THE CLUB-FOOTED KING. (a)

There was once a king (b) with a great club-foot,
(When he reigned is another affair,)

Which he managed to hide in a Wellington boot, (c)
Such as straight-footed princes wear.

And he practised himself to a dignified pace,
Becoming his rank and station,

And stumped up his throne with infinite grace,
To his subjects' edification.

In other respects he was kingly enough,
Had a cabinet, harem, and stud-

In his crown the Pitt-diamond (d) was set in the rough,
And his pedigree reached to the flood.

His larder was stuffed with roast-beef, fine and fat,
And the beer-barrel (e) aye was abroach,

And then when he chose to ride out, Oh, he sat
In a very magnificent coach.

While the monarch was thus so substantially fed,

And his commonest soldier no worse,

That the French, (f) when they fought them, invariably fled,
I infer as a matter of course.

Some nobles at court were aware he was lame,

But hence kept the secret the faster,

For, said they, 'tis the way to keep animals tame,
To conceal the weak points of their master.

(a) A ballad, found among the MSS. of my deceased uncle. My friends may recollect that I promised on a former occasion to present them with something from this source. I have been at some pains, first to decipher it, (for poor soul! he wrote a very crabbed hand,) and next to elucidate it. With the exception of a few passages, I have succeeded in my first object; as to my second, I leave the public to judge for themselves.

(6) Es war ein könig. Una volta céra un re, &c. Authorities for the form of commencement which cannot be gainsayed. Did I conceive it necessary I could give parallel passages equally apposite throughout; but ex uno disce omnes-take my first quotations for proof that the whole poem is classical.

(c) This may seem to fix a date to the story; but I take it as merely conveying an elegant allegory. A straight-forward course cannot be pursued better than in a “ Wellington boot.”

(d) Metaphorical, again, I should say. The clear principles and brilliant talents of the statesman of that name, figured by a diamond, were by the poet, no doubt, considered the first jewel in the crown of any monarch. By the line that follows we find that the descent of this potentate was tole. rably unobjectionable, considering he was not a Cambro-Briton. In a certain Welsh pedigree the genealogist says, in a marginal note about halfway down-" about this time the world was created." (e) Was any allusion to the malt tax here intended?

(ƒ) These events could not have occurred in modern times, it is plain; for that hereditary, matter-of-course, inborn hostility to "mounseer;" that feeling which caused us to call all war "fighting the French," has past away with the rest of our old prejudices. We look with horror at Nelson's advice to his midshipmen, and call Dr. Johnson an ass for translating "Græculus esuriens" as he did. All this is as it should be--but we can do nothing by halves. We have now their worthy representative "the observed of all observers" amongst us, and of course we must be consistent, and view the title of his master, the principles of his countrymen, and the constitution of his country with a corresponding admiration. How unprejudiced we have grown in these enlightened days!

"Let us prove him a liar!" cried one from the crowd-
"On a sight of the limb we'll insist;

We know that the greatest of princes is proud

Of presenting his toe to be kist." (c)

Hurrah! cried the mob. To the palace they sped,

Ere their feelings had leisure to cool,

Where their sovereign they found with his crown on his head,
And his foot (the club-foot) on a stool. (d)

(There were those, you must know, who knew nothing about
The king's palace, except by report,

Who made this nonsensical popular rout

An excuse for appearing at court.)

Then one who could read, write, and reckon, they chose
As their spokesman, their errand to show ;

He bobbed down his head, and he jerked up his hose—
'Twas a very uncourtierlike bow.

(a) Forgetting the maxim, "ne sutor ultra crepidam." I wish some of our "trades" would take warning from the fate of the bootmaker in the text.

(b) Here my deceased uncle became perfectly illegible. I regret much the hiatus, occurring as it does, where the action of the story is closest, and the interest most powerfully engrossing. The mode of treating the traitor (evidently the subject of the undecipherable part,) might have afforded some wholesome instruction. The omission of the name in the next stanza, I beg of my readers to refer to the same cause.

(c) The human toe, be it here remarked, hath had marvellous power in effecting great events. For its influence over the feelings, we are told that

"Ofttimes the dancing-master's art

Climbs from the toe to touch the heart;"

and, applied seasonably, we know that it has worked miracles, and brought some dozens of fools to their senses. Nay, 'twas an insult to this part of the human economy that caused the Protestant reformation! The Earl of Wiltshire, ambassador at the court of Rome, brought a dog to the Vatican, and this dog bit his Holiness's toe, presented to be saluted by his master. To this circum. stance we owe the important privilege of eating roast beef every day in the week.

