Five-minute digest

The Diverting History of John Gilpin

William Cowper

Summary

The Diverting History of John Gilpin, subtitled Showing How He Went Farther Than He Intended, and Came Safe Home Again, is a comic ballad that Cowper wrote in 1782 after his friend Lady Austen told him the story to cheer him from depression. John Gilpin is a London linen-draper, a citizen of credit and renown and a train-band captain. His wife reminds him that in twenty years of marriage they have never taken a holiday, and she proposes that on their wedding anniversary the family should ride out to the Bell inn at Edmonton. She, her sister and the children will go in a hired chaise, and John will follow on a borrowed horse. Careful with money, Mrs Gilpin brings her own wine in two stone bottles, which John hangs from his belt. Once on the road the horse breaks into a gallop. Gilpin loses his hat and wig, his cloak flies out behind him, and the bottles swing and smash. The townspeople cheer, thinking he is racing for a wager, and the turnpike men fling open the gates. Gilpin flies past the Bell at Edmonton, where his wife calls in vain from the balcony, and the horse carries him ten miles on to Ware, to the house of the friend who owns it. The friend lends him a new hat and wig, but when Gilpin turns for home the horse bolts again, back past Edmonton and all the way to London, with a crowd shouting behind him. Gilpin arrives home safe, having had a longer ride than he planned. The poem ends with a mock toast to the king and to Gilpin. Printed anonymously in a newspaper, the ballad became a national sensation when the actor John Henderson recited it in London in 1785. It is gentle, swift and wholly innocent, and it shows the playful side of a poet often remembered for his sorrows.

Top Lessons

Laughing at ourselves
Gilpin keeps his dignity even as everything goes wrong. Humour can be kind.
Related across the library
- The Art of War, Ch. X.25 (Terrain)
  Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death Sun Tzu's paternal model of command, immediately qualified by a warning against indulgence that leaves soldiers like spoilt children.
- The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Chapter XI. Disdain—contempt—disgust-Guilt—pride
  In the accompanying Plate VI figs and Mr Rejlander has successfully acted the gesture of shrugging the shoulders Englishmen are much less demonstrative than the men of most other European nations and they shrug their shoulders far less frequently and energetically than Frenchmen or Italians do The gesture varies in all degrees from the complex movement just described to only a momentary and scarcely perceptible raising of both shoulders or as I have noticed in a lady sitting in an arm-chair to the mere turning s...
- History of Animals, Lesson: Inquiry begins with collecting differences
  Inquiry begins with collecting differences. Historia means an organised gathering of facts. Aristotle insists on first establishing what is the case about animals, their parts and habits, before explaining why, and he keeps that task separate from his causal treatises. Students learn that careful description is not inferior to theory but its necessary foundation.
- The Golden Ass, Lesson: Salvation may be sincere and comic
  Salvation may be sincere and comic. The Isiac ending offers real deliverance but keeps traces of satire and cost. Apuleius refuses a purely simple conversion story.
- Romeo and Juliet, Lesson: Hatred inherited
  Hatred inherited. No one in Verona remembers why the Capulets and Montagues are enemies, yet servants bite their thumbs and kinsmen draw swords. Mercutio, who belongs to neither house, dies cursing both. The play shows how a quarrel passed from parents to children consumes the very children it was meant to defend.
Thrift and holidays
Mrs Gilpin is careful with money, and that care causes some of the trouble.
Related across the library
- The Taming of the Shrew, Induction, Scene 2
  Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood, And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy The Lord's servants tell Sly that his doctors have ordered a merry comedy for his health, introducing the play that follows.
- The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Chapter XI. Disdain—contempt—disgust-Guilt—pride
  In the accompanying Plate VI figs and Mr Rejlander has successfully acted the gesture of shrugging the shoulders Englishmen are much less demonstrative than the men of most other European nations and they shrug their shoulders far less frequently and energetically than Frenchmen or Italians do The gesture varies in all degrees from the complex movement just described to only a momentary and scarcely perceptible raising of both shoulders or as I have noticed in a lady sitting in an arm-chair to the mere turning s...
- The Trumpet of the Swan, Lesson: Paying what you owe
  Paying what you owe. The cob takes the trumpet for love of his son, but it is still a theft, and both father and son know it. Louis works at camp, in Boston and in Philadelphia until he has enough to repay the storekeeper and the broken window.
- The Art of the Commonplace, Lesson: Art of the Commonplace: order and disorder
  Art of the Commonplace: order and disorder. The Art of the Commonplace makes order visible by showing what damages it. essay by essay, Berry challenges abstraction by returning arguments to farms, watersheds, tables, tools, neighbors, and inherited obligations
- The Master and Margarita, Lesson: Art survives oppression
  Art survives oppression. The burned manuscript is restored, and the novel itself survived its author's lifetime of censorship. Bulgakov asserts that true art cannot be destroyed by persecution.
Comic ballad form
Quick stanzas and rhymes carry the story at a gallop.
Related across the library
- The Golden Ass, Lesson: Salvation may be sincere and comic
  Salvation may be sincere and comic. The Isiac ending offers real deliverance but keeps traces of satire and cost. Apuleius refuses a purely simple conversion story.
- Frog and Toad Are Friends, "The Story"
  Frog, feeling unwell, is put to bed by Toad, who exhausts himself trying to think of a story; Frog then cares for Toad.
- The Art of War, Ch. XI.23–28
  Troops in desperate straits lose fear and fight to the death; Sun Tzu describes soldiers weeping on the day of battle and then fighting with the courage of legendary heroes.
- My Father's Dragon, Lesson: Kindness to the helpless
  Kindness to the helpless. Elmer's adventure begins with kindness to a wet old cat that nobody else cares about, and it ends with rescuing a baby dragon whom the animals beat and overwork. The story teaches that noticing someone who is suffering is the first step to helping.
- The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Chapter XI. Disdain—contempt—disgust-Guilt—pride
  In the accompanying Plate VI figs and Mr Rejlander has successfully acted the gesture of shrugging the shoulders Englishmen are much less demonstrative than the men of most other European nations and they shrug their shoulders far less frequently and energetically than Frenchmen or Italians do The gesture varies in all degrees from the complex movement just described to only a momentary and scarcely perceptible raising of both shoulders or as I have noticed in a lady sitting in an arm-chair to the mere turning s...

