Great Despots on bouilli serv'd up à la Russe,s Your small German Princes on frogs and sour crout, And your Vice-roy of Hanover always on goose. Some Dons, too, have fancied (though this may be fable) A dish rather dear, if, in cooking, they blunder it; Not content with the common hot meat on a table, The Bulls, in hysterics - the Bears just as bad- All shock'd to find out that that promising lad, THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT GOVERN- 1828. OFT have I seen, in gay, equestrian pride, Like him of Rhodes, with foot on either saddle, So rides along, with canter smooth and pleasant, way, While Peel, the showman in the middle, cracks They're partial (eh, Mig?) to a dish of cold under If solar hacks play'd Phaeton a trick, it!4 What hope, alas, from hackney's lunatic ? If once my Lord his graceful balance loses, If Peel but gives one extra touch of whip of the Great Frederick of Prussia, and which he persevered in eating even on his death-bed, much to the horror of his physician Zimmerman. 4 This quiet case of murder, with all its particulars the hiding the body under the dinner-table, &c. &c.-is, no doubt, well known to the reader. Curious it was to see this mass Of lost and torn-up reputations;Some of them female wares, alas, Mislaid at innocent assignations; Some, that had sigh'd their last amen From the canting lips of saints that would be; And some once own'd by "the best of men," Who had prov'd-no better than they should be. "Mong others, a poet's fame I spied, Once shining fair, now soak'd and black"No wonder " (an imp at my elbow cried), "For I pick'd it out of a butt of sack!" "There's room for that and his gains together'Cramming, and cramming, and cramming away, "Till-out slips character some fine day! books. Poor devils were found to do this for their betters;- To which the Blue answer'd-"No, Bishop, have you?" The same is now done by our privileg'd class; And, to show you how simple the process it needs, If a great Major-General' wishes to pass For an author of History, thus he proceeds: First, scribbling his own stock of notions as well As he can, with a goose-quill that claims him as kin, He settles his neckcloth-takes snuff-rings the bell, And yawningly orders a Subaltern in. 2 H-k-n. 3 Or Lieutenant-General, as it may happen to be. At last-even this is achieved by his aid; Friend Subaltern pockets the cash and - the story; Drums beat-the new Grand March of Intellect's play'd. Pensive I turn'd to weep, when he, who stood Foremost of all that flatulential brood, Singling a she-ghost from the party, said, "Allow me to present Miss X. Y. Z.,1 "One of our letter'd nymphs - excuse the pun "Who gained a name on earth by-having none; "And whose initials would immortal be, "Had she but learn'd those plain ones, A. B. C. "Yon smirking ghost, like mummy dry and neat, 'Wrapp'd in his own dead rhymes-fit windingsheet "Still marvels much that not a soul should care And off struts my Lord, the Historian, in glory! A dandy spectre, puff'd quite through and through, I TURN'D my steps, and lo, a shadowy throng Like cockchafers in high autumnal storms, 1 The classical term for money. 2 The reader may fill up this gap with any one of the dissyllabic publishers of London that occurs to him. 3 Rosa Matilda, who was for many years the writer of the As though his ribs were an Eolian lyre For the old Row's soft trade-winds to inspire.) "This modest genius breath'd one wish alone, "To have his volume read, himself unknown; "But different far the course his glory took, "All knew the author, and-none read the book. "Behold, in yonder ancient figure of fun, "Who rides the blast, Sir J-n-h B-rr-t—¤;— "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." political articles in the journal alluded to, and whose spirit s seems to preside-"regnat Rosa"- over its pages. 4 Not the charming L. E. L., and still less, Mrs. F. H., whose poetry is among the most beautiful of the present day. 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, "Twas not, indeed-though sad at heart, From office and its sweets to part, Yet hopes of coming in again, This was "the' unkindest cut of all!" Parties are much like fish, 'tis said. Blaz'd from our old Colonial comet! (As W-11-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 trueFate has not yet of all bereft us; Though thus depriv'd of B-th-st's queue, We've E-b-h'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, Surcharg'd with all a nation's fate, His Lordship shakes, as Homer's God did, 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, 3 The noble Lord, it is well known, cut off this much-respected appendage, on his retirement from office some months since. 4 "Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod." POPE'S Homer. |