(d) It is to be regretted that we are not here furnished with any data by which to ascertain the era of Club-foot's reign, or the locality of the country over which he ruled. Unfortunately all monarchs have crowns, stools, and feet; and although heads are less invariably a royal appendage, yet still there are not sufficient grounds in the text for ascertaining thes important points with any degree of accuracy.

"Your majesty's slaves"-but I needn't repeat it,
'Twas humble enough in its suit,

But concluded-was ever a monarch so treated !
With praying he'd pull off his boot! (a)

At first the king stared, then he smiled, then looked grave,
Then he rushed from his throne in a passion, (b)
And, to teach the young demagogue how to behave,
He gave him a terrible threshing!

All fled-but their terror diminished, of course,
As their distance from danger grew greater ;-
A ratio which being, Hoyle tells us, in-verse,
Is accordingly fit for my metre.

They rallied, in short-then discussed the offence,
Praised their orator's national motive,

They voted him cured at the public expense,

And swore that they'd FORCE the king's boot off! (c)

(And here, ere I come to the evils that follow,
I wish to record my belief,

That these burghers were greatly less able to swallow
Affronts than small-beer or roast-beef.)

To the palace again, in a torrent they came-
Burst it in-broke a beef-eater's head-
Abused several ladies of court-fie, for shame!
'Twill be scarcely believed when 'tis read.

They pulled poor old Club-foot's straight boot from his limb,
And found malformation, (d) no doubt ;-

Then, in spite of his bootless resistance, marched him
From his throne-double quick-right-about.

But who to elect in his place was the thing-
They deputed commissioners round,

But ('twas odd in so simple a thing as a king,)
Not one that would answer was found.

(a) The more humble the words of a petition, the more impudent the demand. Whoever will take the trouble to look over, or call to mind, those presented in his own time will admit the truth of this observation, and hence I cannot sufficiently admire the knowledge of human nature displayed here, in making such servility of preamble the herald to so preposterous a request.

(b) It may be asked "why so incensed against the mob ?" I reply, because a greater affront could not have been put upon old Club-foot, even if he were as light on his limbs as Mercury, than making such an application. There is, (or there was, as we shall presently see,) such an attribute of kings as DIGNITY; and there ought to be, and may have been, such a virtue in subjects as RESPECT. It were no such great crime in Uzziah to put forth his hand, if the ark were less sacred than it was. Let it not be supposed, however, that I am raking up the old doctrine of divine right. I leave the headless ghost of Charles I. to argue on that point. I only mean to state my conviction, that it is for the advantage of all that there should be a veil of privilege thrown over Let not the "Destructives" then seek to expose the foot of royalty, or fancy that it cannot stand, because there may be some deviation in it from perfect symmetry.

one.

(c) In the three last stanzas we have laid before us, step by step, the progress from petition to rebellion :-and since the time of the separation of the ten tribes, such has been its invariable course. In fact, what a populace begs for, however humbly, it is determined to have by any means, if it can ;-and it would save much trouble, and some awkward mistakes if our modern popular petitions were taken from the first in this light.

(d) Defects are found every where, by those who wish to discover them. The question is, may not the remedy be worse than the disease? Go on with poor Club-foot's history, and you will be at no loss to answer.

One was dumb, 'tother deaf, leaden-headed, past cure,
Such a sconce as no mallet would break it;
All looked pretty well while drest up, to be sure,
But Oh, if you'd seen them stript naked!

(a)

There they were at a downright anarchical stand,
Till forth a philosopher stumps,

A grey-headed man, with a tremulous hand,
And a forehead quite Alpine with bumps. (b)

Why puzzled, my friends?" said this learned old grizzle—
Know you not that all monarchs are tools?
Then why not make one, like a saw or a chisel,
By simple (c) mechanical rules?

Or stay-rather follow "the taste of the age,"
And extract from each noddle the cream;
Then, boiling all up with a handful of sage,
Manufacture a monarch by steam!"

A shout (you may fancy) re-echoed these words,
And materials each instantly brings-

The stoutness and honour of commons and lords,
With the majesty proper to kings.

