Did n't know what to do with 'em, when I had got 'em.

The truth is, my thoughts are too full, at this minute,

Of Past MSS. any new ones to try. This very night's coach brings my destiny in it

Decides the great question, to live or to die!

And, whether I'm henceforth immortal

or no,

My own little wants in gloves, ribands, and shoes,

Thus defrauding the toilet to fit out the Muse!

And who, my dear Kitty, would not do the same?

What's eau de Cologne to the sweet breath of fame?

Yards of riband soon end- but the measures of rhyme,

How I managed, at last, this great deed to achieve,

Is itself a "Romaunt'

which you 'd

scarce, dear, believe; Nor can I just now, being all in a whirl, Looking out for the Magnet, explain it, dear girl.

Suffice it to say, that one half the expense Of this leasehold of fame for long centuries hence

(Tho' "God knows," as aunt says, my humble ambition

Aspires not beyond a small Second Edition,)

One half the whole cost of the paper and printing,

I've managed, to scrape up, this year past, by stinting

1 A day-coach of that name.

out thro' all time.

LETTER VIII.

FROM BOB FUDGE, ESQ., TO THE REV. MORTIMER O'MULLIGAN.

Tuesday evening.

I MUCH regret, dear Reverend Sir,

I could not come to *** to meet you; But this curst gout won't let me stir

Even now I but by proxy greet you; As this vile scrawl, whate'er its sense is, Owes all to an amanuensis. Most other scourges of disease Reduce men to extremities

But gout won't leave one even these.

From all my sister writes, I see
That you and I will quite agree.
I'm a plain man who speak the truth,

And trust you'll think me not uncivil, When I declare that from my youth

I've wisht your country at the devil: Nor can I doubt indeed from all

I've heard of your high patriot fame From every word your lips let fall

That you most truly wish the same. It plagues one's life out-thirty years Have I had dinning in my ears,

"Ireland wants this and that and t' other,"

And to this hour one nothing hears

But the same vile, eternal bother. While, of those countless things she wanted,

Thank God, but little has been granted,
And even that little, if we 're men
And Britons, we 'll have back again!

I really think that Catholic question
Was what brought on my indigestion;
And still each year, as Popery's curse
Has gathered round us, I 've got worse;
Till even my pint of port a day
Can't keep the Pope and bile away.
And whereas, till the Catholic bill,
I never wanted draught or pill,
The settling of that cursed question
Has quite unsettled my digestion.

Look what has happened since - the
Elect

Of all the bores of every sect,
The chosen triers of men's patience,
From all the Three Denominations,

Let loose upon us; - even Quakers Turned into speechers and law-makers, Who 'll move no question, stiff-rumpt elves,

Till first the Spirit moves themselves: And whose shrill Yeas and Nays, in chorus,

Conquering our Ayes and Noes sonorous, Will soon to death's own slumber snore

us.

Then, too, those Jews! — I really sicken
To think of such abomination;
Fellows, who won't eat ham with chicker,

To legislate for this great nation! -Depend upon't, when once they 've sway, With rich old Goldsmid at the head o' them,

The Excise laws will be done away,

And Circumcise ones past instead o them!

In short, dear sir, look where one will,
Things all go on so devilish ill,
That, 'pon my soul, I rather fear

Our reverend Rector may be right,
Who tells me the Millennium 's near;
Nay, swears he knows the very year,
And regulates his leases by 't; -
Meaning their terms should end, no
doubt,

Before the world's own lease is out.
He thinks too that the whole thing 's
ended

So much more soon than was intended,
Purely to scourge those men of sin
Who brought the accurst Reform Bill in.1

However, let's not yet despair;

Tho' Toryism 's eclipst, at present, And-like myself, in this old chair

Sits in a state by no means pleasant; Feet crippled - hands, in luckless hour, Disabled of their grasping power; And all that rampant glee, which revelled In this world's sweets, be-dulled, bedeviled

1 This appears to have been the opinion also of an eloquent writer in the Morning Watch. "One great object of Christ's second Advent, as the Man and as the King of the Jews, is to unish the Kings who do not acknowledge that their authority is derived from him, and who submit to receive it from that many-headed monster, the mot " No. x.. p. 376

Than with Murthagh to rowl in a chaise, at my aise,

1 "I am of your Patriarchs, I, a branch of one of your antediluvian families fellows that the Flood could not wash away." CONGREVE, "Love for Love."

2 To balrag is to abuse- Mr. Lover makes it ballyrag, and he is high authority: but if I remember rightly, Curran in his national stories used to employ the word as above. See Lover's most amusing and genuinely Irish work, the "Legends and Stories of Ireland."