The following poem titled “The Good Old Times” was written anonymously and originally appeared in Reynolds’s Miscellany in 1849.[1] Transcribed by Stephen Basdeo.

A fig for the “good old times,”

Of which some love to sing;

A fig for the dogg’rel rhymes,

From grumblers brains that spring.

In these “good old times,” say they,

“Men were as men should be;

They fared on the best each day,

And lived right jollily!

“Starvation was then unknown—

Taxation but a name;

Now ‘neath the latter men groan,

For thence the former came.”

A plague on your “Good Old Times:”—

Ye drivelling dotards cease!—

Say, what but their splendid crimes,

Now rob us of our fleece?

We’re shorn to the very skin,

While still the debt remains,

And, like some National Sin,

The nation’s life it drains.

Though many fared well each day,

The millions were oppress’d:—

‘Tis a crowning lie to say,

The People then were blessed.

And never again, let’s pray,

May might alone be right;

The sun of a better day,

Now sheds its glorious light!

Then a fig for the “good old times,”

Of which some love to sing;

And a fig for the dogg’rel rhymes,

From grumbler’s brains that spring!

[1] Anonymous, ‘The Good Old Times’, Reynolds’s Miscellany, 24 March 1849, 584.