"Twould do your heart good, ma'am, then to be by, When, bursting with gunpowder, 'stead of with bile,
Crack, crack, goes the bishop, while dowagers cry, "How like the dear man, both in matter and style!"
Should you want a few Peers and M.P.s, to bestow, As presents to friends, we can recommend these: 3.
Our nobles are come down to nine-pence, you know,
And we charge but a penny a piece for M. P.s.
Those of bottle-corks made take most with the trade, (At least, 'mong such as my Irish writ summons,) Of old whiskey corks our O'Connells are made, But those we make Shaws and Lefroys of, are rum 'uns.
So, step in, gentlefolks, &c. &c.
And who, if well curried and fed, they've no doubt,
Will beat ev'n Bentley's swift stud out and out.
It is true, in these days, such a drug is renown,
We've "Immortals as rife as M. P.s about town;
And not a Blue's rout but can off-hand supply
Some invalid bard who's insur'd "not to die."
Still, let England but once try our authors, she'll
find
How fast they'll leave ev❜n these Immortals behind;
And how truly the toils of Alcides were light,
Compar'd with his toil who can read all they write.
The sign of the Insurance Office in Cheapside. Producing a bag full of lords and gentlemen.
In fact, there's no saying, so gainful the trade,
How fast immortalities now may be made;
Since Helicon never will want an "Undying One,"
As long as the public continues a Buying One;
And the Company hope yet to witness the hour,
When, by strongly applying the mare-motive'
power,
A three-decker novel, 'midst oceans of praise, May be written, launch'd, read, and-forgot, in three days!
In addition to all this stupendous celerity,
Which to the no small relief of posterity-
Pays off at sight the whole debit of fame,
Nor troubles futurity ev'n with a name
(A project that won't as much tickle Tom Tegg
Since 'twill rob him of his second-pric'd Pegasus); We, the Company-still more to show how im
Is the power o'er the mind of pounds, shillings and pence;
And that not even Phoebus himself, in our day,
Could get up a lay without first an outlay—
Beg to add, as our literature soon may compare,
In its quick make and vent, with our Birmingham
And it doesn't at all matter in either of these lines,
How sham is the article, so it but shines,-
We keep authors ready, all perch'd, pen in hand,
To write off, in any given style, at command.
No matter what bard, be he living or dead,2
Ask a work from his pen, and 'tis done soon as said:
There being, on the' establishment, six Walter
Scotts,
One capital Wordsworth, and Southeys in lots;-
Three choice Mrs. Nortons, all singing like syrens,
While most of our pallid young clerks are Lord
Byrons.
Then we've ** *s and ***s (for whom there's small call), And ***
s and ***s (for whom no call at all).
In short, whosoe'er the last "Lion " may be, We've a Bottom who'll copy his roar to a T, And so well, that not one of the buyers who've got 'em
Can tell which is lion, and which only Bottom.
N.B.-The Company, since they set up in this line, Have mov'd their concern, and are now at the sign Of the Muse's Velocipede, Fleet Street, where all Who wish well to the scheme are invited to call.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LATE DINNER TO DAN.
FROM tongue to tongue the rumour flew;
All ask'd, aghast, "Is't true? is't true?"
But none knew whether 'twas fact or fable:
And still the unholy rumour ran,
From Tory woman to Tory man,
Though none to come at the truth was ableTill, lo, at last, the fact came out, The horrible fact, beyond all doubt,
That Dan had din'd at the Viceroy's table; Had flesh'd his Popish knife and fork In the heart of the Establish'd mutton and pork!
Who can forget the deep sensation
That news produc'd in this orthodox nation?
Deans, rectors, curates, all agreed,
If Dan was allow'd at the Castle to feed,
'Twas clearly all up with the Protestant creed!
There hadn't, indeed, such an apparition
Been heard of. in Dublin, since that day When, during the first grand exhibition
Of Don Giovanni, that naughty play, There appear'd, as if rais'd by necromancers, An extra devil among the dancers! Yes-ev'ry one saw, with fearful thrill, That a devil too much had join'd the quadrille;' And sulphur was smelt, and the lamps let fall A grim, green light o'er the ghastly ball, And the poor sham devils didn't like it at all; For, they knew from whence the' intruder had come, Though he left, that night, his tail at home.
