Bribes, perjury, theft, and the devil and all ! And yet spite of all that the *Moralist prates, 'Tis the keystone and cement of civilized States. Those American † Reps! And i' faith, they were serious!

It shock'd us at Paris, like something mysterious, That men who've a Congress—But no more of 't! I'm proud

To have stood so distinct from the Jacobin crowd.

My Lord! though the vulgar in wonder be lost at My transfigurations, and name me Apostate, Such a meaningless nickname, which never incensed me,

Cannot prejudice you or your Cousin against me: I'm Ex-bishop. What then? Burke himself would

agree

That I left not the Church-'twas the Church that

left me.

My titles prelatic I loved and retain'd,

As long as what I meant by Prelate remain'd :
And tho' Mitres no longer will pass in our mart,
I'm episcopal still to the core of my heart.

* This sarcasm on the writings of moralists is, in general, extremely just; but had Talleyrand continued long enough in England, he might have found an honourable exception in the second volume of Dr. Paley's Moral Philosophy; in which both Secret Influence, and all the other Established Forms, are justified and placed in their true light.

† A fashionable abbreviation in the higher circles for Republicans. Thus Mob was originally the Mobility.

No time from my name this my motto shall sever : "Twill be Non sine pulvere palma* for ever!

Your goodness, my Lord, I conceive as excessive, Or I dared not present you a scroll so digressive; And in truth with my pen thro' and thro' I should strike it ;

But I hear that your Lordship's own style is just

like it.

Dear my Lord, we are right: for what charms can be show'd

In a thing that goes straight like an old Roman road? The tortoise crawls straight, the hare doubles about; And the true line of beauty still winds in and out. It argues, my Lord! of fine thoughts such a brood

in us

To split and divide into heads multitudinous, While charms that surprise (it can ne'er be denied

us)

Sprout forth from each head, like the ears from King Midas.

Were a genius of rank, like a commonplace dunce, Compell'd to drive on to the main point at once, What a plentiful vintage of initiations †

* Palma non sine pulvere. In plain English, an itching palm, not without the yellow dust.

†The word Initiations is borrowed from the new Constitution, and can only mean, in plain English, introductory matter. If the manuscript would bear us out, we should propose to read the line thus-" What a plentiful Verbage, what Initiations!" inasmuch as Vintage must necessarily refer to wine,

Would Noble Lords lose in your Lordship's orations. My fancy transports me! As mute as a mouse, And as fleet as a pigeon, I'm borne to the House Where all those who are Lords, from father to son, Discuss the affairs of all those who are none.

I behold you, my Lord! of your feelings quite full, 'Fore the woolsack arise, like a sack full of wool! You rise on each Anti-Grenvillian member,

Short, thick and blustrous, like a day in November,* Short in person, I mean: for the length of your

speeches

Fame herself, that most famous reporter, ne'er

reaches.

Lo! Patience beholds you contemn her brief reign, And Time, that all-panting toil'd after in vain,

(Like the Beldam who raced for a smock with her grandchild)

Drops and cries: 'Were such lungs e'er assign'd to a man-child?'

really or figuratively; and we cannot guess what species Lord Grenville's eloquence may be supposed to resemble, unless, indeed, it be Cowslip wine. A slashing critic to whom we read the manuscript, proposed to read, "What a plenty of flowers-what initiations!" and supposes it may allude indiscriminately to poppy flowers, or flour of brimstone. The most modest emendation, perhaps, would be this-for Vintage read Ventage.

* We cannot sufficiently admire the accuracy of this simile. For as Lord Grenville, though short, is certainly not the shortest man in the House, even so is it with the days in November.

Your strokes at her vitals pale Truth has confess'd, And Zeal unresisted entempests your breast! * Though some noble Lords may be wishing to sup, Your merit self-conscious, my Lord, keeps you up, Unextinguish'd and swoln, as a balloon of paper Keeps aloft by the smoke of its own farthing taper. Ye SIXTEENS† of Scotland, your snuffs ye must

trim;

Your Geminies, fix'd stars of England! grow dim,

* An evident plagiarism of the ex-Bishop's from Dr. John

son :

"Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain :
His powerful strokes presiding Truth confess'd,
And unresisting Passion storm'd the breast."

This line and the following are involved in an almost Lycophrontic tenebricosity. On repeating them, however, to an Illuminant, whose confidence I possess, he informed me (and he ought to know, for he is a Tallow-chandler by trade) that certain candles go by the name of sixteens. This explains the whole, the Scotch Peers are destined to burn out-and so are candles! The English are perpetual, and are therefore styled Fixed Stars! The word Geminies is, we confess, still obscure to us; though we venture to suggest that it may perhaps be a metaphor (daringly sublime) for the two eyes which noble Lords do in general possess. It is certainly used by the poet Fletcher in this sense, in the 31st stanza of his Purple Island:

:

"What! shall I then need seek a patron out,
Or beg a favour from a mistress' eyes,
To fence my song against the vulgar rout,
And shine upon me with her geminies?"

And but for a form long establish'd, no doubt
Twinkling faster and faster, ye all would go out.

Apropos, my dear Lord! a ridiculous blunder
Of some of our Journalists caused us some wonder:
It was said that in aspect malignant and sinister
In the Isle of Great Britain a great Foreign Minister
Turn'd as pale as a journeyman miller's frock

coat is

On observing a star that appear'd in BOOTES! When the whole truth was this (O those ignorant brutes!)

Your Lordship had made his appearance in boots. You, my Lord, with your star, sat in boots, and

the Spanish

Ambassador thereupon thought fit to vanish. But perhaps, dear my Lord, among other worse crimes,

The whole was no more than a lie of The Times.
It is monstrous, my Lord! in a civilized state
That such Newspaper rogues should have license
to prate.

Indeed printing in general-but for the taxes,
Is in theory false and pernicious in praxis!
You and I, and your Cousin, and Abbé Sieyes,
And all the great Statesmen that live in these days,
Are agreed that no nation secure is from violence
Unless all who must think are maintain'd all in

silence.

This printing, my Lord-but 'tis useless to mention What we both of us think-'twas a cursed invention,