LAMENT FOR THE LOSS OF LORD BATHURST'S TAIL.[1]

All in again—unlookt for bliss!
Yet, ah! one adjunct still we miss;—
One tender tie, attached so long
To the same head, thro' right and wrong.
Why, Bathurst, why didst thou cut off
  That memorable tail of thine?
Why—as if one was not enough—
  Thy pig-tie with thy place resign,
And thus at once both cut and run?
Alas! my Lord, 'twas not well done,
'Twas not, indeed,—tho' sad at heart,
From office and its sweets to part,
Yet hopes of coming in again,
Sweet Tory hopes! beguiled our pain;
But thus to miss that tail of thine,
Thro' long, long years our rallying sign—
As if the State and all its powers
By tenancy in tail were ours—
To see it thus by scissors fall,
This was "the unkindest cut of all!"
It seemed as tho' the ascendant day
Of Toryism had past away,
And proving Samson's story true,
She lost her vigor with her queue.

Parties are much like fish, 'tis said—
The tail directs them, not the head;
Then how could any party fail,
That steered its course by Bathurst's tail?
Not Murat's plume thro' Wagram's fight
  E'er shed such guiding glories from it,
As erst in all true Tories sight,
  Blazed from our old Colonial comet!
If you, my Lord, a Bashaw were,
(As Wellington will be anon)
Thou mightst have had a tail to spare;
  But no! alas! thou hadst but one,
  And that—like Troy, or Babylon,
  A tale of other times—is gone!
Yet—weep ye not, ye Tories true—
  Fate has not yet of all bereft us;
Though thus deprived of Bathurst's queue,
  We've Ellenborough's curls still left us:—
Sweet curls, from which young Love, so vicious,
His shots, as from nine-pounders, issues;
Grand, glorious curls, which in debate
Surcharged with all a nation's fate,
His Lordship shakes, as Homer's God did,[2]
  And oft in thundering talk comes near him;
Except that there the speaker nodded
  And here 'tis only those who hear him.
Long, long, ye ringlets, on the soil
  Of that fat cranium may ye flourish,
With plenty of Macassar oil
  Thro' many a year your growth to nourish!
And ah! should Time too soon unsheath
  His barbarous shears such locks to sever,
Still dear to Tories even in death,
Their last loved relics we'll bequeath,
  A hair-loom to our sons for ever.

[1] The noble Lord, as is well known, cut off this much-respected appendage on his retirement from office some months since.

[2] "Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod."—Pope's Homer.

THE CHERRIES.

A PARABLE.[1]

1838.

See those cherries, how they cover
  Yonder sunny garden wall;—
Had they not that network over,
  Thieving birds would eat them all.

So to guard our posts and pensions,
  Ancient sages wove a net,
Thro' whose holes of small dimensions
  Only certain knaves can get.

Shall we then this network widen;
  Shall we stretch these sacred holes,
Thro' which even already slide in
  Lots of small dissenting souls?

"God forbid!" old Testy crieth;
  "God forbid!" so echo I;
Every ravenous bird that flieth
  Then would at our cherries fly.

Ope but half an inch or so,
  And, behold! what bevies break in;—
Here some curst old Popish crow
  Pops his long and lickerish beak in;

Here sly Arians flock unnumbered,
  And Socinians, slim and spare,
Who with small belief encumbered
  Slip in easy anywhere;—

Methodists, of birds the aptest,
  Where there's pecking going on;
And that water-fowl, the Baptist—
  All would share our fruits anon;

Every bird of every city,
  That for years with ceaseless din,
Hath reverst the starling's ditty,
  Singing out "I can't get in."

"God forbid!" old Testy snivels;
  "God forbid!" I echo too;
Rather may ten thousand devils
  Seize the whole voracious crew!

If less costly fruits won't suit 'em,
  Hips and haws and such like berries,
Curse the cormorants! stone 'em, shoot 'em,
  Anything—to save our cherries.

[1] Written during the late discussion on the Test and Corporation Acts.

STANZAS WRITTEN IN ANTICIPATION OF DEFEAT.[1]

1828.

Go seek for some abler defenders of wrong,
  If we must run the gantlet thro' blood and expense;
Or, Goths as ye are, in your multitude strong,
  Be content with success and pretend not to sense.

If the words of the wise and the generous are vain,
  If Truth by the bowstring must yield up her breath,
Let Mutes do the office—and spare her the pain
  Of an Inglis or Tyndal to talk her to death.

