The Worst Poet in the World | From Cautionary Tales

In light of our current series on mistakes, we're sharing an episode from Cautionary Tales https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/cautionary-tales—a podcast that’s all about mistakes and what we can learn from them. This story is about a poet—some say the worst poet in the world–William McGonagall. McGonagall's works were full of jarring meter, banal imagery, and awkward rhymes. They made him a laughing stock in 19th Century Scotland and are still derided to this day. What can we learn from such a disastrous poet? And it is possible we’ve misunderstood McGonagall all along? We'll be back with a new mistake next week. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Malcolm Gladwell?

  You're about to hear an episode of Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. Tim's podcast explores mistakes from history and importantly, what we can learn from them. As you can imagine, there's a lot of disasters to choose from, but there's always an interesting angle on what we can take from them. I learn something new every time. You'd be surprised, but a shipwreck from the 60s can teach us something about a mistake we all make when making decisions today. This episode is about a poet. William McGonagall is remembered today as the worst poet in the world, and Tim is obsessed with his work. I think I am too. Here's a quick example. "A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold, enough to make one's blood run cold.

• 0:51Malcolm Gladwell?

  Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory, as I've been told, I'll relate the story. 'Twas on the eighth April, on the afternoon of that day, that the village of Louisbourg was thrown into a wild state of disarray.'" So what can we learn from a disastrous poet? Tim has a few ideas, and in true revisionist history style, he has a feeling we've been understanding McGonagall all wrong. Enjoy the episode, it's one of my favorites, and make sure you subscribe to Cautionary Tales for plenty more disasters and plenty more lessons.

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• 2:32Speaker 03

  The wind is fierce, no doubt about it. It's the strongest gale that John Watt can remember. And he's been working for the North British Railway since 1867, a full 12 years.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  It's a good night to be safely sheltered in the railway signal cabin, sharing a mug of tea with a friend, signalman Thomas Barclay.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  As Watt and Barclay sip their tea and look out of the window into the darkness, they can see the faint line of lamps all along the new railway bridge, running almost two miles across the wide River Tay to the city of Dundee. Every now and then, the clouds gust apart and the full moon picks out the high girders of the longest bridge in the world.

• 3:28Speaker 03

  A few minutes after seven o'clock comes the signal from the south. The northbound train is approaching. Thomas Barclay steps out of the cabin, into the wind, and waits as the train approaches, the sparks from the wheels visible in the dark. He greets the crew with a smile, handing over the baton that gives permission for a train to cross the bridge. The train is moving at walking pace. He sees a child peer out of the window of a carriage as it passes.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Then, as the train puffs off over the long, high iron span, Thomas goes back to his friend in the shelter of the cabin and sends a message to the signal box over on the other side of the River Tay.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  The signal bell rings three times in response. And still, the wind howls.

• 4:31Speaker 03

  Thomas turns back to his mug of tea, but John Watt is gazing out of the window at the bridge. "There's something wrong with the train," he says. Thomas Barkley thinks he's imagining it, but John knows what he's seen: three red taillamps fading into the distance over the bridge, and then a series of flashes, three small and one big. Then darkness. No taillamps. "The train's gone over, Thomas," he says. Thomas Barkley still isn't convinced. Surely the train has just disappeared from view after cresting the highest point of

• 5:16Speaker 03

  the bridge. Surely they'll see her again soon. But they don't. Thomas tries calling the signal box on the other side of the bridge. Nothing. They go outside, briefly venture onto the bridge, and then retreat as the wind threatens to tear them off the girders and into the waters below. The clouds part again, and the full moon reveals the scene. A thousand yards of the bridge are gone: the high girders of the central spans, the iron piers that had supported them, also gone.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  And of course, the train has gone too, and every one of its passengers. It's a catastrophe. But this is not a story about a fatal bridge collapse. It's a story about a poet. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to Cautionary Tales.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery Tay. Alas, I am very sorry to say that ninety lives have been taken away on the last Sabbath day of eighteen seventy-nine, which will be remembered for a very long time.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Thus begins a poem titled ‘The Tay Bridge Disaster’. It is widely regarded as the worst poem ever written, and its author, William McGonagall, is widely regarded as the worst poet. I’ll spare you the full poem, but here’s a central verse: So the train moved slowly along the bridge of Tay, until it was about midway; Then the central girders with a crash gave way, And down went the train and passengers into the Tay. The storm fiend did loudly bray, Because ninety lives had been taken away On the last Sabbath day of eighteen seventy-nine,

