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Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner

POEM TEXT 36 The rich man goes out yachting,
37 Where sanctity can't pursue him;
1 The poor man's sins are glaring; 38 The poor goes afloat
2 In the face of ghostly warning 39 In a fourpenny boat,
3 He is caught in the fact 40 Where the bishop groans to view him.
4 Of an overt act—
5 Buying greens on Sunday morning.

6 The rich man's sins are hidden

SUMMARY
7 In the pomp of wealth and station; Poor people's sins are obvious. Even with clear, spiritual
8 And escape the sight warning against such behavior, they'll get caught shamelessly
9 Of the children of light, buying vegetables on a Sunday.
10 Who are wise in their generation. Rich people's sins are hidden behind the splendor of their
money and social status. They stay out of sight of the priests
11 The rich man has a kitchen, and the pious people (who, as the Bible says, are "wise in their
12 And cooks to dress his dinner; generation").
13 The poor who would roast Rich people have kitchens and cooks to make dinner for them. If
14 To the baker's must post, poor people want to cook their dinner, they have to take it out
15 And thus becomes a sinner. to the baker, and so their terrible gluttonous sin becomes
visible.
16 The rich man has a cellar, Rich people have wine cellars and butlers to serve them. Poor
17 And a ready butler by him; people have to go out to have a drink in public, where
18 The poor must steer judgmental saintly types can see them.
19 For his pint of beer Rich people have stained-glass windows that hide concerts
20 Where the saint can't choose but spy him. thrown for the upper crust. Poor people can only share the
music of a broken violin out in public—which is of course deeply
21 The rich man's painted windows offensive to all moral people.
22 Hide the concerts of the quality; Rich people get to enjoy themselves invisibly, surrounded by
23 The poor can but share other rich people. Poor people's pleasures are a public affront
24 A cracked fiddle in the air, to all pious onlookers.
25 Which offends all sound morality. Rich people travel in carriages, where no rude onlooker can
mock them. Poor people have to deal with the annoyances of a
26 The rich man is invisible third-class train, out in the open air.
27 In the crowd of his gay society; Rich people go out afloat on their yachts, where pious people
28 But the poor man's delight and their judgments can't follow them. Poor people can only
29 Is a sore in the sight, rent a little rowboat—and the bishops tut-tut over their fun.
30 And a stench in the nose of piety.

31 The rich man has a carriage

THEMES
32 Where no rude eye can flout him;
33 The poor man's bane CLASS, MORALITY, AND HYPOCRISY
34 Is a third class train, The speaker of “Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner”
35 With the day-light all about him. casts an ironic eye over the hypocrisy of 19th-
century English society. This world, the speaker observes, is full
of pious Christian moralizers who shake their heads over the

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behavior of the poor, condemning them for sinful gluttony and want to listen to music, they have to listen to a "cracked fiddle in
self-indulgence. But the speaker also observes that the rich do the air," in the middle of a crowd and out in the open.
the exact same sorts of things the poor do without attracting The wealthy enjoy even more lavish versions of all these same
even a speck of criticism. Those who judge the poor for immoral pleasures, of course: they feast, drink, and listen to music. But
behavior, this poem suggests, are in fact only judging them for they can have their fun in the privacy of their own homes. They
being poor; wealth and social class are the true standards by have kitchens with private cooks, cellars with private butlers,
which hypocritical self-proclaimed “saint[s]” judge people’s and concerts with private musicians. It's much easier for them
behavior. to enjoy themselves. What's more, they can enjoy themselves in
The poor and the rich do the same kinds of things for fun in the places where no one can see them to judge them. The poor,
poem, such as drinking and enjoying music. Where the poor who don’t have this space or these resources, have to have their
have a “pint of beer” in the pub, the rich have a “cellar” full of fun out in public, and are thus exposed to the tut-tutting of
wine at home; where the poor enjoy the music of a “cracked pious hypocrites.
fiddle,” the rich throw “concerts” behind the privacy of their It's obvious that wealth buys fancier pleasures and a higher
own lavish "painted windows” (stained-glass windows, that is). "station" (a loftier social class). But this poem makes the point
As these examples suggest, not only do the rich enjoy the same that some of the biggest unsung boons of wealth are privacy
pleasures as the poor, they do so on a grander scale! and convenience.
However, the wider world judges these behaviors very
differently depending on who’s doing them. To a group of Where this theme appears in the poem:
people the speaker sarcastically refers to as the “children of
light”—ostentatiously pious people who make a big deal about • Lines 1-40
holding the world to their own standards of “sound
morality”—the poor are dreadful “sinner[s]” for trying to have a
CHRISTIANITY, AUSTERITY, AND SIN
good time. The rich, meanwhile, aren’t doing anything wrong in
these people's eyes, even as they engage in the exact same In addition to skewering classism and snobbery, the
behaviors as the poor. poem also takes aim at rigid Christian morality in the
19th century. The religious hypocrites who judge the poor's
The implication is that the so-called “saint[s]” who appoint
behavior, this poem's speaker implies, have a skewed view of
themselves the guardians of morality are actually judging
the world in more ways than one. Aside from the fact that they
people based on whether they’re wealthy or poor, not on their
really judge people more on how wealthy they are than on how
behavior. Everything the wealthy do is perfectly fine, in their
they behave, they have an overly restrictive—even
eyes; everything the poor do is immoral and sinful. The poem
irrational—view of sinful behavior in general.
thus calls out the hypocrisy and classism embedded in the eyes
of these "saint[s]." In the eyes of self-important, hypocritical 19th-century
Christians, the speaker implies, even the mildest and most
wholesome kinds of pleasure are crimes. The speaker paints a
Where this theme appears in the poem:
vivid picture of clergymen and pious meddlers gasping over the
• Lines 1-40 dreadful behavior of the poor. But the poem's descriptions of
what these poor people are actually doing make it clear that this
tut-tutting is absurd. Some of the things the poor get judged for
WEALTH, POVERTY, AND PRIVACY include "buying greens on a Sunday morning" (that is, having
Casting a dubious eye over the ridiculous hypocrisy the temerity to stop by the vegetable cart after church), having
of people who judge the poor, this poem's speaker a baker "roast" their dinners because they don't have ovens of
also paints a picture of the gap between the lives of the rich and their own, popping to the pub for a "pint of beer," and renting a
the poor in 19th-century England. Being poor, the speaker "fourpenny boat" for a nice afternoon out.
observes, means being constantly inconvenienced—and, in There's no hint of overindulgence here. In fact, all these
particular, having to live a lot of your life out in public, having no pleasures are either necessary (buying and cooking food) or
space just for yourself. Wealth buys not only status, but privacy, very modest (enjoying a lone "pint of beer," spending four pence
the ability to do what you want shielded from the public gaze. on a boat rental). Nonetheless, the very sight of the poor having
The poor people the speaker describes have to go to a lot of the mildest of good times "in the face of ghostly warning"—that
trouble to enjoy basic pleasures. What's more, they have to go is, even after being warned against fun by priests—makes the
to that trouble in public. If they want a roasted dinner, for "bishop groan[]" and "offends all sound morality" (as the
instance, they have to carry their food to the "baker's," as they speaker ironically puts it, taking on the voice of the moralizers).
either don't have ovens or don't have the money for fuel. If they The implication is that these pious types don't think the poor

