«Heard you that strain-that joyous strain? 'T was such as England loved to hear, Ere thou, and all thy frippery train, Corrupted both her foot and car

«Ere Waltz, that rake from foreign lands, Presumed, in sight of all beholders,

To lay his rude licentious hands

On virtuous English backs and shoulders

« Ere times and morals both grew bad,

And, yet unfleeced by funding blockheads, Happy John Bull not only had,

But danced to 'Money in both pockets."

« Alas, the change!-oh,

Where is the land could 'scape disasters, With such a Foreign Secretary,

Aided by foreign dancing-masters?

« Woe to ye, men of ships and shops, Rulers of day-books and of waves! Quadrill'd, on one side, into fops,

And drill'd, on t' other, into slaves!

Ye, too, ye lovely victims! seen,

Like pigeons truss'd for exhibition,

With elbows a la crapaudine,

And feet in--God knows what position.

«Hemm'd in by watchful chaperons,
Inspectors of your airs and graces,
Who intercept all signal tones,
And read all telegraphic faces.

« Unable with the youth adored,
In that grim cordon of mammas,
To interchange one loving word,

Though whisper'd but in queue-de-chats.

« Ah, did you know how bless'd we ranged, Ere vile QUADRILLE usurp'd the fiddle— What looks in setting were exchanged,

What tender words in down the middle!

«How many a couple, like the wind,
Which nothing in its course controls,
Left time and chaperons far behind,
And gave a loose to legs and souls!
«How matrimony throve-ere stopp'd
By this cold, silent, foot-coquetting-
How charmingly one's partner popp'd
The important question in poussette-ing!

« While now, alas, no sly advances-
No marriage hints-all goes on badly :
'Twixt Parson Malthus and French dances,
We girls are at a discount sadly.

« Sir William Scott (now Baron Stowell)
Declares not half so much is made
By licences and he must know well-
Since vile Quadrilling spoil'd the trade.»
She ceased-tears fell from every Miss-
She now had touch'd the true pathetic :-

1 Another old English country-dance.

One such authentic fact as this,

Is worth whole volumes theoretic.

Instant the cry was « COUNTRY-DANCE!»

And the maid saw, with brightening face, The steward of the night advance,

And lead her to her birth-right place.

The fiddles, which awhile had ceased,

Now tuned again their summons sweet, And, for one happy night, at least,

Old England's triumph was complete.

SONG.

FOR THE POCO-CURANTE SOCIETY.

To those we love we 've drank to-night;
But now attend, and stare not,
While I the ampler list recite

Of those for whom-we care not.

For royal men, howe'er they frown,

If on their fronts they bear not That noblest gem that decks a crownThe People's Love-we care not.

For slavish men who bend beneath

A despot yoke, and dare not Pronounce the will, whose very breath Would rend its links-we care not.

For priestly men who covet sway

And wealth, though they declare not; Who point, like finger-posts, the way They never go-we care not.

For martial men who on their sword,
Howe'er it conquers, wear not
The pledges of a soldier's word,

Redeem'd and pure-we care not.

For legal men who plead for wrong, And, though to lies they swear not, Are not more honest than the throng Of those who do-we care not.

For courtly men who feed upon

The land like grubs, and spare not
The smallest leaf where they can sun
Their reptile limbs-we care not.

For wealthy men who keep their mines
In darkness hid, and share not
The paltry ore with him who pines
In honest want-we care not.

For prudent men who keep the power
Of Love aloof, and bare not
Their hearts in any guardless hour
To Beauty's shaft-we care not.
For secret men who, round the bowl
In friendship's circle, tear not
The cloudy curtain from their soul,
But draw it close-we care not.

There are two Mr M--s, too, whom those that like reading

Through all that 's unreadable, call very clever;And, whereas M-- Senior makes war on good breeding,

M-- Junior makes war on all breeding whatever!

In short, my dear Goddess, Old England's divided Between ultra blockheads and superfine sages;— With which of these classes we, landlords, have sided, Thou it find in my Speech, if thou it read a few pages.

For therein I've prov'd, to my own satisfaction,

And that of all Squires I've the honour of meeting, That 't is the most senseless and foul-mouth'd detraction To say that poor people are fond of cheap eating. On the contrary, such the chaste notions of food That dwell in each pale manufacturer's heart, They would scorn any law, be it ever so good,

That would make thee, dear Goddess, less dear than thou art!