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Which will be remembered for a very long time.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  When I was just a boy, I saw an illustration of the Tay Bridge catastrophe in a children’s picture book. It stayed with me. I can still see it in my mind. The bridge seemed so horribly high and thin. As it collapses into the storm, the train is just steaming off into thin air.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  It’s awful. And then, I encountered William McGonagall’s truly terrible poem, and it stuck with me just as vividly. Or should I say, it has been remembered for a very long time. Here’s the end of the poem.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Oh ill-fated bridge of the silvery Tay, 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.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  It's awful. I'm obsessed with William McGonagall. I have so many questions. Who was this man? What does he teach us about art? And above all, how does a poem get to be this bad?

• 9:31Speaker 03

  I have several biographies of the poet McGonagall in front of me. One of them says he was born in 1825, another says he was born in 1830, and both were written by William McGonagall himself.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  William McGonagall's parents were Irish, but he was born in Edinburgh and went to school in South Ronaldsay, one of the Orkney Islands, remote even by the standards of Scotland. William's education was interrupted by, of all things, an encounter with his teacher's beloved pet tortoise. William was fascinated by the creature, but when he picked it up to fully admire the beauty of its shell, the unfortunate animal voided its bowels on his hands. In disgust, the boy hurled the tortoise to the ground, nearly killing it, and McGonagall's teacher, enraged, started thrashing his face with a cane.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  All very distressing. William's father complained to the local magistrate. The magistrate threatened to disbar the teacher. And the practical outcome was that the teacher lived in fear of ever upsetting William again, who skipped school with impunity.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  That was the story McGonagall would tell, and his point was clear. William McGonagall was much like William Shakespeare. He had learned more from nature than he learned at school. McGonagall adored his namesake William Shakespeare. He read and reread Macbeth, Richard III, Hamlet and Othello.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  I gave myself no rest until I obtained complete mastery over the above four characters.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  McGonagall's family moved to Dundee, where both he and his father worked as weavers. William would give impromptu performances of Shakespeare to his shopmates. He says they were quite delighted, and perhaps they were, since they were willing to pay good money to support his theatrical ambitions. William McGonagall was to play the title role in Macbeth, just as long as he paid one pound to the theatre owner for the privilege, about a hundred dollars in today's money. His colleagues all contributed, and nobody can say they didn't get their money's worth.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  McGonagall couldn't afford a costume of his own, so borrowed a few items from friends and colleagues and took the stage, dressed less like the ambitious nobleman Macbeth and more like a Highland beggar.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  The play traditionally ends with a climactic fight in which Macbeth is slain by Macduff. This concept proved too pedestrian for McGonagall. One witness described the result: "An immortal scene in more ways than one."

• 12:43Speaker 05

  McGonagall had evidently made up his mind to astonish the gods at his performance, for instead of dying when run through the body by the sword of Macduff, he maintained his feet and flourished his weapon about the ears of his adversary in such a way that there was for some time an apparent probability of the performance ending in real tragedy.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  McGonagall saw it differently.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  "The actor who was playing Macduff against my Macbeth tried to spoil me in the combat by telling me to cut it short. I continued the combat until he were fairly exhausted, and until there was one old gentleman in the audience cried out, ""Well done, McGonagall! Walk into him!" And so I did, until he was in a great rage and stamped his foot and cried out, ""Fool, why don't you fall?!"

• 13:41Speaker 03

  With Macduff audibly urging McGonagall's Macbeth to go down, and Macbeth ignoring him over and over again, Macduff, enraged, wrapped Macbeth over his knuckles with a flat of the blade, forcing him to drop his own sword. McGonagall was now unarmed but undaunted, and he dodged around and around Macduff, looking for all the world as though he now planned to wrestle for it. The Macduff actor, disgusted at the tomfoolery, tossed his own sword aside and charged in to tackle McGonagall. The sublime tragedy of Macbeth came to an undignified end,

• 14:23Speaker 03

  with the title character swept off his feet and deposited on his backside. The audience were ecstatic. They bellowed for McGonagall to be brought forward to receive a standing ovation.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  What a shame that McGonagall's artistic sensitivities were not put to full-time use. He continued to work as a weaver for decades. Not to worry, good things come to those who wait. He would eventually emulate William Shakespeare, the man he so admired. William McGonagall would become a poet. Cautionary Tales will be back after the break.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 15:52Malcolm Gladwell?