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should be having fun at all. The merest sniff of pleasure, in these in a jaunty, lively form. The poem's cinquains (five-line stanzas)
people's eyes, is a crime—if you're poor, at least. use a bouncy accentual meter
meter:

Where this theme appears in the poem: • That means that the lines are measured out by
number of beats rather than sticking to a particular
• Lines 1-5 kind of metrical foot, like the da-DUM
DUM rhythm of the
• Lines 13-15 iamb
iamb. (The poem does sometimes fall into a more
• Lines 18-20 regular rhythm for a moment, but not predictably).
• Lines 23-25 • Each stanza starts with two three-beat lines (as in
• Lines 28-30 "The poor man's sins are glar
glaring"), introduces two
• Lines 33-35 snappy two-beat lines (as in "He is caught in the
• Lines 38-40 fact
fact"), and then returns to a three-beat line.

Alongside an ABCCB rh rhyme

yme scheme
scheme, this form creates a setup-
LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS punchline rhythm: there's a steady introduction, a snappy build,
and a payoff in the return to the B rhyme and the three-beat
LINES 1-5 line. That form helps to underscore the speaker's pointed
The poor man's sins are glaring; critique of classist hypocrisy: even this poem's shape says, This
In the face of ghostly warning kind of judgment is an absurd joke.
He is caught in the fact
LINES 6-10
Of an overt act—
Buying greens on Sunday morning. The rich man's sins are hidden
In the pomp of wealth and station;
The first stanza of "Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner" paints a
And escape the sight
bleak picture of life for the poor in 19th-century England.
Of the children of light,
Poverty itself, this poem's speaker suggests, isn't the poor's
Who are wise in their generation.
only problem; the way the world judges the poor is its own kind
of burden as well. Moralizing, hypocritical Christians (a Where the first stanza began "The
The poor man
man's's sins are glaring,"
common type in this poem's era) see even the most innocuous the second begins "The
The rich man
man's
's sins are hidden." The
things the poor do as sinful. mirrored phrasing here, an example of par parallelism
allelism, helps set up
a sharp juxtaposition between the way the world treats the
The first line of the poem—"The poor man's sins are poor and the rich. While the poor man's sins are obvious to
glaring"—makes it sound as if the speaker is about to condemn everyone, the rich man's are concealed behind "the pomp of
poor people's terrible vices. (Note the synecdoche here: a lone wealth and station." In other words, one simply can't see rich
"poor man" will stand for all poor people in this poem.) The
people's sins behind the wall of money and social status
poor, the speaker says, do dreadful things even in the "face of
("station") that protects them. Their wealth and class shield
ghostly warning." That is, even though priests and other
them from judgment.
spiritual authorities counsel against such bad behavior.
("Ghostly" once meant "spiritual" more generally, rather than They thus "escape the sight / of the children of light," the
having to do with the spirits of the dead in particular.) speaker says—again, using a sarcastic tone. The speaker is here
alluding to a biblical par
parable
able in which Jesus praises the "children
But as the rest of the stanza unfolds, it becomes clear that the
of light" (people with their eyes on spiritual things) for being
speaker is being slightly sarcastic. For the "overt act," the
wiser than the "children of the world" (materialistic types).
dreadful crime the "poor man" commits right out in the open
Even though the "children of the world" tend to have more
where everyone can see him is "buying greens on Sunday
material success here on earth, this Bible story suggests, the
morning." In other words, his crime is stopping by a vegetable
"children of light" have it right: they keep their eyes on eternity
cart on the Christian day of rest, perhaps on his way home from
and they'll find their reward in heaven. This is exactly how the
church.
pious people who judge the poor like to think of themselves: as
The thunderous judgment the speaker appears to heap on poor unworldly "children of light," selflessly concerned for the souls
people here, then, is actually an ironic swipe at the people who of the poor.
treat the poor's most innocent actions as sins. The reason that
The iron
ironyy here is clear: the self-proclaimed "children of light"
pious types judge the behavior of the poor, the speaker will go
are in fact the most worldly, materialistic people around. They
on to suggest, isn't that the poor are particularly sinful. It's that
don't judge the rich for their sins the way they judge the poor.
they're poor.
Rather, they honor the "wealth and station" of the rich, not
In this poem, Thomas Love Peacock will mock pious hypocrites

