DEDICATION.

To ST-N W--LR--E, Esq.
MY DEAR W-—E,

It is now about seven years since I promised (and I grieve to think it is almost as long since we met) to dedicate to you the very first book, of whatever size or kind, I should publish. Who could have thought that so many years would elapse without my giving the least signs of life upon the subject of this important promise? Who could have imagined that a volume of doggerel, after all, would be the first offering that Gratitude would lay upon the shrine of Friendship?

my

If, however, you are as interested about me and pursuits as formerly, you will be happy to hear that doggerel is not my only occupation; but that I am preparing to throw my name to the Swans of the Temple of Immortality, leaving it, of course, to the said Swans to determine whether they ever will take the trouble of picking it from the stream.

In the mean time, my dear W——ɛ, like a pious Lutheran, you must judge of me rather by my faith than my works, and, however trifling the tribute which I offer, never doubt the fidelity with which I am, and always shall be,

Your sincere and attached friend,
THE AUTHOR.

245, Piccadilly, March 4, 1813.

PREFACE.

THE Bag, from which the following Letters are selected, was dropped by a Twopenny Postman about two months since, and picked up by an emissary of the Society for the S-pp-ss-n of V-e, who, supposing it might materially assist the private researches of that institution, immediately took it to his employers, and was rewarded handsomely for his trouble. Such a treasury of secrets was worth a whole host of informers; and, accordingly, like the Cupids of the poet (if I may use so profane a simile), who «< fell at odds about the sweet-bag of a bee,» those venerable suppressors almost fought with each other for the honour and delight of first ransacking the Post-bag. Unluckily, however, it turned out, upon examination, that the discoveries of profligacy, which it enabled them to make, lay chiefly in those upper regions of society, which their well-bred regulations forbid them to molest or meddle with. In consequence, they gained but very few victims by their prize, and, after lying for a week or two under Mr H-TCH-D's counter, the Bag, with its violated contents, was sold for a trifle to

but in a newspaper) to publish something or other in the shape of a book; and it occurred to me that, the present being such a letter-writing era, a few of these two-penny post epistles, turned into easy verse, would be as light and popular a task as I could possibly select for a commencement. I did not think it prudent, however, to give too many letters at first, and, accordingly, have been obliged (in order to eke out a sufficient number of pages) to reprint some of those trifles, which had already appeared in the public journals. As, in the battles of ancient times, the shades of the departed were sometimes seen among the combatants, so I thought I might remedy the thinness of my ranks, by conjuring up a few dead and forgotten ephemerons to fill them.

Such are the motives and accidents that led to the present publication; and as this is the first time my muse has ever ventured out of the go-cart of a newspaper, though I feel all a parent's delight at seeing little Miss go alone, I am also not without a parent's anxiety, lest an unlucky fall should be the consequence of the experiment; and I need not point out the many living instances there are of Muses that have suffered severely in their heads, from taking too early and rashly to their feet. Besides, a book is so very different a thing from a newspaper!-in the former, your doggerel, without either company or shelter, must stand shivering in the middle of a bleak white page by itself; whereas in the latter, it is comfortably backed by advertisements, and has sometimes even a speech of Mr St-ph-n's, or something equally warm, for a chauffe-pié,-so that, in general, the very reverse of « laudatur et alget» is its destiny.

Ambition, however, must run some risks, and I shall be very well satisfied if the reception of these few Letters should have the effect of sending me to the PostBag for more.

PREFACE TO THE FOURTEENTH EDITION.

BY A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.

In the absence of Mr Brown, who is at present on a tour through I feel myself called upon, as his friend, to notice certain misconceptions and misrepresentations, to which this little volume of Trifles has given rise.

In the first place, it is not true that Mr Brown has had any accomplices in the work. A note, indeed, which has hitherto accompanied his Preface, may very naturally have been the origin of such a supposition; but that note, which was merely the coquetry of an author, I have, in the present edition, taken upon myself to remove, and Mr Brown must therefore be considered (like the mother of that unique production, the Centaur, mova na povor) as alone responsible for the whole contents of the volume.

Pindar. Pyth. 2.-My friend certainly cannot add out' Ev zyδρασι γερασφόρον.

