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You once could be pleased with our ballads—
To-day you have critical ears;

You once could be charmed with our salads-
Alas! you've been dining with Peers;
You trifled and flirted with many;

You've forgotten the when and the how;
There was one you liked better than any-
Perhaps you've forgotten her now.
But of those you remember most newly,
Of those who delight or inthrall,
None love you a quarter so truly
As some you will find at our Ball,

They tell me you've many who flatter,
Because of your wit and your song;
They tell me (and what does it matter?)
You like to be praised by the throng;
They tell me you're shadowed with laurel,
They tell me you're loved by a Blue;
They tell me you're sadly immoral-
Dear Clarence, that cannot be true!
But to me you are still what I found you
Before you grew clever and tall;

And you'll think of the spell that once bound you:

And you'll come, won't you come? to our Ball?

(1829.)

LETTERS FROM TEIGNMOUTH.

II.-PRIVATE THEATRICALS.

-Sweet, when Actors first appear,
The loud collision of applauding gloves!

YOUR labours, my talented brother,
Are happily over at last;

They tell me that, somehow or other,
The bill is rejected,--or passed:

·Moultri

And now you'll be coming, I'm certain,
As fast as your posters can crawl,
To help us to draw up our curtain,
As usual, at Fustian Hall.

Arrangements are nearly completed;
But still we've a lover or two,
Whom Lady Albina entreated

We'd keep at all hazards for you:
Sir Arthur makes horrible faces,
Lord John is a trifle too tall,-
And yours are the safest embraces
To faint in, at Fustian Hall.

Come, Clarence;--it's really enchanting
To listen and look at the rout:
We're all of us puffing, and panting,

And raving, and running about; Here Kitty and Adelaide bustle; There Andrew and Anthony bawl; Flutes murmur, chains rattle, robes rustle, In chorus, at Fustian Hall.

By the by, there are two or three matters
We want you to bring us from town;
The Inca's white plume from the hatter's,
A nose and a hump for the Clown:
We want a few harps for our banquet,
We want a few masks for our ball;
And steal from your wise friend, Bosanquet,
His white wig, for Fustian Hall.

Hunca Munca must have a huge sabre,
Friar Tuck has forgotten his cowl;

And we're quite at a stand-still with Weber,
For want of a lizard and owl:

And then, for our funeral procession,
Pray get us a love of a pall;
Or how shall we make an impression
On feelings, at Fustian Hall?

And, Clarence, you'll really delight us,
If you'll do your endeavour to bring
From the Club a young person to write us
Our prologue, and that sort of thing:
Poor Crotchet, who did them supremely,

Is gone, for a judge, to Bengal;
I fear we shall miss him extremely,
This season, at Fustian Hall.

Come, Clarence;-your idol Albina
Will make a sensation, I feel;
We all think there never was seen a
Performer so like the O'Neill.
At rehearsals, her exquisite fancy
Has deeply affected us all;
For one tear that trickles at Drury,
There'll be twenty at Fustian Hall.

Dread objects are scattered before her,
On purpose to harrow her soul;
She stares, till a deep spell comes o'er her,
At a knife, or a cross, or a bowl.
The sword never seems to alarm her,
That hangs on a peg to the wall,
And she dotes on thy rusty old armour,
Lord Fustian, of Fustian Hall.

She stabbed a bright mirror this morning,-
Poor Kitty was quite out of breath,-
And trampled, in anger and scorning,
A bonnet and feathers to death.
But, hark!-I've a part in the Stranger,
There's the Prompter's detestable call:
Come, Clarence,-our Romeo and Ranger,
We want you at Fustian Hall.

(1831.)

TALES OUT OF SCHOOL.

A DROPPED LETTER FROM A LADY.

YOUR godson, my sweet Lady Bridget,
Was entered at Eton last May;
But really, I'm all in a fidget

Till the dear boy is taken away;
For I feel an alarm which, I'm certain,
A mother to you may confess,
When the newspaper draws up the curtain,
The terrible Windsor Express.

You know I was half broken-hearted

When the poor fellow whispered "Good-by !” As soon as the carriage had started,

I sat down in comfort to cry.

Sir Thomas looked on while I fainted,
Deriding-the bear!-my distress;
But what were the hardships I painted,
To the tales of the Windsor Express?

The planter in sultry Barbadoes
Is a terrible tyrant, no doubt;
In Moscow, a Count carbonadoes
His ignorant serfs with the knout;

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