Whose libels, steep'd in malice, sally forth, Eager to blight a foe's becoming pride, Worth, honour, virtue, studious to disgrace, Yet e'en these efforts England still defies, A DIRGE OVER THE HERO WHO FELL AT COKUNNA. [From the Morning Chronicle, Jan. 30.1/ INTREPID, firm, and void of fear, Like him who fell on Abr'am's Height, Like CALAMITIES AND CONSOLATIONS. Like him the foremost son of War, RA. RYLANCE. THE SOLDIER'S GRAVE! 43 AN HUMBLE TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF SIR JOHN MOORE. [From the Day.] T needs no pompous tablet to impart IT The hard-earn'd honours of the fallen brave: The soldier's deeds are stamp'd upon the heart ;Thence flows the tear which best adorns his grave. The stately cenotaph offends my view, On which, obtrusive, stands the sculptor's name; Would contemplate, alone, the hero's fame. There, pausing over Death's rude-fashion'd cell, R. J. G. CALAMITIES AND CONSOLATIONS. MR. EDITOR, HAD AD I taken up my pen to address you a fortnight ago, it would have been in a very different style from that I now propose to use. -I was then over whelmed whelmed with grief for the many disasters that had befallen us as a nation, and I thought that every body around me was in the same drooping condition. But a friend having accommodated me for some days with the perusal of two or three of what are called the fashionable papers, I find my spirits wonderfully refreshed; and I think it my duty to communicate this my happy recovery to you, Sir, that it may, peradventure, be of some service to your readers. If we have calamities to distress us, I perceive also that we have consolations: and if we hear of bloody baules and destructive storms, we have at the same time fa shionable engagements and amusements which seem to be uncommonly well-timed and seasonable! As to my own experience, I am happy to inform you, that I had no sooner fallen into a fit of despondence by reading of the disastrous retreat of our army in Spain, than I was roused by the very important and cheering intelligence, that while our brave coun. trymen were struggling for their lives against an inhospitable country, a sanguinary enemy, and impervious roads; and while thousands of families were trembling for the safety of a father, a son, a brother; yet the Whip Club had made some arrangements which promised to be of great utility to that publicspirited body!" Judge, Sir, what a consolation it must be at the conclusion of our unfortunate campaign, to be told that the Whip Club were determined "to go twenty miles out, and return the same day!” And while we feel for the fate of the gallant Romana and his followers, what a balance it is in favour of our sensibility, that "the Whip Club is to drink only a certain quantity of wine, and to propose only such toasts as relate to the science!"' Again, Sir, while we have been agitated by reports of corruption in high offices, of persons appointed to eminent stations for which they are unfit, of avarice, and CALAMITIES AND CONSOLATIONS. 45 and bribes, secret influence, and other symptoms of a sinking state; and while the speeches of the Opposi→ tion are calculated to exasperate our fears on such subjects; how delightful is it to be told, and what a set-off it is against public degeneracy, that "the Whip Club admits only such persons as members, who can afford to keep up an expensive establishment in horses and carriages, and are fully competent to exercise the whip with skill and dexterity!" It is peculiarly fortunate, Mr. Editor, amidst the calamities which have already descended, or are now impending, that our minds are so ingeniously constructed as to forget them all in the concerns of a Whip Club-an Opera fracas-a boxing-match-or some other equally edifying and consistent matter of engaging our time and our attention. I flatter myself that our inveterate enemy, Bonaparte, will see how foolish it is to endeavour at the destruction of a people who are so little affected by all that he, assisted by famine, disease, and storms, can do; and who can pass with such perfect composure from the Corunna dispatches to the Gazette from Epsom Downs, and from the defeat of Marshal Soult to the more important defeat of-Jem Belcher! The latter state-paper, I think, will confound the Tyrant of all Europe, and I sincerely hope it will be drifted in an open boat to Calais, as some return for his late bulletins. I am told he knows enough of English to read our newspapers; but I rejoice to think how he will be puzzled with the style of the historian of fisty-cuffs. I am told he can read Hume, and Robertson, and Gibbon, and even Jamy Macpherson's battles in Ossian. But every Englishman must laugh in idea at his perplexities, when he reads that "Belcher threw in right and left" that there was "much irregular hugging at a close" that " the combatants stopped with great dexterity"—that " Belcher put in two lunging blows". 5 but but that he was milled to the ropes, and both had a somerset'that "Belcher received a stomacher" and that upon the whole "his bottom led him into difficulties" But whatever Bonaparte may make of these technicals, let him know, Sir, that whatever he has done or may do in the wretched nation which we have endeavoured to support, he will find that we are a people of such versatility of temper and talent, that we can turn from our disasters and gloomy prospects with the utmost facility, and place equal importance on a boxingmatch as a battle; on a dinner of the Whip Club, as on a debate in Parliament; and that we think Crib and Belcher, Iky Pig, and Jemmy from Town, as important characters as the heroes of war; and the security of a bet nearly as interesting as the safety of a nation. I am, Sir, yours, VERSATILIS. MORE CONSOLATIONS. MR. EDITOR, [From the same, Feb. 15.] IN my letter which you inserted in your paper of Tuesday se'nnight, I stated some of those fashionable consolations by which we are enabled to forget our fears and our calamities; but I did not suspect that even the affairs of the Whip Club and a boxingmatch would be so soon swallowed up in Mrs. Clarke. Happy it is for us, that little things can be made great, and trifles blown into importance. The state of Europe stands in suspense-not be cause we have not lately heard from the Continent, but because of Mrs. Clarke-not because the con * Pray, Mr. Editor, is not this somewhat the case with a lady, who has just attained a considerable degree of notoriety? tending |