ODE TO SIR ANDREW AGNEW, BART. "At certain seasons he makes a prodigious clattering with his bill."-SELBY. "The bill is rather long, flat, and tinged with green."-BEWICK. O ANDREW FAIRSERVICE, but I beg pardon, Andrew Churchservice was the thing I meant,- I do not like my Church so very High! When people talk, as talk they will, They say, among their other jibes and small jeers, You'd make the seventh day As overbearing as the Dey of Algiers. Talk of converting Blacks By your attacks, You make a thing so horrible of one day, So poor men speak, Who, once a week, P'rhaps, after weaving artificial flowers, Can snatch a glance of Nature's kinder bowers, And revel in a bloom That is not of the loom, Making the earth, the streams, the skies, the trees, Whereas, as you would plan it, People all day should look to their behaviours ;- "Sermons in stones," Zounds! Would you have us work at them like paviours? Spontaneous is pure devotion's fire; And in a green wood many a soul has built A new Church, with a fir-tree for its spire, Where Sin has prayed for peace, and wept for guilt, Suppose a poor town-weary sallow elf Milk genuine at Chalk Farm,— The innocent intention who would baulk, But there's a sect of Deists, and their creed To send, with an "aroint," Down to that great Fillhellenist, the Devil. Is really treading on the "Banks of D—." Go down to Margate, wisest of law-makers, (Of course the sea will do as it is bid,) "This is the Sabbath-let there be no Breakers!" Seek London's Bishop, on some Sunday morn, And try him with your tenets to inoculate,Abuse his fine souchong, and say in scorn, "This is not Churchman's Chocolate!" Or, seek Dissenters at their mid-day meal, "These are not Chappel's sassages!" To knock down apple-stalls is now too late, Or lay post-horses under legal fetters, Consider,-Acts of Parliament may bind Remember, as a Scottish legislator, The Scotch Kirk always has a Moderator; May like discourses with a skein of threads, Religion one should never overdo: After creation should come re-creation. Read right this text, and do not further search To make a Sunday Workhouse of the Church. THE LOST HEIR "Oh where, and oh where Is my bonny laddie gone?" Old Song. ONE day, as I was going by That part of Holborn christened High, That chill'd my very blood; And lo! from out a dirty alley, Where pigs and Irish wont to rally, Bedaub'd with grease and mud. She turn'd her East, she turn'd her West, With streaming hair and heaving breast, At last her frenzy seem'd to reach Or female Ranter mov'd to preach, sorrow words." "O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark staring wild! Has ever a one seen any thing about the streets like a crying lost-looking child? |