IMITATION.

SAPPHICS.

The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder.

FRIEND OF HUMANITY.

NEEDY Knife-grinder! whither are you going?
Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order-
Bleak blows the blast ;-your hat has got a hole in't,
So have your breeches !

Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones, Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike

-road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, "Knives and Scissars to grind O!"

"Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives? Did some rich man tyrannically use you?

Was it the squire ? or parson of the parish?

Or the attorney?

"Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?

Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little

All in a lawsuit ?

(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine ?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,

Ready to fall as soon as you have told your

Pitiful story."

KNIFE-GRINDER.

Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir,

Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were

Torn in a scuffle,

"" Constables came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the justice; Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish

-Stocks for a vagrant.

"I should be glad to drink your Honour's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ;

But for my part, I never love to meddle

With politics, sir."

FRIEND OF HUMANITY.

"I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damn'd firstWretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to ven

geance

Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,

Spiritless outcast ?

[Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.]

[In February 1797 a small force of French had landed in Pembrokeshire but had been easily driven away by the local levies.]

Nov. 30.

We have received the following from a Loyal Correspondent, and we shall be very happy at any time to be relieved, by communications of a similar tendency, from the drudgery of Jacobinical imitations,

THE INVASION;

OR, THE BRITISH WAR SONG.

To the Tune of "Whilst happy in my native land.”

I.

WHILST happy in our native land,

So great, so famed in story,

Let's join, my friends, with heart and hand

To guard our country's glory:

When Britain calls, her valiant sons

Will rush in crowds to aid her—

Snatch, snatch your muskets, prime your guns, And crush the fierce invader!

Whilst every Briton's song

shall be,

"O give us death-or victory!"

II.

Long had this favour'd isle enjoyed
True comforts, past expressing,
When France her hellish arts employ'd
To rob us of each blessing:

These from our hearths by force to tear
(Which long we've learn'd to cherish)

Our frantic foes shall vainly dare;
We'll keep 'em, or we'll perish—
And every day our song shall be,
"O give us death-or victory!"

III.

Let France in savage accents sing
Her bloody Revolution;

We prize our Country, love our King,
Adore our Constitution;

For these we'll every danger face,

And quit our rustic labours;

Our ploughs to firelocks shall give place,
Our scythes be changed to sabres.

And clad in arms our song shall be, "O give us death-or victory!"

IV.

Soon shall the proud invaders learn
When bent on blood and plunder,
That British bosoms nobly burn

To brave their cannon's thunder
Low lie those heads, whose wily arts
Have plann'd the world's undoing;
Our vengeful blades shall reach those hearts
Which seek our country's ruin ;

And night and morn our song shall be, "O give us death-or victory!"

V.

When with French blood our fields manured, The glorious struggle's ended,

We'll sing the dangers we've endured,

The blessings we've defended;
O'er the full bowl our feats we'll tell,
Each gallant deed reciting;

And weep o'er those who nobly fell
Their country's battle fighting—
And ever thence our song shall be,
""Tis Valour leads to Victory."

HELY ADDINGTON W. M.

No. IV.

Dec. 4.

[Based on Lines" written by William Roscoe "for the purpose of being recited on the anniversary of the 14th of July" (the day of the taking of the Bastille). The first verse runs :

"O'er the vine-covered hills and gay regions of France See the day-star of liberty rise;

Through the clouds of detraction unsullied advance
And hold its new course through the skies!

An effulgence so mild, with a lustre so bright,

All Europe with wonder surveys;

And from deserts of darkness and dungeons of night,
Contends for a share of the blaze."]

We have been favoured with the following specimen of Jacobin Poetry, which we give to the world without any comment or imitation. We are informed (we know not how truly) that it will be sung at the Meeting of the Friends of Freedom.

LA SAINTE GUILLOTINE.

A NEW SONG.

ATTEMPTED FROM THE FRENCH.

Tune, O'er the vine-cover'd hills and gay regions of France."

I.

FROM the blood bedewed vallies and mountains of France, See the Genius of Gallic invasion advance!

Old ocean shall waft her, unruffled by storm,

While our shores are all lined with the Friends of Reform.* *See Proclamation of the Directory

[addressed to the army and telling them that on arrival in London they would be joined by the Friends of Parliamentary Reform and by the whole Irish Nation.]