• I'll batter ye with Pluto's bludgeon,

Unless to battle you now budge on,

And make more bluster with your train, 'Than devils in a hurricane!

I'll drive ye down'-but dawning day
Bids bullying phantom hie away;

While horror makes each hair stand stedfast,
Like quill of hedgehog in our head fast!

So stood the PREMIER of our Nation, When ROBSON bawl'd out DEFALCATION! 'Government's robb'd by wicked nien,

And cannot pay "NINETEEN POUNDS TEN!!!" 54

54 And cannot pay 'NINETEEN POUNDS TEN!!!?

The terrible shock given not only to Mr. Addington, but to the credit of the British nation, by this famous sally of that teasing, testy, querulous, alarming, honorable, cidevant member of the House of Commons, is undoubtedly fresh in the recollection of every person, who has the least smattering in parliamentary debates: and every true patriot and friend to the Peace of

Our

Prime Minister, will congratulate the country on the failure of Mr. Robson's election, as well as that of his co-operator, Mr. Jones, into the new parliament.

So petrified stood bull and bear,

Of Stock Exchange, when the Lord Mayor,
With vile chagrin and terror quaking,
Found Hawkesbury's Letter all a take-in. 55

Now should you slight the dire monition
Of this ill-boding apparition,
You truly will be well deserving
The dreadful destiny of starving!

O then, dread Sirs, brinful of rage,
War! horrid war! is yours to wage,
To extirpate the deadly schism,
The heresy of Perkinism!

55 Found Hawkesbury's Letter all a take-in. Now I know the man who cobbled up the famous humbug Peace with France, which, in my opinion, was a manœuvre that did honour to its inventor. He tenants a garret adjacent to mine. But Dr. Caustic is an honourable man, and twice the 50001. offered by the Stock Exchange, with the 5001. by the Lord Mayor, for his apprehension, would not tempt him to expose the neck of his friend to the noose of justice. This I premise that the Bow-street officers may not misapply their time and talents in any futile attempts to wheedle or extort the secret.

Pursue the steps that learned sage hath,
The most redoubted Doctor HAYGARTH,
Who erst o'er Perkins' sconce at Bath,
Broke a whole gallypot of wrath! 56

In

56 Broke a whole gallypot of wrath. I beseech you, gentlemen, to suspend your impatience relative to this wonderful achievement, till you have soared through a few stanzas. the mean time, however, I wish that this my favourite hero, and burthen of my song, should stand high with your worships, and be the object of the humble admiration, not only of your honourable body, but of mankind in general; and I myself shall take the liberty to trample on all those, who dare call in question his infallibility. I have a knowledge of but few, who more deserve to be trodden upon on this occasion than the conductors of certain foreign Literary Journals, who, not aware of the inconceivable services which Dr. H. has rendered the medical host by his ardent zeal against their common enemy, Perkinism, have expressed their sentiments of him, and his works, with that indifference, which must have arisen from their want of knowledge of his achievements.

Among the most prominent of this junto should be mentioned the Medical Repository, at New-York, conducted by professors Mitchell and Miller, of that place, the former of whom I understand is a representative in the Congress of the United States, an eminent physician, and the celebrated author of what is usually termed the 'Mitchellian Theory of Contagion,' alterations in the French Chemical

But Gifford comes, with why and wherefore ;39 And what the devil are you there for?

I should have been happy to have fascinated your Worships with further specimens of the same sort of sublimity, could I have retained them in I have been so solicitous for your memory. gratification in this particular, that I have made a painful, though bootless search, throughout the Metropolis and its suburbs, for these more than sybiline oracles. Indeed I have reason to fear that all Della Crusca's effusions are irretrievably lost, except the few fragments I have here pickled for the behoof of posterity.

59 But Gifford comes, with why and wherefore.

6

The admirers of your polite poetry can never sufficiently anathematize the author of the Baviad and Maviad' for extirpating, root and branch, a species of sentimental ditty, which might be scribbled, without the trouble of sense to pose;' an object certainly of no small consequence with your bon ton readers and writers of rhyme. How could a sentimental ensign, or love-lorn lieutenant, be better employed, than in sobbing over Laura's tinkling trash,' or weeping in concert with the 'mad jangle of Matilda's lyre?' Besides, there ought to be whipped syllabub adapted to the palates of those who cannot relish Burns' pure healthful nurture.' Mr. Gifford should be sensible, that reducing poetry to the standard of common sense is clipping the wings of genius. For example, there is no describing what sublime and Della

Then tells a tale about the Town,
Contriv'd to lessen our renown.

Says, if we rise but one inch higher,
We set our hat and wig on fire;
And that he'll bet us ten to one

We shall be scorch'd like Phaeton.

Then I and Clio, as the case is,
Must now resume our former places,
But still, to keep up our renown,

We ride a 'gairish sun-bean' down!

And now once more, in humble station,
We'll jog along in plain narration;
And tollutate o'er turnpike path,60
To view the conjuring crew at Bath.

Cruscan-like capers I should myself have been cutting in this Wilderness of suns;' for I was about to prepare a nosegay of comets, and string the spheres like beads for a lady's necklace; but was not a little apprehensive lest Mr. G. or some other malignant critic, should persuade the public, that my effusions of fancy were little better than the rant of a bedlamite.