THE TWOPENNY POST BAG.

E lapsæ manibus cecidêre tabellæ.-Ovid.

DEDICATION.

1814.

TO ST N W--LRE, Esq.

MY DEAR W- -E-It is now about seven years since I promised (and I grieve to think it is almost as long since we met) to dedicate to you the very first book, of whatever size or kind, I should publish. Who could have thought that so many years would elapse without my giving the least signs of life upon the subject of this important promise? Who could have imagined that a volume of doggerel, after all, would be the first offering that Gratitude would lay upon the shrine of Friendship?

If, however, you are as interested about me and my pursuits as formerly, you will be happy to hear that doggerel is not my only occupation; but that I am preparing to throw my name to the Swans of the Temple of Immortality,1 leaving it, of course, to the said Swans to determine whether they ever will take the trouble of picking it from the stream.

In the meantime, my dear W -e, like a pious Lutheran, you must judge of me rather by my faith than my works; and however trifling the tribute which I offer, never doubt the fidelity with which I am, and always shall be, Your sincere and attached friend,

March 4, 1813.

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THE Bag from which the following Letters are selected was dropped by a Twopenny Postman about two months since, and picked up by an emissary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who, supposing it might materially assist the private researches of that institution, immediately took it to his employers, and was rewarded handsomely for his trouble. Such a treasury of secrets was worth a whole host of informers; and accordingly, like the Cupids of the poet (if I may use so profane a simile), who fell at odds about the sweet-bag of a bee," those venerable suppressors almost fought with each other for the honour

and delight of first ransacking the Post Bag. Unluckily, however, it turned out, upon examination, that the discoveries of profligacy which it enabled them to make, lay chiefly in those upper regions of society which their well-bred regulations forbid them to molest or meddle with. In consequence, they gained but very few victims by their prize; and after lying for a week or two under Mr. H-tch-d's counter, the Bag, with its violated contents, was sold for a trifle to a friend of mine.

It happened that I had been just then seized with an ambition (having never tried the strength of my wing but in a newspaper) to publish something or other in the shape of a book; and it occurred to me that, the present being such a letter-writing era, a few of these twopenny-post epistles, turned into easy verse, would be as light and popular a task as I could possibly select for a commencement. I did not think it prudent, however, to give too many Letters at first, and accordingly have been obliged (in order to eke out a sufficient number of pages) to reprint some of those trifles which had already appeared in the public journals. As, in the battles of ancient times, the shades of the departed were sometimes seen among the combatants, so I thought I might remedy the thinness of my ranks by conjuring up a few dead and forgotten ephemerons to fill them.

Such are the motives and accidents that led to the present publication; and as this is the first time my Muse has ever ventured out of the go-cart of a newspaper, though I feel all a parent's delight at seeing little Miss go alone, I am also not without a parent's anxiety, lest an unlucky fall should be the conse quence of the experiment; and I need not point out the many living instances there are of Muses that have suffered severely in their heads, from taking too early and rashly to their feet. Besides, a book is so very different a thing from a newspaper! In the former, your doggerel, without either company or shelter, must stand shivering in the middle of a bleak white page by itself; whereas in the latter it is comfortably backed by advertisements, and has sometimes even a speech of Mr. St-ph-n's, or something equally warm, for a chauffe-pié, so that, in general, the very reverse of 'laudatur et alget' is its destiny.

Ambition, however, must run some risks, and I shall be very well satisfied if the reception of these few Letters should have the effect of sending me to the Post Bag for more.

PREFACE TO THE FOURTEENTH EDITION.

BY A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.

In the absence of Mr. Brown, who is at present on a tour through, I feel myself called upon, as his friend, to notice certain misconceptions and misrepresentations to which this little volume of Trifles has given rise.

In the first place, it is not true that Mr. Brown has had any accomplices in the work. A note, indeed, which has hitherto accompanied his Preface, may very naturally have been the origin of such a supposition; but that note, which was merely the coquetry of an author, I have in the present edition taken upon myself to remove, and Mr. Brown must therefore be considered (like the mother of that unique production the Centaur, μova kaι μovov) as alone responsible for the whole contents of the volume.

In the next place, it has been said that, in consequence of this graceless little book, a certain distinguished Personage prevailed upon another distinguished Personage to withdraw from the author that notice and kindness with which he had so long and so libera ly honoured him. There is not one syllable of truth in this story. For the maguanimity of the former of these persons I would, indeed, in no case answer too rashly; but of the conduct of the latter towards my friend, I have a proud gratification in declaring that it has never ceased to be such as he must remember with indelible gratitude,- -a gratitude the more cheerfully and warmly paid, from its not being a debt incurred solely on his own account, but for kindness shared with those nearest and dearest to him.