Chain, persecute, plunder—do all that you will—
  But save us, at least, the old womanly lore
Of a Foster, who, dully prophetic of ill,
  Is at once the two instruments, AUGUR[2] and BORE.

Bring legions of Squires—if they'll only be mute—
  And array their thick heads against reason and right,
Like the Roman of old, of historic repute,[3]
  Who with droves of dumb animals carried the fight;

Pour out from each corner and hole of the Court
  Your Bedchamber lordlings, your salaried slaves,
Who, ripe for all job-work, no matter what sort,
  Have their consciences tackt to their patents and staves.

Catch all the small fry who, as Juvenal sings,
  Are the Treasury's creatures, wherever they swim;
With all the base, time-serving toadies of Kings,
  Who, if Punch were the monarch, would worship even him;

And while on the one side each name of renown
  That illumines and blesses our age is combined;
While the Foxes, the Pitts, and the Cannings look down,
  And drop o'er the cause their rich mantles of Mind;

Let bold Paddy Holmes show his troops on the other,
  And, counting of noses the quantum desired,
Let Paddy but say, like the Gracchi's famed mother,
  "Come forward, my jewels"—'tis all that's required.

And thus let your farce be enacted hereafter—
  Thus honestly persecute, outlaw and chain;
But spare even your victims the torture of laughter,
  And never, oh never, try reasoning again!

[1] During the discussion of the Catholic question in the House of Commons last session.

[2] This rhyme is more for the ear than the eye, as the carpenter's tool is spelt auger.

[3] Fabius, who sent droves of bullock against the enemy.

ODE TO THE WOODS AND FORESTS.

BY ONE OF THE BOARD.

1828.

Let other bards to groves repair,
  Where linnets strain their tuneful throats;
Mine be the Woods and Forests where
  The Treasury pours its sweeter notes.

No whispering winds have charms for me,
  Nor zephyr's balmy sighs I ask;
To raise the wind for Royalty
  Be all our Sylvan zephyr's task!

And 'stead of crystal brooks and floods,
  And all such vulgar irrigation,
Let Gallic rhino thro' our Woods
  Divert its "course of liquidation."

Ah, surely, Vergil knew full well
  What Woods and Forests ought to be,
When sly, he introduced in hell
  His guinea-plant, his bullion-tree;[1]—

Nor see I why, some future day,
  When short of cash, we should not send
Our Herries down—he knows the way—
  To see if Woods in hell will lend.

Long may ye flourish, sylvan haunts,
  Beneath whose "branches of expense"
Our gracious King gets all he wants,—
  Except a little taste and sense.

Long, in your golden shade reclined.
  Like him of fair Armida's bowers,
May Wellington some wood-nymph find,
  To cheer his dozenth lustrum's hours;

To rest from toil the Great Untaught,
  And soothe the pangs his warlike brain
Must suffer, when, unused to thought,
  It tries to think and—tries in vain.

Oh long may Woods and Forests be
  Preserved in all their teeming graces,
To shelter Tory bards like me
  Who take delight in Sylvan places!

[1] Called by Vergil, botanically, "species aurifrondentis."

STANZAS FROM THE BANKS OF THE SHANNON.[1]

1828.

    "Take back the virgin page."
    MOORE'S Irish Melodies.

No longer dear Vesey, feel hurt and uneasy
  At hearing it said by the Treasury brother,
That thou art a sheet of blank paper, my Vesey,
  And he, the dear, innocent placeman, another.[2]

For lo! what a service we Irish have done thee;—
  Thou now art a sheet of blank paper no more;
By St. Patrick, we've scrawled such a lesson upon thee
  As never was scrawled upon foolscap before.

Come—on with your spectacles, noble Lord Duke,
  (Or O'Connell has green ones he haply would lend you,)
Read Vesey all o'er (as you can't read a book)
  And improve by the lesson we bog-trotters send you;

A lesson, in large Roman characters traced,
  Whose awful impressions from you and your kin
Of blank-sheeted statesmen will ne'er be effaced—
  Unless, 'stead of paper, you're mere asses' skin.

Shall I help you to construe it? ay, by the Gods,
  Could I risk a translation, you should have a rare one;
But pen against sabre is desperate odds,
  And you, my Lord Duke (as you hinted once), wear one.

Again and again I say, read Vesey o'er;—
  You will find him worth all the old scrolls of papyrus
That Egypt e'er filled with nonsensical lore,
  Or the learned Champollion e'er wrote of, to tire us.

