'Tis true my Lord's Elect tell fibs,
And deal in perjury-ditto Tib's.
'Tis true, the Tyrant screened and hid
His rogues from justice *-ditto Sid.
'Tis true the Peer is grave and glib
At moral speeches-ditto Tib.+
'Tis true, the feats the Tyrant did
Were in his dotage-ditto Sid.

So far, I own, the parallel
'Twixt Tib and Sid goes vastly well;
But there are points in Tib that strike
My humble mind as much more like
Yourself, my dearest Lord, or him

Of the India Board-that soul of whim!
Like him, Tiberius loved his joke,+

On matters, too, where few can bear one;
E.g. a man, cut up, or broke

Upon the wheel—a devilish fair one!
Your common fractures, wounds, and fits,
Are nothing to such wholesale wits;

But, let the sufferer gasp for life,

The joke is then worth any money;

And, if he writhe beneath a knife,

Oh dear, that's something quite too funny.
In this respect, my Lord, you see
The Roman wag and ours agree:
Now as to your resemblance-mum-
This parallel we need not follow; §
Though 'tis, in Ireland, said by some
Your Lordship beats Tiberius hollow;

Whips, chains-but these are things too serious
For me to mention or discuss;
Whene'er your Lordship acts Tiberius,
Phil. Fudge's part is Tacitus!

Was thinking, had Lord S-dm-th got
Up any decent kind of Plot

Against the winter-time-if not,
Alas, alas, our ruin's fated;

All done up, and spiflicated!

* "Neque tamen id Sereno noxæ fuit, quem odium publicum tutiorem faciebat. Nam ut quis districtior accusator velut sacrosanctus erat.' Annal. Lib. 4, 36.-Or, as it is translated by Mr. Fudge's friend, Murphy :-"This daring accuser had the curses of the people and the protection of the Emperor. Informers, in proportion as they rose in guilt, became sacred characters.

Murphy even confers upon one of his speeches the epithet "constitutional." Mr. Fudge might have added to his parallel, that Tiberius was a good private character:-"egregium vitâ famâque quoad privatus."

"Ludibria seriis permiscere solitus."

§ There is one point of resemblance between Tiberius and Lord C. which Mr. Fudge might have mentioned-"suspensa semper et obscura verba."

Ministers and all their vassals,

Down from C-tl-gh to Castles,-
Unless we can kick up a riot,

Ne'er can hope for peace or quiet!

What's to be done?-Spa-Fields was clever;
But even that brought gibes and mockings
Upon our heads-so, mem.-must never
Keep ammunition in old stockings;
For fear some wag should in his curst head
Take it to say our force was worsted.
Mem. too-when Sid. an army raises,
It must not be "incog." like Bayes's:
Nor must the General be a hobbling
Professor of the art of Cobbling;
Lest men, who perpetrate such puns,
Should say, with Jacobinic grin,
He felt, from soleing Wellingtons,*
A Wellington's great soul within!
Nor must an old Apothecary

Go take the Tower, for lack of pence,
With (what these wags would call, so merry)
Physical force and phial-ence!
No-no-our Plot, my Lord, must be
Next time contrived more skilfully.
John Bull, I grieve to say, is growing
So troublesomely sharp and knowing,
So wise-in short, so Jacobin-
'Tis monstrous hard to take him in.

Heard of the fate of our Ambassador

In China, and was sorely nettled;

Sept. 6.

But think, my Lord, we should not pass it o'er Till all this matter's fairly settled;

And here's the mode occurs to me:

As none of our Nobility

(Though for their own most gracious King

They would kiss hands, or any thing)
Can be persuaded to go through
This farce-like trick of the Ko-tou;
And as these Mandarins won't bend,
Without some mumming exhibition,
Suppose, my Lord, you were to send

Grimaldi to them on a mission :
As Legate Joe could play his part,
And if, in diplomatic art,

The "volto sciolto "+'s meritorious,
Let Joe but grin, he has it, glorious!

A title for him's easily made;

And, by the by, one Christmas time,

* Short boots, so called.

†The open countenance, recommended by Lord Chesterfield.

If I remember right, he played

Lord Morley in some pantomime;
As Earl of M-rl-y then gazette him,

If t'other Earl of M-rl-y 'll let him.
(And why should not the world be blest
With two such stars, for East and West?)
Then, when before the Yellow Screen

He's brought-and, sure, the very essence
Of etiquette would be that scene

Of Joe in the Celestial Presence !-
He thus should say:-"Duke Ho and Soo,
I'll play what tricks you please for you,
If you'll, in turn, but do for me

A few small tricks you now shall see.

If I consult your Emperor's liking,

At least you'll do the same for my King.'

He then should give them nine such grins,
As would astound even Mandarins;

And throw such somersets before

The picture of King George (God bless him!)
As, should Duke Ho but try them o'er,
Would, by Confucius, much distress him!

I start this merely as a hint,

But think you'll find some wisdom in't;
And, should you follow up the job,
My son, my Lord, (you know poor Bob)
Would in the suite be glad to go
And help his Excellency, Joe;-
At least, like noble Amh-rst's son,
The lad will do to practise on.t

LETTER X.

FROM MISS BIDDY FUDGE TO MISS DOROTHY

WELL, it isn't the King, after all, my dear creature!

But don't you go laugh, now-there's nothing to quiz in't—

For grandeur of air and for grimness of feature,

He might be a King, Doll, though, hang him, he isn't.

