ON SIR VICARY GIBBS'S ELECTION FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

[From the Morning Chronicle.]

"Fruges et Cererem ferunt,

Nec cultura placet longior annuâ ;

Defunctumque laboribus

Equali recreat sorte Vicarius!

·PETTY! to Alma-mater dear

HOR. B. 3. Ode 24.

Petty, in power, was Granta's glory :
Of power bereft the following year,
He finds the jilting jade a Tory.

Base, venal B! who, gain'd by bribes,
And, b-wd-like, ready to dispense 'em,
Convenes her square-capt saintly tribes
To vote Sir Vicary*!« in burgensem !”
July 3.

THE MINISTERIAL CATECHISM.

[From the same.]

Asinus portans mysteria.

A Jack in office.

ARISTOPH.

OUR Ministers, fully sensible of the importance of convincing the public that they are worthy of confidence, have resolved to publish a view of the qualifications necessary for the different departments of the state at this crisis of unparalleled difficulty and danger. The charge of preparing this composition. has been committed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, particularly distinguished for the ingenuity with which he united the cry of " No Popery," with an exhortation to "unaniniity;" and it has been further resolved, that in order to render it as popular and at

*The form of voting at Cambridge is A. B. eligit V. G. " in burgensm" hujus Academiæ,

tractive

tractive as possible, Mr. Canning should devote as much time as he can spare from his French Grammar and Exercises, to the turning of the whole into rhyme. The learned Chancellor of the Exchequer was desirous (juvat meminisse) of commencing with a writ of "idiota inquirendo," being the old Chancery mode of originating proceedings in cases of idiotcy; but, in deference to the opinion of Mr. Hawkins Browne, of whose able assistance he availed himself, consented at last that the work should take the form of question and answer, and be entitled, "The Ministerial Catechism;" or, "The Public well served." As a rough sketch is already finished, and as it is desirable that the object should be attained as speedily as possible, no apology is necessary for presenting the reader with a specimen."

QUESTION.

Our foe, like some avenging God,
Shakes prostrate Europe with his nod;
And all his force, his hate, and wiles
United, turns against our isles.-
At such an anxious moment, say
Who's fit affairs abroad to sway?

ANSWER.

A sonnet and conundrum maker,
Of verse and wit an undertaker;
Who to the force and arts of foes
Can pointed epigrams oppose:
A leader of a brainless synod-
An Anti-jacobin run mad-

With froth and bubbles fill'd a head,
Where nothing 's solid but the lead.

Q. See how the burden'd nation groans
With weight of taxes, debts and loans;
And swoln finance at last is found
A science doubtful and profound.
Who should, in times so big with fate,
Hold this department of the state?

A. A

A. A John-a-Nokes or John-a-Stiles-
His only science, legal wiles-
A kindler of religious strife,
Who jobs to get a place for life.
His serious trust nor feels nor sees,
But muses on Exchequer fees;
And pumps his brains to find excuse
To join trustee and cestuy que use.

Q. 'Midst hostile arms on every side,
Who should the War Department guide?

. Some vacant Lord, who, like a jay,
Can chat for hours, yet nothing say;
Who much has tried, yet nothing done,
A Jack of all trades, good at none;
Who much of Down and Derry sings,
And grasps a bow with double strings;
In whom the keenest eyes can trace
No mark of soul-but love of place,
And, causa temporis terendi,
"Immane studium loquendi.”

OVID

The appropriate strain of exultation in the conclud

ing lines, deserves particular attention:

Thus serv'd, our State may challenge all
Her foes, "Mercurio tam quam Marte-
Since C-g's match'd with cunning Tal,
And C- -gh with Bonaparte !

July 13.

ΤΟ

NOT ANY THING DISAGREEABLE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.

I

-

-A hundred more (Jacobus's)
Would make him pimp for th' Antichristian whore:
And in Rome's praise employ his poison'd breath,
Who threaten'd once to stink the Pope to death."

SIR,

MILTON'S Epigram on Salmasius.

DO not mean to apply the quotation literally to Mr. Spencer Perceval. It would be unjust to do so, because I am persuaded he would not be reconciled to the Whore of Babylon, for twice the money here mentionéd. But I have no doubt at all that he would turn quite round, if he thought it would be agreeable to his Master. Nay, if it were possible to suppose any thing so ridiculous, as that our gracious King, like old Solomon, could, in his declining years, turn his heart to idolatry, I firmly believe his whole Cabinet would prove their loyal adherence, and, in the courtly words of Mr. Henry Thornton, avoid pressing any thing disagreeable to his feelings in his old age.'

It is this spirit which honourably distinguishes the present men from all their predecessors. We have had a single Melville before, or a Castlereagh; but never till now have we seen a whole Ministry acting on the avowed principle of absolute obedience. There is something so amiable, so filial, and so dutiful in this behaviour, that I consider it as a new era of civilization. The best of Kings has at length got Ministers, who are content to wear his liveries on the same

terms

terms as their own footmen, and who acknowledge no principle nor duty, but submission.

From this delightful calm I am almost terrified to look back to the fierce times of "the Saxon, the Norman, and the Dane," when the King was surrounded by all that was noble (indeed), or great, or venerable, in his nation, but controlled, at the same time, by the dignity of his retinue. I seem to be but just awake, and to have dreamed only of garlands being bound round the brows of the Hampdens and Sydneys, for resisting arbitrary power. It was but in a vision that I saw our Revolution held up on high as a proud ensign of national glory. I live now among safe men," who will not press any thing disagreeable to the feelings of the King in his old age."

Those jarring times are happily gone when the Guildhall "rung," as Deputy Birch has it, with the Bill of Rights, and poured forth her cavalcades to annoy the royal ear with complaints of evil Counsellors about the Throne. The statue of the uncourtly Beckford is taken away, and the saucy legend broken, to make room, perhaps, for the new doctrine, that when the King differs in opinion from the people, we ought always to support the King.,

Court, City, and Clergy, have now but one pulse,. and the slightest twitter of the Royal Conscience stimulates or arrests it. The nerve of obedience vibrates with equal sensibility in Lloyd's as in St. James's. The fine impulse spreads from the Bakers and Oilmen of the Court of Aldermen, to the drowsy learning of Cambridge; from the convocation of the Church to the Presbyteries of Elgin and Lewis. The rugged Curtis and the gentle Rose, the pious Wilberforce and the graceless Tarleton, the companionable Melville, and the atrabilious Bowles, are struck with equal horror of the danger of Popery; and I am confident their horror

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