All blank as he was, we've returned him on hand,
  Scribbled o'er with a warning to Princes and Dukes,
Whose plain, simple drift if they won't understand,
  Tho' carest at St. James's, they're fit for St. Luke's.

Talk of leaves of the Sibyls!—more meaning conveyed is
  In one single leaf such as now we have spelled on,
Than e'er hath been uttered by all the old ladies
  That ever yet spoke, from the Sibyls to Eldon.

[1] These verses were suggested by the result of the Clare election, in the year 1828, when the Right Honorable W. Vesey Fitzgerald was rejected, and Mr. O'Connell returned.

[2] Some expressions to this purport, in a published letter of one of these gentlemen, had then produced a good deal of amusement.

THE ANNUAL PILL.

Supposed to be sung by OLD PROSY, the Jew, in the character of Major
CARTWRIGHT.

Vill nobodies try my nice Annual Pill,
  Dat's to purify every ting nashty avay?
Pless ma heart, pless ma heart, let ma say vat I vill,
  Not a Chrishtian or Shentleman minds vat I say.
  'Tis so pretty a bolus!—just down let it go,
  And, at vonce, such a radical shange you vill see,
Dat I'd not be surprished, like de horse in de show,
  If your heads all vere found, vere your tailsh ought to be!
  Vill nobodies try my nice Annual Pill, etc.

'Twill cure all Electors and purge away clear
  Dat mighty bad itching dey've got in deir hands—
'Twill cure too all Statesmen of dulness, ma tear,
  Tho' the case vas as desperate as poor Mister VAN'S.
Dere is noting at all vat dis Pill vill not reach—
  Give the Sinecure Ghentleman van little grain,
Pless ma heart, it vill act, like de salt on de leech,
  And he'll throw de pounds, shillings, and pence, up again!
  Vill nobodies try my nice Annual Pill, etc.

'Twould be tedious, ma tear, all its peauties to paint—
  "But, among oder tings fundamentally wrong,
It vill cure de Proad Pottom[1]—a common complaint
  Among M.P.'s and weavers—from sitting too long.
Should symptoms of speeching preak out on a dunce
  (Vat is often de case), it vill stop de disease,
And pring avay all de long speeches at vonce,
  Dat else vould, like tape-worms, come by degrees!

Vill nobodies try my nice Annual Pill,
  Dat's to purify every ting nashty avay?
Pless ma heart, pless ma heart, let me say vat I vill,
  Not a Chrishtian or Shentleman minds vat I say!

[1] Meaning, I presume, Coalition Administrations.

"IF" AND "PERHAPS."[1]

Oh tidings of freedom! oh accents of hope!
  Waft, waft them, ye zephyrs, to Erin's blue sea,
And refresh with their sounds every son of the Pope,
  From Dingle-a-cooch to far Donaghadee.

"If mutely the slave will endure and obey,
  "Nor clanking his fetters nor breathing his pains,
"His masters perhaps at some far distant day
  "May think (tender tyrants!) of loosening his chains."

Wise "if" and "perhaps!"—precious salve for our wounds,
  If he who would rule thus o'er manacled mutes,
Could check the free spring-tide of Mind that resounds,
  Even now at his feet, like the sea at Canute's.

But, no, 'tis in vain—the grand impulse is given—
  Man knows his high Charter, and knowing will claim;
And if ruin must follow where fetters are riven,
  Be theirs who have forged them the guilt and the shame.

"If the slave will be silent!"—vain Soldier, beware—
  There is a dead silence the wronged may assume,
When the feeling, sent back from the lips in despair,
  But clings round the heart with a deadlier gloom;—

When the blush that long burned on the suppliant's cheek,
  Gives place to the avenger's pale, resolute hue;
And the tongue that once threatened, disdaining to speak,
  Consigns to the arm the high office—to do.

If men in that silence should think of the hour
  When proudly their fathers in panoply stood,
Presenting alike a bold front-work of power
  To the despot on land and the foe on the flood:—

That hour when a Voice had come forth from the west,
  To the slave bringing hopes, to the tyrant alarms;
And a lesson long lookt for was taught the opprest,
  That kings are as dust before freemen in arms!

