MORAL POSITIONS,

A DREAM.

"His Lordship said that it took a long time for a moral position to find its way across the Atlantic. He was very sorry that its voyage had been so long," &c.- Speech of Lord Dudley and Ward on Colonial Slavery, March 8.

T'OTHER night, after hearing Lord Dudley's oration
(A treat that comes once a-year as May-day does),
I dreamt that I saw-what a strange operation!
A "moral position" shipp'd off for Barbadoes.

The whole Bench of Bishops stood by in grave attitudes,

Packing the article tidy and neat ;

As their Rev'rences know, that in southerly latitudes "Moral positions" don't keep very sweet.

There was B-th-st arranging the custom-house

pass;

And, to guard the frail package from tousing and

routing,

There stood my Lord Eld-n, endorsing it "Glass," Though as to which side should lie uppermost, doubting.

The freight was, however, stow'd safe in the hold; The winds were polite, and the moon look'd ro

mantic,

While off in the good ship "The Truth" we were roll'd,

With our ethical cargo, across the Atlantic.

Long, dolefully long, seem'd the voyage we made; For "The Truth," at all times but a very slow sailer,

By friends, near as much as by foes, is delay'd,

And few come aboard her, though so many hail

her.

At length, safe arrived, I went through "tare and tret,'

Deliver'd my goods in the primest condition, And next morning read, in the Bridgetown Gazette, "Just arrived by 'The Truth,' a new moral po

sition.

"The Captain "—here, startled to find myself nam'd As "the Captain – (a thing which, I own it

with pain,

I through life have avoided,) I woke — look'd

asham'd,

Found I wasn't a captain, and doz'd off again.

THE MAD TORY AND THE COMET.

FOUNDED ON A LATE DISTRESSING INCIDENT.

1832-3.

"Mutantem regna cometem."

LUCAN.*

"THOUGH all the pet mischiefs we count upon, fail, "Though Cholera, hurricanes, Wellington leave us, "We've still in reserve, mighty Comet, thy tail; "Last hope of the Tories, wilt thou too deceive us?

"No-'tis coming, 'tis coming, th' avenger is nigh; "Heed, heed not, ye placemen, how Herapath

flatters;

"One whisk from that tail, as it passes us by, "Will settle, at once, all political matters;

* Eclipses and comets have been always looked to as great changers of administrations. Thus Milton, speaking of the

former :

"With fear of change

Perplexing monarchs."

And in Statius we find,

"Mutant quæ sceptra cometa.'

"The East-India Question, the Bank, the Five Powers,

"(Now turn'd into two) with their rigmarole Protocols * ;

"Ha! ha! ye gods, how this new friend of ours “Will knock, right and left, all diplomacy's whatd'ye-calls!

"Yes, rather than Whigs at our downfall should mock,

"Meet planets, and suns, in one general hustle! "While, happy in vengeance, we welcome the shock "That shall jerk from their places, Grey, Althorp,

and Russell."

Thus spoke a mad Lord, as, with telescope rais'd,
His wild Tory eye on the heavens he set;
And, though nothing destructive appear'd as he
gaz'd,

Much hop'd that there would, before Parliament met.

* See, for some of these Protocols, the Annual Register, for the year 1832,