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• 16:55Speaker 03

  McGonagall was about 50 when it became clear to him that there was no future in weaving. Machine looms had taken over.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  I couldn't make a living from it. But I may say, Dame Fortune has been very kind to me by endowing me with the genius of poetry. I remember how I felt when I received the spirit of poetry.

• 17:22Speaker 03

  It was June eighteen seventy-seven. McGonagall was lamenting that he couldn't get away to the Highlands for a holiday.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  All of a sudden, my body got inflamed, and instantly I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry. So strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears, "Write, write!" I wondered what could be the matter with me, and I began to walk backwards and forwards in a great fit of excitement, saying to myself, "I know nothing about poetry." But still the voice kept ringing in my ears, "Write, write!" Until at last, being overcome with a desire to write poetry, I found paper, pen and ink, and in a state of frenzy, sat me down to think, "What would be my first subject for

• 18:15Speaker 04

  a poem?"

• 18:18Speaker 03

  That subject was the Reverend George Gill-Fillen, a local preacher McGonagall wished to praise. The poem, stirringly concludes:

• 18:28Speaker 04

  "My blessing on his noble form, and on his lofty head, May all good angels guard him while living, and hereafter, when he's dead."

• 18:39Speaker 03

  McGonagall sent the poem to the Dundee Weekly News, which took the unwise step of printing it. Thus encouraged, he sent a second poem, "Bonnie Dundee."

• 18:52Speaker 04

  "O Bonnie Dundee, I will sing in thy praise, A few but true, simple lays, Regarding some of your beauties of the present day, And virtually speaking, there's none can them gain say. For superfine goods, there's none can excel, From Inverness to Clarkinwell. And your tramways, I must confess, That they have proved a complete success, Which I am right glad to see, And a very great improvement to Bonnie Dundee."

• 19:24Speaker 03

  There is more. But alas, the Weekly News declined to print what it described as "a so-called poem", at which point McGonagall sent them a letter threatening to stop sending any more poems. The Weekly News dryly explained to its readers that "we can only express the fervent hope that he may put into execution this artful threat."

• 19:52Speaker 03

  In the summer of 1878, McGonagall had been a poet for just a year, when he received a letter from Queen Victoria's private secretary, Sir Thomas Biddelf, informing him that Her Majesty would like to become a patron of his poems.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  McGonagall seems not to have registered any surprise at this sudden honour, but he was inspired to make the fifty-nine mile journey from Dundee to Queen Victoria's residence at Balmoral, so that he could recite his verse for her. For an unemployed weaver, there was no way to reach Balmoral except to walk. The journey took three days, during which time McGonagall was fed and sheltered by shepherds who took pity on him. He recorded some of his journey in poetry, notably:

• 20:43Speaker 04

  "On the spittle of Glen She, which is most dismal for to see, with its bleak and rugged mountains, and clear crystal-spouting fountains, with their misty foam, and thousands of sheep there together doth roam."

• 21:00Speaker 03

  He was drenched by hours of rain, and threatened by the roaring and flashing of a thunderstorm overhead that was undaunted, having told his friends back in Dundee that on his way to see Her Majesty and Balmoral, he would pass through fire and water rather than retreat.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  Finally, mid-afternoon on the third day, McGonagall reached Her Majesty's residence at Balmoral Castle. He was intercepted by the constable at Balmoral's Gatehouse Lodge, who presumably observed McGonagall's collar-length wave of hair, his drenched, patched-up clothes and his dirty boots, and did not think to himself, "Here comes a future poet laureate."

• 21:47Speaker 04

  I showed him Her Majesty's royal letter of patronage for my poetic abilities, and he read it, and said it was not Her Majesty's letter.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Someone had played a cruel trick, but McGonagall insisted that the letter was genuine. The constable took it away for a while, before returning to announce...

• 22:08Speaker 05

  Well, I've been up at the castle with your letter, and the answer I got for you is they cannae be bothered with you.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  McGonagall showed the constable a copy of his poems, including the claim that McGonagall was "poet to Her Majesty." The constable objected:

• 22:25Speaker 05

  You are not poet to Her Majesty. Tennyson's the real poet to Her Majesty.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Ah, yes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, the actual poet laureate. How inconvenient. In writing "The Charge of the Light Brigade", Alfred Lord Tennyson performed a rare feat. He created a poem that is as famous as the disaster it describes.

