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"Come down your SULLEN CINCINNATUS

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Relinquishing his roast-potatoes,

"Swing-tail and cacklers,* syllabub,

"And blooming BET, to serve the Club.

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So, without invitation given,

"Twice I've revisited St. Stephen:

First, to devote to execration,

"That most unprincipled invasion

"Of Sovereign People's goods and chattels,

"To fight their Subject-Monarch's battles;

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"Which, though some choose to call assessment,'

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Depend upon 't there's nothing less meant

"Than from your pockets to purloin,

"And to their own translate your coin:

"When, so complete was my success,
"You'll never pay one doit the less. †
"Proud of encouragement like this,
"I thought it would not be amiss

*Fowls and Bacon.

+ During the course of the last year I made some exceptions to my general conduct, in obedience to your commands: I attended the discussion of That Bill, which, under colour of taxation, was a general system of unprincipled invasion of the property of the people, to serve the purposes of government; you know how little success attended my efforts upon that occasion in the House of Commons."- Mr. Fox's Speech.

"To bore the House another day,

"And with desponding phiz pourtray

"The storm that o'er the heads was gathering "Of OUR UNITED IRISH BRETHREN,

"Harass'd by PITT in their vocation
"Of treason and assassination:

"Such tyranny 'twas deem'd you'd kick at;
"So here the Commons clos'd their wicket.
"On mischief they were bent, no doubt,
"When they presum'd to shut You out,
"And keep,-indignant I remark
"Their own Constituents in the dark.*
"Alas! this dark, exclusive dealing,
"Affects me with a fellow-feeling;

"Who, for these fifteen years and more,
"Have been o' the wrong side of the door:

* "Upon another occasion, that of the affairs of Ireland, I attended, and then the public were deprived of the advantages of information of the proceedings in Parliament; for the doors of the Commons' House were shut against its own Constituents. The motive of this could not be misunderstood. Those who had remarked the whole system of the administration of that unfortunate kingdom, were convinced that it could not be examined without exposing the enormities of government. They therefore shut out the public from information, being determined to keep them as much in the dark as possible."

Mr. Fox's Speech.

"Shut out o' the Cabinet in spite,

"With partner N**** at twelve at night:
"Scath'd with the blast, abrupt and rude,
"Of th' ill state wind that blows none good:
"Which broke the firm of Coalition;
"Thenceforth the topic of derision:
"Compell'd me poverty to plead,
"A Yellow Patriot run to seed; †
"A patriot, useless ev'ry where,
"Save in CONSERVATORIAL Chair,

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* Between twelve and one o'clock at night, on the eighteenth of December, 1783, a Special Messenger delivered to Lord North and Mr. Fox, the two Secretaries of State, a message from his Majesty, importing, that it was his Majesty's will and pleasure that they should deliver to him the seals of their respective offices. On this message the Seals were sent to Buckinghamhouse by Mr. Frazer and Mr. Nepean, the two under Secretaries.

"fall'n

+ A Yellow Patriot-i. e. a patriot upon the wane, "into the sear, the yellow leaf," whom neither the people nor the cause of liberty are likely to be the better for-as Mr. F. describes himself at the conclusion of his speech:-A patriot laid on the shelf, like a Yellow Admiral, and displaying the same colours BLUE AND BUFF.

"This club had been truly said to be a Conservatory of Ithe principles of our ancestors, when all other descriptions seemed eager to forget them."

VOL. II.

Mr. Fox's Speech. Whig Club, March 5, 1799.

L

"Where I great Freedom's rites prolong,

"With HOWARD's toast and DIGNUM's song;

"Fost'ring, with vinous irrigation,

"The baby-cause of Reformation,

"While all our democratic prigs

"Hail me WET-NURSE OF SUCKING-WHIGS.

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"Last year's events I've scann'd-they show me † "Some prosp❜rous scenes, and others gloomy;

* No genuine WHIG CLUB, Whiggery, or Secession-seminary, can be properly trained and conducted without the care of a superintending Symposiast, or WET-NURSE, as it receives its natural and political nutriment from suction. Your SuckingWhigs unite their speculations (as Locke expresses himself to another purpose) with their Sucking-bottles. They suck in or imbibe with their ears, Philippics, denouncing "the fall of 66 Sceptres and of Crowns,"-Exactos Tyrannos bibunt Aureand with their mouths, the sophisticated Oporto of the tavern: -purpureo bibunt Ore Nectar.-It is the double province of the CHAIR-WOMAN, or WET-NURSE, to circulate Seditious Sentiment and the SUCKING-BOTTLE, with a "Here we go round, round, round!"-instilling

Imbiberet teneris quod mustea sensibus ætas,

-udæque docens inolescere menti.

Jos. Scaligeri. Fun. Lib. p. 89.

Maddening with Revolutionary wassel,

Irriguous souls of WHIGLINGS drunk and docile.

+"During the last year various events have happened, some

of them prosperous, and others of them gloomy: but, taking

"Together ta'en-they on my mind.

"No good impression leave behind.
"Now, you must know, my friends, I like
"That same Philosopher antique,
"(Though be assured, not half so well,
"AS THOSE in France that bear the bell)
"Who, with his royal master chattering,

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Requested to dispense with flattering

"His Majesty, would condescend,

"Because he meant to be his friend.-
"And thus, for ev'ry ROYAL SIR,
"(Elector, viz. of Westminster;

"For other Royalty, you know,
“I've turn'd my back on long ago,)
"Trust me, the high consideration

"I feel precludes all consolation:

"I, your true friend, see nought but evils, "Enough to give you the Blue Devils.

them together, I confess the impression upon my mind is not favourable. It was a saying, which I have always admired, of a celebrated philosopher of antiquity, to his king-" I cannot be your friend and your flatterer too." Just so is it with me; I cannot, while I profess to be your friend, give you any comfort." Mr. Fox's Speech, October 1798.

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