Thomas Trotter The Beggar’s Bush 1829

The poem is from a collection Sea Weeds: Poems Written on Various Occasions, Chiefly During a Naval Life published for Thomas Trotter (1760-1830) who at that time was a surgeon practicing in Newcastle. The text says no more about the “maniac” who is supposed to have cut it down.

The Beggar’s Bush

(cut down by a Maniac about 48 Years ago)

Where now is the bush which the beggar frequented,

That skirted the edge of the new-spangled vale;

Conjecture alone spoke of the age it was planted,

But who of its fall shall relate the sad tale.

How oft to its bower, when its top was all flowery,

Have I paused from my sports to contemplate the scene;

And oft when the clouds looked so sullen and showery,

I’ve sought a retreat till the skies grew serene.

There too, I have witnessed the weather-beat gypsy,

All wrinkled and wan, yet so merry and gay;

And laid on his budget so noisy and topsy,

How glib went the hours of the wand’rer away.

. . .

Text

The Preface says the poems were written on occasion, often extempore, “and the whole without much study or premeditation”. The volume contains another similar maudlin composition called “The Hawthorn; Or, The Disconsolate Tar” featuring a sailor home from the wars meeting a shepherd sheltering under a hawthorn who tells him that his true love has died.

Author

Trotter had a distinguished career as a Naval surgeon, advocating improved methods of treatment and organization, including the use of lemon juice against scurvy. After experiences aboard a slaving ship he became an abolitionist. Trotter had previously published poems in Suspiria Oceani (1800) and a five-act tragedy, The Noble Foundling; or, The Hermit of the Tweed (1812).

Trotter was born in Melrose, Roxburghshire, the son of a baker. He was educated at Melrose and Kelso Academy until 1777, and then studied medicine in Edinburgh for two years. He then worked as a surgeon’s mate in the British navy serving on a ship that sailed for the West Indies in 1780. Trotter was lauded for his exemplary treatment of the wounded at the battle of Dogger Bank in 1781, after which he was promoted rapidly.

Usage

The curious parenthetic comment in the title suggests that Trotter is referring to an actual bush. If the 48 years is calculated from the publication date, the experience he describes happened before 1781. The poem is followed by “Melrose, 1802” but the 48 years cannot be calculated from that date as Trotter was baptised in 1760. Trotter studied at Melrose and Kelso Academy until 1777. He then studied medicine in Edinburgh for two years, after which he become a surgeon’s mate in the British navy serving in the Channel Fleet which sailed for the West Indies in 1780.

There is no record of any Beggars Bush at this date near Melrose or Newcastle. It is possible that Trotter was referring to a location at Musselburgh, East Lothian, where there is a Beggars Bush House, recorded in 1842, and Bush House in 1654. That would fit with his time in Edinburgh, when he published poetry in the Edinburgh Magazine. The dedication dated 1829 is signed by Trotter from Melrose, so the parenthetic sentence may well have been added to an existing poem then.

Further Reading

Sea Weeds. Poems Written on Various Occasions, Chiefly During a Naval Life

London, Longman: Edinburgh, D. Lizars, 1829

reprinted Kessinger Publishing, 2008

DNB

Posted: April 24th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: East Lothian, Thomas Trotter | No Comments »