• 22:54Speaker 07

  Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them volleyed and thundered, stormed at with shot and shell. Boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell rode the six hundred.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  William McGonagall never got close to succeeding Tennyson as poet laureate. Yet, his poem, The Taybridge Disaster, matches Tennyson's achievement. I mean, Tennyson was good, but he was no William McGonagall. But I digress. The constable suggested that McGonagall demonstrate his skills by reciting some poetry at the castle gate.

• 23:46Speaker 04

  "No, sir," said McGonagall. He wasn't some wandering charlatan, he was the real thing. "Take me into one of the rooms in the lodge, and pay me for it, and I will give you a recital."

• 24:01Speaker 03

  The constable didn't oblige, but he gave McGonagall some advice. "Unless you want to be arrested, go home, and don't think of returning to Balmoral." McGonagall duly began the three-day walk home to Dundee. When he got back, he wrote up his adventures, sent them to the newspapers, and before long was being mocked up and down the British Isles. As a headline in the Evening Telegraph put it, "Extraordinary freak of a Dundee poet, William McGonagall at Balmoral, genius still unrecognized."

• 24:45Speaker 03

  When a cruel prank wastes a week of your life, dashes your hopes, and leads you to being mocked in the national press, what can you do? The answer: pick yourself up and try again. McGonagall noted that Tennyson was famous for his war poetry, so he decided to dabble in war poems too. They are not very good. The Battle of Cressy begins: "Twas on the twenty-sixth of August, the sun was burning hot, in the year of thirteen forty-six, which will never be forgot."

• 25:24Speaker 03

  And ends with the classic McGonagall move of cramming some extra syllables in free of charge. "And the king's heart was filled with great delight, and he thanked Jack for capturing the Bohemian standard during the fight."

• 25:41Speaker 03

  But McGonagall was soon encouraged to receive a lucrative job offer from the famous playwright and theatre impresario Dion Bosico. Bosico's letter invited him to a fine dinner. But, as McGonagall tells the story, he arrived to find several men awaiting him, barely suppressing giggles as McGonagall was served a cheap sandwich. McGonagall had been pranked again.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Although, when Bosico heard about the joke, he sent McGonagall a sympathetic letter and five pounds, enough money for McGonagall to visit London.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  He had hoped to meet with one or two of London's most celebrated actors, but had no more luck there than at Balmoral.

• 26:34Speaker 03

  Later, McGonagall ventured to New York, a city he honoured in distinctive style.

• 26:40Speaker 04

  "As for Brooklyn Bridge, it's a very great height and fills the stranger's heart with wonder at first sight. And with all its loftiness, I venture to say, it cannot surpass the new railway bridge of the silvery Tay."

• 26:57Speaker 03

  William McGonagall did not succeed in selling his poems in New York, so returned to Scotland. He was cheered to receive a letter from the poet laureate of Burma, writing on behalf of Burma's King Tibor, making McGonagall "Topaz McGonagall, Knight of the White Elephant of Burma."

• 27:21Speaker 03

  McGonagall accepted the honour and wore his medal, a silver elephant, with pride. If he ever feared that this letter was as fraudulent as the others, he shared no doubts.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  McGonagall spent his final years giving public performances in Perth, Glasgow and Edinburgh, where the main attraction appeared to be the opportunity to hurl abuse and worse at the aspiring poet laureate. McGonagall would dash about the stage, excitedly enacting the action as he gave dramatic recitals of his war poems clad in a kilt and brandishing a claymore with perilous enthusiasm. More useful was his small round shield with which he could parry incoming eggs and cabbages.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  William McGonagall died in poverty on the 29th of September 1902. He was 72 years old, or 77. He was buried in a pauper's grave, having practised the art of poetry for 25 years and having been mocked for every one of them. The death certificate misspells his name.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Emil Zola died on the same day as it happens. Zola, a fine writer. But he was no William McGonagall.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  Cautionary tales will return after the break.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  This is Jacob Goldstein. With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. Get started today at chatgpt.com.

• 29:40Malcolm Gladwell?

  This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. In military families, service is more than a job. It's a legacy. At American Military University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition. Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at amu.apus.edu/military.