This fact, we see, is a parallel case
To the dinner that, some weeks since, took place.
With the difference slight of fiend and man,
It shows what a nest of Popish sinners
That city must be, where the devil and Dan
May thus drop in, at quadrilles and dinners!
But, mark the end of these foul proceedings,
These demon hopes and Popish feedings.
Some comfort 'twill be-to those, at least,
Who've studied this awful dinner question-
To know that Dan, on the night of that feast,
Was seiz'd with a dreadful indigestion;
That envoys were sent, post-haste, to his priest,
To come and absolve the suffering sinner,
For eating so much at a heretic dinner;
And some good people were even afraid
That Peel's old confectioner-still at the trade-
Had poison'd the Papist with orangeade.
"'Tis money makes the mare to go."
We have lodgings apart, for our posthumous people,
As we find that, if left with the live ones, they keep ill.
3"Bottom: Let me play the lion; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale."
4 History of the Irish stage.
NEW HOSPITAL FOR SICK LITERATI.
WITH all humility we beg
To inform the public, that Tom Tegg-
Known for his spunky speculations,
In buying up dead reputations,
And, by a mode of galvanising
Which, all must own, is quite surprising,
Making dead authors move again,
As though they still were living men;-
All this, too, manag'd in a trice,
By those two magic words, "Half Price,"
Which brings the charm so quick about,
That worn-out poets, left without
A second foot whereon to stand,
Ate made to go at second hand; -
"Twill please the public, we repeat,
To learn that Tegg, who works this feat,
And, therefore, knows what care it needs
To keep alive Fame's invalids,
Has oped an Hospital, in town,
For cases of knock'd-up renown-
Falls, fractures, dangerous Epic fits
(By some call'd Cantos), stabs from wits;
And, of all wounds for which they're nurst,
Dead cuts from publishers, the worst;-
All these, and other such fatalities,
That happen to frail immortalities,
By Tegg are so expertly treated,
That oft-times, when the cure's completed,
The patient's made robust enough
To stand a few more rounds of puff,
Till, like the ghosts of Dante's lay,
He's puff'd into thin air away!
As titled poets (being phenomenons)
Don't like to mix with low and common 'uns,
Tegg's Hospital has separate wards,
Express for literary lords,
Where prose-peers, of immoderate length,
Are nurs'd, when they've outgrown their strength,
And poets, whom their friends despair of,
Are-put to bed and taken care of.
Tegg begs to contradict a story,
Now current both with Whig and Tory,
That Doctor W-rb-t-n, M.P.,
Well known for his antipathy,
His deadly hate, good man, to all
The race of poets, great and small-
So much, that he's been heard to own,
He would most willingly cut down
The holiest groves on Pindus' mount,
To turn the timber to account!-
The story actually goes, that he
Prescribes at Tegg's Infirmary;
And oft, not only stints, for spite,
The patients in their copy-right,
But that, on being call'd in lately
To two sick poets, suffering greatly,
This vaticidal Doctor sent them
So strong a dose of Jeremy Bentham,
That one of the poor bards but cried,
"Oh, Jerry, Jerry!" and then died;
While t'other, though less stuff was given,
Is on his road, 'tis fear'd, to heaven!
Of this event, howe'er unpleasant,
Tegg means to say no more at present,-
Intending shortly to prepare
A statement of the whole affair,
With full accounts, at the same time,
Of some late cases (prose and rhyme),
Subscrib'd with every author's name,
That's now on the Sick List of Fame.
"Sir Robert Peel believed it was necessary to originate all respecting religion and trade in a Committee of the House."—Church Extension, May 22, 1830.
SAY, who was the wag, indecorously witty,
Who, first in a statute, this libel convey'd; And thus slily referr'd to the self-same committee, As matters congenial, Religion and Trade?
Oh surely, my Ph-llp-tts, 'twas thou didst the deed;
For none but thyself, or some pluralist brother, Accustom'd to mix up the craft with the creed, Could bring such a pair thus to twin with each other.
When of red coats the number's grown so small,
That soon, to cheer the warlike parson's eyes,
No glimpse of scarlet will be seen at all,
Save that which she of Babylon supplies;-
Or, at the most, a corporal's guard will be,
Of Ireland's red defence the sole remains;
While of its gaols bright woman keeps the key,
And captive Paddies languish in her chains!
