ページの画像
PDF
ePub

It happen'd in an idle year,

Some wish'd to fill their time with prayer;
If mov'd to piety, or whether

'T was fit to keep the herd together;
Or that they deem'd th' attendance slack,
As some folks always love their whack,
Or that the pray'rs might suit the season;
Or any other pastoral reason;

I know not-but they begg'd the priest
To preach twice every month at least.
The Rector, pond'ring on the case,
Return'd this answer, full of grace:
"If to the tythes you ADD ten pounds,
I'll take you oftener in my rounds;
Should you to this request accede,
I'll grant you all the pray'rs you need."
Proposing thus to stint the rest,
And sell his duty at the best.
The herd, already tax'd too high,
Resolvd to lay their longings by.
And as they saw him prone to sell,
Imagin'd he would buy as well:

For merchants, rather than they'll mar gain,
Will sell as well as buy a bargain:
So forthwith this reply they write:
"DEDUCT ten pounds, and keep off quite !"
London, Feb. 11, 1808.

[ocr errors]

THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED.

[From the Morning Chronicle, Aug. 29.]

"Oh! word of fear."-SHAKSPEARE.

S Dick and Tom, one tedious afternoon,
Loung'd in a coffee-house together,

Each chatty topic they exhausted soon

S. B.

The Plays, the News, the Spaniards, and the Weather.

At length, quoth Dick, in accent grave—
"You think Napoleon very brave;
And yet 't is fact, as I have heard,
This hero's frighten'd by a word! -

Whether

[ocr errors]

Whether in conjugal delight

He

passes with Madame the night,
Or issues forth each dread command
To courteous Monsieur Talleyrand--
Visits an op'ra, sees a play,

Or talks of rogues with deep Fouché-
Or kindly gives (what's not his own)
To brother Joe, the Spanish Crown!--
This cursed word alarms his soul;
His pulse beats high, his eyeballs roll;
O'er his scar'd mind such terrors come,
He quakes like Arthur at the Ghost of Thumb."
Tom sipp'd his wine, then said "Hear my solution-
The word you hint at must be-RETRIBUTION."

LINGO,

THE FLAMES OF TITCHFIELD STREET!
[From the Oracle, Aug. 29.]

"Urit grata protervitas."-HORACE.

The Poet introduceth the subject with some pretty descriptive writing, scattereth a simile or two, and finisheth with an appropriate moral.

NEAR

TEAR to that street where beauteous nymphs resort,
And Paphian Venus holds her tempting court;

Where, when the theatres are o'er,

And dramas yield to Love's ecstatic thrillings,
To hackney-coachmen link-boys roar―
"To Titchfield Street, Five Shillings !”
Close to that spot an upright man resided,
Hight Richardson, who much in virtue prided !
Not Bonaparté with more rancour hates
To read his name in Britain's free debates-
Not thieving Joe, since Fortune's revolution,
More dreads the dreadful call of Restitution
Not more the Prig a Bow Street Trap detests,
Than Mister Richardson the Cyprian nests!
And thus, like Puritans in congregation,'
The good man vented an ejaculation:
"Not a house can I let

For this profligate set;

Compar'd

Compar'd with them an angel's Lucy Lockit!
Their jibing and jeering,

Their ogling and leering,

Pollute my thoughts, alas! and hurt my pocket: Then here I swear each nymph shall flame a Martyr! I'll burn 'em out!-I'll give the sluts no quarter!" The Prudes all applaud with a furious joy, Each Old Maid seiz'd a candle with zeal to destroy! The Landlord led the way

To light 'em to their prey,

And Titchfield Street blaz'd like a second Troy !
But 'midst this grand, this chaste illumination,
The Law stepp'd in, and quench'd the conflagration!

MORAL.

(Poera loquitur).

Then, Mister Richardson, be not so nice,
But take for once the Poet's sage advice:
Your fiery conduct indignation rouses :
Fly to each injur'd maid,
(Compliance is their trade,)

And pardon beg!-Be not a ninny!

