Ode to Marshal Grouchy on his Return. I SEND another specimen of my deceased friend's poetry, and, mirabile dictu, it, as well as the former, bears a similitude to an Ode in Horace; indeed, I believe he wrote a set of parallel Carmina to the Horatian, and if Archdeacon Wrangham were to see them, I think he would give up for ever the idea of attempting to lay his versions before the public, for which reason I hope he never will see them. I should say more, but that I am in a hurry, being called away to attend a coroner's inquest over the body of one Timothy Regan alias Tighe a Breeshtha, who was killed yesterday, fighting at a fair, in a feud, a bellum intestinum, between the Shanavests and Caravats. PHILIP FORAGER. * Count Emanuel Grouchy, a Marshal of the French empire, was born at Paris in 1766. Much trusted by Napoleon, particularly in the Hundred Days of 1815, his indecision at Waterloo prostrated the Emperor. With 35,000 men and 800 pieces of cannon under his command, he remained immovable in a position which could only be justified by the strict letter of his orders. It is a mooted point whether he intended to betray Napoleon's cause. But Napoleon believed him an imbecile, not a traitor. He was included in the special amnesty of 1819, and restored to his military rank on the accession of Louis Phil ippe. He died in 1847.-This "Ode" appeared in Blackwood in September, 1820.-M. † Hodie Duc de Cazes, olim secretary to Madame Mere, the imperial mother of all the Bonapartes.-P. F. Tecum Philippos et celerem fagem Sed me per hostes Mercurius celer Ergo obligatam redde Jovi dapem, Parce cadis tibi destinatis. Oblivioso levia Massico Ciboria exple: funde capacibus Fill, fill the bumper fairly, 'tis Chambertin, you see, * Jolly! Quoi? Jolly! Ma foi, voila une epithete assez mal appliqué. -MARSHAL GROUCHY. + Sir Hudson Lowe is a very bad man in not letting the Emperor escape. LAS CASAS. He is a man of no soul. The world cannot decide whether Bonaparte or Wellington is the greater general — I am sure the former is, without a second battle of Waterloo; and here we have a simple knight preventing the solution of the question. He is an imbecile. I am sure he never had the taste to read my Amyntas.-LEIGH HUNT. It was an instrument of superstition; and I, therefore, although a waterdrinker, approve of its being turned to any other use, just as I approved of the enlightened revolutionists of France turning the superstitious bells of Paris into cannon, although, on principle, a declared enemy of war.-818 H. PHILIPPS: Bonaparte was fond of Chambertin. Teste Tom Moors. I prefer whiss key.-P. F. Unguenta de couchis. Quis udo Curatve myrto? quem Venus arbitrum The Emperor's favourite liquor, and A song of Monsieur Parny's Miladı And curse the tasteless Bourbons who 6. Then with our wigs all perfumed, and And I'll get as drunk as Irishmen, as After six-and-thirty tumblers in drink- A pet poet of Lady Morgan's. Vide her France. I wonder what the medical Knight, her caro sposo, says, when he catches her reading "La Guerre des Dieux." P. F. † On this I must remark, that six-and-thirty tumblers is rather hard drinking My friend Rice Hussey, swears only to six-and-twenty, though he owns he has heard he drank two-and-thirty, but could not with propriety give his oath to it, as he was somewhat disordered by the liquor. There is not a Frenchman in France would drink it: I will lay any wager on that. In fact, I back Ireland against the world. A few years ago, the Northumberland, a very pretty English militia regiment, commanded by Lord Loraine, who endeared himself wherever he went in Ireland, by his affable and social manners, arrived in the city of Cork. His Lordship gave a dinner to thirty officers of his regiment, who ench drank his bottle. When the bill was called for, he observed to the waiter with a smile, that the English gentlemen could drink as well as the Irish. "Lord help your head, sit," said the waiter, "is that all you know about it? Why, there's five gentlemen next room, who have drank one bottle more than the whole of yees, and don't you hear them bawling like five devils for the other cooper, —coming, gentlemen!”