«Authors of every sex, male, female, neuter, Touch'd with compassion for this ghastly crew, Had she but learn'd those plain ones, A, B. C. «Yon smirking ghost, like mummy dry and neat, All knew the author, and-none read the book. « Behold, in yonder ancient figure of fun, A gentleman who, some weeks since, came over In a smart puff (wind S. S. E.) to Dover. Whose life, poor youth, was long since blown away,- No farther purchase for a puff can find.»> And thon, thyself»-here, anxious, I exclaim'd,— Tell us, good ghost, how thou, thyself, art named.» " Me, Sir!» he blushing cried,-« Ah, there's the rubKnow, then-a waiter once at Brooks's Club, A waiter still I might have long remaio'd, And long the club-room's jokes and glasses drain'd; 1 The classical term for money. 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 poetical articles in the journal alluded to, and whose spirit still seems to preside-regnant 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. But, ah, in luckless hour, this last December, I wrote a book,' and Colburn dubb'd me ' Member''Member of Brooks's!-oh Promethean puff, To what wilt thou exalt even kitchen-stuff! Scarce had the Spectre's lips these words let drop, poop, And, last, not least, Lord Nobody's twin sister,Blew them, ye gods, with all their prose and rhymes And sins about them, far into those climes Where Peter pitch'd his waistcoat» in old times, Leaving me much in doubt, as on I prest, With my great master, through this realm unblest, Whether Old Nick or puffs the best. LAMENT FOR THE LOSS OF LORD BATHURST'S ALL in again-unlook'd for bliss! To the same head, through right and wrong. That memorable tail of thine? Thy pig-tie with thy place resign, And thus, at once, both cut and run? Yet hopes of coming in again, Sweet Tory hopes! beguiled our pain; But thus to miss that tail of thine, Through long, long years our rallying sign, As if the State and all its powers This was «th unkindest cut of all!» 1. History of the Clubs of London, announced as by a Member of Brooks's.. A Dantesque allusion to the old saying, Nine miles beyond hell, where Peter pitched his waistcoat.» The Noble Lord, it is well known, cut off this much-respected appendage, on his retirement from office some months since. Parties are much like fish, 't is said,- That steer'd its course by Bathurst's tail? If Blazed from our old Colonial comet! you, my Lord, a Bashaw were, (As Wellington will be anon) Thou mightst 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 true, Fate has not yet of all bereft us; Though thus deprived of Bathurst's queue, We 've Ellenborough'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, Surcharged 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, 't is 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, THE CHERRIES. A PARABLE.? SEE those cherries, how they cover So, to guard our posts and pensions, Shall we then this net-work widen? Shall we stretch these sacred holes, Through which, ev'n already, slide in Lots of small dissenting souls? «God forbid!» old Testy crieth; « God forbid!» so echo I; Every ravenous bird that flieth Then would at our cherries fly. Ope but half an inch or so, And, behold, what bevies break in;Here, some curst old Popish crow Pops his long and lickerish beak in: Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod," 2 Written during the late discussion on the Test and Corporation Acts. Here, sly Arians flock unnumber'd, Where there's pecking going on; That, for years, with ceaseless din, Hath reversed the starling's ditty, Singing out I can't get in.n « God forbid!» old Testy snivels; « God forbid !» I echo too; Rather may ten thousand devils Seize the whole voracious crew! If less costly fruit won't suit 'em, Hips and haws and such like berries, Curse the corm'rants! stone 'em, shoot 'em, Any thing-to save our cherries. STANZAS WRITTEN IN ANTICIPATION OF Go, seek for some abler defenders of wrong, If we must run the gauntlet through blood and ex pense; Or, Goths as ye are, in your multitude strong, Be content with success, and pretend not to sense. If the words of the wise and the gen'rous are vain, If Truth by the bow-string must yield up her breath, Let Mutes do the office,-and spare her the pain Of an Inglis or Tindal to talk her to death. Chain, persecute, plunder,-do all that you will,— But save us, at least, the old womanly lore Of a Gloucester, who, dully prophetic of ill, Is, at once, the two instruments, AUGUR and DORE. Bring legions of Squires-if they 'll only be muteAnd array their thick heads against reason and right, Like the Roman of old, of historic repute,3 Who with droves of dumb animals carried the fight. Pour out, from each corner and hole of the Court, Your Bedchamber lordlings, your salaried slaves, Who, ripe for all job-work, no matter what sort, Have their consciences tack'd to their patents and staves. Catch all the small fry who, as Juvenal sings, Are the Treasury's creatures, wherever they swim,♦ And while, on the one side, each name of renown, During the discussion of the Catholic Question in the House of Commons last session. This is more for the ear than the eye, as the carpenter's tool is spelt anger. Fabius, who sent droves of bullocks against the enemy. Let Paddy but say, like the Gracchi's famed mother, And thus let your farce be enacted hereafter,- ODE TO THE WOODS AND FORESTS. BY ONE OF THE BOARD. LET other bards to groves repair, The Treasury pours its sweeter notes. Be all our sylvan zephyr's task! What Woods and Forests ought to be, His guinea-plant, his bullion-tree. Nor see I why, some future day, When short of cash, we should not send Beneath whose «branches of expense » Who take delight in Sylvan places!' Again and again I say, read Vesey o'er; You will find him worth all the old scrolls of papyrus, That Egypt e'er fill'd with nonsensical lore, Or the learned Champollion e'er wrote of, to tire us. All blank as he was, we 've return'd him on hand, Scribbled o'er with a warning to Princes and Dukes, Whose plain, simple drift if they won't understand, Though caress'd at St James's, they 're fit for St Luke's. Talk of leaves of the Sibyls!