Their disappointed mops, and render'd them
Back to their dry receptacles, The birds
Forsook their papery leaves. The dairy cows
Went dry, and were not milk'd. Incessantly
Ducks quack'd, aye stumbling on with flabby fect,
Over the sun-baked mud, which should have felt
Pulpy beneath their bills; and eels did crawl
Out from what had been ponds, and needed not
The angler's baited hook, or wicker-pot,

To catch them now, for they who baffled erst,
Through sliminess, man's grasp, were still indeed
Wriggling-but dusty, they were skinn'd for food.
He who, by lucky chance, had wherewithal
To wet his whistle, took his drop apart,

And smack'd his lips alone; small love was left:
Folks had but then one thought, and that was drink,

Where to be had, and what? The want of it

Made most men cross, and eke most women too.

The patient lost their patience, and the sour

Grew still more crabbed, sharp-nosed, and shrill-voiced.
Even cats did scratch their maiden Mistresses,
Angry that milk forthcame not, - all, save one,

And he was faithful to the virgin dame

Who petted him;-but, be it not conceal'd,
The rumour ran that he his whiskers greased

From a pomatum-pot, and so he quell'd

The rage of thirst; himself sought naught to lap,
But, with a piteous and perpetual mew,

And a quick snivelling sneeze, sat bundled up,
And taking matters quietly he lived.

The crowd forsook our village; only two
Of the parishioners still tarried there,
And they were enemies; they met beside

(One only stood before and one behind)

The empty settle of a public-house,

Where had been heap'd a mass of pots and mugs

For unavailing usage; they snatch'd up,

And, scraping, lick'd, with their pounced-parchment tongues,
The porter-pots a-dust; their eager eyes
Dived into gin-bottles, where gin was not,
Labell'd in mockery, then they lifted up
Their eyes for one brief moment, but it was
To hang their heads more sillily, ashamed
Each of his futile quest; but 'twas enough
For recognition, each and leer'd and grinn'd.-
Even at their mutual sheepishiness they grinn'd,

saw,

-

A Ladleful from the Devil's Punch Bowl.*

DEAR NORTH,

As "Drouthiness" gave such superlative satisfaction, (that is, to myself,) I proceed in the course which Nature has at last pointed out to me. Questionless, I was born a poet, and yet I never found it out till lately. However, I shall spur on Pegasus the faster, to make him fetch up for lost time. I ride light weight, and do not expect that I shall blow him, even if I should push him rather smartly. To say the truth, I possess a spur, which makes him lift his legs nimbly again whenever he slackens. (Allegory apart, this means Walker's Rhyming Dictionary, but it is a profound secret.) As I mean to make you profit by my journeys, I send herewith the products of my two last rides, performed at a hand-gallop, in which I trust you will think that Peggy has bumpered but seldom. But here allow me to get off the great horse, and talk in a more pedestrian manner.

My first poem is a parody on Sir William Jones's spirited paraphrase of a fragment of Alcæus. His contains a palavar about Liberty, and Rights, and the Fiend Discretion, while mine alludes to the less disputable good of a hearty appetite and a dinner to satisfy it.

My second poem is a metrical advertisement of all Lord Byron's works; and for drawing it up, Mr. Murray ought, I am sure, to be grateful to me, for it will save him I know not what in paper and printing, as there is little doubt of its being got by heart by all those for whom he stitches up his announcements. I have secured this, by making my dedication so diffusive-it is to the reading public, that abstract Helluo librorum, to whom Mr. Coleridge has such an antipathy; but Mr. Murray has a fellow-feeling for the omnivorous monster, and supplies him with frequent supplies of papyrus, which is the fodder he delights in. Indeed, this pamphlet-perusing prosopopoeia the reading public aforesaid seems to squat like the night-mare on the chest of the author of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan; and I much wish that so powerful a somnoversifier would harrow up our souls *From Blackwood for February, 1822.-M.

with some of the dreams, (all probably ready tagged with rhyme for the press,) which that incubus has occasioned. You will observe that this copy of verses is wholly composed in double rhymes, a feat on which I pride myself, for they are sometimes monstrously hard to find. With one line, which I was determined not to alter, and to whose finale I could find nothing correspondent in the compass of the language, I was so vexed, that in an unversifying and unguarded moment I was all but tempted to jump headlong into the Devil's Punch Bowl, that huge circular abyss in my neighborhood-" and there an end!" But the catastrophe was prevented by a timely discovery of the required ending. A happy termination this; I may well call it so, both of the couplet (which now jingles most musically) and of my perplexity, which thus evanished without a dive of some fathoms downwards. In some cases, however, the will must be taken for the deed, I fear; but you will be pleased, according to the dictum of a sage critic, to crush the syllables, if they are refractory, and then they will fit much better. If my Lord B. should make you the channel of communication, in returning his grateful thanks on this occasion, let no time be lost in conveying them to yours, BLAISE FITZTRAVESTY.

Ladle Court, near the Devil's Punch Bowl.

* Dr. W. Kitchener, author of “The Cook's Oracle."— M.

Which cross-legg'd tailors smack with liquorish chops;

Or oatmeal porridge, chief,—

Undoubted chief of Scotland's rustic slops.

Yet in these meals so plain,

Let but sharp appetite as guest attend,

And napkin'd Aldermen

* As his lordship imported this word from the East, it is but justice that he should have the benefit of it. In the Bride of Abydos, where it is used, he tells us it means the rosary which the Turks use. Here, of course, it is fig uratively applied to the series of his poems, which are to be looked upon as the beads of this combolio, (what a mouthful the word is!) and they are beautifully strung upon the golden thread of my verses. Et ego in Arcadia! ahem.-B. F.