ENGLAND, AS SHE IS.

A SATIRE.

Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that

Of blood and chains?

SARDANAPALUS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following fragment was written in LONDON, in the winter of 1833. After a lapse of nearly nine years, its satire is still applicable. Monarchies do not rectify abuses so speedily as republics.

It was written, it will be seen, in the character of an ENGLISHMAN. My feelings, at the time, were those of an ENGLISHMAN. I was residing in ENGLAND, to continue there for I knew not how long a time: an AMERICAN, claiming a purely British origin, it was no difficult matter for me to identify myself with her people. I did so almost unconsciously. I loved their greatness, took pleasure in their prosperity, felt for their calamities, and resented their oppression. They are feelings which, in part, can never be again awakened.

In the commencement of the piece, I find an unintentional resemblance to a passage in BYRON's Bards and Reviewers. Like the weaker portions of the poem, it must remain unaltered. I cannot now spare either the time or the labor necessary for correction.

Almost three years since (December 19, 1838), I was startled by seeing the following lines in a newspaper : • "A whip should be put

'In every honest hand,

To lash the rascal naked through the land,'

who thus ventures to assail one," etc. The verse and half, it will be seen, is my own application, and alteration into rhyme, of a distich from SHAKSPEARE. How it came in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser is more than I can conjecture.

320

ADVERTISEMENT OF THE SATIRE.

But a more curious coincidence is that which occurs further on

in the poem, where are found these lines:

So when a wife, or mistress 's to be got,

We are her humble servant, slave, what not?

When once the will 's obtain'd, no more we say,

***

"Command me, love?" but, "Madam, please obey!" Opposite to this passage, I had occasion to make the following note in the manuscript: "On page 4, I had converted into rhyme two blank verses of SHAKSPEARE'S. Five years afterwards, I found them, to my surprise, in a newspaper paragraph. To-day, March 4th, 1841, eight years since the poem was written, copied, passed through the hands of several London booksellers, etc., behold a member of Congress using this very simile, and with a similar application! It is barely possible that the orator may have seen my piece, so many hands has it passed through; but it is to the last degree improbable. The coincidence is striking, and, but for one reason, would be as amusing to me as it is instructive. 'Mr. P addressed the Committee, &c., &c. As to war there certainly was a change of tone in certain gentlemen. Certain of going out, they were warm for war, while those who were coming in felt something of its responsibility. It was like a young man courting a young lady, promising every thing; but after marriage the tone was greatly changed. There was a vast difference between in and out.' Report of the Proceedings of the House of Representatives, March 1st, 1841."

At the present date, it may perhaps be well to remind the reader that the time of the subject of the piece is that of the ascendancy of what was called the Reformed Parliament, and of the union of the British and French fleets for compelling a weaker power, as usual, to submit to their dictation, for the benefit of a third party. This weaker power was HOLLAND, and the party benefited was the fortunate Prince LEOPOLD.