If, awfuller still, the mute slave should recall
  That dream of his boyhood, when Freedom's sweet day
At length seemed to break thro' a long night of thrall,
  And Union and Hope went abroad in its ray;—

If Fancy should tell him, that Dayspring of Good,
  Tho' swiftly its light died away from his chain,
Tho' darkly it set in a nation's best blood,
  Now wants but invoking to shine out again;

If—if, I say—breathings like these should come o'er
  The chords of remembrance, and thrill as they come,
Then,—perhaps—ay, perhaps—but I dare not say more;
  Thou hast willed that thy slaves should be mute—I am dumb.

[1] Written after hearing a celebrated speech in the House of Lords, June 10, 1828, when the motion in favor of Catholic Emancipation, brought forward by the Marquis of Lansdowne, was rejected by the House of Lords.

WRITE ON, WRITE ON.

A BALLAD.

Air.—"Sleep on, sleep on, my Kathleen dear.
          salvete, fratres Asini. ST. FRANCIS.

Write on, write on, ye Barons dear,
  Ye Dukes, write hard and fast;
The good we've sought for many a year
  Your quills will bring at last.
One letter more, Newcastle, pen,
  To match Lord Kenyon's two,
And more than Ireland's host of men,
  One brace of Peers will do.
          Write on, write on, etc.

Sure never since the precious use
  Of pen and ink began,
Did letters writ by fools produce
  Such signal good to man.
While intellect, 'mong high and low,
  Is marching on, they say,
Give me the Dukes and Lords who go
Like crabs, the other way.
          Write on, write on, etc.

Even now I feel the coming light—
  Even now, could Folly lure
My Lord Mountcashel too to write,
  Emancipation's sure.
By geese (we read in history),
  Old Rome was saved from ill;
And now to quills of geese we see
  Old Rome indebted still.
          Write on, write on, etc.

Write, write, ye Peers, nor stoop to style,
  Nor beat for sense about—
Things little worth a Noble's while
  You're better far without.
Oh ne'er, since asses spoke of yore,
  Such miracles were done;
For, write but four such letters more,
  And Freedom's cause is won!

SONG OF THE DEPARTING SPIRIT OF TITHE.

    "The parting Genius is with sighing sent."
    MILTON.

It is o'er, it is o'er, my reign is o'er;
I hear a Voice, from shore to shore,
From Dunfanaghy to Baltimore,
And it saith, in sad, parsonic tone,
"Great Tithe and Small are dead and gone!"

Even now I behold your vanishing wings,
Ye Tenths of all conceivable things,
Which Adam first, as Doctors deem,
Saw, in a sort of night-mare dream,[1]
After the feast of fruit abhorred—
First indigestion on record!—
Ye decimate ducks, ye chosen chicks,
Ye pigs which, tho' ye be Catholics,
Or of Calvin's most select depraved,
In the Church must have your bacon saved;—
Ye fields, where Labor counts his sheaves,
And, whatsoever himself believes,
Must bow to the Establisht Church belief,
That the tenth is always a Protestant sheaf;—
Ye calves of which the man of Heaven
Takes Irish tithe, one calf in seven;[2]
Ye tenths of rape, hemp, barley, flax,
Eggs, timber, milk, fish and bees' wax;
All things in short since earth's creation,
Doomed, by the Church's dispensation,
To suffer eternal decimation—
Leaving the whole lay-world, since then,
Reduced to nine parts out of ten;
Or—as we calculate thefts and arsons—
Just ten per cent. the worse for Parsons!

Alas! and is all this wise device
For the saving of souls thus gone in a trice?—
The whole put down, in the simplest way,
By the souls resolving not to pay!
And even the Papist, thankless race
Who have had so much the easiest case—
To pay for our sermons doomed, 'tis true,
But not condemned to hear them, too—
(Our holy business being, 'tis known,
With the ears of their barley, not their own,)
Even they object to let us pillage
By right divine their tenth of tillage,
And, horror of horrors, even decline
To find us in sacramental wine![3]

It is o'er, it is o'er, my reign is o'er,
Ah! never shall rosy Rector more,
Like the shepherds of Israel, idly eat,
And make of his flock "a prey and meat."[4]
No more shall be his the pastoral sport
Of suing his flock in the Bishop's Court,
Thro' various steps, Citation, Libel—
Scriptures all, but not the Bible;
Working the Law's whole apparatus,
To get at a few predoomed potatoes,
And summoning all the powers of wig,
To settle the fraction of a pig!—
Till, parson and all committed deep
In the case of "Shepherds versus Sheep,"
The Law usurps the Gospel's place,
And on Sundays meeting face to face,
While Plaintiff fills the preacher's station,
Defendants form the congregation.

