INSCRIPTION TO VOLTAIRE.

SOME years ago, some soi disant philosophers proposed opening a subscription in the city of Paris, for erecting a statue to the memory of Voltaire. The subscription was in great forwardness, and the statuary applied to, when an English gentleman, who happened to be there, defeated the whole scheme, by writing the following inscription, which soon made its way into all the fashionable rouelles.

INSCRIPTION FOR AN INTENDED STATUE OF VOLTAIRE.

VOL. II.

Behold VOLTAIRE! deserving of a stone,

Who in poetry was great,

In history little,

Still less in philosophy, and
In religion

Nothing at all.

His wit was acute,

His judgment precipitate,

His dishonesty extreme.
Loose women smil'd upon him,
The half-learn'd applauded him,

And the profane patronized him;
Though he spared neither God nor man,
A junto of atheists,

Who call themselves philosophers,
Scraped some money together
And raised this stone to his memory.

3 L

SELECTED POETRY.-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

Intercepted Letters; or the Twopenny Post-bag. To which are added, Trifles Reprinted. By Thomas Brown, the Younger. Elapse manibus cecidere tabellæ.-OVID. Philadelphia. Published by Moses Thomas. pp. 109.

These are keen and exquisite satires upon the society and the ruling persons of England. They lose, it is true, some of their point in this country by the local and personal allusions with which they abound; but, they have wit enough to give them a high relish even here. The American editor has rendered them more intelligible by an index, with the aid of which, we shall fill up the blanks and transcribe a few of the letters.

FROM THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES TO THE LADY BARBARA ASHLEY.*

My dear lady BAB, you'll be shock'd, I'm afraid, When you hear the sad rumpus your ponies have made; Since the time of horse-consuls (now long out of date) No nags ever made such a stir in the state!

Lord ELDEN first heard-and as instantly pray'd he

To God and his king-that a popish young lady

(For though you've bright eyes and twelve thousand a year, It is still but too true you're a papist, my dear)

Had insidiously sent, by a tall Irish groom,

Two priest-ridden ponies, just landed from Rome,

And so full, little rogues, of pontifical tricks,

That the dome of St. Paul's was scarce safe from their kicks!

Off at once to papa, in a flurry, he flics

For papa always does what these statesmen advise,

On condition that they'll be, in turn, so polite

As, in no case whate'er, to advise him too right

"Pretty doings are here, sir, (he angrily cries,

"While by dint of dark eyebrows he strives to look wise)
"'Tis a scheme of the Romanists, so help me God!
"To ride over your most royal highness rough-shod-

This young lady, who is a Roman Catholic, has lately made a present of

some beautiful ponies to the princess.

"Excuse, sir, my tears-they're from loyalty's source-
"Bad enough 'twas for Troy to be sack'd by a horse,
"But for us to be ruin'd by ponies still worse!"
Quick a council is call'd-the whole cabinet sits-
The archbishops declare, frighten'd out of their wits,
That if vile popish ponies should eat at my manger,
From that awful moment the church is in danger!
As, give them but stabling, and shortly no stalls
Will suit their proud stomachs but those at St. Paul's.

The doctor and he, the devout man of leather,
VANSITTART, now lying their saint-heads together,
Declare that these skittish young a-bominations
Are clearly foretold in chap. vi. Revelations:-
Nay, they verily think they could point out the one.
Which the doctor's friend Death was to canter upon!

Lord HARROWBY, hoping that no one imputes
To the court any fancy to persecute brutes,
Protests, on the word of himself and his cronies,
That had these said creatures been asses, not ponies,
The court would have started no sort of objection,
As asses were, there, always sure of protection.

"If the PRINCESS will keep them (says lord CASTLEREAGH)
"To make them quite harmless, the only true way
"Is (as certain chief-justices do with their wives)
"To flog them within half an inch of their lives-
"If they've any bad Irish blood lurking about,

"This (he knew by experience) would soon draw it out."
Or-if this be thought cruel, his lordship proposes
"The new veto snaffle to bind down their noses-

"A pretty contrivance, made out of old chains,

"Which appears to indulge, while it doubly restrains; "Which however high-mettled, their gamesomeness checks, "(Adds his lordship humanely) or else breaks their necks!"

This proposal receiv'd pretty general applause

From the statesmen around-and the neck-breaking clause

Had a vigour about it, which soon reconcil'd
Even ELDEN himself to a measure so mild.

So the snaffles, my dear, were agreed to nem. con.
And my lord CASTLEREAGH, having so often shone
In the fettering line, is to buckle them on.

I shall drive to your door in these vetos some day,
But at present, adieu!-I must hurry away,
To go see my mamma, as I'm suffer'd to meet her
For just half an hour by the QUEEN's best repeater.

CHARLOTTE.

FROM THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF C

TO LADY

My dear lady -! I've been just sending out About five hundred cards for a snug little rout

(By the by, you've seen ROKEBY?-this moment got mineThe mail-coach edition*-prodigiously fine!)

But I can't conceive how, in this very cold weather,

I'm ever to bring my five hundred together;

As, unless the thermometer's near boiling heat,

One can never get half of one's hundreds to meet,
(Apropos-you'd have laugh'd to see TowNSEND, last night,
Escort to their chairs, with his staff so polite,
The "three maiden miseries," all in a fright!
Poor TOWNSEND, like MERCURY, filling two posts,
Supervisor of thieves, and chief-usher of ghosts!)

But, my dear lady! can't you hit on some notion,
At least for one night to set London in motion?—
As to having the REGENT, that show is gone by,
Besides, I've remark'd that (between you and I)
The MARCHESA and he, inconvenient in more ways,
Have taken much lately to whisp'ring in door-ways;
Which considering, you know, dear, the size of the two,
Makes a block that one's company cannot get through,

See Mr. Murray's advertisement about the mail-coach copies of Rokeby.

And a house such as mine is, with door-ways so small,
Has no room for such cumbersome love-work at all!-
(Apropos, though, of love-work, you've heard it, I hope,
That NAPOLEON's old mother's to marry the POPE,
What a comical pair!)-but, to stick to my rout,
'Twill be hard if some novelty can't be struck out:
Is there no ALGERINE, no KAMCHATKAN arriv'd?
No plenipo PACHA, three-tail'd and ten wiv'd?
NO RUSSIAN, whose dissonant consonant name
Almost rattles to fragments the trumpet of fame?

I remember the time, three or four winters back,
When, provided their wigs were but decently black,
A few patriot monsters, from SPAIN, were a sight
That would people one's house for one, night after night.
But, whether the ministers paw'd them too much,
(And you know how they spoil whatsoever they touch)
Or whether lord GEORGE (the young man about town)
Has, by dint of bad poetry, written them down-
One has certainly lost one's peninsular rage,

And the only stray patriot scen for an age

Has been at such places (think, how the fit cools)

As old Mrs. V-N's or lord LIVERPOOL's!

But, in short, my dear, names like WINTZTSCHITSTOPSCHIN

ZOUDHOFF

Are the only things now make an evening go smooth off

So, get me a Russian-till death I'm your debtor,

If he brings the whole alphabet, so much the better.

And, lord! if he would but, in character, sup
Off his fish-oil and candles, he'd quite set me up.

Au revoir, my sweet girl, I must leave you in haste,
Little GUNTER has brought me the liqueurs to taste.

POSTSCRIPT.

By the by, have you found any friend that can construe
That Latin account, t'other day, of a monster?*

Alluding, I suppose, to the Latin advertisement of a lusus naturæ in the newspapers lately.