EPIGRAM.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A CATHOLIC DELEGATE AND HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND.

SAID his Highness to Ned, with that grim face of his,
"Why refuse us the Veto, dear Catholic Neddy?"
"Because, Sir," said Ned, looking full in his phiz,
"You're forbidding enough, in all conscience, already!"

WREATHS FOR THE MINISTERS.

AN ANACREONTIC.

HITHER, Flora, Queen of Flowers!

Haste thee from Old Brompton's bowers-
Or (if sweeter that abode)

From the King's well-odoured Road,
Where each little nursery bud

Breathes the dust and quaffs the mud!
Hither come, and gaily twine
Brightest herbs and flowers of thine
Into wreaths for those who rule us,
Those who rule and (some say) fool us-
Flora, sure, will love to please
England's Household Deities!*

First you must then, willy-nilly,
Fetch me many an Orange lily-
Orange of the darkest dye
Irish Gifford can supply!
Choose me out the longest sprig,
And stick it in old Eldon's wig!

Find me next a Poppy posy,
Type of his harangues so dozy,
Garland gaudy, dull and cool,
For the head of Liverpool!
'Twill console his brilliant brows
For that loss of laurel boughs
Which they suffered (what a pity)
On the road to Paris city.

Next, our Castlereagh to crown,

Bring me, from the county Down,

Withered Shamrocks, which have been

Gilded o'er, to hide the green

(Such as H-df-t brought away

From Pall-Mall last Patrick's Day +)

* The ancients, in like manner, crowned their Lares, or Household Gods. See Juvenal, Sat. ix. v. 138. Plutarch, too, tells us that household gods were then, as they are now, "much given to war and penal statutes." » Ριννυωδεις και ποινιμους δαίμονας.

↑ Certain tinsel imitations of the Shamrock which are distributed by the servants of Carlton House every St. Patrick's Day.

Stitch the garland through and through
With shabby threads of every hue-
And as, Goddess !-entre nous-
His Lordship loves (though best of men)
A little torture, now and then,

Crimp the leaves, thou first of Sirens !
Crimp them with thy curling-irons.

That's enough-away, away-
Had I leisure, I could say
How the oldest rose that grows

Must be plucked to deck Old Rose--
How the Doctor's brow should smile
Crowned with wreaths of Camomile;
But time presses-to thy taste

I leave the rest, so, prithee, haste!

EPIGRAM.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN A DOWAGER AND HER MAID ON THE NIGHT OF
LORD YARMOUTH'S FETE.

"I WANT the Court-Guide," said my Lady, "to look
If the House, Seymour Place, be at 30 or 20"

"We've lost the Court-Guide, Ma'am, but here's the Red-Book,
Where you'll find, I dare say, Seymour Places in plenty!"

HORACE, ODE XI. LIB. II.

FREELY TRANSLATED BY G. R.

+COME, Yarmouth, my boy, never trouble your brains,
About what your old croney,

The Emperor Boney,

Is doing or brewing on Muscovy's plains;

Nor tremble, my lad, at the state of our granaries;

Should there come famine,

Still plenty to cram in

You always shall have, my dear Lord of the Stannaries!

Brisk let us revel, while revel we may;

§ For the gay bloom of fifty soon passes away;

This and the following are extracted from a work which may, some time or other, meet the eye of the public, entitled "Odes of Horace, done into English by several Persons of Fashion.'

+ Quid bellicosus Cantaber et Scythes

§

Hirpine Quincti, cogitet, Hadria

Divisus objecto, remittas

Quærere.

nec trepides in usum

Poscentis ævi pauca.

Fugit retro

Levis Juventas et Decor.

And then people get fat,

And infirm, and all that,

* And a wig (I confess it) so clumsily sits

That it frightens the little Loves out of their wits;

Thy whiskers, too, Yarmouth !-alas, even they,
Though so rosy they burn,

Too quickly must turn

(What a heart-breaking change for thy whiskers !) to Grey.

Then why, my Lord Warden! oh! why should you fidget
Your mind about matters you don't understand?
Or why should you write yourself down for an idiot,
Because "you," forsooth, "have the per in your hand!"

Think, think how much better
Than scribbling a letter
(Which both you and I

Should avoid, by the bye),

§ How much pleasanter 'tis to sit under the bust

Of old Charley, my friend here, and drink like a new one; While Charley looks sulky, and frowns at me, just

As the Ghost in the Pantomime frowns at Don Juan !

To crown us, Lord Warden!

In Cumberland's garden

Grows plenty of monk's-hood in venomous sprigs;
While Otto of Roses

Refreshing all noses

Shall sweetly exhale from our whiskers and wigs.

