1804.10
Recipe
To make a French Legion of Honour
“Hafiz”
[Thomas Stott]
The Hull Packet (September 25, 1804)
The Gentleman's Magazine, LXXIV (October 1804) , p. 953 [1]

Select some fit tools
From Philosophy's schools,
    Well vers'd in the laws of submission;
Who can chatter, read, write,
Turn black into white,
    Cheat, flatter, cajole, and petition.

Take mountebanks, prancers,
Fops, fiddlers, and dancers,
    So volatile, versatile, nimble;
Pimps, parasites, spyers,
Apostates, rogues, liars,
    State coblers; and knights of the thimble.

Take impious bravadoes,
Malapert renegadoes,
    Who laugh at religion so hearty;
Take infidel priests,
Half men and half beasts,
    Staunch friends to the great Bonypartey.

Take pomp, pride, and puff,
White tinsel enough,
    To gild, and to make them go down;—
Take treachery, knavery,
Poverty, slavery,
    Rape, murder, and savage renown.

When this you have done,
Take folly and fun,
    Gantheaume, Treville, and Arthur O'Connor.[2]
Blend all in a mass,
And the mixture will pass,
    For a modern French Legion of Honour!

Notes

1. The Gentleman's Magazine prints the poem with the signature "Hafiz," the pseudnym of Thomas Stott.

2. Jacobin leaders.