LETTER II. FROM COLONEL M'M HN TO GLD FR-NC-S LCKIE, ESQ. DEAR Sir, I've just had time to look All, that can well be understood But-to your work's immortal credit- -E, good Sir, the P-E has read it. (The only Book himself remarks, Which he has read since Mrs. CLARKE'S.) During that awful hour or two Of grave tonsorial preparation, Sends forth, announc'd by trump and drum, * See the last number of the Edinburgh Review. He thinks with you, th' imagination But now, he trusts, we're coming near a When England's monarch need but say With view to which, I've his command Compil❜d and chos'n as best you can, And quite upturning branch and root, But pray, whate'er you may impart, write, Somewhat more brief than Major C-RT WR-GHT. Else, though the P- E be long in rigging, 'Twould take, at least, a fortnight's wig. ging Two wigs to every paragraph- Before he well could get through half. You'll send it also speedily As, truth to say, 'twixt you and me, The Tailors too have got commands, All sorts of Dulimans and Pouches, You, therefore, have no time to waste-- Your's, in haste. POSTSCRIPT. BEFORE I send this scrawl away, There's some parts of the Turkish system Your Turk, whom girlish fondness flatters, With tittering, red-check'd things from school, But here (as in that fairy land, Where Love and Age went hand in hand ;* This rule's for fav'rites-nothing more-- The learned Colonel must allude here to a description of the Mysterious Isle, in the History of Abdalla, Son of Hanif, where such inversions of the order of nature are said to have taken place—“ A score of old women and the same number of old men played here and there in the court, some at chuck-farthing, others at tip-cat or at cockles"-And, again, "There is nothing, believe me, more engaging than those lovely wrinkles," etc. etc.--See Tales of the East, Vol. III. pp. 607, 608. LETTER III. FROM G. R. TO THE E OF Y * WE miss'd you last night at the "hoary old "sinner's," Who gave us, as usual, the cream of good din ners His soups scientific-his fishes quite prime— "While you live-(what's there under that "cover, pray, look)— "While you live-(I'll just taste it)-ne'er "keep a She-Cook. "'Tis a sound Salic Law-(a small bit of that "toast) "Which ordains that a female shall ne'er rule "the roast; "For Cookery's a secret-(this turtle's un"common)— Like Masonry, never found out by a wo"man !"" * This letter, as the reader will perceive, was written the day after a dinner, given by the M--of H-d-t. |