So lives he, Mammon's priest, not Heaven's,
For tenths thus all at sixes and sevens,
Seeking what parsons love no less
Than tragic poets—a good distress.
Instead of studying St. Augustin,
Gregory Nyss., or old St. Justin
(Books fit only to hoard dust in),
His reverence stints his evening readings
To learned Reports of Tithe Proceedings,
Sipping the while that port so ruddy,
Which forms his only ancient study;—
Port so old, you'd swear its tartar
Was of the age of Justin Martyr,
And, had he sipt of such, no doubt
His martyrdom would have been—to gout.

Is all then lost?—alas, too true—
Ye Tenths beloved, adieu, adieu!
My reign is o'er, my reign is o'er—
Like old Thumb's ghost, "I can no more."

[1] A reverend prebendary of Hereford, in an Essay on the Revenues of the Church of England, has assigned the origin of Tithes to "some unrecorded revelation made to Adam."

[2] "The tenth calf is due to the parson of common right; and if there are seven he shall have one."—REES'S Cyclopaedia, art. "Tithes."

[3] Among the specimens laid before Parliament of the sort of Church rates levied upon Catholics in Ireland, was a charge of two pipes of port for sacramental wine.

[4] Ezekiel, xxxiv., 10.—"Neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them."

THE EUTHANASIA OF VAN.

    "We are told that the bigots are growing old and fast wearing out. If
    it be so why not let us die in peace?"
    —LORD BEXLEY'S Letter to the Freeholders of Kent.

Stop, Intellect, in mercy stop,
  Ye curst improvements, cease;
And let poor Nick Vansittart drop
  Into his grave in peace.

Hide, Knowledge, hide thy rising sun,
  Young Freedom, veil thy head;
Let nothing good be thought or done,
  Till Nick Vansittart's dead!

Take pity on a dotard's fears,
  Who much doth light detest;
And let his last few drivelling years
  Be dark as were the rest.

You too, ye fleeting one-pound notes,
  Speed not so fast away—
Ye rags on which old Nicky gloats,
  A few months longer stay.

Together soon, or much I err,
  You both from life may go—
The notes unto the scavenger,
  And Nick—to Nick below.

Ye Liberals, whate'er your plan,
  Be all reforms suspended;
In compliment to dear old Van,
  Let nothing bad be mended.

Ye Papists, whom oppression wrings,
  Your cry politely cease,
And fret your hearts to fiddle-strings
  That Van may die in peace.

So shall he win a fame sublime
  By few old rag-men gained;
Since all shall own, in Nicky's time,
  Nor sense nor justice reigned.

So shall his name thro' ages past,
  And dolts ungotten yet,
Date from "the days of Nicholas,"
  With fond and sad regret;—

And sighing say, "Alas, had he
  "Been spared from Pluto's bowers,
"The blessed reign of Bigotry
  "And Rags might still be ours!"

TO THE REVEREND ——.

ONE OF THE SIXTEEN REQUISITIONISTS OF NOTTINGHAM.

1828.

What, you, too, my ******, in hashes so knowing,
  Of sauces and soups Aristarchus profest!
Are you, too, my savory Brunswicker, going
  To make an old fool of yourself with the rest?

Far better to stick to your kitchen receipts;
  And—if you want something to tease—for variety,
Go study how Ude, in his "Cookery," treats
  Live eels when he fits them for polisht society.

Just snuggling them in, 'twixt the bars of the fire,
  He leaves them to wriggle and writhe on the coals,[1]
In a manner that Horner himself would admire,
  And wish, 'stead of eels, they were Catholic souls.

Ude tells us the fish little suffering feels;
  While Papists of late have more sensitive grown;
So take my advice, try your hand at live eels,
  And for once let the other poor devils alone.

I have even a still better receipt for your cook—
  How to make a goose die of confirmed hepatitis;[2]
And if you'll, for once, fellow-feelings o'erlook,
  A well-tortured goose a most capital sight is.

First, catch him, alive—make a good steady fire—
  Set your victim before it, both legs being tied,
(As if left to himself he might wish to retire,)
  And place a large bowl of rich cream by his side.

There roasting by inches, dry, fevered, and faint,
  Having drunk all the cream you so civilly laid, off,
He dies of as charming a liver complaint
  As ever sleek person could wish a pie made of.