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bothering to look past outward respectability. streets, everyone can see what he's having—and judge him as
The poem's title thus comes into focus in these lines. The words lavishly self-indulgent. A big part of what wealth buys you, the
"Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner" set up a parallel: to be rich speaker suggests, is the privacy to enjoy your pleasures behind
is to be a saint, to be poor is to be a sinner. The so-called closed doors!
"children of light" who condemn the sinful poor and respect the Further, the hypocritically pious "children of light" don't seem
untouchable rich treat poverty as a sin and wealth as a virtue. to think the poor should be having any pleasure so luxurious as
This comparison might also imply that a lot of these hypocritical a hot dinner. Eating well, in their eyes, doesn't befit these
moralizers are themselves in the middle classes: rich enough to sinners.
look down on the poor, poor enough to be overawed by the
rich. LINES 16-20
The rich man has a cellar,
LINES 11-15
And a ready butler by him;
The rich man has a kitchen, The poor must steer
And cooks to dress his dinner; For his pint of beer
The poor who would roast Where the saint can't choose but spy him.
To the baker's must post,
In the fourth stanza, the speaker observes that the "rich man
And thus becomes a sinner.
has a cellar"—that is, a wine cellar—and a "butler" to run it. By
In the third and fourth stanzas, the speaker sets a rhythm that contrast, the poor man who wants to enjoy a "pint of beer" at
the rest of the poem will follow: the end of the day can only go to the pub (short for "public
house"), right out in the open, "where the saint can't choose but
• The first two lines of each stanza will describe the spy him." (Once again, the speaker is being rather ir
ironic
onic in their
behavior of the rich man, while the closing three use of the word "saint" there.)
lines will describe how the poor man lives.
• These juxtapositions will reveal in detail just how This juxtaposition makes exactly the same point as the
unfairly and hypocritically the wider world judges comparison between the dining habits of the rich and the poor
these two classes of people. in the third stanza. Both classes of people have the same kinds
of pleasures in life. In fact, the rich have more lavish versions of
The rich man, the speaker begins in line 11, has a kitchen of his these pleasures: not only do they have overflowing kitchens
own and private chefs on staff to "dress his dinner" (that is, to and cellars, they have staff to run them, catering to their every
prepare his meals). The language here hints that these dinners desire. The poor, meanwhile, have to enjoy their humble
are fancy ones, too: the kind of food that one is said to "dress" is pleasures right out in the open.
usually meat or fish, more expensive foods in the 19th-century The self-proclaimed "saint[s]" who lay down judgment, in this
world this poem is set in. framework, aren't actually judging people's behavior. They're
By contrast, if a poor person wants to "roast" a dinner, they judging the poor because:
have to prepare their food at home, then carry it to the
"baker's" to be cooked. This detail, perhaps surprising to a 1. The poor don't have money.
modern-day reader, is true to 19th-century life: 2. Their lack of money means they can't have any
privacy. Their small pleasures are visible to the
whole world, "overt" and "glaring."
• In cities, poor people often lived in tiny, squalid
rental rooms that didn't have an oven. Even if one
did have an oven, one might not be able to afford the The speaker's language quietly stresses how much more effort
fuel to run it. it takes for the poor to enjoy themselves, too. The poor man
• If people wanted a roast dinner, they'd thus carry must "post" (or hurry) to the baker's and "steer" (or navigate
their food to a bakery, which would cheaply rent out toward) the pub—strong verbs that suggest rushed, strenuous
space in its huge ovens. (One famous reference to action. The rich man, meanwhile, is served by a "ready butler"
this practice turns up in Dickens's A Christmas CarCarol
ol, who's always "by him," standing at his elbow ready to bring him
where the Cratchits take their Christmas goose to a fine wines.
bakery.) The sounds of these lines hint at the nastiness of the judgmental
"saint[s]," too. The hiss of sibilance in "Where the saint can't
It's because the poor man has to go to the baker's, the speaker choose but spy him" sounds like a gossipy whisper.
observes, that he "becomes a sinner." In other words, because
the poor man has to publicly carry his dinner through the

