“Behold, in yonder ancient figure of fun,
"Who rides the blast, Sir J-nh B-rr-t-n;—
"In tricks to raise the wind his life was spent,
"And now the wind returns the compliment.
"This lady here, the Earl of's sister,
"Is a dead novelist; and this is Mister-
"Beg pardon-Honourable Mister L-st―r,
"A gentleman who, some weeks since, came over
"In a smart puff (wind S. S. E.) to Dover.
"Yonder behind us limps young Vivian Grey,

"Whose life, poor youth, was long since blown away,-
"Like a torn paper-kite, on which the wind
"No further purchase for a puff can find."

"And thou, thyself"-here, anxious, I exclaim'd,
"Tell us, good ghost, how thou, thyself, art named."
"Me, Sir!" he blushing cried, "Ah, there's the rub
"Know, then,-a waiter once at Brooks's Club,
"A waiter still I might have long remain'd,
"And long the club-room's jokes and glasses drain'd;~
"But, ah, in luckless hour, this last December,
"I wrote a book, and Colburn dubb'd me 'Member'.
"Member of Brooks's!'-oh Promethean puff,
"To what wilt thou exalt e'en kitchen-stuff!
"With crums of gossip, caught from dining wits,
"And half-heard jokes, bequeath'd, like half-chew'd bits,
"To be, each night, the waiter's perquisites ;-
"With such ingredients, served up oft before,
"But with fresh fudge and fiction ga:nish'd o'er,
"I managed, for some weeks, to dose the town,
"Till fresh reserves of nonsense ran me down,
"And, ready still e'en waiters' souls to damn,
"The Devil but rang his bell, and here I am; —
"Yes" Coming up, Sir,' once my favourite cry,
"Exchanged for 'Coming down, Sir,' here am I!"
Scarce had the Spectre's lips these words let drop,
When, lo, a breeze-such as from
's shop
Blows in the vernal hour, when puffs prevail,

And speeds the sheets and swells the lagging sale—
Took the poor waiter rudely in the poop,

And, whirling him and all his grisly group

Of literary ghosts,-Miss X. Y. Z.,

The nameless author, better known than read

Sir Jo. the Honourable Mr. L—st—r,

And, last, not least, Lord Nobody's twin sister,

Blew them, ye gods, with all their prose and rhymes

And sins about them, far into those climes

"Where Peter pitch'd his waistcoat" in old times,
Leaving me much in doubt, as on I prest,

With my great master, through this realm unblest,

Whether Old Nick or puff's the best.

LAMENT FOR THE LOSS OF LORD B-ST'S TAIL. 3

ALL in again-unlook'd for bliss!

Yet, ah, one adjunct still we miss;

One tender tie, attach'd so long

To the same head, through right and wrong.

Why, B-th-st, 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,

1 "History of the Clubs of London," announced as by "a Member of Brooks's."

2 A Dantesque allusion to the old saying, "Nine miles beyond H-1, where Peter pitched his waistcoat.'

3 The noble Lord, it is well known, cut off this much-respected appendage, on his retirement from office some months since.

'Twas not, indeed, though 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,

Through 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 "th' unkindest cut of all!"
It seem'd as though th' ascendant day
Of Toryism had pass'd away,
And, proving Sampson's story true,
She lost her vigour with her queue.

Parties are much like fish, 'tis said, -
The tail directs them, not the head;
Then, how could any party fail,

That steer'd its course by B-th-st's tail?
Not Murat's plume, through 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 W-II-gt-n will be anon)
Thou might'st 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 B-th-rst's queue,
We've E-l-nb-gh'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,1
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,

Through 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, e'en in death,

Their last, loved relics we'll bequeath,

A hair-loom to our sons for ever.

THE CHERRIES.

A PARABLE. 2

SBB those cherries, how they cover
Yonder sunny garden wall;—
Had they not that net-work over,
Thieving birds would eat them all.

So, to guard our posts and pensions,

Ancient sages wove a net,

Through whose holes, of small dimensions,
Only certain knaves can get.

Shall we then this net-work widen?
Shall we stretch these sacred holes,
Through which, e'en already, slide in
Lots of small dissenting souls?