And, oh! for Monopoly what a blest day,

When the Land and the Silk shall, in fond combination,

(Like Sulky and Silky, that pair in the play),

Cry out, with one voice, for High Rents and Starvation!

Long life to the Minister!-no matter who,

Or how dul! he may be, if, with dignified spirit, he Keeps the ports shut-and the people's mouths, too,-We shall all have a long run of Freddy's prosperity.

As for myself, who 've, like Hannibal, sworn

To hate the whole crew who would take our rents from us,

Had England but One to stand by thee, Dear Corn, That last honest Uni-corn would be-Sir Th--s!

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A SOVEREIGN AND A ONE POUND NOTE.

O ego non felix, quam tu fugis, ut pavet acres Agna lupos, caprerqu leones.-HOR.

SAID a Sovereign to a Note,

In the pocket of my coat,.

Where they met, in a neat purse of leather, << How happens it, I prithee,

That though I'm wedded with thee, Fair Pound, we can never live together?

Like your sex, fond of change,
With silver you can range,

And of lots of young sixpences be mother;
Road to Ruin..

Dieta Fames Cereris (quamvis contraria semper
Illins est operi) peragit.-Ovid.

This is meant not so much for a pun, as in allusion to the natural history of the unicorn, which is supposed to be something between the Bos and the Asinus, and, as Rees's Cyclopædia tells us, has a particular liking for any thing chaste.

When the force of the agony wrung ev'n a jest
Lord L-d-le!
From the frugal Scotch wit of my
Bright Peer! to whom Nature and Berwickshire gave
A humour, endow'd with effects so provoking,
That, when the whole House looks unusually grave,
You may always conclude that Lord L-d-le's
joking!

And then, those unfortunate weavers of Perth

Not to know the vast difference Providence dooms Between weavers of Perth and Peers of high birth, Twixt those who have heirlooms, and those who've but looms!

To talk now of starving, as great At-I said-2

(And the nobles all cheer'd, and the bishops all wonder'd)

When, some years ago, he and others had fed

Of these same hungry devils about fifteen hundred!

When Rome was uproarious, her knowing patricians Made «Bread and the Circus» a cure for each row But not so the plan of our noble physicians,

«No Bread and the Tread-mill's» the regimen now.

So cease, my dear Baron of Ockham, your prose,
As I shall my poetry-neither convinces;
And all we have spoken and written but shows,

MONDAY, MARCH 13.

winces.

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 sorry that its voyage had been so long, etc.-Speech of Lord Dudley and Ward on Colonial Slavery, March 8.

TOTHER night, after hearing Lord Dudley's oration
(A treat that comes once in the 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,

This noble Earl said, that when he heard the petition came from ladies' boot and shoe-makers, he thought it must be against the corns which they inflicted on the fair sex.'

2 The Duke of Ath I said, that at a former period, when these weavers were in great distress, the landed interest of Perth had supported 1,500 of them. It was a poor return for these very men now to petition against the persons who had fed them.

An improvement, we flatter ourselves, on Lord L.'s

's joke.

«This boy 'll be the death of me»-oft as, already, Such smooth Budgeteers have genteelly undone us, For Ruin made easy there's no one like Freddy.

TUESDAY.

Much grave apprehension express'd by the Peers,
Lest-as in the times of the Peachums and Lockitts-
The large stock of gold we 're to have in three years,
Should all find its way into highwaymen's pockets!!

A Petition presented (well timed, after this)

Throwing out a sly hint to Grandees, who are hurl'd In their coaches about, that 't would not be amiss

If they'd just throw a little more light on the world.

A plan for transporting half Ireland to Canada,3
Which (briefly the clever transaction to state) is
Forcing John Bull to pay high for what, any day,
N-rb-ry, bless the old wag, would do gratis.

Keeping always (said Mr Sub. Horton) in mind,
That while we thus draw off the claims on potatoes,
We make it a point that the Pats, left behind,
Should get no new claimants to fill the hiatusA

Another objection to a metallic currency was, that it produced

a greater number of highway robberies.-Debate in the Lords. * Mr Estcourt presented a petition, praying that all persons shouil be compelled to have lamps in their carriages.

3 Mr W. Horton's motion on the subject of Emigration.

4 The money expended in transporting the Irish to Canada would be judiciously laid out, provided measures were taken to prevent the | gap they left in the population from being filled up again. ment had always made that a condition. Mr W. Horton's speech,