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LINES 21-25 By this stage in the poem, readers will be familiar with the
The rich man's painted windows pattern the stanzas are going to take: there's the same
Hide the concerts of the quality; par
parallelism
allelism and the same juxtaposition between rich and poor.
The poor can but share This stanza, however, takes a break from giving examples to
A cracked fiddle in the air, sum up everything the speaker has said before:
Which offends all sound morality.
• The "rich man is invisible," hidden in the "crowd of
The fifth stanza continues in the mould of the third and fourth: his gay society" (that is, the lively, cheerful, colorful
world of his fellow rich people). His wealth buys him
• Again, there's a par
parallel
allel sentence structure that protection from judgment because it buys him both
contrasts the world of the "rich man" with the world status and privacy.
of the "poor man." • The "poor man's delight," meanwhile—his humble,
• Again, there's a juxtaposition between the lavish public, shared pleasures—are a "sore in the sight /
private pleasures of the rich and the small public And a stench in the nose of piety." This is another
pleasures of the poor. example of free indirect speech, using the words of
• And again, there's withering scorn for the the "saintly" hypocrites against them.
hypocrites who judge the poor and indulge the rich.
This time, the tone feels wildly hyperbolic
yperbolic. The metaphors of
But while the third and fourth stanzas looked at life's basic "sore[s]" and "stench[es]" present the poor's small pleasures as
pleasures—eating and drinking—this stanza gets a little loftier. symptoms of a particularly disgusting disease. They also
Here, readers get a glimpse behind the "rich man's painted suggest that the hypocrites feel something like physical
windows," elaborate stained-glass constructions that "hide the revulsion at the poor. Even when they're pretending to
concerts of the quality." In other words, in the privacy of their themselves that they're just piously worried for the immortal
richly decorated mansions, the rich are throwing elaborate souls of their fellow human beings, their disgust betrays their
musical nights for the "quality," the upper crust of society. own snobbery and meanness.
The poor, meanwhile, can only listen to music if they "share / A
cracked fiddle in the air." This line plays with rhythm to evoke LINES 31-35
the rough sounds of that squeaking fiddle. For the first and only The rich man has a carriage
time in the poem, one of the two C-rhymed lines describing the Where no rude eye can flout him;
lives of the poor gets three beats instead of two: The poor man's bane
Is a third class train,
A cr
crack
acked
ed fid
fiddle in the air With the day-light all about him.
The poem closes with two stanzas contrasting the ways the rich
The extra stress in "A cr
crack
acked
ed fid
fiddle in the air
air" gives the line an and poor travel. Yet again, these stanzas reveal that the rich
appropriately busy sound. This cracked fiddle, the broken enjoy their lavish pleasures privately, while the poor have to
rhythm suggests, ain't playing Mozart: this is a rough-and-ready struggle for their fun and be publicly judged for it.
kind of music, another humble pleasure.
First, the speaker takes a peek at a rich man's private "carriage,"
Of course, such a pleasure "offends all sound morality," as the an elaborate curtained vehicle inside which he's protected from
speaker ironically puts it. Here, the speaker is using what's the gazes of the public: "no rude eye can flout him" in there. (In
known as free indirect speech. That means that, while they other words, nobody can see him to make fun of him!) The poor
aren't directly or explicitly quoting the pious hypocrites, they're man, meanwhile, has to make do with a "third class train" out in
obviously speaking in their voices. This creates a satirical effect, the "day-light."
revealing how ludicrous the hypocrites' ideas are by presenting
In the 1830s, when this poem was published, taking a third-
those ideas without comment. (This was a popular technique
class train really would mean being out in the daylight! The
among 19th-century satirists: Jane Austen was the all-time
cheapest seats in the earliest passenger railways were just
master of free indirect speech.)
open carriages, with no roof to protect riders from the
LINES 26-30 elements. These trains didn't move anywhere near as fast as
modern ones, so the passengers wouldn't be losing their hats
The rich man is invisible
and getting bugs stuck in their teeth. Nonetheless, this would
In the crowd of his gay society;
be an uncomfortable (and, again, very public) way to travel. No
But the poor man's delight
wonder such a mode of transportation is the "poor man's bane"
Is a sore in the sight,
here: a "bane" is something that causes discomfort or suffering.
And a stench in the nose of piety.

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Once again, wealth buys protection, literally and figur
figurativ
atively
ely. for behavior they overlook in the rich. Their sarcastic language
The private carriage shelters the rich man from both judgment helps to reveal exactly how little they think of these hypocrites.
and the weather. To be poor, meanwhile, is to be exposed. The speaker spells the point out plainly in the second stanza,
where they observe that the rich, insulated by money, find it
LINES 36-40 easy to:
The rich man goes out yachting,
Where sanctity can't pursue him; [...] escape the sight
The poor goes afloat Of the children of light,
In a fourpenny boat, Who are wise in their gener
generation.
ation.
Where the bishop groans to view him.
The same contrast between the rich and the poor plays out Here, the speaker is making an ironic allusion to a Bible verse in
again in the closing stanza, when the "rich man goes out which Jesus commends the wisdom of the "children of
yachting," sailing out to sea on a private boat where "sanctity light"—people with their eyes on holy things, as opposed to the
can't pursue him" (in other words, where the moralizers who materialistic "children of the world." The speaker's point here is
might judge his fun can't follow him). The poor man who feels that there's not the slightest hint of actual godliness or wisdom
like a day on the water, meanwhile, can only rent a cheap in the self-appointed judges of virtue who ignore the rich's
"fourpenny boat" on a local pond, right in the sightline of the excesses and condemn the poor's slightest indulgences. The
"bishop," who "groans to view him," tut-tutting over his dreadful language here does, however, suggest just how highly these
self-indulgence. pious frauds think of themselves. While in truth they're
hypocrites, they imagine that they're God's favorite children,
Here, explicit religious authority steps into the poem in a new
doing the Lord's work.
way. The "saint[s]" of the previous stanzas might have been any
old pious busybodies. But here the bishop himself takes part in The speaker goes on to ironically adopt this hypocritical
these judgments. Institutional religion is part of the problem perspective all through the poem, revealing how ridiculous it is
here, too. by demonstrating how it works. It's not because poor people
eat, drink, and enjoy themselves that they get judged, the
These stanzas plonk a cherry on top of all that has come before.
speaker observes: it's because they have to do these things in
Even this poem's intensely repetitiv
repetitivee structure makes it feel as
shared spaces, "where the saint can't choose but spy [them]."
if the speaker is saying: I could go on all day long. There's no end
Again, the speaker clearly doesn't think much of these so-called
to the unfairness and hypocrisy of the world this poem
saints' opinions! Nor does the speaker actually believe that a
describes.
poor person "becomes a sinner" when they want a hot dinner,
This poem's deceptively simple form ends up holding several or that their pastimes "offend[] all sound morality."
layers of satire
satire. Though the speaker's tone stays playful and
This language instead reveals hyperbolic and ludicrous ideas
comic, the speaker is clearly outraged by a number of things
for what they are. The speaker turns hypocritically pious
about their world:
people's words and opinions against them.
• The rich and the poor are getting judged very
differently for the same kinds of behavior. Where Iron
Ironyy appears in the poem:
• So-called Christians are nothing more than • Lines 6-10: “The rich man's sins are hidden / In the pomp
hypocritical snobs. of wealth and station; / And escape the sight / Of the
• The poor lead difficult, restrictive lives while the rich children of light, / Who are wise in their generation.”
indulge themselves. • Lines 13-15: “The poor who would roast / To the baker's
must post, / And thus becomes a sinner.”
These interwoven problems form the texture of an unjust • Lines 18-20: “The poor must steer / For his pint of beer /
world—and one that, in this speaker's eyes, is also just plain Where the saint can't choose but spy him.”
ridiculous. • Lines 23-25: “The poor can but share / A cracked fiddle
in the air, / Which offends all sound morality.”
• Lines 28-30: “But the poor man's delight / Is a sore in the
POETIC DEVICES sight, / And a stench in the nose of piety.”
• Lines 36-40: “The rich man goes out yachting, / Where
IRONY sanctity can't pursue him; / The poor goes afloat / In a
This poem's observations on 19th-century English society drip fourpenny boat, / Where the bishop groans to view him.”
with iron
ironyy. Throughout the poem, the speaker mockingly takes
on the perspectives of the pious moralizers who judge the poor

