Where, after hours in wrangling spent (As courts must wrangle to decide wel!), Religion to Saint Luke's was sent, And Royalty packed off to Bridewell : With this proviso--Should they be Restored in due time to their senses, They both must give security In future against such offencesReligion ne'er to lend his cloak, Seeing what dreadful work it leads to; And Royalty to crack his jokeBut not to crack poor people's heads, too. FABLE VI. THE LITTLE GRAND LAMA. Proem. NOVELLA, a young Bolognese, Of old and modern jurists stocked her, Was so exceeding fair, 'tis said, Aud over bearts held such dominion, That when her father, sick in bed, Or busy, sent her, in his stead, To lecture on the Code Justinian, She had a curtain drawn before her, Lest, if her charms were seen, the students Should let their young eyes wander o'er her, And quite forget their jurisprudence.2 Just so it is with Truth-when seen, Too fair and bright--'tis from behind A light, thin allegoric screen, She thus can safest teach mankind. Fable. IN Thibet once there reigned, we're told, n'empêchât la pensée des oyants, elle avoit une petite courtine devant elle.-Christ. de Pise, Cité des Dames, p. 11, chap. 36. Chronologers and verses vary, And much his subjects were enchanted, To make tee-totums for the baby. As he was there by Right Divine (What lawyers call Jure Divino, Meaning a right to yours, and mine, And everybody's goods and rhino)Of course his faithful subjects' purses Were ready with their aids and suc At length, some patriot lords—a breed Of animals they have in Thibet, Extremely rare, and fit, indeed, For folk like Pidcock to exhibitSome patriot lords, seeing the length To which things went, combined their strength, And penned a manly, plain and free The hereditary pap-spoon o'er 'emThat, as for treason, 'twas a thing That made them almost sick to think of That they and theirs stood by the King, Throughout his measles and his chin As all, but men with bishopricks, Allowed, in even a King, were wrongWherefore it was they numbly prayed That Honourable Nursery, That such reforms be henceforth made, As all good men desired to see; In other words (lest they might seem Too tedious), as the gentlest scheme For putting all such pranks to rest, And in its bud the mischief nippingThey ventured humbly to suggest His Majesty should have a whipping! When this was read, no Congreve rocket, Discharged into the Gallic trenches, F'er equalled the tremendous shock it Produced upon the Nursery Benches. The Bishops, who of course had votes, By right of age and petticoats, Were first and foremost in the fussWhat, whip a Lama !-Suffer birch To touch his sacred infamous ! Deistical assailing thus The fundamentals of the Church! No-no-such patriot plans as these (So help them Heaven and their sees!) They held to be rank blasphemies.' The alarm thus given, by these and other Grave ladies of the Nursery side, Spread through the land, till, such a pother, Such party squabbles, far and wide, Never in history's page had been Recorded, as were then between The Whippers and Non-whippers seen. Till, things arriving at a state Which gave some fears of revolution, The patriot lords' advice, though late, Was put at last in execution. The Parliament of Thibet met The little Lama, called before it, Did, then and there, his whipping get, And (as the Nursery Gazette Assures us) like a hero bore it. And though 'mong Thibet Tories, some Lament that Royal Martyrdom (Please to observe, the letter D In this last word's pronounced like B), Yet to the example of that Prinee So much is Thibet's land a debtor, 'Tis said, her little Lamas since Have all behaved themselves much better. FABLE VII. THE EXTINGUISHERS. Proem. THOUGH soldiers are the true supports, reason,— And reasoners, whether clad in pink, Or red, or blue, are on the brink (Nine cases out of ten) of treason. Not many soldiers, I believe, are For then-but hold-'tis best to veil Once turns into a Scarletina! A LORD of Persia, rich and great, Close to his gate, some rascal Ghebers, But lords of Persia can, no doubt, Do what they will-so, one fine morning, He turned the rascal Ghebers out, First giving a few kicks for warning. Then, thanking Heaven most piously, He knocked their temple to the ground, Blessing himself for joy to see Such Pagan ruins strewed around. But much it vexed my lord to find, That, while all else obeyed his will, The fire these Ghebers left behindDo what he would-kept burning still. Fiercely he stormed, as if his frown Could scare the bright insurgent down; But, no-such fires are headstrong things, And care not much for lords or kings. Scarce could his lordship well contrive The flashes in one place to smother, Before-hey, presto!-all alive, They sprung up freshly in another. At length, when, spite of prayers and damns, 'Twas found the sturdy flame defied His stewards came, with low salams, Of these extinguishers were furnished (All of the true, imperial size), And there, in rows, stood black and burnished, Ready, where'er a gleam but shone He found not only the old blaze, Brisk as before, crackling and burn ing Not only new, young conflagrations, Popping up round in various stationsBut, still more awful, strange, and dire, The extinguishers themselves on fire !!1 They, they those trusty, blind machines His lordship had so long been praising, As, under Providence, the means Of keeping down all lawless blazing, Were now themselves-alas, too true The shameful fact !-turned blazers too, And, by a change as odd as cruel, Instead of dampers, served for fuel! All that, in scrapes like this, is left And, though their fire had broke its bounds, And all abroad now wildly burned, Yet well could they, who loved the flame, Its wandering, its excess reclaim; Moral. And black extinguishers, like sentries,. The moral hence my Muse infers Placed upon every dangerous ventYe Gods! imagine his amaze, His wrath, his rage, when, on returning, The idea of this fable was caught from one of those brilliant mots which abound in the conversation of my friend, the author of the Letters to Is that such lords are simple clves, In trusting to extinguishers That are combustible themselves. Julia-a production which contains some of the happiest specimens of playful poetry that have appeared in this or any age. RHYMES ON THE ROAD, EXTRACTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF A TRAVELLING MEMBER OF THE POCOCURANTE SOCIETY, 1819. 1823. THE Gentleman from whose Journal the following extracts are taken, tells the reader in his lutroduction that the greater part of these poems were written or composed in an old calèche, for the purpose of beguiling the ennui of solitary travelling; and as verses made by a gentleman in his sleep have lately been called a • psychological curiosity,' it is to be hoped that verses made by a gentleman to keep himself awake may be honoured with some appellation equally Greek. INTRODUCTORY RHYMES. Different Attitudes in which Authors com- | Declares the clock-work of the head WHAT various attitudes and ways, While some write sitting, some, like Usually stand while they're inditing. out some, like Henry Stephens, pour Rhymes by the dozen, while they ride.1 Goes best in that reclined position. At home may, at their counters, stop; And truly I suspect they're right— Just at that closing hour of light, When, like an eastern Prince, who For distant war his Haram bowers, 'Mid all the glory of his going 1 Pleraque sua carmina equitans composuit.-Paravicin. Singular. Animus eorum, qui in aperto aëre ambulant, attollitur.-Pliny, |