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• 30:52Speaker 03

  The poetry critics argue that McGonagall has an important lesson to teach us. He is the perfect example of how not to write poetry. If you must read him, be sure to do the opposite of whatever he does. Joseph Salemy, an award-winning poet, complains, "I know far too many persons who share some of McGonagall's faults. Can we at least resolve that we will not commit the poetic crimes that McGonagall committed? Can we stop with the humdrum plainness, the vapid statement, the dull diction, the crappy meter, the tedious length, the triviality, the commonplace thoughts,

• 31:35Speaker 03

  and the cliched perceptions?" Dr. Gerard Carruthers, an expert in Scottish literature, agrees. "There is something rather cruel about us still reprinting and republishing McGonagall," he told the BBC. "It's time for us to close the book on McGonagall once and for all."

• 31:57Speaker 03

  But that feels so narrow-minded. I draw a different lesson. We shouldn't complain about a man who wrote bad poetry. We should celebrate a man who wrote poetry. Of course, the poems are bad, but most poems are bad. Most acts of human creativity are fairly incompetent. Most of us can't write novels, not that anyone else would pay to read. Most of us can't draw or paint anything that anyone else would pay to look at. Most of us can't act, we can't sing, we can't dance. Who cares? Dance and sing anyway.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  I think we're prone to making a sad mistake when we think about creative acts. We instinctively set the benchmark at an absurdly high level. We've been spoiled. Perhaps because at the touch of a button, we can listen to Glenn Gould playing Johann Sebastian Bach, we can watch Ian McKellen and Judi Dench performing Shakespeare, we can read a novel by Austen, or watch a film by Coppola, or gaze at an interior by Vermeer.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Not only has modern technology made these wonders possible, but modern technology also makes more humdrum creative acts economically worthless. Nobody is going to pay me to perform Bach or paint a watercolour, but I still play the piano from time to time and very occasionally I pick up a pencil in a sketchbook. It doesn't matter if there's no economic value in the result, there's personal value for me in the process of trying to express myself. That might seem obvious, but it's easy to forget. In debates about the rise of generative AI, people worry about the death of human creativity.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  But I don't think generative AI is more of a threat to human creativity than the camera or the record player. It changes the economics, to be sure. McGonigal lost his job as a weaver because of machine looms, so he would have understood all about losing work to a machine.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  But while a new technology changes who might be paid for creative work, and what sort of creative work they might be paid for, and how much they might be paid for it, it doesn't make creative work impossible. All of us are free to sit down in front of a piano, or an easel, and try to create something beautiful. And while it's nice to succeed, it's more important to try.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  As we grow from children into adults, we often express our creativity less. It might be because we're afraid of failure, which is another thing to admire about McGonagall. He wasn't afraid of creative failure. In fact, he wouldn't recognise creative failure if it hurled an egg at him. That's one way to look at McGonagall, anyway, as a man who was always willing to express his inner creativity. But that's not actually the way I see him. I don't think William McGonagall was admirable because he gave poetry a try. I think he was a genius.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  You've perhaps heard the story about the man who goes to a doctor. He feels depressed. The world seems so frightening and bleak. "Don't worry," says the doctor, "the great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him perform, that'll cheer you up." The man starts to sob. "But doctor, I am Pagliacci."

• 35:48Speaker 03

  It's a story that's been retold and remixed countless times, so here's another remix. What if William McGonagall isn't the pompous, talentless, sad victim of bullies that he seems to be? What if William McGonagall is the most brilliant clown who ever lived? And what if, unlike Pagliacci, whose despair became clear when he took off the mask, McGonagall never removed his mask? Because underneath it, he was the one laughing harder than anyone.

• 36:27Speaker 03

  Think back to that appearance as Macbeth, in which McGonagall refused to lie down and die, and wrestled with the infuriated actor playing Macduff. It's hard to think of a funnier scene in the history of theatre. Was it really just McGonagall's arrogance and stupidity? Or did he know full well that he was putting on a show? When the reviewer said that McGonagall had decided to astonish the gods, he wasn't referring to some pagan pantheon. The gods is theatre speak for the cheap seats. McGonagall was playing to the crowd, and specifically to the poorest theatre-goers of all.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  His friends from the workshop had all contributed to get him on stage in the first place. And they loved what they saw. McGonagall certainly gave you a show. And once you read McGonagall's poetry, not as an exhibit of utter incompetence, but as a deliberate sly joke, you quickly detect hints of mischief. One poem, 'An Ode to the Moon', begins:

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Beautiful moon with thy silvery light, Thou seemest most charming to my sight. As I gaze upon thee in the sky so high, A tear of joy dost moisten mine eye.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  Just the usual clumsy cliché? No, McGonagall's winking at us. He knows what we do in the dark. The next verses celebrate the way that the moon provides light for the fox to steal a goose from the farmyard, and the poacher to set his snares. And?

