Such is the calm of your retreat? And I'll attend you as I've done, Only to help reflection on, With now and then an ode. Sir Charles H. Williams. CXCII. THE STATESMAN. WHAT statesman, what hero, what king, The great Earl of Bath is the man Who deserves to employ your whole time. But, howe'er, as the subject is nice, And perhaps you're unfurnish'd with matter, May it please you to take my advice, That you mayn't be suspected to flatter. When you touch on his Lordship's high birth, Say, we all are the sons of the earth, Proclaim him as rich as a Jew, Yet attempt not to reckon his bounties; You may say, he is married-that's trueYet speak not a word of his Countess. Leave a blank here and there in each page, To enrol the fair deeds of his youth! When you mention the acts of his age, Leave a blank for his-honour and truth. Say he made a great monarch change hands; Say he made a great statesman of Sandys ;- Then enlarge on his cunning and wit, Say how he harangued at the Fountain: And a mouse was produced by a mountain. Then say how he mark'd the new year Sir Charles H. Williams. CXCIII. ADVICE TO THE MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM WELL may they, Wentworth, call thee young; And to a wretch be kind! Old statesmen would reverse your plan, If thus, my Lord, your heart o'erflows, You should have sent, the other day, Why would you hear his strange appeal, You should be proud, and seem displeased, Your house with beggars haunted If right, their suit is granted. L From pressing words of great and small And fail nineteen in twenty: What, wound my honour, break my word? Indeed, young Statesman, 'twill not do,- What from your boyish freaks can spring? David Garrick. CXCIV. PADDY'S METAMORPHOSIS. ABOUT fifty years since, in the days of our daddies, Some West Indian Island, whose name I forget, Was the region then chosen for this scheme so romantic ; And such the success the first colony met, That a second, soon after, set sail o'er the Atlantic. Behold them now safe at the long look'd-for shore, Sailing in between banks that the Shannon might greet, And thinking of friends whom, but two years before, They had sorrow'd to lose, but would soon again meet. And, hark! from the shore a glad welcome there came"Arrah, Paddy from Cork, is it you, my sweet boy?" While Pat stood astounded, to hear his own name Thus hail'd by black devils, who caper'd for joy! Can it possibly be ?-half amazement-half doubt, Deceived by that well-mimick'd brogue in his ears, MORAL. 'Tis thus, but alas! by a moral more true And thus, when I hear them "strong measures" advise, "Good Lord !-only think-black and curly already!" Thomas Moore. CXCV. THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE. GRINDER. FRIEND OF HUMANITY. "NEEDY knife-grinder! whither are you going? "Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones, "Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives? Did some rich man tyrannically use you? Was it the squire? or parson of the parish? "Was it the squire for killing of his game? or 66 All in a law-suit? (Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eye-lids, Ready to fall as soon as you have told your Pitiful story." KNIFE-GRINDER. 66 Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir, "Constable came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the Justice; Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish Stocks for a vagrant. "I should be glad to drink your honour's health in A pot of beer, if you would give me sixpence; But, for my part, I never love to meddle With politics, sir." FRIEND OF HUMANITY. "I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned firstWretch whom no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeanceSordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast!" (Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.) Anti-Facobin. CXCVI. A POLITICAL DESPATCH. IN matters of commerce, the fault of the Dutch Twenty per cent., Nous frapperons Falck with twenty per cent. The Right Hon. George Canning. |