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JUXTAPOSITION For example, when the speaker declares that the "rich man has
This poem is built around a juxtaposition
juxtaposition: the contrast between a cellar / And a ready butler by him," readers might find
the lives of the rich and the poor (and the different ways that themselves forming a more concrete, vivid image of what's
pious, judgmental people respond to the rich and the poor). One going on than they would if they were asked to imagine rich
people and their butlers in general. By using "the rich man" as a
of the speaker's major points is that, in broad strokes, there's
one-man representative of his type here, the speaker invites
actually not that much difference between the way the rich and
readers to picture an archetypal Rich Guy and his archetypal
the poor live. Both classes of people want to eat well, drink,
butler in a lavish parlor, making the image feel personal.
listen to music, and generally have fun. The real difference
between them is how privately and expensively they can do these Similarly, representing the life of the "poor man" through one
things—and how they're judged for doing them. figure might invite readers to sympathize with this one
beleaguered person, whose life is so inconvenient and whose
The speaker makes this point by making their way through a
pleasures are so small. The synecdoche encourages readers to
series of comparisons:
imagine one man's rather exhausting day as he carries his
dinner to the baker's, enjoys a piddling "pint of beer" in a
• The rich can feast in private, because they have their
own kitchens and their own cooks. If the poor want crowded pub, and gets his fun from the public music of a
a hot dinner, by contrast, they have to carry their "cracked fiddle."
food through the streets to a "baker's," as they don't By setting up these representative figures side by side, the
have kitchens in their own tiny, squalid homes. speaker makes the general unfairness of this situation feel
• Similarly, the rich can drink in private, thanks to personal, keeping injustice on a human scale.
their wine cellars. The poor have to get their "pint of
beer" at the pub. Where Synecdoche appears in the poem:
• Rich people can also have fun in private, whether
they're throwing "concerts" at home or going • Line 1: “The poor man's”
"yachting" on lavish private sailboats. The poor can • Lines 3-4: “He is caught in the fact / Of an overt act—”
only "share / a cracked fiddle in the air" and rent a • Line 6: “The rich man's”
"fourpenny boat." • Line 11: “The rich man”
• Line 13: “The poor”
All of these juxtapositions stress some interrelated points:
ANAPHORA
• The rich and poor like doing the same kinds of The speaker uses anaphor
anaphoraa to highlight the poem's central
things. juxtaposition between the rich and the poor. Each of the poem's
• The rich can do these things more lavishly and
stanzas uses slight variations on the same introductory lines:
privately.
over and over, the "poor man" and the "rich man" get lined up
• The poor have to do these things cheaply and
and compared to each other.
publicly.
The first two stanzas, for instance, both start with lines that
When pious people judge the poor for enjoying themselves, draw attention to the matter of sin and vice:
then, they're being hypocrites. If the behaviors the speaker
describes were inherently immoral, then the rich (with their The poor man
man's
's sins are glaring;
wine cellars and yachts) would be far worse offenders. The rich, [...]
however, get shielded from judgment, both because they have a The rich man
man's
's sins are hidden
higher "station" (or social class) than the poor and because they
can afford to have their fun behind closed, expensive doors! The mirrored sentence structure makes the comparison (and
its unfairness) plain. That same structure reappears all across
Where Juxtaposition appears in the poem: the poem, but within the stanzas. A pattern develops: the first
two lines of each stanza introduce the habits and hobbies of the
• Lines 1-40
"rich man," while the final three describe the "poor man's"
parallel situation. The third stanza provides a good example:
SYNECDOCHE
Throughout the poem, the speaker uses single representative The rich man has a kitchen,
figures—"the rich man" and "the poor man"—to represent the And cooks to dress his dinner;
rich and the poor in general. This synecdoche helps to make this The poor who would roast
poem's social critique feel personal, particular, and specific. To the baker's must post,

