NORTH. And then there's Moore's accursed fancy for showing off learning, and his botany, and zoology, and meteorology, and mythology. ODOHERTY. O ay, and the mixed metaphor, and the downright nonsense-the song you quoted just now could be finely amended. "Erin, the smile, and the tear in thine eyes, blend like the rainbow," &c. Now, that is a washy, watery comparison for my hard-drinking country-I lay £5 that a jug of punch would be a more accurate and truly philosophical emblem; as thus. There's the Protestant part of the population inferior in quantity, superior in strength, apt to get at the head, evidently the whisky of the compound. The Roman Catholics, greater in physical proportions, but infinitely weaker, and usually very hot, are shadowed forth by the water. The Orangemen, as their name implies, are the fruit, which some palates think too sour, and therefore reject, while others think that it alone gives grateful flavour to the whole. And what's the sugar? MULLION. ODOHERTY. Why, the conciliators dropped in among us to sweeten our acidity-and you know some think that they have supplied with too liberal a hand,—very much at the risk of turning the stomachs of the company. NORTH. A hopeful illustration-but in truth, Odoherty, your whole conversation is redolent of nothing but drink. ODOHERTY. I am like Tom Moore's First Angel-the gentleman without a name, and admire compotation, not exactly "the juice of Earth," however, as Tom calls it, that being, I take it, ditch-water. MULLION. You never saw the song Tom intended for this drunken angel of his after his fall? ODOHERTY. Not I-parade it-Is it not in the poem ? MULLION. No, Denman, who is Moore's doer of late, cut it out, just as he cut up the Fables. I have a copy, however, which I shall sing. Song of a Fallen Angel over a Bowl of Rum-punch. By T. M. Esq. Heap on more coal there, And keep the glass moving, The frost nips my nose, Though my heart glows with loving. Here's the dear creature, No skylights-a bumper ; He who leaves heeltaps I vote him a mumper. With hey cow rumble O, Merrily, merry men, Push round the jorum. What are Heaven's pleasures Singing from psalters, In long or short metre. Planked on a wet cloud With hey cow rumble, &c. Wide is the difference, With hey cow rumble, &c. NORTH. A very hopeful and well-behaved angel, by my word. Enough of Moore. Campbell MULLION. NORTH. Has written one song, which I hope will live as long as "the flag of Old England waves lordly in pride,"—that is, I hope, for ever. I mean the Mariners of England. TICKLER. A glorious song indeed! But Campbell has disgraced himself by a shabby song, in the New Monthly, about the Spaniards. It is not fit for a gentleman like Campbell to fall into the filthy slang of the blackguards of the press, and write low stuff about Prince Hilt, or to call the grand old stainless flag of France, (which he knows-the blackguards do not-is linked with so many splendid recollections) the "White emblem of white liver.' DR MULLION. Some of Sir Walter's songs will certainly live. NORTH. Perhaps those in his Poems and his Novels, if they are his; but I do not recollect anything particular of any other; and, in point of fact, you never do hear them sung by anybody. Bishop, by the way, has very poorly set County Guy, very poorly indeed. ODOHERTY. I like Bishop, a worthy pleasant fellow; but, somehow or other, I think his music generally but compilation, a bar from this body and a bar from that body-curiously indented and dovetailed, I admit, but still only joinery and cabinet-making. NORTH. Nobody has said a word about Byron. TICKLER. Dead as Harry the Eighth, and it is a pity. Heavens! who can think that the author of Childe Harold, and Manfred, and Don Juan, should have sunk to what he is now, a scribbler in a dirty magazine, and a patron of the Hunts! It, however, speaks volumes in favour of the morality of the country, after all, when we find, that even genius, such as his, must sink, if it dares oppose what we are still determined to call religion and loyalty. ODOHERTY, (handing the Island to North.) I have brought down Christian. Would you wish to look at it? Does it sell? BULLER. ODOHERTY. Not at all, though the third edition is advertised. I was told at Longman's, that they had not disposed of a hundred. It would have had a better chance with Murray; but he and his lordship have broken, after a furious quarrel. The correspondence between them is said to be curious. BULLER. Of course we shall have an awful libel on Joannes de Moravia in due time. ODOHERTY. I hope so, from the bottom of my soul; for then Murray will take vengeance in turn. I had rather than a tenpenny, and that cash, that we could print Byron's Critique on the Pot of Basil. Faugh, don't mention it. TICKLER. NORTH. Christian, I see, is a poor thing, with a good bit here and there in it, but not the least originality. He is the old hero-the Lara, the Conrad, the fellow of whom his lordship found the germ in Miss Lee's Kruitzner, transported to Botany Bay, or thereabouts, where, instead of mosques, and kiosks, and tambourgis, and phingaris, we are entertained with Toobonai, and Boolootoo, Mooa, Figi, Hooni, Licoo, Guatoo, Goostrumfoo, et omne quod endeth in oo. And the womankind are the old womankind, not a bit the worse for the wear. TICKLER. Yes, and you have the same amazing industry in transferring Bligh's Narrative, that he has shewn so often before. But the introduction-and indeed some other passages, remind us of the better days of Byron.