And, long as he staid, do him justice, more rich in
Sweet savours of doctrine, there never was kitchen.
He preached in the parlour, he preached in the hall,
He preached to the chamber-maids, scullions, and all;
All heard with delight his reprovings of sin,
But above all, the cook-maid-oh! ne'er would she tire,
Though in learning to save sinful souls from the fire,
She would oft let the soles she was frying fall in.
God forgive me for punning on points thus of piety!
A sad trick I've learned in Bob's heathen society.
But, ah! there remains the worst of my tale;
Come, asterisks, and help me the sad truth to veil-
Conscious stars, that even at your own secrets grow
pale!
In short, dear, this preaching and psalm-singing pair
Chosen" vessels of mercy," as I thought they were,
Have together this last week eloped, making bold
To whip off as much goods as both vessels could hold.
Not forgetting some score of sweet tracts from my
shelves,
And two family Bibles as large as themselves.
AN EXETER HALL ORATOR.
He comes from Erin's speechful shore,
Like fervid kettle bubbling o'er
With hot effusion-hot and weak;
Sound, Humbug, all your hollowest drums,
He comes, of Erin's martyrdoms
To Britain's well-fed church to speak.
Puff him, ye journals of the Lord,
Twin prosers, Watchman and Record!
Journals reserved for realms of bliss,
But much too good to sell in this.
Prepare, ye wealthier saints, your dinners,
Ye spinsters, spread your tea and crumpets,
And you, ye countless Tracts for Sinners,
Blow all your little penny trumpets.
He comes, the reverend man, to tell
To all who still the church's part take,
Tales of parsonic woe, that well
Might make even grim Dissenter's heart ache:
Often whole bishops snatched away
For ever from the light of day;
(With, God knows, too, how many more
For whom that doom is yet in store;)
Of rectors cruelly compelled
From Bath and Cheltenham to haste home,
Because the tithes, by Pat withheld,
Will not to Bath or Cheltenham come,
Nor will the flocks consent to pay
Their parsons thus to stay away;
Though, with such parsons, one may doubt,
If 'tisn't money well laid out.
Of all, in short, of each degree
Of that once happy hierarchy,
Which used to roll in wealth so pleasantly,
But now, alas, is doomed to see
Its surplus brought to nonplus presently
MISS FUDGE ON THE "ESTABLISHMENT." How I grieve you're not with us!-Pray, come if you
Ere we're robbed of this dear oratorical man,
Who combines in himself all the multiple glory
Of Orangeman, Saint, quondam Papist, and Tory!
(Choice mixture! like that from which, duly confounded,
The best sort of brass was, in old times, compounded,)
The sly and the saintly, the worldly and godly,
All fused down in a brogue so deliciously oddly!
In short, he's a dear-and such audiences draws,
Such loud peals of laughter and shouts of applause,
As can't but do good to the Protestant cause.
Poor dear Irish Church !-he to-day sketch'd a view
Of her history and prospects, to me at least new,
And which (if it takes as it ought) must arouse
The whole Christian world her just rights to espouse.
As to reasoning—you know, dear, that's now of no use,
People will still their facts and dry figures produce,
As if saving the souls of a Protestant flock were
A thing to be managed "according to Cocker!"
In vain do we say (when rude Radicals hector
At paying some thousands a year to a rector,
In places where Protestants never yet were).
"Who knows but young Protestants may be born there?"
And granting such accident, think, what a shame,
If they didn't find rector and clerk when they came!
It is clear that without such a staff on full pay,
These little church embryos must go astray,
And, while fools are computing what parsons would cost,
Precious souls are meanwhile to the Establishment lost.
In vain do we put the case sensibly thus;
They'll still with their figures and facts make a fuss.
And ask, if, while all, choosing each his own road,
Journey on, as we can, towards the heavenly abode,
Is it right that seven-eighths of the travellers should pay
For one-eighth that goes quite a different way?
Just as if, foolish people, this wasn't in reality
A proof of the Church's extreme liberality,
That, though hating Popery in other respects,
She to Catholic money in no way objects;
And so liberal her very best saints, in this sense,
That they even go to heaven at the Catholic's expense.
