-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:
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.
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;
Severely men smart for their errors,
Who dine at a man-of-war's mess!
But Eton has crueller terrors
Than these, in the Windsor Express.
I fancied the Doctor at College
Had dipped, now and then, into books;
But, bless me! I find that his knowledge
Is just like my coachman's or cook's:
He's a dunce-I have heard it with sorrow ;-
'Twould puzzle him sadly, I guess,
To put into English to-inorrow
A page of the Windsor Express.
All preachers of course should be preaching
That virtue's a very good thing;
All tutors of course should be teaching
To fear God and honour the King;
But at Eton they've regular classes
For folly, for vice, for excess;
They learn to be villains and asses,
Nothing else in the Windsor Express.
Mrs. Martha, who nursed little Willy,
Believes that she nursed him in vain;
Old John, who takes care of the filly,
Says "He'll ne'er come to mount her again!"
My Juliet runs up to her mother,
And cries, with a mournful caress,
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