-more meaning convey'd is In one single leaf such as now we have spell'd on, Than e'er hath been utter'd by all the old ladies That ever yet spoke, from the Sibyls to Eldon. « IF AND ، PERHAPS. On tidings of freedom! oh accents of hope! If mutely the slave will endure and obey, May think (tender tyrants!) of loosening his chains.» Wise « if and « perhaps !» -precious salve for our wounds, If he, who would rule thus o'er manacled mutes, Could check the free spring-tide of Mind, that re sounds, Even now, at his feet, like the sea at Canute's. But, no, 't is in vain-the grand impulse is given,Man knows his high Charter, and knowing will claim; And if ruin must follow where fetters are riven, shame. Written after hearing a celebrated speech in the House of Lords, Jane 10, 1828. " If the slave will be silent!»-vain Soldier, bewareThere is a dead silence the wrong'd may assume, When the feeling, sent back from the lips in despair, But clings round the heart with a deadlier gloom;When the blush, that long burn'd on the suppliant's cheek, Gives place to th' avenger's pale, resolute hue; And the tongue, that once threaten'd, disdaining to speak, Consigns to the arm the high office-to do. If men, in that silence, should think of the hour, To the despot on land and the foe on the flood;That hour, when a Voice had come forth from the west, To the slave bringing hopes, to the tyrant alarms; And a lesson, long look'd for, was taught the opprest, That kings are as dust before freemen in arms! If, awfuller still, the mute slave should recall That dream of his boyhood, when Freedom's sweet day At length seem'd to break through a long night of thrall, And Union and Hope went abroad in its ray;-If Fancy should tell him, that Day-spring of Good, Though swiftly its light died away from his chain, Though darkly it set in a nation's best blood, Now wants but invoking to shine out again;If-if, I say-breathings like these should come o'er The chords of remembrance, and thrill as they come, Then, perhaps, -ay, perhaps-but I dare not say And mine the fighting part. My creed, I need not tell you, is To whom no harlot comes amiss, « And when we 're at a loss for words, If laughing reasoners flout us, For lack of sense we 'll draw our swordsThe sole things sharp about us.»> « Dear bold Dragoon!» the Bishop said, ་་ ་་ «' is true for war thou art meant; And reasoning (bless that dandy head!) Is not in thy department. «So leave the argument to meAnd, when my holy labour Hath lit the fires of bigotry, Thou 'It poke them with thy sabre. << From pulpit and from sentry-box We'll make our joint attacks, I, at the head of my cassocks, « So here's your health, my brave Hussar! The musket and the mitre.»> Thus pray'd the minister of HeavenWhile YORK, just entering then, Snored out (as if some Clarke had given His nose the cue) « Amen!» Cui nulla meretrix displicuit, præter Babylonicam. THE DAY-DREAM.' THEY both were hush'd, the voice, the chords;- My spell-bound memory brought away; Like echoes of some broken strain;— Links of a sweetness lost in air, That nothing now could join again. And, though the charm still linger'd on Gone, like the thoughts that once were ours, On summer days, ere youth had set; Thoughts bright, we know, as summer flowers, Though what they were, we now forget. In vain, with hints from other strains, In vain :-the song that Sappho gave, In that half-waking mood, when dreams To the full truth of day-light's beams, A face, the very face, methought, From which had breathed, as from a shrine All perfect, all again my own. Thus strangely caught, escape again; So well as now I knew this strain. And oft, when Memory's wondrous spell I sing this lady's song, and tell TO LORD BYRON, ON READING HIS STANZAS ON THE SILVER FOOT OF A SKULL Way hast thou bound around, with silver rim, In these stanzas I have done little more than relate a fact in verse; and the lady, whos singing gave rise to this curious instance of the power of memory in sleep, is Mrs Robert Arkwright. Look on it now! deserted, bleach'd, and grim, The lip that's pall'd with every purer draught; For which alone the rifled grave can yield A goblet worthy to be deeply quaff'd, And seek a healing balm within the bowl, ALARMING INTELLIGENCE-REVOLUTION IN THE DICTIONARY-ONE GALT AT THE HEAD OF IT. GoD preserve us! there's nothing now safe from assault, Thrones toppling around, churches brought to the hammer; And accounts have just reach'd us that one Mr Galt And sets all the nine parts of speech at defiance. And who he'll next murder the Lord only knows! Since our last, matters, luckily, look more serene- And th' explosions are dreadful in every direction. What his meaning exactly is, nobody knows, As he talks (in a strain of intense botheration) Of lyrical «< ichor,»« gelatinous » prose, " And a mixture called « amber immortalization.»3 Now he raves of a bard, he once happen'd to meet, Seated high among rattlings » and « churming » a sonnet,4 Now talks of a Mystery, wrapp'd in a sheet, We shudder in tracing these terrible lines- For whate'er may be guess'd of Galt's secret designs, That they're all anti-English no Christian can doubt. That dark diseased ichor, which coloured his effusions."GALT'S Life of Byron. 2. That gelatinous character of their effusions.—Id. 1. The poetical embalmment, or rather amber immortalization. |