A letter-and free-bring it here-
I have no correspondent who franks.
No! Yes! Can it be? Why, my dear,
'Tis our glorious, our Protestant Bankes.
'Dear sir, as I know you desire
That the Church should receive due protection, I humbly presume to require
Your aid at the Cambridge election.
'It has lately been brought to my knowledge,
That the Ministers fully design
To suppress each cathedral and college,
And eject every learned divine.
To assist this detestable scheme
Three nuncios from Rome are come over;
They left Calais on Monday by steam,
And landed to dinner at Dover.
'An army of grim Cordeliers,
Well furnished with relics and vermin,
Will follow, Lord Westmoreland fears,
To effect what their chiefs may
determine.
Lollard's bower, good authorities say,
Is again fitting up for a prison;
And a wood-merchant told me to-day
'Tis a wonder how faggots have risen.
The finance scheme of Canning contains
A new Easter-offering tax;
And he means to devote all the gains
To a bounty on thumb-screws and racks. Your living, so neat and compact
Pray, don't let the news give you pain!Is promised, I know for a fact,
To an olive-faced Padre from Spain.'
I read, and I felt my heart bleed,
Sore wounded with horror and pity;
So I flew, with all possible speed,
To our Protestant champion's committee.
True gentlemen, kind and well-bred !
No fleering! no distance! no scorn!
They asked after my wife, who is dead,
And my children, who never were born. They then, like high-principled Tories, Called our sovereign unjust and unsteady, And assailed him with scandalous stories, Till the coach for the voters was ready, That coach might be well called a casket Of learning and brotherly love; There were parsons in boot and in basket; There were parsons below and above. A layman can scarce form a notion
Of our wonderful talk on the road; Of the learning, the wit, and devotion Which almost each syllable showed: Why divided allegiance agrees
So ill with our free constitution;
How Catholics swear as they please,
In hope of the priest's absolution;
How the Bishop of Norwich had bartered
His faith for a legate's commission;
How Lyndhurst, afraid to be martyr'd,
Had stooped to a base coalition;
How Papists are cased from compassion
By bigotry, stronger than steel;
How burning would soon come in fashion,
And how very bad it must feel.
We were all so much touched and excited
By a subject so direly sublime,
That the rules of politeness were slighted
And we all of us talked at a time;
And in tones which each moment grew louder,
Told how we should dress for the show,
And where we should fasten the powder,
And if we should bellow or no.
Thus from subject to subject we ran,
And the journey passed pleasantly o'er,
Till at last Dr Humdrum began ;
From that time I remember no more."
At Ware he commenced his prelection,
In the dullest of clerical drones;
And when next I regained recollection
We were rumbling o'er Trumpington stones.
GOOD-NIGHT to the Season! 'Tis over!
Gay dwellings no longer are gay;
The courtier, the gambler, the lover,
Are scattered like swallows away;
There's nobody left to invite one
Except my good uncle and spouse;
My mistress is bathing at Brighton,
My patron is sailing at Cowes :
For want of a better employment,
Till Ponto and Don can get out,
I'll cultivate rural enjoyment
And angle immensely for trout,
Good-night to the Season!--the lobbies, Their changes and rumours of change, Which startled the rustic Sir Bobbies,
And made all the Bishops look strange; The breaches, and battles, and blunders, Performed by the Commons and Peers; The Marquis's eloquent thunders, The Baronet's eloquent ears; Denouncing of Papists and treasons, Of foreign dominion and oats; Misrepresentations of reasons
And misunderstandings of notes.
Good-night to the Season!—the buildings Enough to make Inigo sick;
The paintings, and plasterings, and gildings
Of stucco, and marble, and brick
The orders deliciously blended,
From love of effect, into one;
The club-houses only intended,
The palaces only begun;
The hell, where the fiend in his glory
Sits staring at putty and stones,
And scrambles from story to story,
To rattle at midnight his bones.
Good-night to the Season!-the dances,
The fillings of hot little rooms,
The glancings of rapturous glances,
The fancyings of fancy costumes;
The pleasures which fashion makes duties,
The praisings of fiddles and flutes,
The luxury of looking at beauties,
The tedium of talking to mutes;
The female diplomatists, planners
Of matches for Laura and Jane;
The ice of her Ladyship's manners,
The ice of his Lordship's champagne.
Good-night to the Season!-the rages
Led off by the chiefs of the throng,
The Lady Matilda's new pages,
The Lady Eliza's new song;
Miss Fennel's macaw, which at Boodle's
Was held to have something to say;
Mrs Splenetic's musical poodles,
Which bark Batti Batti' all day;
The pony Sir Araby sported,
As hot and as black as a coal,
And the Lion his mother imported,
In bearskins and grease, from the Pole.
Good-night to the Season!-the Toso,
So very majestic and tall;
Miss Ayton, whose singing was so-so,
And Pasta, divinest of all;
The labour in vain of the ballet,
So sadly deficient in stars;
The foreigners thronging the Alley,
Exhaling the breath of cigars;
The loge where some heiress (how killing!)
Environed with exquisites sits,
The lovely one out of her drilling,
The silly ones out of their wits.
Good-night to the Season!—the splendour
That beamed in the Spanish Bazaar;
Where I purchased-my heart was so tender-
A card-case, a pasteboard guitar,
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