-Listen, "The morning watch was come; the vessel lay Very toploftical, to be sure. ODOHERTY. Commend me to the panegyric on what our friend Fogarty (from whom his lordship appears to have taken the idea) calls Tobacco, lord of plants." 66 But here the herald of the self-same mouth Came breathing o'er the aromatic south, Not like a "bed of violets" on the gale, But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale, Borne from a short frail pipe, which yet had blown Its gentle odours over either zone, And puff'd where'er winds rise or waters roll, Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole, Through every change of all the varying skies. Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe, More dazzlingly when daring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire by far And as we are talking of it, do hand us over that paper of Cotton's best, until I blow a cloud. NORTH. Why, Odoherty, you have scarcely brought us any news from London. ODOHERTY. How could you expect blood from a turnip? There's no news there. Parliament was just spinning down, when I quitted the city, as drowsily as a tetotum-nothing doing in the monde literaire the Haymarket gay, to be sure, and our friend Terry, drollest of actors, as he is among the worthiest of men, making the populace laugh-but I brought you down a special article on London, from a friend of mine, which will tell you everything tellable, so you need not pump me. DR MULLION. Did you see any of the gentlemen of the press? ODOHERTY. Saw the whole goodly army of martyrs in full array; just as stupendously dull as ever, and, unless I mistake, more vicious, to speak as a jockey among the lower orders, than varmint. When I knew the body first, they were a fine hard-drinking pudding-headed race, who just got through their balaam as fast as their fingers would let them-spouted at the Eccentrics-regaled themselves with cheese and porter, and occasionally, when the funds were good, with Hollands and water, not caring a single sixpence for politics, or thinking themselves at all primed up with the opinions they were advocating -and there are still some of that good old school surviving, with two or three of whom I got misty one night at Offley's-but, sir, the Cockney portion of them have been horribly altered for the worse. How? NORTH. ODOHERTY. The poor creatures actually have set up to have opinions of their own-the idiots-and to have personal quarrels, and animosities, and principles, and fiddle-de-dee. TICKLER. Mighty audacious. Can't they eat their victuals when they get them in peace. NORTH. The newspaper press is unquestionably becoming very base. What a hideous, a detestable attack, some of the Whig and Radical papers made on John Bull ! ODOHERTY. Well, do the press-gang itself justice! There was almost a universal outcry at that brutal business even among themselves. It was abominable. however, put it down like a man. NORTH. John, Well now, had the unfortunate Beaconites, which we still have thrown in our faces, though heaven knows their worst crime was stupidity-done anything approaching that in atrocity, what an uproar would have been raised by the whole Whig party! TICKLER. And deservedly, for they would have been base assassins; but the Whigs may do anything-the basest as well as the most malignant of people. There's a touch Shakesperian for you, in the twinkling of a bed-post. The second verse is not worth parodying. Aye, this is something like. Your health, Mr Editor. NORTH. Mr Tickler, I have the pleasure of drinking your very good health. Apropos, has not Boone published a poem on things in general? ODOHERTY. I saw one in a certain place, sadly mutilated, and have read only two pages. It is a puff on Mr Canning. TICKLER. Very superfluous, therefore. It is, moreover, a good joke to see the great man of the Council of Ten, the essence of gravity, thinking to flatter the witty Antijacobin by his balaam. NORTH. Canning must have laughed at the idea, in his sleeve, I mean-for a minister can never laugh otherwise. I suppose he addressed the book, BULLER. -O Boone, ne te Frustrere. 18 |