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,
The daughter of a learned law doctor,'
Who had with all the subtleties

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,
A little Lama, one year old-
Raised to the throne, that realm to bless,
Just when his little Holiness
Had cut-as near as can be reckoned-
Some say his first tooth, some his second.

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,
Which proves historians should be wary.
We only know the important truth-
His Majesty had cut a tooth.1

And much his subjects were enchanted,
As well all Lamas' subjects may be,
And would have given their heads, if
wanted,

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
Remonstrance to the Nursery;
In which, protesting that they yielded
To none, that ever went before 'em,
In loyalty to him who wielded

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,
The natural allies of Courts,
Woe to the Monarch who depends
Too much on his red-coated friends;
For even soldiers sometimes think—
Nay Colonels have been known to

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
As fond of liberty as Mina;
Else-woe to Kings, when Freedom's
fever

For then-but hold-'tis best to veil
My meaning in the following tale :-
Fable.

Once turns into a Scarletina!

A LORD of Persia, rich and great,
Just come into a large estate,
Was shocked to find he had, for neigh-
bours,

Close to his gate, some rascal Ghebers,
Whose fires, beneath his very nose,
In heretic combustion rose.

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
him,

His stewards came, with low salams,
Offering, by contract, to provide him
Some large extinguishers (a plan
Much used, they said, at Ispahan,
Vienna, Petersburgh-in short
Wherever light's forbid at court)—
Machines no lord should be without,
Which would, at once, put promptly out
Fires of all kinds-from staring stark
Volcanos to the tiniest spark-
Till all things slept as dull and dark
As, in a great lord's neighbourhood,
'Twas right and fitting all things should.
Accordingly, some large supplies

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
Of light or fire, to be clapped on.
But, ah! how lordly wisdom errs
In trusting to extinguishers!
One day, when he had left all sure
(At least believed so), dark, secure-
The flame, at all its exits, entries,
Obstructed to his heart's content,

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
To great men is-to cut and run.
So run he did; while to their grounds
The banished Ghebers blessed re-
turned;

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;
And soon another, fairer dome
Arose to be its sacred home,
Where, cherished, guarded, not confined,
The living glory dwelt enshrined,
And, shedding lustre, strong but even,
Though born of earth, grew worthy
Heaven.

Moral.

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.