In the next place it has been said, that in consequence of this graceless little book, a certain distinguished Personage prevailed upon another distinguished Personage to withdraw from the author that notice and kindness, with which he had so long and so liberally honoured him. There is not one syllable of truth in this story. For the magnanimity of the former of these persons I would, indeed, in no case answer too rashly; but of the conduct of the latter towards my friend, I have a proud gratification in declaring, that it has never ceased to be such as he must remember with indelible gratitude; a gratitude the more cheerfully and warmly paid, from its not being a debt incurred solely on his own account,

but for kindness shared with those nearest and dearest to him.

the

To the charge of being an Irishman, poor Mr BROWN pleads guilty; and I believe it must also be acknowledged that he comes of a Roman Catholic family: an avowal which, I am aware, is decisive of his utter reprobation in eyes of those exclusive patentees of Christianity, so worthy to have been the followers of a certain enlightened Bishop, DONATUS,' who held « that God is in Africa, and not elsewhere.» But from all this it does not necessarily follow that Mr BROWN is a Papist; and, indeed, I have the strongest reason for suspecting that they who say so are totally mistaken. Not that I presume to have ascertained his opinions upon such subjects; all I know of his orthodoxy is, that he has a Protestant wife and two or three little Protestant children, and that he has been seen at church every Sunday, for a whole year together, listening to the sermons of his truly reverend and amiable friend, Dr ➖➖➖, and behaving there as well and as orderly as most people.

There are a few more mistakes and falsehoods about Mr BROWN, to which I had intended, with all becoming gravity, to advert; but I begin to think the task is altogether as useless as it is tiresome. Calumnies and misrepresentations of this sort are, like the arguments and statements of Dr Duigenan, not at all the less vivacious or less serviceable to their fabricators for having been refuted and disproved a thousand times over: they are brought forward again, as good as new, whenever malice or stupidity is in want of them, and are as useful as the old broken lantern, in Fielding's Amelia, which the watchman always keeps ready by him, to produce, in proof of riot, against his victims. I shall therefore give up the fruitless toil of vindication, and would even draw my pen over what I have already written, had I not promised to furnish the Publisher with a Preface, and know not how else I could contrive to eke it out.

I have added two or three more trifles to this edition, which I found in the Morning Chronicle, and knew to be from the pen of my friend. The rest of the volume remains in its original state.

April 20, 1814.

Bishop of Casa Nigræ, in the fourth century.

The TRIFLES here alluded to, and others, which have since appeared, will be found in this edition.-Publisher.

A new reading has been suggested in the original of the Ode of Horace, freely translated by Lord ELD-N. In the line Sive per Syrteis iter æstuosas, it is proposed, by a very trifling alteration, to read Surtees instead of Syrteis, which brings the Ode, it is said, more home to the noble Translator, and gives a peculiar force and aptness to the epithet æstuosas. I merely throw out this emendation for the learned, being unable myself to decide upon its merits.

INTERCEPTED LETTERS,

ETC.

LETTER I.

FROM THE PR-NC-SS CHE OF W-S TO THE
LADY B-RB-A A-SAL-Y.1

My dear Lady Bab, you'll be shock'd, I'm afraid,
When you hear the sad rumpus your ponies have made,
Since the time of horse-consuls (now long out of date)
No nags ever made such a stir in the State!

Lord Eld-n first heard-and as instantly pray'd he
To God and his King-that a Popish young lady
(For though you've bright eyes, and twelve thousand a

Off at once to papa, in a flurry, he flies-
For papa always does what these statesmen advise,
On condition that they 'll be, in turn, so polite
As in no case whate'er to advise him too right-
<<Pretty doings are here, sir, (he angrily cries,
While by dint of dark eyebrows he strives to look wise),
T is a scheme of the Romanists, so help me God!
To ride over your most Royal Highness rough-shod-
Excuse, sir, my tears, they're from loyalty's source-
Bad enough 't was for Troy to be sack'd by a Horse,
But for us to be ruined by Ponies, still worse!