In a huge metal pot the ingredients were cast,
And the populace stirred might and main ;
All said (for they thought) that abuses were past,
And the true golden age come again.

The pot boiled and bubbled, the coals they were red ;
The process continued all night;

But at last a great Frankenstein (d) heaved up the lid,
And looked o'er the rim-what a fright!

(a) The impossibility of deciphering this stanza is not to be equally regretted with our previous loss, as I am enabled to make out, from a few words still legible, that the minuteness of description would have, probably, rendered it unfit for the public eye.

(b) The unlimited powers of expansion of the human head, dwelt upon by phrenologists, and consequent on the unlimited powers of expansion of the human intellect, equally the theme of modern metaphysicians, has opened such a vast field for speculation, as scarcely to render the expression of the poet too bold. What a loss is Dr. Darwin in this age of wonders! How beautifully would the hills and valleys of the developed cranium rise and fall under his creative pen! How would he have peopled them, and discovered harmony and government among the nomadic tribes of these hitherto unexplored regions! I conclude, under the circumstances, he would have named the principal eminence on our philosopher's head Mont Blanc, but whether to be pronounced Gallice or Anglicé, I leave it to others to decide.

(c) The most difficult matters are always treated, by such men, with the flippancy of a school girl answering in her alphabet. With them to make a code of laws or a hasty pudding is equally easy-they are just as ready, and, as they think, as competent to extract abuses from a state, as a cork from a bottle of claret.

(d) Mrs. Shelley has given a useful hint to the theorists, without intending It, I rather imagine. Perhaps she really meant her hero to be the personification of the old style of philosophizing. If so, there is more in her book than the world is aware of.

'Twas a non-descript monster, half human, half steam,
That straight from the cauldron arose,

With legs, arms, head, cylinder, piston, and beam,
(I forget where the safety-valve was.)

It rushed through the multitude-strode to the throne,
Their laws on the pavement it dashed;

On its trembling creators its bloody eye shone,
And its teeth, (made by Mallan) (a) it gnashed.

While grey-beard, was crying—" how perfect it works!"
It was giving its arm-screw a twist,

And, ere he had done, with a couple of jerks,

Sent the words down his throat with its fist. (b)

Once a-going, 'twas "part of its system" to strike—
Whole phalanxes fell at each blow-

Dean and chapter, judge, bishop, to it were alike,
With a twelve-doctor-power it slew.

Then, sorely discomfited, fain would the mob
Have restored their old Club-foot again,

But (alas, 'twas a very unfortunate job!)
They discovered poor Club-foot was slain.

They buried him under a marble, in state,

And these words were engraven thereon:

"Here lies Club-foot-his subjects now wish, when too late,
They could raise him instead of this stone."

Then list to my tale, B, M

Ye are David, and Nathan am I ;

(c) and Co.,

Take heed lest when steam-engine kings are the go,

The high-pressure blow you sky-high. (d)

ADVENA.

(a) A terro metallic dentist. He warrants his teeth against anything less irresistible than a cannon-ball. It is plain from this that the multitude really did bring the best materials they could find to the royal stew-pan.

(b) A fine moral. Balue was said to have at last been the inmate of one of the cages, invented by himself to gratify the cruelty of his master. The readiest to interfere are not unfrequently the first to suffer. Ask our emancipating aristocracy Now. I think they will agree with me.

(e) Again I am at a loss. The words are illegible. If any one who reads this shall hit upon two names likely to make sense of the passage, he will oblige me by transmitting them to me by the Stationer's-court parcel.

(d) Sky-high. A vulgar expression in our language, perhaps; but, as a literal translation of himmel-hock, highly poetical.

My poor old uncle seemed to have been very fond of this ballad; and as it had the approbation of his friend Elizabeth Hamilton, he kept it with great care, and from some notes in his pocket-book I conjecture that he had, at one time, some idea of publishing it; but his extreme reserve, and his morbid dread of the public probably deterred him, or at least induced him to postpone it until it was too late. I think in the present day, though the events, perhaps, are inappropriate, the moral may be of some service to people who consider what Beckford calls "the intellectual maziness of the past," a sufficient excuse for upsetting, at one spiteful heave, the clumsy old waggon of the constitution, previous to booking themselves on at the office of the General Political Railway Company.