To the charge of being an Irishman, poor Mr. Brown pleads guilty; and I believe it must also be acknowledged that he comes of a Roman Catholic family: an avowal which, I am aware, is decisive of his utter reprobation in the eyes of those exclusive patentees of Christianity, so worthy to have been the followers of a certain enlightened bishop, Donatus, who held that God is in Africa, and not elsewhere.' But from all this it does not necessarily follow that Mr. Brown is a Papist; and, indeed, I have the strongest reasons for suspecting that they who say so are totally mistaken. Not that I presume to have ascertained his opinions upon such subjects: all I know of his orthodoxy is, that he has a Protestant wife, and two or three little Protestant children, and that he has been seen at church every Sunday for a whole year together, listening to the sermons of his truly reverend and amiable friend Dr. and behaving there as well and as orderly as most people.

There are a few more mistakes and falsehoods about Mr. Brown, to which I had intended with all becoming gravity to advert; but I begin to think the task is altogether as useless as it is tiresome. Calumnies and misrepresentations of this sort are, like the arguments and statements of Dr. Duigenan, not at all the less vivacious or less serviceable to their fabricators for having been refuted and disproved a thousand times over: they are brought forward again as good as new, whenever malice or stupidity is in want of them, and are as useful as the old broken lantern, in Fielding's Amelia, which the watchman always keeps ready by him, to produce, in proof of riot, against his victims. I shall therefore give up the fruitless toil of vindication, and would even draw my pen over what I have already written, had I not promised to furnish the Publisher with a Preface, and know not how else I could contrive to eke it

out.

I have added two or three more trifles to this edition, which I found in the Morning Chronicle, and knew to be from the pen of my friend. The rest of the volume remains2 in its original state.

April 20, 1814.

1 Bishop of Case Nigra in the fourth century. 2 A new reading has been suggested in the original of the Ode of Horace, freely translated by Lord Eldon. In the line 'Sive per Syrteis iter æstuosas,' it is proposed by a very trifling alteration to read 'Surtees' instead of 'Syrteis,' which

brings the Ode, it is said, more home to the noble translator, and gives a peculiar force and aptness to the epithet 'æstuosas.' I merely throw out this emendation for the learned, being unable myself to decide upon its merits.

INTERCEPTED LETTERS, ETC.

LETTER L

FROM THE PR-NC-SS CH

E OF WS TO THE LADY B-RB-A A-SHL-Y.1

My dear Lady Bab, you'll be shocked, I'm afraid,
When you hear the sad rumpus your ponies have made;
Since the time of horse-consuls (now long out of date)
No nags ever made such a stir in the State!

Lord Eld-n first heard-and as instantly prayed he
To God and his King-that a Popish young lady

(For though you've bright eyes, and twelve thousand a year,
It is still but too true you're a Papist, my dear)
Had insidiously sent, by a tall Irish groom,

Two priest-ridden ponies, just landed from Rome,

And so full, little rogues, of pontifical tricks,

That the dome of St. Paul's was scarce safe from their kicks!

Off at once to papa, in a flurry, he flies

For papa always does what these statesmen advise,

On condition that they'll be, in turn so polite

As in no case whate'er to advise him too right-
'Pretty doings are here, sir (he angrily cries,

While by dint of dark eyebrows he strives to look wise);
'Tis a scheme of the Romanists, so help me God!
To ride over your most Royal Highness roughshod-
Excuse, sir, my tears, they're from loyalty's source-
Bad enough 'twas for Troy to be sacked by a Horse,
But for us to be ruined by Ponies, still worse!'

Quick a council is called-the whole cabinet sits-
The Archbishops declare, frightened out of their wits,
That if vile Popish ponies should eat at my manger,
From that awful moment the Church is in danger!
As, give them but stabling, and shortly no stalls
Will suit their proud stomachs but those of St. Paul's.

The Doctor,2 and he, the devout man of Leather,
V-ns-tt-t, now laying their saint-heads together,
Declare that these skittish young a-bominations
Are clearly foretold in chap. vi. Revelations-
Nay, they verily think they could point out the one
Which the Doctor's friend Death was to canter upon

!

1 This young lady, who is a Roman Catholic, had lately made a present of some beautiful ponies to the Pr-nc-ss. 2 A nickname for Mr. Addington.