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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

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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 mine-
The 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.

But whether the Ministers pawed them too much-
(And you know how they spoil whatsoever they touch)
Or whether Lord George (the young man about town)
Has, by dint of bad poetry, written them down—
One has certainly lost one's peninsular rage,
And the only stray patriot seen for an age

Has been at such places (think, how the fit cools)

As old Mrs. Vaughan's or Lord Liverpool's!

But, in short, my dear, names like Wintztschitstopschinzoudhoff

Are the only things now make an evening go smooth off —

So, get me a Russian-till death I'm your debtor

If he brings the whole alphabet, so much the better.
And-Lord! if he would but, in character, sup
Off his fish-oil and candles, he'd quite set me up!
Au revoir, my sweet girl-I must leave you in haste-
Little Gunter has brought me the liqueurs to taste.

POSTSCRIPT.

By the bye, have you found any friend that can construe
That Latin account, t'other day, of a Monster?*
If we can't get a Russian, and that thing in Latin
Be not too improper, I think I'll bring that in.

LETTER VI.

FROM ABDALLAH,† IN LONDON, TO MOHASSAN, IN ISPAHAN.

WHILST thou, Mohassan, (happy thou !)
Dost daily bend thy loyal brow
Before our King-our Asia's treasure!
Nutmeg of Comfort! Rose of Pleasure !-
And bear'st as many kicks and bruises
As the said Rose and Nutmeg chooses ;-
Thy head still near the bowstring's borders,
And but left on till further orders!-
Through London streets, with turban fair,
And caftan floating to the air,

I saunter on-the admiration

Of this short-coated population—

This sewed-up race-this buttoned nation-
Who, while they boast their laws so free,
Leave not one limb at liberty,

But live, with all their lordly speeches,

The slaves of buttons and tight breeches!

* Alluding, I suppose, to the Latin advertisement of a Lusus Nature in the newspapers lately.

I have made many inquiries about this Persian gentleman, but cannot satisfactorily ascertain who he is. From his notions of religious liberty, however, I conclude that he is an importation of Ministers; and he is arrived just in time to assist the P-e and Mr. L-ck-e in their new Oriental plan of reform.-See the second of these Letters. How Abdallah's epistle to Ispahan found its way into the Twopenny Post-Bag is more than I can pretend to account for.

Yet, though they thus their knee-pans fetter
(They're Christians, and they know no better),*
In some things they're a thinking nation-
And, on Religious Toleration,

I own I like their notions quite,
They are so Persian and so right!
You know our Sunnites,+ hateful dogs!
Whom every pious Shiite flogs

Or longs to flog-'tis true, they pray
To God, but in an ill-bred way;
With neither arms, nor legs, nor faces
Stuck in their right, canonic places! §
'Tis true they worship Ali's name ||—
Their heaven and ours are just the same-
(A Persian's heaven is easily made,
'Tis but-black eyes and lemonade).
Yet-though we've tried for centuries back-
We can't persuade the stubborn pack,
By bastinadoes, screws, or nippers,

To wear the established pea-green slippers! ¶
Then-only think-the libertines!

They wash their toes-they comb their chins-
With many more such deadly sins!

And (what's the worst, though last I rank it)
Believe the Chapter of the Blanket!

Yet, spite of tenets so flagitious,
(Which must, at bottom, be seditious;
As no man living would refuse

Green slippers, but from treasonous views;
Nor wash his toes, but with intent

To overturn the Government!)
Such is our mild and tolerant way,
We only curse them twice a-day
(According to a form that's set),

And, far from torturing, only let

* "C'est un honnête homme." said a Turkish governor, of De Ruyter, "c'est grand dommage qu'il soit Chrétien.

+ Sunnites and Shiites are the two leading sects into which the Mahometan world is divided; and they have gone on cursing and persecuting each other, The Sunni is the without any intermission, for about eleven hundred years. established sect in Turkey, and the Shia in Persia; and the differences between them turn chiefly upon those important points which our pious friend Abdallah in the true spirit of Shiite ascendancy, reprobates in this letter.

"Les Sunnites, qui étoient comme les Catholiques de Musulmanisme.”— D'Herbelot.

"In contradistinction to the Sounis, who in their prayers cross their hands on the lower part of the breast, the Schiahs drop their arms in straight lines; and as the Sounis, at certain periods of the prayer, press their foreheads on the ground or carpet, the Schiahs," &c., &c.-Forster's Voyage.

"Les Turcs ne détestent pas Ali réciproquement; au contraire, ils le reconnoissent," &c., &c.-Chardin

"The Shiites wear green slippers, which the Sunnites consider as a great abomination."-Mariti.

All orthodox believers beat 'em,

And twitch their beards, where'er they meet 'em.

As to the rest, they're free to do
Whate'er their fancy prompts them to,
Provided they make nothing of it
Towards rank or honour, power or profit;
Which things, we naturally expect,
Belong to US, the Established sect,
Who disbelieve (the Lord be thanked!)
Th' aforesaid Chapter of the Blanket.

The same mild views of Toleration
Inspire, I find, this buttoned nation,
Whose Papists (full as given to rogue,
And only Sunnites with a brogue)
Fare just as well, with all their fuss,
As rascal Sunnites do with us.

The tender Gazel I enclose
Is for my love, my Syrian Rose-
Take it when night begins to fall,
And throw it o'er her mother's wall.

GAZEL.

Rememberest thou the hour we passed,
That hour, the happiest and the last!—
Oh! not so sweet the Siha thorn
To summer bees, at break of morn,
Not half so sweet, through dale and dell,

To camels' ears the tinkling bell,

As is the soothing memory

Of that one precious hour to me!

How can we live, so far apart?
Oh! why not rather, heart to heart,
United live and die-

Like those sweet birds that fly together,
With feather always touching feather,
Linked by a hook and eye!*

LETTER VII.

FROM MESSRS. L-CK-GT-N AND CO. TO

ESQ.t

PER post, sir, we send your MS.-looked it through-
Very sorry-but can't undertake-'twouldn't do.

This will appear strange to an English reader, but it is literally translated from Abdallah's Persian, and the curious bird to which he alludes is the Juftak, of which I find the following account in Richardson :-"A sort of bird, that is said to have but one wing; on the opposite side to which the male has a hook and the female a ring, so that, when they fly, they are fastened together."

From motives of delicacy, and indeed, of fellow-feeling, I suppress the name of the author, whose reiected manuscript was inclosed in this letter

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