Besides, only think, my dear one of Sixteen,
  What an emblem this bird, for the epicure's use meant.
Presents of the mode in which Ireland has been
  Made a tid-bit for yours and your brethren's amusement:

Tied down to the stake, while her limbs, as they quiver,
  A slow fire of tyranny wastes by degrees—
No wonder disease should have swelled up her liver,
  No wonder you, Gourmands, should love her disease.

[1] The only way, Monsieur Ude assures us, to get rid of the oil so objectionable in this fish.

[2] A liver complaint. The process by which the livers of geese are enlarged for the famous Pates de foie d'oie.

IRISH ANTIQUITIES.

According to some learned opinions
The Irish once were Carthaginians;
But trusting to more late descriptions
I'd rather say they were Egyptians.
My reason's this:—the Priests of Isis,
  When forth they marched in long array,
Employed, 'mong other grave devices,
  A Sacred Ass to lead the way;
And still the antiquarian traces
  'Mong Irish Lords this Pagan plan,
For still in all religious cases
  They put Lord Roden in the van.

A CURIOUS FACT.

The present Lord Kenyon (the Peer who writes letters,
For which the waste-paper folks much are his debtors)
Hath one little oddity well worth reciting,
Which puzzleth observers even more than his writing.
Whenever Lord Kenyon doth chance to behold
A cold Apple-pie—mind, the pie must be cold—
His Lordship looks solemn (few people know why),
And he makes a low bow to the said apple-pie.
This idolatrous act in so "vital" a Peer,
Is by most serious Protestants thought rather queer—
Pie-worship, they hold, coming under the head
(Vide Crustium, chap, iv.) of the Worship of Bread.
Some think 'tis a tribute, as author he owes
For the service that pie-crust hath done to his prose;—
The only good things in his pages, they swear,
Being those that the pastry-cook sometimes put there.
Others say, 'tis a homage, thro' piecrust conveyed,
To our Glorious Deliverer's much-honored shade;
As that Protestant Hero (or Saint, if you please)
Was as fond of cold pie as he was of green pease,[1]
And 'tis solely in loyal remembrance of that,
My Lord Kenyon to apple-pie takes off his hat.
While others account for this kind salutation;"—
By what Tony Lumpkin calls "concatenation;"
A certain good-will that, from sympathy's ties,
'Twixt old Apple-women and Orange-men lies.

But 'tis needless to add, these are all vague surmises,
For thus, we're assured, the whole matter arises:
Lord Kenyon's respected old father (like many
Respected old fathers) was fond of a penny;
And loved so to save,[2] that—there's not the least question—
His death was brought on by a bad indigestion,
From cold apple-pie-crust his Lordship would stuff in
At breakfast to save the expense of hot muffin.
Hence it is, and hence only, that cold apple-pies
Are beheld by his Heir with such reverent eyes—
Just as honest King Stephen his beaver might doff
To the fishes that carried his kind uncle off—
And while filial piety urges so many on,
  'Tis pure apple-pie-ety moves my Lord Kenyon.

[1] See the anecdote, which the Duchess of Marlborough relates in her Memoirs, of this polite hero appropriating to himself one day, at dinner, a whole dish of green peas—the first of the season—while the poor Princess Anne, who was then in a longing condition, sat by vainly entreating with her eyes for a share.

[2] The same prudent propensity characterizes his descendant, who (as is well known) would not even go to the expense of a diphthong on his father's monument, but had the inscription spelled, economically, thus:—"mors janua vita"

NEW-FASHIONED ECHOES.

Sir,—

Most of your readers are no doubt acquainted with the anecdote told of a certain not over-wise judge who, when in the act of delivering a charge in some country court-house, was interrupted by the braying of an ass at the door. "What noise is that?" asked the angry judge. "Only an extraordinary echo there is in court, my Lord," answered one of the counsel.

As there are a number of such "extraordinary echoes" abroad just now, you will not, perhaps, be unwilling, Mr. Editor, to receive the following few lines suggested by them.

Yours, etc. S.

1828

huc coeamus,[1] ait; nullique libentius unquam responsura sono, coeamus, retulit echo. OVID.

There are echoes, we know, of all sorts,
  From the echo that "dies in the dale,"
To the "airy-tongued babbler" that sports
  Up the tide of the torrent her "tale."

There are echoes that bore us, like Blues,
  With the latest smart mot they have heard;
There are echoes extremely like shrews
  Letting nobody have the last word.