At first, I felt hurt, for I wished it, I own,

If for no other cause but to vex Miss Malone,

(The great heiress, you know, of Shandangan, who's here,
Showing off with such airs, and a real Cashmere,+

* Mr. Fudge is a little mistaken here. It was not Grimaldi, but some very inferior performer, who played this part of "Lord Morley" in the pantomime, -so much to the horror of the distinguished Earl of that name. The expostulatory letters of the Noble Earl to Mr. H-rr-s, upon this vulgar profanation of his spick-and-span-new title, will, I trust, some time or other, be given to the world.

† See Mr. Ellis's account of the Embassy.

See Lady Morgan's "France" for the anecdote, told her by Madame de Genlis, of the young gentleman whose love was cured by finding that his mistress wore a shawl "peau de lapin,"

While mine's but a paltry, old rabbit-skin, dear!)
But says Pa, after deeply considering the thing,
"I am just as well pleased it should not be the King;
As I think for my Biddy, so gentille and jolie,

Whose charms may their price in an honest way fetch, That a Brandenburgh "-(what is a Brandenburgh, Dolly ?)"Would be, after all, no such very great catch.

If the R-g-t indeed-" added he, looking sly-
(You remember that comical squint of his eye)

But I stopped him with "La, Pa, how can you say so,
When the R-g-t loves none but old women, you know!"
Which is fact, my dear Dolly-we, girls of eighteen,
And so slim-Lord, he'd think us not fit to be seen;
And would like us much better as old-ay, as old
As that Countess of Desmond, of whom I've been told
That she lived to much more than a hundred and ten,
And was killed by a fall from a cherry-tree then!-
What a frisky old girl! but-to come to my lover,
Who, though not a King, is a hero I'll swear,-
You shall hear all that's happened, just briefly run over,
Since that happy night, when we whisked through the air!
Let me see 'twas on Saturday-yes, Dolly, yes—
From that evening I date the first dawn of my bliss;
When we both rattled off in that dear little carriage,
Whose journey, Bob says, is so like Love and Marriage,
Beginning gay, desperate, dashing, down-hilly,

And ending as dull as a six-inside Dilly!"*

Well, scarcely a wink did I sleep the night through,
And, next day, having scribbled my letter to you,
With a heart full of hope this sweet fellow to meet
I set out with Papa, to see Louis Dix-huit
Make his bow to some half-dozen women and boys,
Who get up a small concert of shrill Vive le Rois-
And how vastly genteeler, my dear, even this is,
Than vulgar Pall-Mall's oratorio of hisses!

The gardens seemed full-so, of course, we walked o'er 'em,
'Mong orange-trees, clipped into town-bred decorum,
And daphnes, and vases, and many a statue
There staring, with not even a stitch on them, at you!
The ponds, too, we viewed-stood awhile on the brink
To contemplate the play of those pretty gold fishes—
"Live bullion," says merciless Bob, "which, I think,
Would, if coined, with a little mint sauce, be delicious!"

But what, Dolly, what is the gay orange-grove,
Or gold fishes to her that's in search of her love?
In vain did I wildly explore every chair

Where a thing like a man was-no lover sate there!
In vain my fond eyes did I eagerly cast

At the whiskers, mustachios, and wigs that went past,

* The cars, on the return, are dragged up slowly by a chain.

To obtain, if I could, but a glance at that curl,
But a glimpse of those whiskers, as sacred, my girl,
As the lock that, Pa says,* is to Mussulmen given,
For the angel to hold by that "lugs them to heaven!"-
Alas, there went by me full many a quiz,

And mustachios in plenty, but nothing like his !
Disappointed, I found myself sighing out "well-a-day,"-
Thought of the words of T-m M-re's Irish Melody,
Something about the " green spot of delight,"+

(Which, you know, Captain Macintosh sung to us one day) · Ah Dolly, my "spot" was that Saturday night,

And its verdure, how fleeting, had withered by Sunday!
We dined at a tavern-La, what do I say?

If Bob was to know !-a Restaurateur's, dear;
Where your properest ladies go dine every day,

And drink Burgundy out of large tumblers, like beer.
Fine Bob (for he's really grown super-fine)

Condescended, for once, to make one of the party;
Of course, though but three, we had dinner for nine,
And, in spite of my grief, love, I own I eat hearty.
Indeed, Doll, I know not how 'tis, but, in grief,
I have always found eating a wond'rous relief;
And Bob, who's in love, said he felt the same, quite-

"My sighs," said he, "ceased with the first glass I drank

you;

The lamb made me tranquil, the puffs made me light,

And-now that all's o'er-why, I'm-pretty well, thank you!"

To my great annoyance, we sat rather late;
For Bobby and Pa had a furious debate

About singing and cookery-Bobby, of course,

Standing up for the latter Fine Art in full force;

And Pa saying, "God only knows which is worst,

The French singers or cooks, but I wish us well over it—

What with old Laïs and Véry, I'm curst

If my head or my stomach will ever recover it!"

'Twas dark, when we got to the Boulevards to stroll,
And in vain did I look 'mong the street Macaronis,
When, sudden, it struck me-last hope of my soul-

For this scrap of knowledge "Pa" was, I suspect, indebted to a note upon Volney's Ruins; a book which usually forms part of a Jacobin's library, and with which Mr. Fudge must have been well acquainted at the time when he wrote his "Down with Kings," &c. The note in Volney is as follows:-" It is by this tuft of hair, (on the crown of the head) worn by the majority of Mussulmans, that the Angel of the Tomb is to take the elect and carry them to Paradise.'

The young lady, whose memory is not very correct, must allude, I think, to the following lines:

Oh that fairy form is ne'er forgot,

Which First Love traced;

Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot

On Memory's waste!