I must have a look at the autobiography for, as you say, there’s something quite striking about such baseless confidence. I guess McGonagall must have been drawing his inspiration from a hitherto unknown Muse…one devoted to comical folly and hubris!

You’re probably right about my unfair jibes at Hood. The “told” and “toll’d” pun is undoubtedly delicious. It’s merely that The Dream of Eugene Arram perfectly captures the rather fevered and hysterical tone of much bad 19th century verse.

I hadn’t heard of the cheese-lovin’ Mr. McIntyre before, but I’ll certainly check him out now. Thanks for the recommendation/warning.

I think you’re a little harsh on Hood, though “clasp it with a clasp” was admittedly not one of his better lines. Personally I can forgive much of the man who wrote “The Song of the Shirt”, not to mention his brilliant punning in “Faithless Sally Brown”:

His death which happened in his berth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton toll’d the bell.

If you’re looking for a competitor for McGonagall, the closest is another scot, albeit an emigrant to Canada. James McIntyre wasn’t interested in disasters, his poems were about CHEESE. From “Ode On the Mammoth Cheese”:

We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze,
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

That’s true class. I guess there must be something in the water up in Scotland…

Now there is a bridge once more at Tay,
Made from sterner, tougher stuff they say,
Let’s hope it falls not into disarray,
So no more decent Scots in trains get washed away,
This I pray as I do wield my pen,
For ‘twould be sad if it occur’d again.

The weeping mourners did their teeth gnash,
To see in the bridge the terrible gash,
Wherein fell the train with a mighty splash,
Where the silvery Tay makes a watery sash,
And a grave for the souls now washed in the brine,
That will be remembered for a very long time.

It was McGonagall’s appalling and awesome gift to make the grisly deaths of some 90 folk the occasion of great mirth. Still, he had the moral courage to impart at the conclusion of his lay the following sage advice, no doubt much appreciated by the bereaved.

“I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.”

It is perhaps for his practicality of tone, more than his bathetic poesy, for which the name of the poet-seer McGonagall will echo down the remaining ages of man…I think.