So, to guard our posts and pensions,
Ancient sages wove a net,
Through whose holes, of small dimensions,
Only certain knaves can get.

Shall we then this network widen?

Shall we stretch these sacred holes, Through which, even already, slide in Lots of small dissenting souls?

"God forbid !" old Testy crieth; "God forbid !" so echo I; Every ravenous bird that flieth Then would at our cherries fly.

Ope but half an inch or so,

And, behold, what bevies break in; Here, some curst old Popish crow

Pops his long and lickerish beak in;

Here, sly Arians flock unnumber'd,
And Socinians, slim and spare,
Who, with small belief encumber'd,
Slip in easy any where;

Methodists, of birds the aptest,

Where there's pecking going on; And that water-fowl, the Baptist— All would share our fruits anon;

Every bird, of every city,

That, for years, with ceaseless din, Hath revers'd the starling's ditty, Singing out "I can't get in."

"God forbid!" old Testy snivels; "God forbid!" I echo too; Rather may ten thousand d-v-ls

Seize the whole voracious crew!

If less costly fruit wo'n't suit 'em,

Or, Goths as ye are, in your multitude strong,
Be content with success, and pretend not to sense.

If the words of the wise and the gen'rous are vain, If Truth by the bowstring must yield up her

breath,

Let Mutes do the office- and spare her the pain Oran In-gl-s or T-nd-l to talk her to death.

Chain, persecute, plunder-do all that you will. But save us, at least, the old womanly lore Of a F-st-r, who, dully prophetic of ill,

Is, at once, the two instruments, AUGUR2 and

BORE.

Bring legions of Squires-if they'll only be muteAnd array their thick heads against reason and right,

Like the Roman of old, of historic repute, s

Who with droves of dumb animals carried the

fight;

Pour out, from each corner and hole of the Court, Your Bedchamber lordlings, your salaried slaves, Who, ripe for all job-work, no matter what sort, Have their consciences tack'd to their patents

and staves.

Catch all the small fry who, as Juvenal sings, Are the Treasury's creatures, wherever they swim ; 4

With all the base, time-serving toadies of Kings, Who, if Punch were the monarch, would worship even him;

And while, on the one side, each name of renown, That illumines and blesses our age is combin'd; While the Foxes, the Pitts, and the Cannings look down,

And drop o'er the cause their rich mantles of Mind;

Let bold Paddy H-lmes show his troops on the other,

And, counting of noses the quantum desir'd, Let Paddy but say, like the Gracchi's fam'd mother, "Come forward, my jewels"-'tis all that's requir'd.

And thus let your farce be enacted hereafterThus honestly persecute, outlaw, and chain;

expense;

1 During the discussion of the Catholic question in the House of Commons last session.

2 This rhyme is more for the ear than the eye, as the carpenter's tool is spelt auger.

And never, oh never, try reasoning again!

3 Fabius, who sent droves of bullocks against the enemy.

4 Res Fisci est, ubicumque natat. — JUVENAL.

Give me the Dukes and Lords, who go,
Like crabs, the other way.

Write on, write on, &c.

Even now I feel the coming light-
Even now, could Folly lure

My Lord M-ntc-sh-1, too, to write,
Emancipation's sure.

By geese (we read in history),

Old Rome was sav'd from ill; And now, to quills of geese, we see Old Rome indebted still.

Write on, write on, &c.

Write, write, ye Peers, nor stoop to style,
Nor beat for sense about-
Things, little worth a Noble's while,

You're better far without.

Oh ne'er, since asses spoke of yore,
Such miracles were done;

For, write but four such letters more,
And Freedom's cause is won!

SONG OF THE DEPARTING SPIRIT OF TITHE.

"The parting Genius is with sighing sent." MILTON.

It is o'er, it is o'er, my reign is o'er;
I hear a Voice, from shore to shore,
From Dunfanaghy to Baltimore,
And it saith, in sad, parsonic tone,
"Great Tithe and Small are dead and gone!"

