Author: Anon

Publication: Reform Songs and Squibs

Publisher: Printed by Peter Brown

Place of publication: Edinburgh, Scotland

Publication type: Book

Featured individuals:
King William IV (1765-1837)
William Cobbett (1763-1835)
Joseph Hume (1777-1855)
Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850)

No full copy of this poem is available.

This poem has a set tune, and its title is:
Come bother their buttons, quoth Tom o' the Goose.

Archive/Library: Aberdeen University Library
Classmark(s): 82 (41) 17 Ref
Pages(s): 25-27

This poem appears in a collection of poems connected to the 1832 Reform campaigns and subsequent elections by the reformer Peter Brown, who eventually settled in Toronto and founded the Toronto Banner.  This poem, which addresses Lord Jeffrey, states that in the past, people went to church, honoured their King and all was content, but now everyone focuses on the state.  The poems asks 'Are we richer, or better, or happier now?' - a common complaint of anti-reformers who did not believed anything was to be gained from reform.  The poem also states that profress will only be achieved when reformers focus on 'reforming his own rotten borough - the HEART'.  The poem also appeared, under different titles in Blackwood's Magazine, an Edinburgh periodical, and the Glasgow Herald, a Glasgow newspaper.