1 "Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the "od."

2 Written during the late discussion on the Test and Corporation Acts.

Pope's Homer.

"God forbid!" old Testy crieth;
"God forbid!" so echo I;
Ev'ry 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 unnumber'd,
And Socinians, slim and spare,
Who, with small belief encumber'd,
Slip in easy any where;-
Methodists, of birds the aptest,

Where there's pecking going on;
And that water-fowl, the Baptist,
All would share our fruits anon;
Ev'ry bird, of ev'ry city,

That, for years, with ceaseless din,
Hath reversed 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 d-v-ls
Seize the whole voracious crew!

If less costly fruit won't suit 'em,

Hips and haws and such like berries,

Curse the corm'rants! stone'em, shoot 'em,

Any thing-to save our cherries.

STANZAS WRITTEN IN ANTICIPATION OF DEFEAT.1

Go seek for some abler defenders of wrong,

If we must run the gantlet through 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 gen'rous are vain,
If Truth by the bow-string must yield up her breath,
Let Mutes do the office, and spare her the pain
Of an In—gl—s or T―nd-l to talk her to death.
Chain, persecute, plunder, do all that you will, —
But save us, at least, the old womanly lore
Of a F-st-r, who, dully prophetic of ill,

Is, at once, the two instruments, ALGUR 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 tack'd 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 e'en him ;

And while, on the one side, each name of renown,

That illumines and blesses our age is combined;

1 During the discussion of the Catholic Question in the House of Commons last session.

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

3 Fabius, who sent droves of bullocks against the enemy.

4 Res Fisci est, ubicumque natat. Juvenal.

While the Foxes, the Pitts, and the Cannings look down,
And drop o'er the cause their rich mantles of Mind;
Let bold Paddy H-lmes 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 e'en your victims the torture of laughter,
And never, oh never, try reasoning again!

ODE TO THE WOODS AND FORESTS.

BY ONE OF THE BOARD.

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 through our Woods
Divert its "course of liquid-ation."
Ah, surely, Virgil knew full well
What Woods and Forests ought to be,
When, sly, he introduced in Hell

His guinea-plant, his bullion-tree :

Nor see I why, some future day,

:

1

When short of cash, we should not send
Our H-rr-s 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 K gets all he wants,-
Except a little taste and sense.
Long, in your golden shade reclined,
Like him of fair Armida's bowers,
May W n 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! 2

STANZAS FROM THE BANKS OF THE SHANNON.

"Take back the virgin page."

Moore's Irish Melodies. 1

No longer, dear V-sey, feel hurt and uneasy

At hearing it said by thy Treasury brother,

That thou art a sheet of blank paper, my V-sey,
And he, the dear, innocent placeman, another.

For, lo, what a service we, Irish, have done thee ;—
Thou now art a sheet of blank paper no more;

1 Called by Virgil, botanically, "species auri frondentis."

2 Tu facis, ut silvas, ut amem loca

OVID.

By St. Patrick, we've scrawl'd such a lesson upon thee
As never was scrawl'd upon foolscap before.

Come, on with your spectacles, noble Lord Duke,

(Or O'Connell has green ones he haply would lend you,)
Read V-sey 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 sheer 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 V-sey o'er;

You will find him worth all the old scrolls of papyrus,

That Egypt e'er fill'd with nonsensical lore,

Or the learned Champollion e'er wrote of, to tire us.

All blank as he was, we've return'd him on hand,
Scribbled o'er with a warning to Princes and Dukes,
Whose plain, simple drift if they won't understand,
Though caress'd at St. James's, they're fit for St. Luke's.
Talk of leaves of the Sibyls!- more meaning convey'd is
In one single leaf such as now we have spell'd on,
Than e'er hath been utter'd by all the old ladies
That ever yet spoke, from the Sibyls to Eld-n.

"IF" AND "PERHAPS.'

On 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,
E'en 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 wrong'd 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 burn'd on the suppliant's cheek,
Gives place to th' avenger's pale, resolute hue;
And the tongue, that once threaten'd, 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 look'd for, was taught the opprest,
That kings are as dust before freemen in arms!

* Written after hearing a celebrated speech in the House of Lords, June 10, 1828.