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And thus becomes a sinner. voices sound as ugly as their opinions.
Alliteration similarly adds emphasis or mocking humor all
Again, an echoing structure underscores the comparison. And across the poem:
since this same pattern reappears all across the poem, the
speaker's argument feels like it mounts and gathers steam. The • from the /g/ sound of "gglaring" and "gghostly" in lines
repetition implies that the speaker, if they wanted to, could go 1-2
on exploring the way that the rich and the poor get treated • to the /r/ sounds of "rrich" and "rrude" in lines 31-32
differently all day long. • to the /p/ sounds of "ppursue" and "p poor" and the /b/
sounds of "b boat" and "bbishop" in the closing stanza.
Where Anaphor
Anaphoraa appears in the poem:
In all of these instances, repeated sounds make the speaker's
• Line 1: “The poor man”
voice sound punchy, combative, and energetic.
• Line 6: “The rich man”
• Line 11: “The rich man”
• Line 13: “The poor” Where Alliter
Alliteration
ation appears in the poem:
• Line 16: “The rich man” • Line 1: “glaring”
• Line 18: “The poor” • Line 2: “ghostly”
• Line 21: “The rich man” • Line 12: “dress,” “dinner”
• Line 23: “The poor” • Line 13: “poor”
• Line 26: “The rich man” • Line 14: “post”
• Line 28: “the poor man” • Line 16: “rich”
• Line 31: “The rich man” • Line 17: “ready,” “butler by”
• Line 33: “The poor man” • Line 20: “saint,” “spy”
• Line 36: “The rich man” • Line 29: “sore,” “sight”
• Line 38: “The poor” • Line 30: “stench”
• Line 31: “rich”
ALLITERATION • Line 32: “rude”
Pops of alliter
alliteration
ation add even more force to this poem's robust, • Line 37: “pursue”
energetic tone. Take the third stanza, for instance, where the • Line 38: “poor”
speaker compares the dining habits of the rich and the poor: • Line 39: “boat”
• Line 40: “bishop”
The rich man has a kitchen,
And cooks to dress his dinner;
The poor who would roast VOCABULARY
To the baker's must post,
And thus becomes a sinner. Glaring (Line 1) - Impossible to ignore, blatant.
Ghostly warning (Line 2) - Lectures from priests and other
The alliterative /d/ and /p/ sounds here are blunt and powerful; religious figures or pious people. "Ghostly," in Peacock's time,
it's as if the speaker is pounding their fist on the table for could mean "to do with spiritual things" more
emphasis. (Notice the lively assonance and consonance of "the generally—nothing to do with the spirits of the dead!
rich
ich man has a kitch
itchen," too!) Overt (Line 4) - Blatant, unhidden.
Later on in lines 28-30, sibilance highlights a moment of Pomp (Line 7) - Showiness; blatant splendor.
hyperbole
yperbole:
Station (Line 7) - Social class; a high position in society. The
wealthy, in other words, get away with a lot because they're
But the poor man's delight
part of the upper crust!
Is a sore in the sight,
And a stench in the nose of piety. The children of light, / Who are wise in their generation
(Lines 9-10) - An ironic biblical allusion
allusion. The speaker refers to a
These /s/ sounds capture the judgmental hissing of the Bible vverse
erse in which the "children of light"—people who keep
moralizing types who hate to see poor people having a good their eyes on holy things and are perpetually honest, as
time. The speaker is mockingly taking on these people's voices opposed to the materialistic "children of the world"—are
here, saying what they might say to hold up a mirror to their righteous and just, even though they don't earn the earthly
cruelty and hypocrisy. The emphatic alliteration makes their rewards that people who cheat and lie do. Here, the speaker is

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being deeply sarcastic. These so-called "children of light," the
pious people who condemn the poor for trying to enjoy FORM, METER, & RHYME
themselves, are in fact the biggest hypocrites of all.
FORM
Cooks to dress his dinner (Line 12) - That is, cooks to make his
dinner for him. To "dress" a dinner in particular suggests "Rich and Poor" is a satire on religious and societal hypocrisy in
preparing meat or fish—expensive foods! 19th-century England. This poem's speaker makes a sharply
ironic commentary on the way that the "pious"—people who
The poor who would roast / To the baker's must post (Lines consider themselves specially holy and moral—look down on
13-14) - In the 19th century, many of the poorest people lived the poor, judging them for exactly the same behavior that rich
in lodgings without ovens, or couldn't afford the fuel to run an people get away with all the time. The pleasures of the poor,
oven. If you wanted a hot dinner, you had to prepare your meal this speaker suggests, differ from those of the rich only in that
at home, then carry it to a baker, who would roast it for you for the poor are forced to enjoy those pleasures in public.
a small fee.
Peacock writes the poem in eight cinquains (that is, stanzas of
Post (Line 14) - Go in a hurry. five lines) with a jaunty accentual meter, interweaving lines
Cellar (Line 16) - That is, a wine cellar. The rich man, in other with three beats (as in "The poor man's sins are glar
glaring") and
words, keeps all his expensive alcohol at home, out of public lines with two (as in "The poor man's bane
bane"). This form feels
sight! lively and energetic, inviting readers to join the speaker in
A ready butler by him (Line 17) - That is, a butler is always at laughing at hypocritically pious people. But there's clearly
the rich man's beck and call, ready to serve him wine. anger in the speaker's tone, too.
Steer (Line 18) - Make his way to. This poem's meter and rhrhyme
yme scheme are borrowed from a
much earlier poem: the famous anonymous song "T Tom oo''
The saint can't choose but spy him (Line 20) - In other words,
Bedlam
Bedlam." Likely composed in the early 1600s, this influential
the so-called "saintly," judgementally pious people simply can't
poem is spoken by a "Bedlamite" (a resident of Bedlam,
help seeing the poor people enjoying themselves in the pub.
London's infamously chaotic mental hospital) who describes his
While the rich people can drink quietly at home without being sufferings and his dazzling hallucinations in a bold, hypnotic
judged, the poor have to do their drinking in public places, and voice. By subtly quoting that poem's sounds, Peacock suggests
people who consider themselves specially virtuous can see that his poem likewise stands up for the down-and-out people
them to look down on them. whom higher society crushes under its heels.
Painted windows (Line 21) - Elegant stained-glass windows.
METER
The quality (Line 22) - The upper crust; wealthy and
respectable people. The meter of "Rich and Poor" feels lively, jaunty, and bouncy.
There's lots of energy in the speaker's satirical observations on
Sound (Line 25) - Well-founded, correct. (Again, the speaker is
the way the world sees the lives of the wealthy and the poor
being terribly sarcastic here: this "sound morality" is nothing
differently. While the rhythm here feels rollicking and wild, it's
but hypocrisy.)
also meaningful: changes in the meter subtly reflect the poem's
Gay (Line 27) - Cheerful, playful, and colorful. themes.
Sore (Line 29) - A wound. (Used metaphorically here: the idea The poem doesn't stick to any one kind of metrical foot, like like
is that hypocritical pious people look at the poor having fun as if the iamb or the trochee
trochee. But it does stick to a regular accentual
they were looking at a festering wound.) pattern. That means its lines are measured out by a predictable
Flout (Line 32) - Judge and mock. number of beats. The pattern stays consistent across the poem:
Bane (Line 33) - A burdensome annoyance. (Readers might be
• The first and second lines use three beats, as in "The
familiar with this word from the idiom "the bane of my
poor | man's sins | are glar
glaring"
existence," for instance.)
• The third and fourth lines use two beats, as in "He is
A third class train / With the day-light all about him (Lines caught | in the fact
fact"
34-35) - In the early days of rail travel, the cheapest seats (in • And the fifth line returns to three beats, as in
the third-class carriages) were open to the air and weather. "Buying greens | on Sun
Sun- | day mor
morning
Yachting (Line 36) - Sailing on a yacht, a large and elegant boat.
Within that broader rhythm, the speaker uses some consistent
A fourpenny boat (Line 39) - That is, a rental rowboat patterns:
(affordable at the price of four pence).
• Nearly all of the first and second lines of each

