Else, though the Prince be long in rigging,
'Twould take, at least, a fortnight's wigging,-
Two wigs to every paragraph-

Before he well could get through half.

You'll send it also speedily

As, truth to say, 'twixt you and me,
His Highness, heated by your work,
Already thinks himself Grand Turk!
And you'd have laughed, had you seen how
He scared the Chancellor just now,
When (on his Lordship's entering puffed) he
Slapped his back and called him "Mufti!"

The tailors, too, have got commands
To put directly into hands

All sorts of dulimans and pouches,

With sashes, turbans, and paboutches

(While Yarmouth's sketching out a plan
Of new Moustaches à l'Ottomane),
And all things fitting and expedient
To turkify our gracious Regent

You, therefore, have no time to waste-
So, send your System.-

Yours, in haste.

POSTSCRIPT.

Before I send this scrawl away,

I seize a moment, just to say

There's some parts of the Turkish system
So vulgar 'twere as well you missed 'em.
For instance-in Seraglio matters-

Your Turk, whom girlish fondness flatters,
Would fill his haram (tasteless fool!)

With tittering, red-cheeked things from school:

But here (as in that fairy land

Where Love and Age went hand in hand;*

Where lips, till sixty, shed no honey,

And grandams were worth any money)
Our Sultan has much riper notions;
So, let your list of she-promotions
Include those only, plump and sage,
Who've reached the regulation-age;
That is as near as one can fix
From Peerage dates-full fifty-six.

The learned Colonel must allude here to a description of the Mysterious Isle, in the History of Abdalla, son of Hanif, where such inversions of the order of nature are said to have taken place:-"A score of old women and the same number of old men played here and there in the court, some at chuck-farthing, others at tip-cat, or at cockles.", And again:-"There is nothing, believe me, more engaging than those lovely wrinkles," &c., &c.-See Tales of the East, vol. iii. pp. 607, 608.

This rule's for favourites-nothing more-
For, as to wives, a Grand Signor,
Though not decidedly without them,
Need never care one curse about them!

LETTER III.

FROM GEORGE PRINCE REGENT TO THE EARL OF YARMOUTH.*
WE missed you last night at the "hoary old sinner's,"
Who gave us, as usual, the cream of good dinners-
His
soups scientific-his fishes quite prime-
His patés superb-and his cutlets sublime!

In short, 'twas the snug sort of dinner to stir a
Stomachic orgasm in my Lord Ellenborough,
Who set to, to be sure, with miraculous force,

And exclaimed, between mouthfuls, "a He-Cook of course!—
While you live-(What's there under that cover, pray, look)—
While you live-(I'll just taste it)-ne'er keep a She-Cook.
'Tis a sound Salic Law-(a small bit of that toast) —
Which ordains that a female shall ne'er rule the roast;
For Cookery's a secret-(this turtle's uncommon)—
Like Masonry, never found out by a woman!"

The dinner, you know, was in gay celebration

Of my brilliant triumph and Hunt's condemnation ;
A compliment, too, to his Lordship the Judge

For his speech to the Jury-and zounds! who would grudge
Turtle-soup, though it came to five guineas a bowl,
To reward such a loyal and complaisant soul?

We were all in high gig-Roman punch and Tokay

Travelled round, till our heads travelled just the same way;
And we cared not for juries or libels-no-damme! nor
E'en for the threats of last Sunday's Examiner !

More good things were eaten than said-but Tom Tyrrhit
In quoting Joe Miller, you know, has some merit,
And, hearing the sturdy Justiciary Chief
Say-sated with turtle-"I'll now try the beef"-
Tommy whispered him (giving his Lordship a sly hit)
"I fear 'twill be hung-beef, my Lord, if you try it!
And Camden was there, who, that morning, had gone
To fit his new Marquis's coronet on;

And the dish set before him-oh, dish well-devised!—
Was, what old Mother Glasse calls, "a calf's-head surprised!"
The brains were near Sherry; and once they'd been fine;
But, of late, they had lain so long soaking in wine

That, however, we still might, in courtesy, call

Them a fine dish of brains, they were no brains at all.

When the dinner was over, we drank, every one

In a bumper, "the venial delights of Crim. Con."

This letter, as the reader will perceive, was written the day after a dinner given by the Marquis of H-d-t

At which H-d-t with warm reminiscences gloated,
And Ellenborough chuckled to hear himself quoted.

Our next round of toasts was a fancy quite new,
For we drank-and you'll own 'twas benevolent too—
To those well-meaning husbands, cits, parsons, or peers,
Whom we've, any time, honoured by kissing their dears:
This museum of wittols was comical rather;

Old H―d—t gave M—ss—y, and I gave your father.

In short, not a soul till this morning would budge-
We were all fun and frolic !--and even the Judge
Laid aside, for the time, his juridical fashion,

And through the whole night was not once in a passion!

I write this in bed, while my whiskers are airing,
And Mac has a sly dose of jalap preparing

For poor Tommy Tyrrhit at breakfast to quaff-
As I feel I want something to give me a laugh,

And there's nothing so good as old Tommy, kept close
To his Cornwall accounts, after taking a dose !

LETTER IV.