Quick a council is call'd-the whole cabinet sits-
The Archbishops declare, frighten'd out of their wits,
That if vile Popish ponics should eat at my manger,
From that awful moment the Church is in danger!
As, give them but stabling, and shortly no stalls
Will suit their proud stomachs but those of St Paul's,

The Doctor, and he, the devout man of Leather,
V-ns-tt-t, now laying their saint-heads together,
Declare that these skittish young a-bominations
Are clearly foretold in chap. vi Revelations-
Nay, they verily think they could point out the one
Which the Doctor's friend Death was to canter upon!

Lord H-rr-by, hoping that no one imputes
To the Court any fancy to persecute brutes,
Protests, on the word of himself and his cronies,
That had these said creatures been Asses, not Ponies,
The Court would have started no sort of objection,
As Asses were, there, always sure of protection.

<«<If the Pr-nc-ss will keep them (says Lord C-stl-r-gh),
To make them quite harmless the only true way
Is (as certain Chief-Justices do with their wives)
To flog them within half an inch of their lives-

This young Lady, who is a Roman Catholic, has lately made a present of some beautiful ponies to the Pr-nc-ss.

Before I send this scrawl away,

I seize a moment, just to say

There's some parts of the Turkish system
So vulgar, 't were as well you miss'd 'em.
For instance, in Seraglio matters-
Your Turk, whom girlish fondness flatters,
Would fill his Haram (tasteless fool!)
With tittering, red-cheek'd things from school-
But here (as in that fairy-land,

Where Love and Age went hand in hand ;'

The learned Colonel must allude here to a description of the Mysterious Isle, in the History of Abdalla, Son of Hanif, where such inversions of the order of nature are said to have taken place. A score of old women, and the same number of old men, played here and there in the court, some at chuck-farthing, others at tip-cat or at cockles. And again, There is nothing, believe me, more engaging than those lovely wrinkles, etc. etc.-See Tales of the East, vol. iii, pp. 607, 608.

Where lips till sixty shed no honey,
And Grandams were worth any money)
Our Sultan has much riper notions-
So, let your list of she-promotions
Include those only, plump and sage,
Who 've reach'd the regulation-age;
That is as near as one can fix
From Peerage dates-full fifty-six.

This rule 's for favourites-nothing more—
For, as to wives, a Grand Signor,
Though not decidedly without them!
Need never care one curse about them!

LETTER III.

FROM G. R. TO THE E OF Y, L

WE miss'd you last night at the « hoary old sinner's, "—
Who gave us, as usual, the cream of good dinners--
His soups scientific-his fishes quite prime—
His pâtés superb-and his cutlets sublime!

In short, 't was the snug sort of dinner to stir a
Stomachic orgasm in my Lord E---—GH,
Who set-to, to be sure, with miraculous force,
And exclaim'd, between mouthfuls, « a He-cook, of
course!-

way,

And we cared not for Juries or Libels-no-dam'me! nor Even for the threats of last Sunday's Examiner !

More good things were eaten than said - but Toм
T-RRH-T

In quoting Joe Miller, you know, has some merit,
And, hearing the sturdy Justiciary Chief
Say-sated with turtle-« I'll now try the beef»—
TOMMY whisper'd him (giving his Lordship a sly hit)
<«< I fear 't will be hung-beef, my Lord, if you try it!»

And C-MD-N was there, who, that morning had gone To fit his new Marquis's coronet on;

And the dish set before him-oh dish well-devised!Was, what old Mother GLASSE calls, « a calf's head surprised!»

The brains were near ——; and once they 'd been fine, But of late they had lain so long soaking in wine

1 This letter, as the reader will perceive, was written the day after a dinner, given by the M of H-d-t.

Our next round of toasts was a fancy quite new,

For we drank-and you 'll own 't was benevolent too-
To those well-meaning husbands, cits, parsons, or peers,
Whom we 've any time honour'd by kissing their dears:
This museum of wittols was comical rather;
Old H-D-T gave M――y, and I gave

In short, not a soul till this morning would budge-
We were all fun and frolic!-and even the J-E
Laid aside, for the time, his juridical fashion,
And through the whole night was not once in a passion!

I write this in bed, while my whiskers are airing,
And M-c has a sly dose of jalap preparing
For poor T-MMY T-RR-T at breakfast to quaff—
As I feel I want something to give me a laugh,
And there's nothing so good as old T-ммY, kept close
To his Cornwall accounts, after taking a dose !

LETTER IV.