— P. F. — In Horace it is Edoni, not Irishmen; but that is quite correct. The Irish are of Scythian descent, so were the Thracians. -THOSs. Woon, M. D. Semihoræ Biographice.—No. 1.* WINIFRED JENKINS. Leighton Buzzard, 6th July, 1820. MR. NORTH,-Since the affront which the "Author of Waverley" put upon Captain Clutterbuck, touching the manner by which he obtained the papers on which The Monastery is founded, it has been hardly worth while to aver any thing relative to singular discoveries of literary documents. Suffice it then, that the supellex necrologica, which I herewith transmit to you, belonged to Q. Z. X., a deceased friend, who was a man of letters and industry. Among this immense mass of literary treasure, I do not find any one life thoroughly developed. Nevertheless, the subjoined specimen will demonstrate with what valuable accuracy he proceeded, and with what conscientiousness he admitted nothing into his collection which did not bear the stamp of authenticity. I am, learned sir, in the cause of letters, your brother and servant to command, GILES MIDDLESTITCH. MRS. WINIFRED CLINKER, ALIAS LLOYD, CI-DEVANT JENKINS. SYNOPSIS. Winifred, born of David and Martha Jenkins, 3d of November, 1730, (day of St. Winifreda,) at Brambleton, Co. Monmouth-herded goats and knitted stockings till twelve-entered service of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble, and remained in it till her marriage-espoused Mr. Matthew Lloyd, commonly called Humphrey Clinker, parish-clerk of Brambleton—became a widow in 1797, died 1804, leaving two sons and three daughters-age on tombstone, 84. DOCUMENTS. TYP. Adventures of Humphrey Clinker, 2 vols. London 1766.- Walk through Monmouthshire, by the Rev. R. Plodder, M. A. 1 vol. Bath. 1802.-MSS. Letters from Mrs. Clinker, Mr. Nichols, Mr. Kirby, Certificate of birth and burial, and epitaph, (quorum quicque exemplar penes me. Q. Z. X.) * From Blackwood for September, 1820. This article was much praised, at the time, as a quiz on the solemn manner in which literary antiquarians make researches into the merest trifles of biographical facts. —M. [Here follow mere transcripts from a well-known work, with which our facetious countryman, Dr. Smollett, long ago gratified, and still continues to gratify, every man, woman, and child, in his Majesty's dominions. We subjoin, however, our correspondent's note.] I conceive that the autographs of the letters, which Smollett used in drawing up the biography of Mrs. Clinker's husband, are preserved among the "Bramble Papers," wherever they may now happen to be. When he edited them, they were in the possession of the Rev. Jonathan Dustwich, as appears by the preface. Now Smollett deserves thanks for having published them so faithfully, not correcting the spelling, as Ellis, Scott, and other injudicious editors have done. In fact, if this practice prevails, there will be no such thing as what may be called idiosyncratic orthography. The lamented Q. Z. X. would never alter a tittle when he transcribed a writing for publication.-G. M. Extract from Plodder's Walk through Monmouthshire, pp. 121, 122. [As the same objection of notoriety and popularity does by no means lie against this work, as against Smollet's, we give the extract, even though it is from a printed book.] "I descended a hill which afforded me a view of Brambleton-Hall on another eminence; it is now in the occupation of a Mr. Melford, but formerly belonged to squire Matthew Bramble. Leaving it on the right, I went to the village of Brambleton, and there met with a curiosity. This was a widow Clinker, a little shrivelled old woman, with more smartness about her than the general run of cottagers have. She turned out to be the identical Winifred Jenkins, whose part in the tour which goes under the name of the Adventures of Humphrey Clinker, is not the least amusing; and indeed, her topographical remarks therein inserted are by no means despicable, though couched in singular phraseology. I ascertained that her husband could not establish in the neighborhood his more ennobling name of Matthew Lloyd, so was fain to be called Clinker to his dying day, though he |