What youth of the household will cool our noyau

In that streamlet delicious

That down midst the dishes,

All full of good fishes,

Romantic doth flow?

** Or who will repair
Unto M-

Square,

And see if the gentle Marchesa be there?

* Pellente lascivos Amores

Go-bid her haste hither,

And let her bring with her

The newest No-Popery Sermon that's going-
Oh! let her come, with her dark tresses flowing,
All gentle and juvenile, curly and gay,

In the manner of Ackermann's Dresses for May!

HORACE, ODE XXII. LIB. I.

FREELY TRANSLATED BY LORD ELDON.

THE man who keeps a conscience pure
(If not his own, at least his Prince's),
Through toil and danger walks secure,
Looks big and black, and never winces!
§ No want has he of sword or dagger,
Cocked hat or ringlets of Geramb;
Though Peers may laugh, and Papists swagger,
He does not care one single damn!

Whether 'midst Irish chairmen going,
Or through St. Giles's alleys dim,
'Mid drunken Sheelahs, blasting, blowing,
No matter, 'tis all one to him.

¶ For instance, I, one evening late,

Upon a gay vacation sally,

Incomtam Lacænæ

More comam religata nodo.

Integer vitæ scelerisque purus.

§ Non eget Mauri jaculis neque arcu,
Nec venenatis gravidâ sagittis
Fusce, pharetrâ.

Sive per Syrtes iter æstuosas,

Sive facturus per inhospitalem

Caucasum, vel quæ loca fabulosus

Lambit Hydaspes.

The noble translator had, at first, laid the scene of these imagined dangers of his Man of Conscience among the Papists of Spain, and had translated the words " quæ loca fabulosus lambit Hydaspes" thus-" The fabling Spaniard licks the French;" but, recollecting that it is our interest just now to be respectful to Spanish Catholics (though there is certainly no earthly reason for our being even commonly civil to Irish ones), he altered the passage as it stands at present.

Namque me silvâ lupus in Sabinâ

Dum meam canto Lalagen, et ultra
Terminum curis vagor expeditis

Fugit inermem.

I cannot help calling the reader's attention to the peculiar ingenuity with which these lines are paraphrased. Not to mention the happy conversion of the Wolf into a Papist (seeing that Romulus was suckled by a wolf, that Rome was founded by Romulus, and that the Pope has always reigned at Rome), there is something particularly neat in supposing "ultra terminum" to mean vacation-time; and then the modest consciousness with which the noble and learned translator has avoided touching upon the words "curis expeditis' (or, as it has been otherwise read, “causis expeditis"), and the felicitous idea of his being "inermis" when "without his wig," are altogether the most delectable specimens of paraphrase in our language.

TRIFLES.

Singing the praise of Church and State,
Got (God knows how) to Cranbourne Alley.

When lo! an Irish Papist darted

Across my path, gaunt, grim, and big-
I did but frown, and off he started,
Scared at me e'en without my wig!

* Yet a more fierce and raw-boned dog
Goes not to mass in Dublin city,
Nor shakes his brogue o'er Allen's Bog,
Nor spouts in Catholic Committee!

Oh! place me 'midst O'Rourkes, O'Tooles,
The ragged royal-blood of Tara ;
Or place me where Dick M-rt-n rules
The houseless wilds of Connemara ;

Of Church and State I'll warble still,

413

Though e'en Dick M-rt-n's self should grumble;
Sweet Church and State, like Jack and Jill,

§ So lovingly upon a hill—

Ah! ne er like Jack and Jill to tumble !

EPIGRAM.

FROM THE FRENCH.

"I NEVER give a kiss," says Prue,

"To naughty man, for I abhor it.".

She will not give a kiss, 'tis true;

She'll take one though, and thank you for it!

ON A SQUINTING POETESS.

To no one Muse does she her glance confine,
But has an eye, at once, to all the Nine!

* Quale portentum neque militaris
Daunias in latis alit æsculetis,

Nec Juba tellus generat

Arida nutrix.

leonum

† Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis

Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ;

Quod latus mundi, nebulæ, malusque
Jupiter urget.

I must here remark, that the said Dick' M-rt-n being a very good fellow, it was not at all fair to make a "malus Jupiter" of him.

Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,

Dulce loquentem.

§There cannot be imagined a more happy illustration of the inseparability of Church and State, and their (what is called) "standing and falling together," than this ancient apologue of Jack and Jill. Jack, of course, represents the State in this ingenious little allegory.

Jack fell down

And broke his Crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.