In the bogs of old Paddy-land, too.
  Certain "talented" echoes[2] there dwell,
Who on being askt, "How do you do?"
  Politely reply, Pretty well,"

But why should I talk any more
  Of such old-fashioned echoes as these,
When Britain has new ones in store,
  That transcend them by many degrees?

For of all repercussions of sound
  Concerning which bards make a pother,
There's none like that happy rebound
  When one blockhead echoes an other;—

When Kenyon commences the bray,
  And the Borough-Duke follows his track;
And loudly from Dublin's sweet bay
  Rathdowne brays, with interest, back!—

And while, of most echoes the sound
  On our ear by reflection doth fall,
These Brunswickers[3] pass the bray round,
  Without any reflection at all.

Oh Scott, were I gifted like you,
  Who can name all the echoes there are
From Benvoirlich to bold Benvenue,
  From Benledi to wild Uamvar;

I might track thro' each hard Irish name
  The rebounds of this asinine strain,
Till from Neddy to Neddy, it came
  To the chief Neddy, Kenyon, again;

Might tell how it roared in Rathdowne,
  How from Dawson it died off genteelly—
How hollow it hung from the crown
  Of the fat-pated Marquis of Ely;

How on hearing my Lord of Glandine,
  Thistle-eaters the stoutest gave way,
Outdone in their own special line
  By the forty-ass power of his bray!

But, no—for so humble a bard
  'Tis a subject too trying to touch on;
Such noblemen's names are too hard,
  And their noddles too soft to dwell much on.

Oh Echo, sweet nymph of the hill,
  Of the dell and the deep-sounding shelves;
If in spite of Narcissus you still
  Take to fools who are charmed with themselves,

Who knows but, some morning retiring,
  To walk by the Trent's wooded side,
You may meet with Newcastle, admiring
  His own lengthened ears in the tide!

Or, on into Cambria straying,
  Find Kenyon, that double tongued elf,
In his love of ass-cendency, braying
  A Brunswick duet with himself!

[1] "Let us from Clubs."

[2] Commonly called "Paddy Blake's Echoes".

[3] Anti-Catholic associations, under the title of Brunswick Clubs, were at this time becoming numerous both in England and Ireland.

INCANTATION.

FROM THE NEW TRAGEDY OF "THE BRUNSWICKERS."

SCENE.—Penenden Plain. In the middle, a caldron boiling. Thunder.— Enter three Brunswickers.

1st Bruns.—Thrice hath scribbling Kenyon scrawled,

2d Bruns.—Once hath fool Newcastle bawled,

3d Bruns.—Bexley snores:—'tis time, 'tis time,

  1st Bruns.—Round about the caldron go;
In the poisonous nonsense throw.
Bigot spite that long hath grown
Like a toad within a stone,
Sweltering in the heart of Scott,
Boil we in the Brunswick pot.

  All.—Dribble, dribble, nonsense dribble,
Eldon, talk, and Kenyon, scribble.

  2d Bruns.—Slaver from Newcastle's quill
In the noisome mess distil,
Brimming high our Brunswick broth
Both with venom and with froth.
Mix the brains (tho' apt to hash ill,
Being scant) of Lord Mountcashel,
With that malty stuff which Chandos
Drivels as no other man does.
Catch (i. e. if catch you can)
One idea, spick and span,
From my Lord of Salisbury,—
One idea, tho' it be
Smaller than the "happy flea"
Which his sire in sonnet terse
Wedded to immortal verse.[1]
Tho' to rob the son is sin,
Put his one idea in;
And, to keep it company,
Let that conjuror Winchelsea
Drop but half another there,
If he hath so much to spare.
Dreams of murders and of arsons,
Hatched in heads of Irish parsons,
Bring from every hole and corner,
Where ferocious priests like Horner
Purely for religious good
Cry aloud for Papist's blood,
Blood for Wells, and such old women,
At their ease to wade and swim in.

  All.—Dribble, dribble, nonsense dribble,
Bexley, talk, and Kenyon, scribble.

  3d Bruns.—Now the charm begin to brew;
Sisters, sisters, add thereto
Scraps of Lethbridge's old speeches,
Mixt with leather from his breeches,
Rinsings of old Bexley's brains,
Thickened (if you'll take the pains)
With that pulp which rags create,
In their middle nympha state,
Ere, like insects frail and sunny,
Forth they wing abroad as money.
There—the Hell-broth we've enchanted—
Now but one thing more is wanted.
Squeeze o'er all that Orange juice,
Castlereagh keeps corkt for use,
Which, to work the better spell, is
Colored deep with blood of ——,
Blood, of powers far more various,
Even than that of Januarius,
Since so great a charm hangs o'er it,
England's parsons bow before it,
  All.—Dribble, dribble, nonsense dribble,
Bexley, talk, and Kenyon, scribble.
  2d Bruns.—Cool it now with ——'s blood,
So the charm is firm and good.
 [exeunt.