Kiss and be friends, and leave with each a Guinea !
If not, the girls will say,

Like fam'd Mercutio in the Play,

"The Devil take your houses!"

BELPHEGOR.

THE SALAMANDER'S SOLILOQUY

UPON THE BURNING SHAME IN TITCHFIELD STREET.

[From the same, Sept. 14.]

"Fire! Fire! Fire!

Brimstone and Fire !-haste there; fly for antidotes."

W

LEE'S Cæsar Borgia.

HEN Nero wrapt old Rome in flames,
As gravely wrote by Titus Livy,

('T is well to have authoritative names,)
We're told that whilst this seat of learning
Was frying, cracking, burning,

And Conscript Fathers ran about tantivy,

The

The Emperor mounted a stupendous tower,
And there he coolly sat, and fiddled by the hour!
But Mister Richardson, the brilliant hero,
Perhaps had never heard of Nero;
Or, to speak without a riddle,
Perhaps he could not play the fiddle;
Or, to approach Truth's lucid fount,
Perhaps he had no tower to mount:
Therefore, whilst Titchfield Street was flaming,
And lighted candles Cyprians shaming,
He from the blazing scene retreated,

And snug in little parlour seated,
Order'd his pipe-of punch a tiff-

And now he took a glass, and now he took a whiff.
His head envelop'd in the kindred smoke,
He thus soliloquiz'd, and crack'd his joke:-
"Egad! the Ministers are fools to me;
There can be no comparison between us;
They sent a mighty force to sea

To burn the Danes; whilst humble I!
I! I! I! I!

With ships not any,

But tallow candles four a penny,
Have burnt the daughters of the goddess Venus !"

A SUBLIME SIMILE.

As in Tom Thumb we all perforce allow,
The greatest praise pertains unto the cow,
Who, with extended jaws so wide and pliant,
Swallows the slayer of each monstrous giant-
So vast, great Richardson, is thy renown,
In firing those who've fir'd-half the town!

BELIAL.

EPIGRAM.

[From the same, Sept. 1.]

WHAT epithets, exclaims a Clown,

To woman-kind belong!

Some are call'd Women of the Town,
Some Ladies of the Ton!

The

The diff'rence it is hard to trace,

Though diff'rence still there's some;
The W boldly one displays,

The other plays it Mum!

COURT OF CH*NC*RY.

QUIZ.

[See the Times Newspaper for Wednesday, March 9, 1808.]

[From the Satirist.]

"Consedere duces."

THE lawyers sat down; straight Lord St*nh*pe appear'd
Erect on his pins, and implor'd to be heard:
"Allow me, your Honour, a favour to-night,
I humbly conceive it an Englishman's right.
Were proper solely at stake in this cause,
I'd bow to these learned discussors of laws;
But honour may suffer, and, when reputation
Is question'd, it calls for our own vindication.

I learnt Magna Charta (and what not?) by heart;
Yet do not desire me to reason with art.
I'll read an epistle I sent Mr. M**,
November the twenty-sixth, all in a hurry."
[A letter was read, that, in very strong words,
Detail'd the disputes of a couple of lords.]
"My son and his cronies have caught an alarm:
So, craftily swearing they meant me no harm,
They sue for a compromise-shallow pretence!
Their charge they proclaim'd, I proclaim my defence.
"My boy, when a minor, egregiously blunder'd,
Demanding an income of four or five hundred ;
With freedom to frolic wherever he chose-
I felt it my duty both claims to oppose.
Soon after he left my paternal domain

Till of age; but, your Honour, I scorn to complain ;
I scorn it-alas! from the hour of my birth
I've prov'd the most injur'd meek mortal on earth.
"Four daring attempts have been made on my life,
But surely for one my child's years were not rife;
His parricide blows, indeed, now I receive,
And, trust me, in honour I inwardly grieve.

« I taught

« 前へ次へ »