A metaphor taken from the forty-horse power' of a steam engine. That mad wag, the Reve-" rend Sidney Sinith, sitting by a brother clergyman at dinner, observed afterwards that his dull neighbour had a twelve-parson power' of conversation." A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown On a fool's head-and there is London Town!" My excellent friend, John Bull, quotes the following incident on Shooter's Hill as bad:-I, Morgan ODoherty, quote it as exquisitely good. Judge between us! I conceive it to be almost, if not altogether, as fine as a certain passage in the life of Ferdinand Count Fathom-of which it is indeed (in so far) a manifest imitation. I think the slang very commendable; and I think, in short, that the little bits I have put in Italics are superb. "Don Juan had got out on Shooter's bill; Sunset the time, the place the same declivity Which looks along that vale of good and ill, *“St Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins were still extant in 1816, and may be so yet as much as ever." ""Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay But what they please; and if that things Stood calling out for bandages and lint, And wish'd he had been less hasty with his flint. be dear, 'Tis only that they love to throw away Their cash, to shew how much they have a-year. Here laws are all inviolate; none lay Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear: Exactly why it was before him thrown, Nor what the meaning of the man's farewell. Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town, A thorough varmint, and a real swell, Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled, His pockets first, and then his body rid dled. "Don Juan, having done the best he could In all the circumstances of the case, As soon as Crowner's quest' allowed, pursued His travels to the capital apace ;Esteeming it a little hard he should In twelve hours' time, and very little space, Have been obliged to slay a freeborn native In self-defence: this made him meditative. "He from the world hath cut off a great man, Who in his time had made heroic bustle. Who in a row, like Tom, could lead the van, Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle? Who queer a flat? Who (spite of Bow street's ban) On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle? Who on a lark, with black-eyed Sal (his blowing) So prime, so swell, so nutty, and so knowing ?* "But Tom's no more-and so no more** of Tom. Heroes must die; and by God's blessing 'tis Not long before the most of them go home. Hail! Thamis, hail! Upon thy verge it is That Juan's chariot, rolling like a drum Through Kennington and all the other 'tons,' Which make us wish ourselves in town at once ; "Through Groves, so call'd as being void of trees, (Like lucus from no light;) through prospects named Mount Pleasant, as containing nought to please, Nor much to climb; through little boxes framed Of bricks, to let the dust in at your ease, With To be let,' upon their doors proclaim'd; Through Rows' most modestly call'd 'Paradise,' Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice ; Had set some time, and night was on the ridge In thunder, holds the way it can't well Of twilight, as the party cross'd the miss, bridge. *The advance of science and of language has rendered it unnecessary to translate the above good and true English, spoken in its original purity by the select mobility and their patrons. The following is a stanza of a song which was very popular, at least in my early days: On the high toby-spice flash the muzzle, In spite of each gallows old scout; If you at the spellken can't hustle, Then your Blowing will wax gallows haughty, That her Jack may be regular weight.' If there be any gemman so ignorant as to require a traduction, I refer him to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, Esq. Professor of Pugilism; who, I trust, still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good humour and athletic as well as mental accomplishments." [Observe, this is a note of Byron's, not mine.-M. OD.] |