«Authors of every sex, male, female, neuter,
Who, early smit with love of praise and-pewter,1
On --'s shelves first saw the light of day,
In ➖➖➖'s puffs exhaled our lives away,-
Like summer wind-mills, doom'd to dusty peace,
When the brisk gales, that lent them motion, cease.
Ah, little knew we then what ills await
Much-lauded scribblers in their after-state;
Bepuff'd on earth-how loudly Str―t can tell-
And, dire reward, now doubly puff'd in hell!»

Touch'd with compassion for this ghastly crew,
Whose ribs, even now, the hollow wind sung through
In mournful prose,- such prose as Rosa's 3 ghost
Still, at th' accustom'd hour of eggs and toast,
Sighs through the columns of the Morning Post,-
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.,4
One of our letter'd nymphs-excuse the pun-
Who gain'd 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 winding-sheet,
Still marvels much that not a soul should care
One single pin to know who wrote May Fair;'-
While this young gentleman» (here forth he drew
A dandy spectre, puff'd quite through and through,
As though his ribs were an Eolian lyre
For the whole Row's soft trade-winds to inspire,)
« This modest genius breathed 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 Jonah Barrington;-
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 Lister,

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 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!
With crumbs of gossip, caught from dining wits,
And half-heard jokes, bequeath'd, like half-chew'd bits,
To be, each night, the waiter's perquisites;
With such ingredients, served up oft before,
But with fresh fudge and fiction garnish'd o'er,
I managed, for some weeks, to dose the town,
Till fresh reserves of nonsense ran me down,
And, ready still even waiters' souls to damn,
The Devil but rang his bell, and-here I am;-
Yes-Coming up, Sir,' once my favourite cry,
Exchanged for Coming down, Sir,' here am I!»

Scarce had the Spectre's lips these words let drop,
When, lo! a breeze-such as, from --'s shop,
Blows in the vernal hour, when puffs prevail,
And speeds the sheets and swells the lagging sale-
Took the poor waiter rudely in the
And, whirling him and all his grisly group
Of literary ghosts,-Miss X. Y. Z.,—
The nameless author, better known than read-
Sir Jo. the Honourable Mr Lister,

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
TAIL.3

ALL in again-unlook'd for bliss!
Yet, ah, one adjunct still we miss-
One tender tie, attach'd so long

To the same head, through right and wrong.
Why, Bathurst, why didst thou cut off

That memorable tail of thine?
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, 't was not well done,
'T was not, indeed-though sad at heart,
From office and its sweets to part,

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
By tenancy in tail were ours,-
To see it thus by scissors fall,

This was «th unkindest cut of all!»
It seem'd as though th' ascendant day
Of Toryism had pass'd away,
And proving Sampson's story true,
She lost her vigour with her queue.

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,-
The tail directs them, not the head;
Then, how could any party fail,

That steer'd its course by Bathurst's tail?
Not Murat's plume, through Wagram's fight,
E'er shed such guiding glories from it,
As erst, in all true Tories' sight,

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,
Still dear to Tories, even in death,
Their last loved relics we 'll bequeath,
A hair-loom to our sons for ever.

THE CHERRIES.

A PARABLE.?

SEE those cherries, how they cover
Yonder sunny garden-wall;-
Had they not that net-work over,
Thieving birds would eat them all.

So, to guard our posts and pensions,
Ancient sages wove a net,
Through whose holes, of smali dimensions,
Only certain knaves can get.

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,"
Port's Homer.

2 Written during the late discussion on the Test and Corporation

Acts.

Here, sly Arians flock unnumber'd,
And Socinians, slim and spare,
Who, with small belief encumber'd,
Slip in easy any where:-
Methodists, of birds the aptest,

Where there's pecking going on;
And that water-fowl, the Baptist,—
All would share our fruits anon:
Ev'ry bird, of ev'ry city,

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
DEFEAT.

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,♦
With all the base, time-serving toadies of Kings,
Who, if Punch were the monarch, would worship
ev'n him :

And while, on the one side, each name of renown,
That illumines and blesses our age is combined;
While the Foxes, the Pitts, and the Cannings look down,
And drop o'er the cause their rich manties of Mind;
Let bold Paddy Holmes show his troops on the other,
And, counting of noses the quantum desired,

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.
Res Fisci est, ubicumque natat.-Juvenal.

Let Paddy but say, like the Gracchi's famed mother,
« Come forward, my jewels »'t is all that 's re-
quired.

And thus let your farce be enacted hereafter,-
Thus honestly persecute, outlaw, and chain;
But spare ev'n your victims the torture of laughter,
And never, oh never, try reasoning again !

ODE TO THE WOODS AND FORESTS.

BY ONE OF THE BOARD.