Long may such lot be Erin's, long be mine!
Oh yes-if ev'n this world, though bright it shine,
In Wisdom's eyes a prison-house must be,
At least let woman's hand our fetters twine,
And blithe I'll sing, more joyous than if free,
The Nethercoats, the Nethercoats for me!
AUTHOR OF AN ARTICLE IN THE LAST NUMBER
OF THE QUARTERLY REVIEW,
Ir glads us much to be able to say,
That a meeting is fix'd, for some early day,
Of all such dowagers-he or she—
(No matter the sex, so they dowagers be,)
Whose opinions, concerning Church and State,
From about the time of the Curfew date-
Staunch sticklers still for days by-gone,
And admiring them for their rust alone-
To whom if we would a leader give,
Worthy their tastes conservative,
We need but some mummy-statesman raise,
Who was pickled and potted in Ptolemy's days;
For that's the man, if waked from his shelf,
To conserve and swaddle this world, like himself.
Such, we're happy to state, are the old he-dames
Who've met in committee, and given their names
(In good hieroglyphics), with kind intent
To pay some handsome compliment
To their sister-author, the nameless he,
Who wrote, in the last new Quarterly,
That charming assault upon Popery;
An article justly prized by them,
As a perfect antediluvian gem
The work, as Sir Sampson Legend would say,
Show me the man that dares, with blushless brow, Of some "fellow the Flood couldn't wash away."
Prate about Erin's rage and riot now; -
Now, when her temperance forms her sole excess;
When long-lov'd whiskey, fading from her sight,
"Small by degrees, and beautifully less,"
Will soon, like other spirits, vanish quite;
The fund being rais'd, there remain'd but to see
What the dowager-author's gift was to be.
1 See Congreve's Love for Love.
And here, I must say, the Sisters Blue
Show'd delicate taste and judgment too.
For, finding the poor man suffering greatly
From the awful stuff he has thrown up lately -
So much so, indeed, to the alarm of all,
As to bring on a fit of what doctors call
The Antipapistico-monomania
(I'm sorry with such a long word to detain ye),
They've acted the part of a kind physician,
By suiting their gift to the patient's condition;
And, as soon as 'tis ready for presentation,
We shall publish the facts, for the gratification
Of this highly-favour'd and Protestant nation.
Meanwhile, to the great alarm of his neighbours,
He still continues his Quarterly labours;
And often has strong No-Popery fits,
Which frighten his old nurse out of her wits.
Sometimes he screams, like Scrub in the play,'
"Thieves! Jesuits! Popery!" night and day;
Takes the Printer's Devil for Doctor Dens,2
And shies at him heaps of High-Church pens;
Which the Devil (himself a touchy Dissenter)
Feels all in his hide, like arrows, enter.
'Stead of swallowing wholesome stuff from the
druggist's,
He will keep raving of "Irish Thuggists; "4
Tells us they all go murd'ring, for fun,
From rise of morn till set of sun,
Pop, pop, as fast as a minute-gun! 5
Sudden I sunk to sleep, and, lo,
Upon Fancy's reinless night-mare flitting, I found myself, in a second or so, At the table of Messrs. Type and Co.
With a goodly group of diners sitting;All in the printing and publishing line, Drest, I thought, extremely fine, And sipping, like lords, their rosy wine; While I, in a state near inanition,
With coat that hadn't much nap to spare (Having just gone into its second edition), Was the only wretch of an author there. But think, how great was my surprise, When I saw, in casting round my eyes, That the dishes, sent up by Type's she-cooks, Bore all, in appearance, the shape of books; Large folios God knows where they got 'em, In these small times-at top and bottom; And quartos (such as the Press provides For no one to read them) down the sides. Then flash'd a horrible thought on my brain, And I said to myself, ""Tis all too plain; "Like those, well known in school quotations, "Who ate up for dinner their own relations, 'I see now, before me, smoking here,
The bodies and bones of my brethren dear; Bright sons of the lyric and epic Muse, "All cut up in cutlets, or hash'd in stews; "Their works, a light through ages to go, Themselves, eaten up by Type and Co.!"
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