FROM THE RIGHT HON. P-TR-CK D-G-N-N TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR J-BN N-CH-L.

LAST week, dear N-CH-L, making merry
At dinner with our Secretary,
When all were drunk, or pretty near
(The time for doing business here),
Says he to me, « Sweet Bully-Bottom!
These Papist dogs-hiccup-od rot 'em'
Deserve to be bespatter'd-hiccup-
With all the dirt even you can pick up:
But, as the P--E-(here's to him-fill-
Hip, hip, hurra!)-is trying still

To humbug them with kind professions,
And as you deal in strong expressions-
Rogue', 'traitor'-hiccup-and all that—
You must be muzzled, DocTor Pat!—
You must indeed—hiccup—that's flat,»

Dublin.

This letter, which contained some very heavy inclosures, seems to have been sent to London by a private hand, and then put into the Twopenny Post-Office, to save trouble. See the Appendix.

In sending this sheet to the press, however, I learn that the - muzzle » has been taken off, and the Right Hon. Doctor let loose again.

Oh! 't is too much- who now will be
The Nightman of No-Popery?
What Courtier, Saint, or even Bishop,
Such learned filth will ever fish up?
If there among our ranks be one
To take my place, 't is thou, SIR JOHN-
Thou-who like me, art dubb'd Right Hon.
Like me, too, art a Lawyer Civil
That wishes Papists at the devil!

To whom then but to thee, my friend,
Should PATRICK his Port-folio send?
Take it 't is thine-his learn'd Port-folio,
With all its theologic olio

Of Bulls, half Irish and half Roman,-
Of Doctrines now believed by no man--
Of Councils, held for men's salvation,
Yet always ending in damnation-

(Which shows that since the world's creation,
Your Priests, whate'er their gentle shamming,
Have always had a taste for damning);
And many more such pious scraps,
To prove (what we 've long proved perhaps)
That, mad as Christians used to be
About the Thirteenth Century,
There's lots of Christians to be had
In this, the Nineteenth, just as mad!

Farewell-I send with this, dear N-CH-L!
A rod or two I've had in pickle

Wherewith to trim old GR-TT-N's jacket.—
The rest shall go by Monday's packet.

(By the bye, you 've seen ROKEBY?-this moment got mine

The Mail-Coach Edition-prodigiously fine!)

But I can't conceive how, in this very cold weather,

I'm ever to bring my five hundred together;

As, unless the thermometer's near boiling heat,
One can never get half of one's hundreds to meet-
(Apropos-you'd have laugh'd to see TOWNSEND,last night,
Escort to their chair, with his staff so polite,
The three maiden Miseries, all in a fright!
Poor TOWNSEND, like MERCURY filling two posts,
Supervisor of thieves, and chief-usher of ghosts!)

But, my dear Lady —— ! can't you hit on some notion,

At least for one night to set London in motion?
As to having the R-G-NT-that show is gone by-
Besides, I've remark'd that (between you and I)
The MARCHESA and he, inconvenient in more ways,
Have taken much lately to whispering in door-ways;
Which-considering, you know, dear, the size of the

two

Makes a block that one's company cannot get through; And a house such as mine is, with door-ways so small, Has no room for such cumbersome love-work at all!-(Apropos, though, of love-work-you've heard it, I hope That NAPOLEON's old Mother's to marry the POPE,What a comical pair!)-But, to stick to my Rout, 'T will be hard if some novelty can't be struck out, Is there no ALGERINE, no KAMCHATKAN arrived? No Plenipo PACHA, three-tail'd and ten-wived? No RUSSIAN, whose dissonant consonant name Almost rattles to fragments the trumpet of fame? I remember the time, three or four winters back, When-provided their wigs were but decently blackA few Patriot monsters, from SPAIN, were a sight That would people one's house for one, night after night. But-whether the Ministers paw'd them too much— (And you know how they spoil whatever they touch), Or, whether Lord G-RGE (the young man about town) Has, by dint of bad poetry, written them downOne has certainly lost one's peninsular rage, And the only stray Patriot seen for an age

Has been at such places (think how the fit cools)

As old Mrs V-N's or Lord L-v-RP-L's!

But, in short, my dear, names like WINTZTSCHITSTOPS