LET other bards to groves repair,
Where linnets strain their tuneful throats,
Mine be the Woods and Forests, where

The Treasury pours its sweeter notes.
No whispering winds have charms for me,
Nor zephyr's balmy sighs I ask;
To raise the wind for Royalty

Be all our sylvan zephyr's task!
And 'stead of crystal brooks and floods,
And all such vulgar irrigation,
Let Gallic rhino through our Woods
Divert its « course of liquid-ation.>>
Ah, surely, Virgil knew full well

What Woods and Forests ought to be,
When, sly, he introduced in Hell

His guinea-plant, his bullion-tree. Nor see I why, some future day,

When short of cash, we should not send
Our Herries down-he knows the way-
To see if Woods in hell will lend.
Long may ye flourish, sylvan haunts,

Beneath whose «branches of expense »
Our gracious King gets all he wants,-
Except a little taste and sense.
Long, in your golden shade reclined,
Like him of fair Armida's bowers,
May Wellington some wood-nymph fiud,
To cheer his dozenth lustrum's hours:
To rest from toil the Great Untaught,
And soothe the pangs his warlike brain
Must suffer, when, unused to thought,
It tries to think, and-tries in vain.
Oh long may Woods and Forests be
Preserved, in all their teeming graces,
To shelter Tory Bards, like me,

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!
Waft, waft them, ye zephyrs, to Erin's blue sea,
And refresh with their sounds every son of the Pope,
From Dingle-a-cooch to far Donaghadee.

If mutely the slave will endure and obey,
Nor clanking his fetters, nor breathing his pains,
His masters, perhaps, at some far distant day,

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,
Be theirs, who have forged them, the guilt and the

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,
When proudly their fathers in panoply stood,
Presenting, alike, a bold front-work of power

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
Like that of Wellington,

To whom no harlot comes amiss,
Save Her of Babylon;'

« 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,
And you, of your cossacks.

« So here's your health, my brave Hussar!
My exquisite old fighter-
Success to Bigotry and War,

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;-
I heard but once that witching lay;
And few the notes, and few the words,

My spell-bound memory brought away;
Traces, remember'd here and there,

Like echoes of some broken strain;— Links of a sweetness lost in air,

That nothing now could join again.
Ev'n these, too, ere the morning, fled;

And, though the charm still linger'd on
That o'er each sense her song had shed,
The itself was faded, gone ;-
song

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,
I woo'd this truant air to come,-
As birds are taught, on eastern plains,
To lure their wilder kindred home.

In vain :-the song that Sappho gave,
In dying, to the mournful sea,
Not muter slept beneath the wave
Than this within my memory.
At length, one morning, as I lay

In that half-waking mood, when dreams
Unwillingly at last give way

To the full truth of day-light's beams,

A face, the very face, methought,

From which had breathed, as from a shrine
Of song and soul, the notes I sought,-
Came with its music close to mine;
And sung the long-lost measure o'er,-
Each note and word, with every tone
And look, that lent it life before,

All perfect, all again my own.
Like parted souls, when, 'mid the blest,
They meet again, each widow'd sound
Through Memory's realm had wing'd in quest
Of its sweet mate, till all were found.
Nor ev'n in waking, did the clue,

Thus strangely caught, escape again;
For never lark its matins knew

So well as now I knew this strain.

And oft, when Memory's wondrous spell
Is talk'd of in our tranquil bower,

I sing this lady's song, and tell
The vision of that morning hour.

TO LORD BYRON,

ON READING HIS STANZAS ON THE SILVER FOOT OF A SKULL
MOUNTED AS A CUP FOR WINE.

Way hast thou bound around, with silver rim,
This once gay peopled palace of the soul?

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,
Is this, thou feverish man, thy festal bowl?
Is this the cup wherein thou seek'st the balm
Each brighter chalice to thy lip denies?
Is this the oblivious bowl whose floods becalm
The worm that will not sleep, and never dies?
Woe to the lip to which this cup is held !

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,
Strip, then, this glittering mockery from the skull,
Restore the relic to its tomb again,

And seek a healing balm within the bowl,
The blessed bowl that never flow'd in vain!

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
Has declared open war against English and grammar!
He had long been suspected of some such design-
And, the better his wicked intents to arrive at,
Had lately 'mong C-lb-rn's troops of the line
(The penny-a-line men) enlisted as private.
There school'd, with a rabble of words at command,
Scotch, English, and slang, in promiscuous alliance,
Ile at length against Syntax has taken his stand,

And sets all the nine parts of speech at defiance.
Next advices, no doubt, further facts will afford;-
in the mean time the danger most imminent grows,
He has taken the Life of one eminent Lord,

And who he'll next murder the Lord only knows!
Wednesday Evening.

Since our last, matters, luckily, look more serene-
Though the rebel, 't is stated, to aid his defection,
Has seized a great Powder-no-Puff Magazine,

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,
With a halo (by way of a night-cap) upon it!5

We shudder in tracing these terrible lines-
Something bad they must mean, though we can't
make it out;

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.