FROM THE RIGHT HON. PATRICK D-GEN-N, TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR

LAST week, dear Nichol, making merry

At dinner with our Secretary,

When all were drunk, or pretty near,
(The time for doing business here),
Says he to me, "Sweet Bully Bottom!
These Papist dogs-hiccup-od rot 'em!
Deserve to be bespattered-hiccup-
With all the dirt e'en you can pick up-
But, as the Prince--(here's to him-fill-
Hip, hip, hurra !)—is trying still
To humbug them with kind professions,
And, as you deal in strong expressions-
Rogue'—' traitor'-hiccup-and all that—
You must be muzzled, Doctor Pat !—
You must indeed—hiccup—that's flat.”—

Yes-"muzzled " was the word, Sir John-
These fools have clapped a muzzle on
The boldest mouth that e'er ran o'er
With slaver of the times of yore !—
Was it for this that back I went

As far as Lateran and Trent,

* This letter, which contained, some very heavy inclosures seems to have been sent to London by a private hand, and then put into the Twopenny PostOffice, to save trouble.

To prove that they who damned us then
Ought now, in turn, be damned again?—
The silent victim still to sit

Of Grattan's fire aud Canning's wit,
To hear e'en noisy Mathew gabble on,
Nor mention once the Whore of Babylon?
Oh! 'tis too much-who now will be
The Nightman of No-Popery?
What courtier, saint, or even bishop,
Such learned filth will ever fish up?
If there among our ranks be one
To take my place, 'tis thou, Sir John-
Thou-who, like me, art dubbed Right Hon.;
Like me, too, art a Lawyer Civil

That wishes Papists at the devil!

To whom then but to thee, my friend,
Should Patrick his portfolio send?
Take it 'tis thine his learn'd portfolio,
With all its theologic olio

Of Bulls, half Irish and half Roman,

Of Doctrines, now believed by no man-
Of Councils, held for men's salvation,
Yet always ending in damnation-

(Which shows that, since the world's creation,
Your priests, whate'er their gentle shamming,
Have always had a taste for damning)
And many more such pious scraps,

To prove (what we've long proved perhaps)
That, mad as Christians used to be
About the Thirteenth Century,
There's lots of Christians to be had
In this, the Nineteenth, just as mad!

Farewell-I send with this, dear Nichol !
A rod or two I've had in pickle

Wherewith to trim old Grattan's jacket.-
The rest shall go by Monday's packet.

P. D.

Among the inclosures in the foregoing Letter was the following "Unanswerable Argument against the Papists."

We're told the ancient Roman nation
Made use of spittle in lustration.
(Vide Lactantium ap. Gallæum †—

i.e. you need not read but see 'em)

lustralibus antè salivis

Expiat.-Pers. Sat. 2.

I have taken the trouble of examining the Doctor's reference here, and find him, for once, correct. The following are the words of his indignant referee Gallaus:-"Asserere non veremur sacrum baptismum a Papistis profanari, et sputi usum in peccatorum expiatione a Paganis non a Christianis

manasse.

Now, Irish Papists (fact surprising !)
Make use of spittle in baptizing,

Which proves them all, O'Finns, O'Fagans,
Connors, and Tooles, all downright Pagans!
This fact's enough-let no one tell us
To free such sad, salivous fellows-
No-no-the man baptized with spittle
Hath no truth in him—not a tittle!

LETTER V.

'FROM THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF CORK TO LADY

My dear Lady

! I've been just sending out

About five hundred cards for a snug little rout—

(By the bye, you've seen Rokeby?-this moment got mineThe Mail-Coach edition *-prodigiously fine!)

But I can't conceive how, in this very cold weather,

I'm ever to bring my five hundred together;

As, unless the thermometer's near boiling heat,

One can never get half of one's hundreds to meet-
(Apropos-you'd have laughed to see Townsend, last night,
Escort to their chairs, with his staff so polite,
The "three maiden Miseries," all in a fright!
Poor Townsend, like Mercury, filling two posts,
Supervisor of thieves, and chief usher of ghosts!)

But, my dear Lady - ! can't you hit on some notion,
At least for one night to set London in motion?—
As to having the Regent, that show is gone by-
Besides, I've remarked that (between you and I)
The Marchesa and he, inconvenient in more ways,
Have taken much lately to whispering in doorways;
Which-considering, you know, dear, the size of the two-
Makes a block that one's company cannot get through,
And a house such as mine is, with doorways so small,
Has no room for such cumbersome love-work at all!-
(Apropos, though, of love-work-you've heard it, I hope,
That Napoleon's old Mother's to marry the Pope,—
What a comical pair !)-but, to stick to my rout,
"Twill be hard if some novelty can't be struck out.
Is there no Algerine, no Kamchatkan, arrived?
No Plenipo Pacha, three-tailed, and ten-wived?
No Russian, whose dissonant consonant name
Almost rattles to fragments the trumpet of Fame?

I remember the time, three or four winters back,
When-provided their wigs were but decently black-
A few patriot monsters from Spain were a sight
That would people one's house for one, night after night.

* See Mr. Murray's advertisement about the Mail-Coach copies of Rokeby.