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stanza, in which the speaker describes the lives of don't take an overtly outraged tone
tone. Rather than
the rich, use steady iambic trimeter. straightforwardly denouncing religious and social hypocrisy,
• That means the lines use three iambs, metrical feet the speaker describes the differences between the lives of the
with a da-DUM
DUM rhythm. They also all use a feminine rich and the poor with sharp iron
ironyy. The rich, the speaker
ending (an extra unstressed syllable at the end of observes, enjoy all the same kinds of pleasures as the poor:
the line), as in "The rich | man has | a cel
cellar" or "The they drink, they listen to music, they enjoy a day out on a boat.
rich | man's sins | are hid
hidden." The only difference is that their wealth allows them to do these
• The third, fourth, and fifth lines, in which the things in privacy and without being judged. The poor, by
speaker describes the lives of the poor, are much contrast, get scolded by moralistic hypocrites for having the
more variable. In these lines, the speaker introduces slightest bit of fun.
feet with lots of pattery unstressed syllables, like
the da-da-DUM
DUM of the anapest (as in "Is a sore | in The speaker doesn't spell out their disgust at the way the world
the sight
sight"). treats the rich and poor differently. Rather, they use blistering
sarcasm. Their mocking references to the "children of light" and
The final effect is that the lines describing the rich sail along as "saint[s]" who take it upon themselves to judge the poor make it
steadily as "yacht[s]," while the lines describing the poor clear that they don't think much of these pious hypocrites.
bounce around like "fourpenny boat[s]" on a choppy pond. This, Readers would not be wrong to read this speaker as a voice for
the poem suggests, is exactly how things feel for the rich vs. the Thomas Love Peacock himself. A friend of the iconoclastic
poor: it's all smooth sailing and private pleasure for the wealthy, atheist Percy Bysshe Shelle
Shelleyy, Peacock was likewise an
while the poor have to jostle around in public. unflinching social critic and satirist. This is not the only work in
which he takes a disgusted (if still laughing) look at the world
RHYME SCHEME around him.
The rh
rhyme
yme scheme of "Rich and Poor" runs as follows:
ABCCB
This pattern creates a set-up/punchline effect:
SETTING
"Rich and Poor" is set in Peacock's time and place: England
• For most of the poem, the first two lines (AB) around 1831 (when this poem was first published). Even
describe the lives and pastimes of the rich. The without much context, readers can gather where and when the
remaining three (CCB) describe those of the poor. poem is set through the speaker’s brief but vivid descriptions of
• The linked B rhymes help to stress the point that life for the rich vs. life for the poor.
there's a comparison being drawn here.
The poor of Peacock’s world deal with some specifically 19th-
• The double C rhyme in the middle also highlights
those shorter lines, giving the lines about the poor century inconveniences:
some extra scurrying energy—a fitting effect for
describing crowded, public, overexposed lives. • If they want a hot dinner, for instance, they have to
prepare their food at home, then carry it to a
This rhyme scheme also tips its hat to a much older poem: the “baker’s.” Many of the poorest people in 19th-
century English cities didn’t have ovens in their
anonymous late 16th- or early 17th-century song "T Tom oo''
lodgings—or, if they did, they couldn't afford the fuel
Bedlam
Bedlam." That famous anonymous song uses the same pattern
to use them. They thus had to carry their prepared
of rhyme (and rhythm) in its first four lines. (The separate CC
food to bakers, who would cook meals at the backs
rhymes in "Rich and Poor" form a one-line internal rh rhyme
yme in the
of their ovens for a small fee.
old song.) This nod to the earlier poem helps to place "Rich and • If they want to take a train, they have to ride in a
Poor" in a tradition of verse that's firmly on the side of the poor “third class train,” out in the “day-light.” The cheapest
and downtrodden. seats on early passenger trains were indeed in open
The rhyme scheme of both of these poems also gives zest and carriages, with nothing protecting riders from the
bounce to the speaker's voices. In this case, that energy weather.
suggests the speaker's disgust and fury at society's
hypocrisy—barely concealed by comic ironironyy. The poor also have to deal with a very 19th-century flavor of
hypocritical morality. Poor people who are seen to be having
any kind of fun—drinking a “pint of beer,” listening to the music
SPEAKER of a “cracked fiddle”—get judged by self-proclaimed “saints,”
religious people who feel such indulgences are sinful. Of
The poem's speaker is an outraged social critic—though they course, that’s only true for the poor. The rich, as the speaker