IRELAND BEFORE EMANCIPATION.
[Lines supposed to be written by an Irish Catholic residing in France, in reply to an invitation to return to Ireland before the Emancipation Act was passed.]
"Return!"-no, never, while the withering hand
Of bigot power is on that hapless land;
While, for the faith my fathers held to God,
Ev'n in the fields where free those fathers trod,
I am proscribed, and-like the spot left bare
In Israel's halls, to tell the proud and fair
Amidst their mirth, that Slavery had been there—
On all I love, home, parents, friends, I trace
The mournful mark of bondage and disgrace!
No!-let them stay, who in their country's pangs
See nought but food for factions and harangues;
Who yearly kneel before their master's doors,
And hawk their wrongs, as beggars do their sores.
Still hope and suffer, all who can !—but I,
Who durst not hope, and cannot bear, must fly.
But whither?-everywhere the scourge pursues—
Turn where he will, the wretched wanderer views,
In the bright, broken hopes of all his race,
Countless reflections of the oppressor's face
Everywhere gallant hearts, and spirits true,
Are served up victims to the vile and few;
While England, everywhere-the general foe
Of Truth and Freedom, wheresoe'er they glow-
Is first, when tyrants strike, to aid the blow
O England! could such poor revenge atone
For wrongs, that well might claim the deadliest one;
Were it a vengeance sweet enough to sate
The wretch who flies from thy intolerant hate,
To hear his curses on such barbarous sway
Echoed, where'er he bends his cheerless way;—
Could this content him, every lip he meets
Teems for his vengeance with such poisonous sweets;
Were this his luxury, never is thy name
Pronounced, but he doth banquet on thy shame
Hears maledictions ring from every side
Upon that grasping power, that selfish pride,
Which vaunts its own, and scorns all rights beside;
That low and desperate envy, which to blast
A neighbour's blessings, risks the few thou hast ;-
That monster, Self, too gross to be concealed,
Which ever lurks behind thy proffered shield;—
That faithless craft, which, in thy hour of need,
Can court the slave, can swear he shall be freed,
Yet basely spurns him, when thy point is gained
Back to his masters, ready gagged and chained!
Worthy associate of that band of kings,
That royal, rav'ning flock, whose vampire wings
O'er sleeping Europe treacherously brood,
And fan her into dreams of promised good,
Of hope, of freedom-but to drain her blood!
If thus to hear thee branded be a bliss
That Vengeance loves, there's yet more sweet than this,
That 'twas an Irish head, an Irish heart,
Made thee the fall'n and tarnished thing thou art;
That, as the Centaur gave th' infected vest
In which he died, to rack the conqueror's breast
We sent thee C-
-GH-as heaps of dead
Have slain their slayers by the pest they spread,
So hath our land breathed out-thy fame to dim,
Thy strength to waste, and rot thee, soul and limb-
Her worst infections all condensed in him!
When will the world shake off such yokes? oh! when
Will that redeeming day shine out on men,
That shall behold them rise, erect and free
As Heaven and Nature meant mankind should be!
When reason shall no longer blindly bow
To the vile pagod things, that o'er her brow,
Like him of Jughernaut, drive trampling now
Nor Conquest dare to desolate God's earth;
Nor drunken Victory, with a Nero's mirth,
Strike her lewd harp amidst a people's groans;
But, built on love, the world's exalted thrones
Shall to the virtuous and the wise be given-
Those bright, those sole Legitimates of heaven?
When will this be?-or, oh! is it, in truth,
But one of those sweet, daybreak dreams of youth,
In which the Soul, as round her morning springs,
"Twixt sleep and waking, sees such dazzling things?
And must the hope, as vain as it is bright,
Be all giv'n up? and are they only right,
Who say this world of thinking souls was made
To be by kings partition'd, truck'd, and weigh'd
In scales that, ever since the world begun,
Have counted millions but as dust to one?
Are they the only wise, who laugh to scorn
The rights, the freedom to which man was born;
Who, proud to kiss each separate rod of power,
Bless, while he reigns, the minion of the hour;
Worship each would-be God, that o'er them moves,
And take the thundering of his brass for Jove's?
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