Genre:

Introduction; Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Monstrosities, Display

    The poem is the supposed lament of the famous clown, Joseph Grimaldi, whose ill health precluded his performing in the season's pantomime at Covent Garden Theatre. Refers in particular to Grimaldi's famous construction on stage of a vegetable man that boxed with its creator 'Joe Frankenstein': 'Ne'er shall I build the wondrous verdant man, / Tall, turnip-headed,—carrot-finger'd, —lean;— / Ne'er shall I, on the very newest plan, / Cabbage a body;—old Joe Frankenstein' (30).