305

SOME ACCOUNT OF A NEW PLAY,

IN A FAMILIAR EPISTLE ΤΟ HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW,

HON.

LIEUT. SEAFORTH, H.P. LATE OF THE
E.I.C.'s 2D REGT. OF BOMBAY FENCIBLES.

"The play's the thing!"—Hamlet.

DEAR CHARles,

Tavistock Hotel, Nov. 1839.

In reply to your letter, and Fanny's,

Lord Brougham, it appears, isn't dead,-though Queen Anne is;

"Twas a "plot" and a "farce"-you hate farces, you say—— Take another "plot," then, viz. the plot of a Play.

The Countess of Arundel, high in degree,
As a lady possess'd of an earldom in fee,
Was imprudent enough at fifteen years of age,
A period of life when we're not over sage,
To form a liaison-in fact, to engage
Her hand to a Hop-o'-my-thumb of a Page.
This put her Papa--

She had no Mamma

As may well be supposed, in a deuce of a rage.

Mr. Benjamin Franklin was wont to repeat,

In his budget of proverbs, "Stolen Kisses are sweet;"

But they have their alloy——

Fate assumed, to annoy

Miss Arundel's peace, and embitter her joy,

The equivocal shape of a fine little Boy.

When, through "the young Stranger," her secret took wind,

The Old Lord was neither "to haud nor to bind."

He bounced up and down,

And so fearful a frown

Contracted his brow, you'd have thought he'd been blind.

The young lady, they say,

Having fainted away,

Was confined to her room for the whole of that day; While her beau-no rare thing in the old feudal systemDisappear'd the next morning, and nobody miss'd him.

The fact is, his Lordship, who hadn't, it seems,
Form'd the slightest idea, not ev'n in his dreams,
That the pair had been wedded according to law,
Conceived that his daughter had made a faux pas ;
So he bribed at a high rate

A sort of a Pirate

To knock out the poor dear young Gentleman's brains,
And gave him a handsome douceur for his pains.
The Page thus disposed of, his Lordship now turns
His attention at once to the Lady's concerns;
And, alarm'd for the future,

Looks out for a suitor,

One not fond of raking, nor giv'n to "the pewter,"
But adapted to act both the husband and tutor ;
Finds a highly respectable middle-aged widower,

Marries her off, and thanks Heaven that he's rid o' her.

Relieved from his cares,

The old Peer now prepares

To arrange in good earnest his worldly affairs;
Has his will made anew by a Special Attorney,
Sickens, takes to his bed, and sets out on his journey.
Which way he travell'd

Has not been unravell'd;

To speculate much on the point were too curious,
If the climate he reach'd were serene or sulphureous.
To be sure in his balance-sheet all must declare
One item-The Page-was an awkward affair;
But, per contra, he 'd lately endow'd a new Chantry
For Priests, with ten marks and the run of the pantry.
Be that as it
may,

It's sufficient to say

That his tomb in the chancel stands there to this day,
Built of Bethersden marble, a dark bluish grey.
The figure, a fine one of pure alabaster,

A cleanly churchwarden has cover'd with plaster;
While some Vandal or Jew,

With a taste for virtu,

Has knock'd off his toes, to place, I suppose,
In some Pickwick Museum, with part of his nose ;
From his belt and his sword

And his misericorde

The enamel's been chipp'd out, and never restored;
His ci-git in old French is inscribed all around,

And his head's in his helm, and his heel's on his hound,

The palms of his hands, as if going to pray,

Are join'd and upraised o'er his bosom-But stay!

I forgot that his tomb 's not described in the Play.

Lady Arundel, now in her own right a Peeress,
Perplexes her noddle with no such nice queries,
But produces in time, to her husband's great joy,
Another remarkably "fine little boy."

As novel connections

Oft change the affections,

And turn all one's love into different directions,
Now to young" Johnny Newcome" she seems to con-

fine hers,

Neglecting the poor little dear out at dry-nurse;

Nay, far worse than that,

She considers "the brat"

As a bore-fears her husband may smell out a rat.
As her legal adviser

She takes an old Miser,

A sort of "poor cousin." She might have been wiser; For this arrant deceiver,

By name Maurice Beevor,

A shocking old scamp, should her own issue fail,
By the law of the land stands the next in entail.
So, as soon as she ask'd him to hit on some plan
To provide for her eldest, away the rogue ran
To that self-same unprincipled sea-faring man ;
In his ear whisper'd low ***

"Done!

Bully Gaussen" said

I Burked the papa, now I'll Bishop the son!" 'Twas agreed; and, with speed

To accomplish the deed,

He adopted a scheme he was sure would succeed.
By long cock-and-bull stories

Of Candish and Noreys,

Of Drake and bold Raleigh, then fresh in his glories, Acquired 'mongst the Indians and Rapparee Tories,

He so work'd on the lad,

That he left, which was bad,

The only true friend in the world that he had,

Father Onslow, a priest, though to quit him most loth, Who in childhood had furnish'd his pap and his broth, At no small risk of scandal, indeed, to his cloth.

The kidnapping crimp

Took the foolish young imp

On board of his cutter so trim and so jimp,
Then, seizing him just as you'd handle a shrimp,
Twirl'd him thrice in the air with a whirligig motion,
And soused him at once neck and heels in the ocean.
This was off Plymouth Sound,

And he must have been drown'd,

For 'twas nonsense to think he could swim to dry ground, If "A very great Warman,

Call'd Billy the Norman,"

Had not just at that moment sail'd by, outward bound. A shark of great size,

With his great glassy eyes,

*

Sheer'd off as he came, and relinquish'd the prize; So he pick'd up the lad, swabb'd, and dry-rubb'd, and mopp'd him,

And, having no children, resolved to adopt him.

* An incident very like one in Jack Sheppard,

A work some have lauded and others have pepper'd,
Where a Dutch pirate kidnaps and tosses Thames Darrell
Just so in the sea, and he 's saved by a barrel,—

On the coast, if I recollect rightly, it's flung whole, And the hero, half-drown'd, scrambles out of the bung-hole. [It aint no sich thing!- the hero aint bung'd in no barrel at all. He's picked up by a Captain, jest as Norman was arterwards.-PRINT. DEV.]