• 38:14Speaker 04

  Beautiful moon with thy silvery light, Thou cheerst the lovers in the night as they walk through the shady groves alone, making love to each other before they go home.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Really? We're going to believe that William McGonagall was only accidentally funny?

• 38:35Speaker 03

  McGonagall is best known today for his poem about the Tay Bridge disaster. But in an early poem, he also describes the Tay Bridge when it was first built.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery Tay, the longest of the present day that has ever crossed o'er a tidal river stream, most gigantic to be seen, near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  At nearly two miles in length, it was an engineering miracle. But McGonagall was a Dundee local.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  And like any local, he would have known that the high girders of the central bridge had already been blown down once during construction. Otherwise, why on earth include this verse?

• 39:26Speaker 04

  Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery Tay, I hope that God will protect all passengers by night and by day, and that no accident will befall them while crossing the bridge of the silvery Tay, for that would be most awful to be seen, near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  This isn't the work of an idiot. It's the work of an old-school medieval fool, a court jester, using humour to speak truth to power.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  Two years later, the bridge was down, and dozens of people were dead. After a disaster at a shipyard which killed thirty-eight people, McGonagall composed a long lament, including praise for...

• 40:15Speaker 04

  One thousand pounds from the directors of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, which I hope will help to fill the bereaved ones' hearts with glee.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Idiot or court jester? You be the judge. As for those prank letters from Queen Victoria's secretary, from Dion Bosco, from the King of Burma, maybe they were hoaxes on McGonagall. Maybe they were hoaxes by McGonagall on the rest of us. They certainly helped to shape the legend.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  For a man almost universally viewed as a failure, McGonagall knew how to draw a crowd. When a statue of Scotland's greatest poet, Robert Burns, was unveiled in Dundee, McGonagall was kept away from the occasion by police to avoid a disturbance of the peace. His Dundee performances so often ended in a near riot that he was eventually banned from giving any more recitals in the town. No wonder he died in poverty. He'd been making fifteen shillings a night, the equivalent of a week's wages for an ordinary labourer.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Not so bad for a man who lost his trade because of the march of the machines. His downfall wasn't because his poems were terrible. It was because his clowning performances were too riotously successful to be allowed to continue. He died in poverty, not because he was bad, but because he was just too good.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  We'll never know what William McGonagall was really thinking as he took to the stage each night. Was he oblivious as he seems to be? A man with skin so thick that neither insults nor incites ever got through? Or was he far more tragic than the mythic figure of Paliachi the Clown, proud of his poems but knowingly subjecting himself to nightly humiliation because there was no other way to put food on the table?

• 42:30Speaker 03

  Or was the whole thing a comic masterstroke? Did he never take off the mask? Or did he never put it on in the first place?

• 42:43Speaker 03

  But while we can't read his mind, we can read his poems. And they've brought pleasure to countless people.

• 42:55Speaker 03

  A few years ago, an Edinburgh auction house put up for sale a collection of first editions of Harry Potter books, signed by the author J.K. Rowling, who, it turns out, named Professor Minerva McGonagall in honour of the man she described as the worst poet in British history. The books went for a handsome enough price, I suppose, but in the same auction, a rather higher sum was paid for a different literary gem: thirty-five poems by William McGonagall, some of them signed by the great man himself.

• 43:37Speaker 03

  J.K. Rowling: if commercial success is the mark of a great artist, then she's one of the best. But she's no William McGonagall. He will be remembered for a very long time.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  For a full list of our sources, see the show notes at timharford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines and Ryan Dilly. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Ben Nadaf-Hafrin edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembra, Sarah Jopp, Masia Munro, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Keira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London by Noria Bar and Lucy Rowe. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us. And if you want to hear the show ad free, sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show page, on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.

• 45:45Speaker 09

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• 46:13Malcolm Gladwell?

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• 46:42Speaker 10

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