Those blessed alternations-
To-day to run our dinners fine,
To feed on air and then to dine
With Civic Corporations—
To save th' Old Bailey daily shilling,
And then to take a half year's filling
In P. N.'s pious Row
When asked to Hock and haunch o' ven'son,
Thro' something we have worn our pens on
For Longman and his Co.
O come and tell us what the Pole is―
Whether it singular and sole is
Or straight, or crooked bent-
If very thick or very thin-
Made of what wood-and if akin
To those there be in Kent.
There's Combe, there's Spurzheim, and there's Gall, Have talked of poles-yet, after all,
What has the public learned?
And Hunt's account must still defer-
He sought the poll at Westminster-
And is not yet returned!
Alvanly asks if whist, dear soul,
Is played in snow-storms near the Pole,
And how the fur-man deals?
And Eldon doubts if it be true,
That icy Chancellors really do
Exist upon the seals!
Barrow, by well-fed office grates,
Talks of his own bechristened Straits,
And longs that he were there;
And Croker, in his cabriolet,
Sighs o'er his brown horse, at his Bay,
And pants to cross the mer!
O come away, and set us right,
And, haply, throw a northern light
On questions such as these:-
Whether, when this drowned world was lost,
The surflux waves were locked in frost,
And turned to Icy Seas!
Is Ursa Major white or black?
Or do the Polar tribes attack
Their neighbors-and what for?
Whether they ever play at cuffs,
And then, if they take off their muffs
In pugilistic war?
Tell us, is Winter champion there,
As in our milder fighting air?
Say, what are Chilly loans?
What cures they have for rheums beside,
And if their hearts gets ossified
From eating bread of bones?
Whether they are such dwarfs-the quicker
To circulate the vital liquor
And then, from head to heel
How short the Methodists must choose
Their dumpy envoys not to lose
Their toes in spite of zeal ?
Whether 't will soften or sublime it
To preach of Hell in such a climate-
Whether may Wesley hope
To win their souls-or that old function
Of seals-with the extreme of unction-
Bespeaks them for the Pope?
Whether the lamps will e'er be "learned"
Where six months' "midnight oil" is burned,
Or Letters must defer
With people that have never conned
An A, B, C, but live beyond
The Sound of Lancaster!
O come away at any rate
Well hast thou earned a downier state
With all thy hardy peers
Good lack, thou must be glad to smell dock, And rub thy feet with opodeldock,
After such frosty years.
Mayhap, some gentle dame at last,
Smit by the perils thou hast passed,
However coy before,
Shall bid thee now set up thy rest
In that Brest Harbor, Woman's breast,
And tempt the Fates no more.
TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE,
"Do you know, you villain, that I am at this moment the greatest man living?"
OH! Great Lessee! Great Manager! Great Man'
Oh, Lord High Elliston! Immortal Pan
Of all the pipes that play in Drury Lane!
Macready's master! Westminster's high Dane:
(As Galway Martin, in the House's walls,
Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls!)
Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring!
Magician of the lamp and prompter's ring!
Drury's Aladdin ! Whipper-in of Actors!
Kicker of rebel-preface-malefactors!
Glass-blowers' corrector! King of the cheque-taker!
At once Great Leamington and Winston-Maker!
Dramatic Bolter of plain Bunns and Cakes!
In silken hose the most reformed of Rakes!
Oh, Lord High Elliston! lend me an ear!
(Poole is away, and Williams shall keep clear)
While I, in little slips of prose, not verse,
Thy splendid course, as pattern-worker, rehearse!
Bright was thy youth-thy manhood brighter still-
The greatest Romeo upon Holborn Hill-
Lightest comedian of the pleasant day,
When Jordan threw her sunshine o'er a play!
When fair Thalia held a merry reign,
And Wit was at her Court in Drury Lane!
Before the day when Authors wrote, of course,
The "Entertainment not for Man but Horse."
Yet these, though happy, were but subject times,
And no man cares for bottom-steps that climbs-
Far from my wish it is to stifle down
The hours that saw thee snatch the Surrey crown!
Tho' now thy hand a mightier sceptre wields,
Fair was thy reign in sweet St. George's Fields.
Dibdin was Premier-and a golden age
For a short time enriched the subject stage.
Thou hadst, than other Kings, more peace-and-plenty; Ours but one Bench could boast, whilst thou hadst twenty;
But the times changed-and Booth-acting no more
Drew Rulers' shillings to the gallery-door.
Thou didst, with bag and baggage, wander thence,
Repentant, like thy neighbor Magdalens !
Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each feat
Practised, the most bewitching in Wych Street.
Rochester there in dirty ways again
Revelled-and lived once more in Drury Lane :
But thou, R. W.! kept'st thy moral ways,
Pit-lecturing 'twixt the farces and the plays,
A lamplight Irving to the butcher boys
That soiled the benches and that made a noise :—
Rebuking-Half a Robert, Half a Charles-
The well-billed Man that called for promised Carles;
"Sir !-Have you yet to know! Hush-hear me out!
A Man-pray silence!-may be down with gout,
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