Even now,
I behold your vanishing wings,
Ye Tenths of all conceivable things,
Which Adam first, as Doctors deem,
Saw, in a sort of night-mare dream, 1
After the feast of fruit abhorr'd-
First indigestion on record!-
Ye decimate ducks, ye chosen chicks,
Ye pigs which, though ye be Catholics,
Or of Calvin's most select deprav'd,
In the Church must have your bacon sav'd;-
Ye fields, where Labour counts his sheaves,

And, whatsoe'er himself believes,

Must bow to the' Establish'd Church belief, That the tenth is always a Protestant sheaf; Ye calves, of which the man of Heaven

Takes Irish tithe, one calf in seven ; 2

2 "The tenth calf is due to the parson of common right; and if there are seven he shall have one."-REES's Cyclopædia, art." Tithes."

Ye tenths of rape, hemp, barley, flax,
Eggs, timber, milk, fish, and bees' wax;
All things, in short, since earth's creation,
Doom'd, by the Church's dispensation,
To suffer eternal decimation-
Leaving the whole lay-world, since then,
Reduc'd to nine parts out of ten;

Or as we calculate thefts and arsons-
Just ten per cent. the worse for Parsons!

Alas, and is all this wise device

For the saving of souls thus gone in a trice? —
The whole put down, in the simplest way,
By the souls resolving not to pay!
And even the Papists, thankless race,
Who have had so much the easiest case-
To pay for our sermons doom'd, 'tis true,
But not condemn'd to hear them, too—
(Our holy business being, 'tis known,
With the ears of their barley, not their own,)
Even they object to let us pillage,

By right divine, their tenth of tillage,
And, horror of horrors, even decline
To find us in sacramental wine! 2

It is o'er, it is o'er, my reign is o'er,
Ah, never shall rosy Rector more,
Like the shepherds of Israel, idly eat,
And make of his flock "a prey and meat."3
No more shall be his the pastoral sport
Of suing his flock in the Bishop's Court,
Through various steps, Citation, Libel-
Scriptures all, but not the Bible;
Working the Law's whole apparatus,
To get at a few pre-doom'd potatoes,
And summoning all the powers of wig,
To settle the fraction of a pig!—
Till, parson and all committed deep
In the case of "Shepherds versus Sheep,"
The Law usurps the Gospel's place,
And, on Sundays, meeting face to face,
While Plaintiff fills the preacher's station,
Defendants form the congregation.

So lives he, Mammon's priest, not Heaven's,
For tenths thus all at sixes and sevens,
Seeking what parsons love no less
Than tragic poets—a good distress.
Instead of studying St. Augustin,
Gregory Nyss., or old St. Justin

(Books fit only to hoard dust in),
His reverence stints his evening readings
To learn'd Reports of Tithe Proceedings,
Sipping, the while, that port so ruddy,
Which forms his only ancient study ;-
Port so old, you'd swear its tartar
Was of the age of Justin Martyr,
And, had he sipp'd of such, no doubt
His martyrdom would have been—to gout.

Is all then lost?-alas, too true-
Ye Tenths belov'd, adieu, adieu !
My reign is o'er, my reign is o'er-
Like old Thumb's ghost, "I can no more."

THE EUTHANASIA OF VAN.

"We are told that the bigots are growing old and fast wearing out. If it be so, why not let us die in peace?"-Load BEXLEY's Letter to the Freeholders of Kent.

STOP, Intellect, in mercy stop,
Ye curst improvements, cease;
And let poor Nick V-ns-tt-t drop
Into his grave in peace.

Hide, Knowledge, hide thy rising sun,
Young Freedom, veil thy head;
Let nothing good be thought or done,
Till Nick V-ns-tt-t's dead!

Take pity on a dotard's fears,

Who much doth light detest; And let his last few drivelling years Be dark as were the rest.

You, too, ye fleeting one-pound notes, Speed not so fast away

Ye rags, on which old Nicky gloats, A few months longer stay.+

Together soon, or much I err,

You both from life may goThe notes unto the scavenger, And Nick-to Nick below.

Ye Liberals, whate'er your plan, Be all reforms suspended;

"For the tithing of a duck,

Or an apple or an aye (egg),

They make him swear upon a boke;

Thus they foulen Christ's fay."

2 Among the specimens laid before Parliament of the sort

of two pipes of port for sacramental wine.

3 Ezekiel, xxxiv. 10.-"Neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them."

4 Perituræ parcere chartæ.