[1] Alluding to a well-known lyric composition of the late Marquis, which, with a slight alteration, might be addressed either to a flea or a fly.

HOW TO MAKE A GOOD POLITICIAN.

Whene'er you're in doubt, said a Sage I once knew,
'Twixt two lines of conduct which course to pursue,
Ask a woman's advice, and, whate'er she advise,
Do the very reverse and you're sure to be wise.

Of the same use as guides the Brunswicker throng;
In their thoughts, words and deeds, so instinctively wrong,
That whatever they counsel, act, talk or indite,
Take the opposite course and you're sure to be right.

So golden this rule, that, had nature denied you
The use of that finger-post, Reason, to guide you—
Were you even more doltish than any given man is,
More soft than Newcastle, more twaddling than Van is.
I'd stake my repute, on the following conditions,
To make you the soundest of sound politicians.

Place yourself near the skirts of some high-flying Tory—
Some Brunswicker parson, of port-drinking glory,—
Watch well how he dines, during any great Question—
What makes him feel gayly, what spoils his digestion—
And always feel sure that his joy o'er a stew
Portends a clear case of dyspepsia to you.
Read him backwards, like Hebrew—whatever he wishes
Or praises, note down as absurd or pernicious.
Like the folks of a weather-house, shifting about,
When he's out be an In-when he's in be an Out.
Keep him always reversed in your thoughts, night and day,
Like an Irish barometer turned the wrong way:—
If he's up you may swear that foul weather is nigh;
If he's down you may look for a bit of blue sky.
Never mind what debaters or journalists say,
Only ask what he thinks and then think t'other way.
Does he hate the Small-note Bill? then firmly rely
The Small-note Bill's a blessing, tho' you don't know why.
Is Brougham his aversion? then Harry's your man.
Does he quake at O'Connell? take doubly to Dan.
Is he all for the Turks? then at once take the whole
Russian Empire (Tsar, Cossacks and all) to your soul.
In short, whatsoever he talks, thinks or is,
Be your thoughts, words and essence the contrast of his.
Nay, as Siamese ladies—at least the polite ones,—
All paint their teeth black, 'cause the devil has white ones-
If even by the chances of time or of tide
Your Tory for once should have sense on his side,
Even then stand aloof—for be sure that Old Nick
When a Tory talks sensibly, means you some trick.

Such my recipe is—and, in one single verse,
I shall now, in conclusion, its substance rehearse,
Be all that a Brunswicker is not nor could be,
And then—youll be all that an honest man should be.

EPISTLE OF CONDOLENCE.

FROM A SLAVE-LORD, TO A COTTON-LORD.

Alas! my dear friend, what a state of affairs!
  How unjustly we both are despoiled of our rights!
Not a pound of black flesh shall I leave to my heirs,
  Nor must you any more work to death little whites.

Both forced to submit to that general controller
  Of King, Lords and cotton mills, Public Opinion,
No more shall you beat with a big billy-roller.
  Nor I with the cart-whip assert my dominion.

Whereas, were we suffered to do as we please
  With our Blacks and our Whites, as of yore we were let,
We might range them alternate, like harpsichord keys,
  And between us thump out a good piebald duet.

But this fun is all over;—farewell to the zest
  Which Slavery now lends to each teacup we sip;
Which makes still the cruellest coffee the best,
  And that sugar the sweetest which smacks of the whip.

Farewell too the Factory's white pickaninnies—
  Small, living machines which if flogged to their tasks
Mix so well with their namesakes, the "Billies" and "Jennies,"
  That which have got souls in 'em nobody asks;—

Little Maids of the Mill, who themselves but ill-fed,
  Are obliged, 'mong their other benevolent cares,
To "keep feeding the scribblers,"[1]—and better, 'tis said,
  Than old Blackwood or Fraser have ever fed theirs.

All this is now o'er and so dismal my loss is,
  So hard 'tis to part from the smack of the throng,
That I mean (from pure love for the old whipping process),
  To take to whipt syllabub all my life long.

[1] One of the operations in cotton mills usually performed by children.