURY, HARROWBY, help you to guide her,
Whose remedy only must kill ere it cures:
Those villains; the Weavers, are all grown refractory,
Asking some succour for Charity’s sake–
So hang them in clusters round each Manufactory,
That will at once put an end to mistake.*
The rascals, perhaps, may betake them to robbing,
The dogs to be sure have got nothing to eat–
So if we can hang them for breaking a bobbin,
’Twill save all the Government’s money and meat:
Men are more easily made than machinery–
Stockings fetch better prices than lives–
Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the scenery,
Shewing how Commerce, how Liberty thrives!
Justice is now in pursuit of the wretches,
Grenadiers, Volunteers, Bow-street Police,
Twenty-two Regiments, a score of Jack Ketches,
Three of the Quorum and two of the Peace;
Some Lords, to be sure, would have summoned the Judges,
To take their opinion, but that they ne’er shall,
For Liverpool such a concession begrudges,
So now they’re condemned by no Judges at all.
Some folks for certain have thought it was shocking,
When Famine appeals, and when Poverty groans:
That life should be valued at less than a stocking,
And the breaking of frames lead to breaking of bones.
If it should prove so, I trust, by this token,
(And who will refuse to partake in the hope?)
That the frames of the fools may be first to be broken,
Who, when asked for a remedy, sent down a rope.
*Lord E. on Thursday night, said the riots at Nottingham
arose from “a mistake.”
Transcribed from the Morning Chronicle, 2 March 1812.
In this exhibition
- Acknowledgements & foreword
- Introduction
- Introduction
- 1. Manuscript of Byron’s ‘Detached Thoughts’, number 84
- 2. Manuscript copy of Byron’s ‘Detached Thoughts’, annotated by Sir Walter Scott, 1825
- 3. Letter from Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 27 February 1808
- 4. Thomas Medwin's Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron
- 5. John Cam Hobhouse's Journey through Albania
- Britannia: Parliament, party & the Prince
- Introduction to: Britannia: Parliament, party & the Prince
- 6. Byron’s draft parliamentary speech on Roman Catholic emancipation, 1812
- 7. Letter of Lord Sligo to Byron, 20 February 1812
- 8. The Parliamentary Speeches of Lord Byron
- 9. Byron’s manuscript of ‘Note to the annexed stanzas on Brougham’, 7 December 1818
- 10. Letter from Byron to Lady Melbourne, 21 September 1813
- 11. Byron’s ‘Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill,’ Morning Chronicle, 2 March 1812
- 12. Manuscript of Byron’s ‘Lines to a Lady Weeping,’ 1812
- 13. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 22 January 1814
- 14. ‘Song for the Luddites’
- 15. King’s Colledge [sic] to wit: a practical essay
- Napoleon: Emperor, expectation & exile
- Introduction to: Napoleon: Emperor, expectation & exile
- 16. & 17. Byron’s collection of Waterloo spoils (objects and livret)
- 18. Manuscript of Byron’s additional stanzas to ‘Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte,’ 1814
- 19. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 10 April 1814
- 20. Don Juan, Canto IX, stanza 4
- 21. Byron’s ‘Ode to Napoleon’ in The Examiner
- 22. Bill for a Napoleonic snuff box, 7 November 1818
- 23. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 4 December 1821
- 24. Manuscript of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III, stanzas 19-21
- 25. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the third. London: John Murray, 1816
- 26. ‘On the Star of “The Legion of Honour” (From the French)’, 1815
- 27. Poems on Napoleon
- 28. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 22 January 1814
- 29. Manuscript of Byron’s ‘From the French,’ stanzas 3-5, in the hand of Augusta Leigh with annotations by Byron, 1815
- Italy: politics, patriotism & plays
- Introduction to: Italy: politics, patriotism & plays
- 30. Marino Faliero, fragmentary proof for the first edition, 1820, corrected by Byron
- 31. & 32. Playbill for a performance of Marino Faliero, 1821, with accompanying letter defending the performance
- 33. Public notice about a performance of Byron’s Doge of Venice, 1821
- 34. Letter from Byron to John Murray II, 28-9 September 1820
- 35. & 36. Letters from Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, 26 April and 12 October 1821
- 37. The Two Foscari. An historical tragedy
- 38. Notes in Italian, in an unknown hand, used by Byron for Marino Faliero
- 39. ‘Foscari’ by John Rogers Herbert
- 40. Pencil and watercolour sketch of Byron at Genoa, attributed to Count Alfred D’Orsay, April or May 1823
- 41. Byron’s swordstick
- Greece: Hellenism & heroism
- Introduction to: Greece: Hellenism & heroism
- 42. Sculpted portrait bust medallion of Byron in Albanian dress by Nikolaos Kotziamanis, 1992, after Thomas Phillips’ portrait, 1813
- 43. Letter to Byron from the London Greek Committee, 8 March 1823
- 44. Letter of Metropolitan Ignatios to Mavrokordatos, in Greek, introducing Lord Byron, 1823
- 45. Manuscript of ‘On This Day I Complete My Thirty- Sixth Year’, in Byron’s Cephalonia Journal, 1824
- 46. Commission giving Lord Byron charge of a group of artillery signed by Alexandros Mavrokordatos
- 47. 'View of Albanian palikars in pursuit of an enemy'
- 48. Part of a letter or memorandum from Mavrokordatos to Byron, in French, 21 or 22 March 1824
- 49. William Parry's The Last Days of Lord Byron
- 50. Leicester Stanhope's Greece, in 1823 and 1824
- 51. Divers sièges de Missolonghi
- 52. Translation of the funeral oration delivered in Greek by M Spiridon Tricoupi ... in honour of the late Lord Byron
- 53. Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution by Roderick Beaton
- Editions used as sources