PARODY ON A MOST PATHETIC APPEAL.

89

But, perhaps, after all, it would be more applieable to dismiss Metals altogether from our simile, and at once to bestow on this age the name it so obviously merits-that of the PAPER AGE! How well by this appellation will its nature be demonstrated to posterity! Exquisitely true, our children's children's children shall read the record; and, when they mention the Paper Age, it will be understood to mean that period when

Waste Paper, Religion; or, rather, vice versa,

Religion, Waste Paper !

Lord forefend any one should carry the comparison any further than we have now done; and after saying we had Paper Men for Rulers, go up and up, and find all a-cold!"*

[From the Morning Chronicle, Dec. 27.]

SOME mortals are to feelings given,

With less of earth in them than heaven.

If there's a tear-a human tear,
From Pity's dross refin'd and clear,
Ethereal virgin tear! too meek
To-strain an eye or stain a cheek,
'Tis that which, though unseen by all,
Shook great Saint Stephen's with its fall!

T.

EPIGRAMS,

EPIGRAMS,

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE BERNE BEAR *.

[From the same, Dec. 27.]

1.

MINISTERS do not like my Bear at all;

Pleas'd with its fun, the Opposition laugh:
Perhaps they'll laugh still louder, when I call
Those Ministers" the Bear and Ragged Staff!"

[From the same, Dec. 29.]

EPIGRAM THE SECOND..

CRIES Perceval, when Eldon wish'd to learn
If they should prosecute the Bear of Berne,
"That it a libel is, bid Gibbs declare,
And let the common hangman-burn the Bear !”

EPIGRAM THE THIRD.

THIS Bear perhaps has point, but what defence
Can justify the Author's impudence?

To palliate it the Author says-" Alas!
He the great grandchild is of Hudi-brass!

EPIGRAM THE FOURTH.

"Aн me!" says Camden," but for our division
We had not fall'n the victims of derision!

This Bear it then had been our boast to tame,
For Canning's wit would not have miss'd his aim ;
Nor t'other's † Pistol, though his speaking proses
Left him to revel-on a Bed of Roses !"

*See p. 82.

+ The Noble Earl, to whom this couplet alludes, must pardon the Author for not having been able to hitch the Irish title which his Lordship bears into the Epigram.

EPIGRAM

ON THE MARRIAGE OF A GENTLEMAN WITH THE WIDOW "GHOST:" AN EPIGRAM.

"

[From the same.]

WHAT a desperate fellow !" the neighbours all say, marry a Ghost, that will haunt you each day."

"No ghost do I fear," cries the spouse," while 't is light, And the Parson permits me to lay it by night."

BREVIS,

HINDUSTANI LORE.

[From the same, Dec. 26.]

TRANSLATION OF MUTANABI'S ODE ON HIS

SWORD.

BY MIRZA-COZIM-ALI-JAWN,

Who has successfully infused into the Urdh Dialect all the Boldness and Spirit of the Original.

Addressed to a certain fighting General of Challenge Notoriety t.

DDS bullets and brains, General, what a Pistol of a fellow is this bloody-minded Arabian Poet Mutanabi!-Wide-Nostrils, the Swallower of Windmills,

*See Lord Moira's speech in the British Press of Dec. 28.
+ See vol. xiv. p. 344;

was

was a Miss-Molly to him! his very looks would rout one of our modern armies; and with that cut and thrust sword of his, sheathed in his eyelids, I believe even our London Militia, with Sir John Eamer at their head, would look a little blue-a scowl would makethem ground arms—

"With such a furious tempest on his brows,

As if the world's four winds were pent within
His blustering carcass !"

With all his vagaries he is a fellow of spunk, and, making allowance for his Verba Tragica, "confusion, horror, guts, and death," he sings in as martial a style of pleasing apostrophe as any military bard of my acquaintance; in fact, I feel a little inspired myself on the occasion, and cannot resist to desire to try an imitation..

Yours, &c.

PADDY WHACK..

ARRAH! Sweet-lips, my jewel, so burnish'd and nice,
Your temper is trusty and biting like spice *;
To see you lugg'd out, and prepar'd for the fight,
Makes my peepers to twinkle with joy and delight.
Like mystical writings or charms, with amaze
We see watery letters inscrib'd on a blaze:

The eye that so boldly your splendour would brave,
Is dazzled and mock'd by the serpentine wave
That is seen on your surface so wildly to run,
Like motes dancing gay i' th' rays of the sun.
In the blood of the foemen when you take a dip,
Your edge a few drops is contented to sip;
While I in the current exultingly swim,
And swill it in goblets fill'd up to the brim.
The belts of old Time your weight have suspended,
Till, gnaw'd by your edge, they require to be mended.

The temper of a sword.

No

THE THREE-TAIL BASHAW, &c.

No drop of blood sticks to your keen-cutting edge;
He that draws you, of honour ne'er forfeits the pledge.
Your light, with a smack of the right Usquebaugh *,
All darkness dispels, when for battle you draw.
Och! my Shean, little urchin, so dearly I prize,
Its sheath I could wish were the lids of my eyes.
By your brightness, my honey, in battle I shine;
Your brilliant achievements and glory are mine.
Your clashing and hacking claim greater regard
Than the pipe, flute, and harp, or the song of the bard †.
I carry not you for mere splendour or show,

But for splitting of heads, necks, and ribs, at a blow
Thus our foes and their armour are destin'd to feel
Me, the stoutest of roysters; you, sharpest of steel :
When I drew you at midnight in Wicklow, the glare
Quick flash'd, like the lightning, as far as Kildare.

93

THE THREE-TAIL BASHAW AND DOUBLETAIL RAT.

[From the Morning Chronicle, Dec. 31.]

To Mithra's setting, Mithra's orient ray,

Tribes of the East their pious homage pay--
Pious, yet prudent-Lo! our Eastern Lord
Can but one half of Mithra's rites afford→

A bag filled with water; a liquor not at all to my taste. + The Arabian Poet has chosen the thought from the original Irish Feast

What stabs and what cuts,

What chatt'ring of sticks,

What strokes on the guts,
What basting and kicks!

What cudgels of oak

Well harden'd in flame,
A hundred heads broke,
A hundred struck lame!

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