HE IS known as the world’s worst poet, whose public readings were so awful that they left audiences rolling on the floor with laughter, and on several occasions sparked riots.

But while the literary world may have thought it had seen all that William Topaz McGonagall had to offer, the discovery of a long-lost play has now expanded his dubious reputation.

The three-act melodrama, written by McGonagall as an apparent tribute to Shakespeare, is to be published for the first time next month, heaping fresh ridicule on his reputation and giving his cult following a new source of wretched rhymes to enjoy.

Even before its publication, Jack o’ the Cudgel (or The Hero of a Hundred Fights), based on one of his poems of the same name, has been hailed as a masterpiece, complete with all the usual banalities, execrable rhymes and appalling scansion.

Set in the court of Edward III, it tells the story of Jack, a “noble Saxon” who rises from pauper to royal knight and vanquishes his enemies by clubbing them over the head with an enormous cudgel. In one memorable scene, he stops a giant from attacking a minstrel, declaring: “Leave the minstrel, thou pig-headed giant, or I’ll make you repent/For thou must know my name is Jack, and I hail from Kent.”

Upon learning of Jack’s heroics, the King summons him to his court and makes him a knight.

He tells him: “Sir Jack, I give thee land to the value of six hundred marks/In thine own native county of Kent, with beautiful parks/Also beautiful meadows and lovely flowers and trees/Where you can reside and enjoy yourself as you please.”

So atrocious is the writing that it appears even to rival McGonagall’s most famous piece of doggerel, The Tay Bridge Disaster, which includes the line: “Alas! I am very sorry to say / That ninety lives have been taken away / On the last Sabbath day of 1879 / Which will be remember’d for a very long time.”

Chris Hunt, editor of a new collection of McGonagall’s works to be published next month, said that Jack o’ the Cudgel was inspired by Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays. He said that McGonagall himself, who was an enthusiastic, if dreadful actor, had probably intended to play the title role. He said: “It’s funny, but not in the way McGonagall intended, and the best I can say is that it adds to the gaiety of nations.”

The play, written in 1886, was never performed or published. It has spent decades gathering dust in an archive in Dundee, where McGonagall spent most of his life.

THE BEST AND WORST

Ye sons of Great Britain, I think no shame
To write in praise of brave General Graham!
Whose name will be handed down to posterity without any stigma,
Because, at the battle of El-Teb, he defeated Osman Digna.
From The Battle Of El-Teb

Oh! it was a most fearful and beautiful sight,
To see it lashing the water with its tail all its might,
. . . Then the water did descend on the men in the boats,
Which wet their trousers and also their coats.
The Famous Tay Whale

Oh, mighty city of New York, you are wonderful to behold -
Your buildings are magnificent - the truth be it told -
They were the only thing that seemed to arrest my eye,
Because many of them are thirteen storeys high.
Jottings of New York

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.
The Tay Bridge Disaster

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