Verified Quotes

Frequently cited

“John Gilpin was a citizen Of credit and renown,”

— William Cowper, The Diverting History of John Gilpin, Stanza 1 (Gutenberg #3698: The Task, and Other Poems (Cassell's National Library, 1899)).Quote card

Metaphysics, Book IV (Gamma), Part 2
'Healthy' is said of what preserves health, produces it, is a symptom of it, or is capable of it; 'medical' is said of what possesses or serves the medical art.
History of Animals, Book VIII, Ch. I, §1
For almost all animals present traces of their moral dispositions, though these distinctions are most remarkable in man The opening of Aristotle's account of the habits and characters of animals.
The Tyger, Stanza 6 (Lines 23-24)
What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? The final lines repeat the opening question with dare in place of could, turning ability into audacity.
Metaphysics, Book IV (Gamma), Part 2
So, too, there are many senses in which a thing is said to be, but all refer to one starting-point After showing that 'healthy' and 'medical' are said in many ways with reference to health and the medical art, Aristotle applies the pattern to 'being', which refers to substance.
Parts of Animals, Book III, Part 1
For nature never makes anything superfluous or in vain Stated while explaining why animals with tusks lack horns; a short form of Aristotle's teleological rule.

“A train-band captain eke was he Of famous London town.”

— William Cowper, The Diverting History of John Gilpin, Stanza 1 (Gutenberg #3698: The Task, and Other Poems (Cassell's National Library, 1899)).Quote card

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The Diverting History of John Gilpin

Summary

Top Lessons

Laughing at ourselves

Thrift and holidays

Comic ballad form

Verified Quotes