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points out, enjoy all the same pleasures; they just do so in the Wilberforce, replying to an observation of Dr.
comfort of their own homes (and yachts), sheltered by their Lushington, that "the Society for the Suppression of
wealth. This poem’s portrait of a hypocritically pious 19th- Vice meddled with the poor alone," said that "the
century society suggests that the real difference between offences of the poor came more under observation
who’s a sinner and who’s a saint is whether or not they have than those of the rich."
money.
He was alluding to a conversation between two noted
Members of Parliament: William Wilberforce and Dr. Stephen
CONTEXT Lushington. Wilberforce was the founder of the Society for the
Suppression of Vice, an organization that aimed to reduce bad
LITERARY CONTEXT behavior like profanity and drunkenness. Such pushes for
Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was a novelist and poet public decency were born out of an anxious political climate.
whose work poked fun at the turbulent world around him. Like Efforts like the Society for the Suppression of Vice arose in
the essayists Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt
Hazlitt, Peacock wrote England in the wake of the French Revolution of 1789. Seeing
during the Romantic era but also sat a little to one side of it, the common people rise up against the aristocracy over on the
mocking some of its excesses. Continent made the ruling classes in late 18th- and early 19th-
Romantics like William W Wordsworth
ordsworth advocated for simple century England feel pretty nervous—especially because
language and heartfelt emotion in poetry (as opposed to the England's poor were living in particularly dreadful conditions,
artifice, elegance, and cynicism of Enlightenment-era writers with many going hungry. Times seemed ripe for a homegrown
like Pope and Swift
Swift). But sometimes, as Peacock observed, such revolution.
Romantic principles might tip over into a certain self- The Society for the Suppression of Vice wasn't just about
seriousness or a melodramatic melancholy. In his most famous harassing poor people for having fun, then. It was also about
work, the satirical 1818 novel Nightmare Abbey, Peacock suppressing dissent and silencing rebellious or atheistic
parodies notable Romantics, including the ladykilling Lord political speech by labeling it "indecent." Peacock's own good
Byron
Byron, the fantastical Samuel T Taaylor Coleridge
Coleridge, and the zealous friend Percy Bysshe Shelle
Shelleyy had one of his political satires
Percy Bysshe Shelle
Shelleyy. pulled off the shelves on Wilberforce's orders.
Peacock could draw that last character from personal
observation: he was a close friend of Shelley’s, and as this poem
reveals, he shared some of the younger poet’s radical political MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
convictions. Like Shelley, Peacock was skeptical (to say the
least) of England’s unfair power structures—and like Shelley, he EXTERNAL RESOURCES
participated in them, too. Shelley was a member of the gentry • A Short Biogr
Biograph
aphyy — Learn more about Peacock through
by birth (though he put as much distance as he could between his entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
himself and his well-to-do family), and Peacock spent much of (https:/
(https://www
/www.britannica.com/biogr
.britannica.com/biograph
aphyy/Thomas-L
/Thomas-Loove-
his career working for the East India Company, a behemoth of a Peacock)
trading company that played a huge part in establishing the • Portr
ortraits
aits of P
Peacock
eacock — See some images of Peacock via
British Empire worldwide. London's National Portrait Gallery.
Peacock published this poem in a newspaper called the Globe (https:/
(https://www
/www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/
.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/
and Traveller in 1831, just on the cusp of the Victorian era mp03476/thomas-lo
mp03476/thomas-lovve-peacock)
(which began when Queen Victoria ascended to the throne in
• Poverty in the 19th Century — Read the BBC's overview
1837). His disgust with pious hypocrisy and with his society’s
of the debates and politics surrounding poverty in 19th-
treatment of the poor anticipates similar themes in later century England to learn more about the world this poem
Victorian literature. Charles Dickens’s observations of poverty describes. (https:/
(https://www
/www.bbc.co.uk/history
.bbc.co.uk/history/british/
/british/
in novels like David Copperfield and Oliv
Oliver
er T
Twist
wist, for instance, victorians/
feel cut from the same cloth as “Rich and Poor; or, Saint and bsurface_01.shtml#:~:te
bsurface_01.shtml#:~:text=F
xt=For%20the%20first%20half%20of%
or%20the%20first%20half%20of%
Sinner.”
• The Thomas LLoove P Peacock
eacock Society — Visit the website of
HISTORICAL CONTEXT the Thomas Love Peacock Society to learn more about his
Writing of the origins of this poem in a collected edition of his work and find some contemporary scholarship about him.
works, Peacock said: (Don't miss their list of Peacock's Uncommon Words, a
compendium of some of the oddest vocabulary from
Peacock's works.) (http:/
(http://www
/www.thomaslo
.thomaslovvepeacock.net/)
[The poem] was suggested by a speech in which Mr.

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• Peacock the Satirist — Read an article about Peacock's
most famous work, the novel Nightmare Abbey, to learn HOW T
TO
O CITE
more about his satirical writing.
(https:/
(https://www
/www.theguardian.com/books/2013/no
.theguardian.com/books/2013/novv/18/ MLA
100-best-no
100-best-novvels-nightmare-abbe
els-nightmare-abbey-thomas-lo
y-thomas-lovve-peacock)
Nelson, Kristin. "Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner." LitCharts.
LitCharts LLC, 16 Sep 2024. Web. 1 Oct 2024.

CHICAGO MANUAL
Nelson, Kristin. "Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner." LitCharts LLC,
September 16, 2024. Retrieved October 1, 2024.
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/thomas-love-peacock/rich-and-
poor-or-saint-and-sinner.

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