HALF Whig, half Tory, like those midway things,
"Twixt bird and beast, that by mistake have wings;
A mongrel Statesman, 'twixt two factions nursed,
Who, of the faults of each, combines the worst-
The Tory's loftiness, the Whigling's sneer,
The leveller's rashness, and the bigot's fear;
The thirst for meddling, restless still to show
How Freedom's clock, repair'd by Whigs, will go;
Th' alarm when others, more sincere than they,
Advance the hands to the true time of day.
By Mother Church, high-fed and haughty dame,
The boy was dandled, in his dawn of fame;
List'ning, she smiled, and bless'd the flippant
tongue
On which the fate of unborn tithe-pigs hung.
Ah, who shall paint the grandam's grim dismay,
When loose Reform enticed her boy away;
When, shock'd, she heard him ape the rabble's tone,
And, in Old Sarum's fate, foredoom her own!
Groaning she cried, while tears roll'd down her cheeks,
"Poor, glib-tongued youth, he means not what he speaks.
But whither now, mix'd brood of modern light
And ancient darkness, canst thou bend thy flight?
Tried by both factions, and to neither true,
Fear'd by the old school, laugh'd at by the new;
For this too feeble, and for that too rash,
This wanting more of fire, that less of flash;
Lone shalt thou stand, in isolation cold,
Betwixt two worlds, the new one and the old,
A small and "vex'd Bermoothes," which the eye
Of venturous seaman sees-and passes by.
To read, as usual, the morning papers;
But who shall describe my look of despair,
When I came to Lefroy's "destructive" capers!
That he that, of all live men, Lefroy
Should join in the cry, "Destroy, destroy!"
Who, ev'n when a babe, as I've heard said,
On Orange conserve was chiefly fed,
And never, till now, a movement made,
That wasn't most manfully retrograde!
Only think-to sweep from the light of day
Mayors, maces, criers, and wigs away;
To annihilate-never to rise again-
A whole generation of aldermen,
Nor leave them ev'n th' accustomed tolls,
To keep together their bodies and souls!-
At a time, too, when snug posts and places
Are falling away from us one by one,
Crash-crash-like the mummy-cases
Belzoni, in Egypt, sat upon,
Wherein lay pickled, in state sublime,
Conservatives of the ancient time;-
To choose such a moment to overset
The few snug nuisances left us yet;
To add to the ruin that round us reigns,
By knocking out mayors' and town-clerks' brains;
By dooming all corporate bodies to fall,
Till they leave, at last, no bodies at all—
Naught but the ghosts of by-gone glory,
Wrecks of a world that once was Tory!
Where pensive criers, like owls unbless'd,
Robb'd of their roosts, shall still hoot o'er them; Nor mayors shall know where to seek a nest,
Till Gally Knight shall find one for them;— Till mayors and kings, with none to rue 'em, Shall perish all in one common plague; And the sovereigns of Belfast and Tuam Must join their brother, Charles Dix, at Prague.
Thus mused I, in my chair, alone,
(As above described,) till dozy grown,
And nodding assent to my own opinions,
I found myself borne to sleep's dominions,
Where, lo, before my dreaming eyes,
A new House of Commons appear'd to rise,
Whose living contents, to fancy's survey,
Seem'd to me all turn'd topsy-turvy-
A jumble of polypi-nobody knew
Which was the head or which the queue.
Here, Inglis, turn'd to a sans-culotte,
Was dancing the hays with Hume and Grote;
There, ripe for riot, Recorder Shaw
Was learning from Roebuck “Ca-ira ;”
While Stanley and Graham, as poissarde wenches, Screamed "à bas !" from the Tory benches;
And Peel and O'Connell, cheek by jowl, Were dancing an Irish carmagnole.
The Lord preserve us!—if dreams come true, What is this hapless realm to do?
BRITISH ASSOCIATION IN THE YEAR 2836.
AFTER Some observations from Dr. M'Grig
On that fossil reliquium call'd Petrified Wig,
Or Perruquolithus-a specimen rare
Of those wigs, made for antediluvian wear,
Which, it seems, stood the Flood without turning
Mr. Tompkins rose up, and requested attention
To facts no less wondrous which he had to mention.
