Girded with his dagger wooden,

And his coxcomb, bells, and hood on !
Hence of laughter the loud burst,
As if I were Fool the First!

The stupid stare from high and low,
And pointed finger as I go,
Quizzing my uncommon costume,
Past and primitive and posthume!
Knowing what a favourite school
A royal court is to the Fool,

Where, slippery ground! the idol crown'd
He loves to dance attendance round.

Thus professionally frock'd

At yon palace gate I knock'd,
And discover'd in a second

I without my host had reckon'd.
Fools must there to gain admittance
Cry with Coat of Motley quittance!
A liveried lacquey stopp'd my path,
And look'd at, leeringly, my lath!
But served not so another sword
Whose Fool, by good luck! was a Lord.”

77"He's a name only, and all good in him
He must derive from his great grandsire's ashes:
For had not their victorious acts bequeath'd
His titles to him, and wrote on his forehead,
'This is a Lord,' he had lived unobserved
By any man of mark, and died as one

Amongst the common rout."

The Custom of the Country.

Alas! how many have the fortune without the feelings

Lo, a garter! in a crack he
Bows it in, discerning lacquey!
Dangling from a privy pocket,
See, a Key the gate! unlock it!
Mark, to a judicial jazey

What judicious homage pays he!
In the presence of a crozier
He's as supple as an osier!
Ushering in a strawberry leaf
Down goes, bob! his head of beef!
And before a royal bubble

He is really nearly double!

My Lord Parvenu,78 whose peerage
Makes rare quizzing for this queer age,
Full of new, grotesque gentilities,
In his ermine O, how ill at ease!
And, a proper pair! the pigmy
Past, both looking mighty big! me,
Seeming each to say, "Your coat is
Very much beneath my notice!"
Among the miscellaneous crowd
That in were so politely bow'd,

of a gentleman; and how many the feelings without the fortune!

78 The following lines were chalked by Canning on the door of a rich parvenu who had then recently been made

a peer

"Bobby R-lives here,

George the Third made him a peer,

And took the pen from behind his ear."

E

Not one Fool I must confess
Saw I in his proper dress,
From the beaver to the boot
All had put off Motley's suit!
Did ever laughter break its fast
On a more risible repast?

Make merrier meal upon the daws
And peacocks of the world's applause?
-Day declines-how dark to one
From a world where sets no sun!
Yet how beautiful! how bright,
In her darkness, is the night!
Centuries have roll'd away
Since I beheld yon lunar ray

Light up a dreaming world! and heard,
As now I hear, my favourite bird.79
Chantress, to my home on high

A similar plaisanterie has been recently perpetrated! "Give me rather a low fulness," says Bishop Hall, “ than an empty advancement."

"Wee buy Titles of honour with gold, that our Predecessors purchased with virtue."-Barnaby Rich. 1649.

79 The favourite bird also of Sophocles and Tasso; and the subject of many an Arabic and Persian allegory. Pliny has eloquently described the effect of this bird's note, and Izaac Walton says beautifully :-" He, that, at midnight, when the labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have heard, the clear air, the sweet descant, the rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above the earth, and say, 'Lord! what music hast thou provided for thy saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad men such music upon earth." How exqui

Could'st thou but take wings and fly!
Such sweet songs should never die.
The Scene closes.

SCENE IV.-The Castle Tavern, Windsor.

Sir Peter Prolix and Mr. Pumpkin Plethoric at their dessert and wine.

I,

Pumpkin.

MY Lord Chief Joker,80 miss'd

Of your jingling jest the gist,

Prithee let me cry, Sir Peter,

Encore to that merry metre !

Sir. P. What exclaim'd the gallant Napier, Proudly flourishing his rapier!

When he conquered Scinde?" Peccavi!" 81

sitely has Milton apostrophised the aerial music of the nightingale in his

"Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly-"”

The author of the "Seasons" would listen, hour after hour, on a fine summer's evening, to hear the nightingales in Richmond gardens. The nightingale, however melancholy as she has been represented, is, in fact, a cheerful bird. Like the infant, in an elegant Persian poem of Sadi, she smiles and is happy, while all around her are silent and sad.

...

80 "Every man," said Dr. Johnson to Miss Burney, "has, some time in his life, an ambition to be a wag."

81 Another of Sir Peter's! Why is a man always sure to be in time when on a broken-winded horse?-Because Hours wait on Aurora (a roarer)!

Pumpkin. "Not one swallow makes a summer," Said old Sherry 82 to his rummer—

I must have another rosy

Glass to make me warm and cosey.
Water never tempts me to it,83
Sworn at Highgate, I eschew it

When there's claret in the cruet.

Enter Waiter.

Boy! have you a vintage brighter,
Purer, more translucent, lighter,
Of a deeper, richer ruby,

Fit to swear your mistress true by?

A mighty magnum introduce

Of that genial, genuine juice.

[Exit Waiter.

Sir P. Pumpkin, he who dreads to die

Don't deserve to live, say I!

Intrepidity of soul

Soon rekindles, like hot coal!

A puff revives the slumbering spark-
When I beheld in Windsor Park

82 A friend remarked to Sheridan that hot drinks were pernicious. "True," replied Sheridan, "hot tea, hot coffee,-nay, possibly, hot punch when-very hot!"

83 Brother Barnardina Palomo said, that if you put your wine in water, you lose your wine; and if not, you lose yoursel! . .

"A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped."

84 The title of Soldier is derived from Solidus, a piece of money. The Roman Legions were paid. Hence the Volunteer, whose gallantry was gratuitous, was said to be