Some large fossil creatures had lately been found Of a species no longer now seen above ground, But the same (as to Tomkins most clearly appears) With those animals, lost now for hundreds of years, Which our ancestors used to call "Bishops" and "Peers,"
But which Tomkins more erudite names has bestow'd on,
Having called the Peer fossil th' Aristocratodon,25 And, finding much food under t'other one's thorax, Has christen'd that creature th' Episcopus Vorax.
Lest the savantes and dandies should think this all fable,
Mr. Tomkins most kindly produced on the table,
A sample of each of these species of creatures,
Both tol'rably human, in structure and features,
Except that th' Episcopus seems, Lord deliver us!
To've been carnivorous as well as granivorous;
And Tomkins, on searching its stomach, found
there
Large lumps, such as no modern stomach could bear,
Of a substance call'd Tithe, upon which, as 'tis said,
The whole Genus Clericum formerly fed;
And which having lately himself decompounded,
Just to see what 'twas made of, he actually found it
Composed of all possible cookable things
That e'er tripp'd upon trotters or soar'd upon
wings-
All products of earth, both gramineous, herbaceous,
Hordeaceous, fabaceous, and eke farinaceous,
All clubbing their quotas to glut the œsophagus
Of this ever greedy and grasping Tithophagus. 253
'Admire," exclaim'd Tomkins," the kind dispensa-
And there's no saying when they'll have done;- To call yourself Pope, why, I shouldn't much mind;
Oh, dear, how I wish Mr. Breeks
Had left Mrs. Woolfrey alone!
If any need pray for the dead,
"Tis those to whom post-obits fall; Since wisely hath Solomon said,
"Tis "money that answereth all." But ours be the patrons who live ;→→ For, once in their glebe they are thrown,
The dead have to living to give,
And therefore we leave them alone.
While my church as usual holds fast by your Tuum, And every one else's, to make it all Suum.
Thus allied, I've no doubt we shall nicely agree, As no twins can be liker, in most points, than we; Both, specimens choice of that mix'd sort of beast, (See Rev. xiii. 1,) a political priest;
Both mettlesome chargers, both brisk pamphleteers, Ripe and ready for all that sets men by the ears; And I, at least one, who would scorn to stick longer By any giv'n cause than I found it the stronger,
And who, smooth in my turnings as if on a swivel,
When the tone ecclesiastic wo'n't do, try the civil.
In short (not to bore you, ev'n jure divino)
We've the same cause in common, John-all but
the rhino;
And that vulgar surplus, whate'er it may be,
As you're not used to cash, John, you'd best leave
And so, without form-as the postman wo'n't tarryI'm dear Jack of Tuam,
"And those things do best please me, That befall preposterously."
PUCK Junior, Midsummer Night's Dream.
WHO wants old Puck? for here am I,
A mongrel imp, 'twixt earth and sky,
Ready alike to crawl or fly;
Now in the mud, now in the air,
And, so 'tis for mischief, reckless where.
As to my knowledge, there's no end to't,
For where I haven't it, I pretend to't;
And, 'stead of taking a learn'd degree
At some dull university,
Puck found it handier to commence
With a certain share of impudence,
Which passes one off as learn'd and clever,
Beyond all other degrees whatever;
And enables a man of lively sconce
To be Master of all the Arts at once.
No matter what the science may be-
Ethics, Physics, Theology,
Mathematics, Hydrostatics,
Aerostatics or Pneumatics-
Whatever it be, I take my luck,
'Tis all the same to ancient Puck;
Whose head's so full of all sorts of wares,
That a brother imp, old Smugden, swears
If I had but of law a little smatt'ring,
I'd then be perfect29-which is flatt'ring.
My skill as a linguist all must know
Who met me abroad some months ago;
(And heard me abroad exceedingly, too,
In the moods and tenses of parlez-vous,)
When, as old Chambaud's shade stood mute,
I spoke such French to the Institute
As puzzled those learned Thebans much,
To know if 'twas Sanscrit or High Dutch,
And might have pass'd with th' unobserving
As one of the unknown tongues of Irving.
As to my talent for ubiquity,
There's nothing like it in all antiquity.
Like Mungo, (my peculiar care,)
"I'm here, I'm dere, I'm ebery where." "
If any one's wanted to take the chair,
Upon any subject, anywhere,
Just look around, and-Puck is there!
When slaughter's at hand, your bird of prey
Is never known to be out of the way;
And wherever mischief's to be got,
There's Puck instanter, on the spot.
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