RECITATIVE.

"To speak in the words of the present Head," &c. To speak in the words of the Head of the Russells, The heir to their virtues, who farms, puffs, and bustles.

AIR--Allegro.

"The source of all evils

(I don't mean the Weevils) Is inadequate Representation; Your returns to secure,

You must take for manure

The refuse and scum of the nation."

RECITATIVE.

"It being visionary to expect," &c.

It's vain to expect from these obstinate elves,
That ever the Commons will turn out themselves;
So we'll make them all swear, like that puppy King John,
To a new Magna Charta, a job of our own;
Or else take them all, like the Catholic James,
And settle them snug in a boat on the Thames;
While Finnerty, Cobbett, and public opinion,

Fawkes, Burdett, and Cartwright, shall have the dominion.
The Barons they fought, and the Barons they bled,
But we run away, and write pamphlets instead ;
They carried their point by dint of hard fighting.
The thing now to stick to is spelling and writing;
With dinners and speeches, and riots at home,
The people shall shout, and corruption be dumb.

AIR-Andante.

"Magna Charta, &c. proved despotism," &c..

Magna Charta prov'd despotic;

The Bill of Rights,

By William's slights,

Was a paltry Dutch exotic.

Reform will restore

What, I told you before,

We

We never have had or have heard of;

An old constitution that never existed,

Old rights which our ancestors always resisted, And many wise people despair'd of.-(Da Capo.)

CHORUS.

We'll recover and 'stablish fair Liberty's reign;
We ne'er had it before-so we 'll get it again.

GRAND MOVEMENT.

"Those whose guide is truth," &c.

The men whose guide is truth are the enlighten'd,
Those who appeal to reason can't be frighten'd ;.
We're temperate and moderate, wise and chaste;
Be just in future, we'll forget what's past.
Fee-faw-fum,

This is the way to tranquillity;

But falsehood, fraud, force, and oppression,.
In vain hope for any concession,
Or even for common civility.

MADRIGAL.

"As the beneficial effects," &c.

As nine parts in ten

Are not Gentlemen,

Of those who attend at our meeting,
If a few would but come.

To keep up the hum,.

They should not complain of their treating.
Or if even their names,

To strengthen our claims,

Would give an eclat to the party,

Though in person they fail,

From sickness or jail,

We'll swear that they 're all well and hearty,

Then, Sir, let me put

Your name at the foot

Of my list, and believe an old stager,
If your friends too should come,
There is plenty of room,

And I rest your obedient MAJOR.

IMPROMPTU

IMPROMPTU

ON THE PRINCE'S ABSENCE FROM THE CEREMONY OF LAYING THE FIRST STONE OF THE VAUXHALL BRIDGE.

[From the Morning Chronicle, May 11.]

AN arch wag has declar'd, that he truly can say
Why the Prince did not lay the first stone t' other day:
The Restrictions prevented-the reason is clear;
The Regent can't meddle in making a pier.

STATE OF THE COIN.

T. H.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.

[May 13.]

I

SIR,

HAVE been lately taking what Mawworm calls an excrescence into the country, to keep up my interest with my constituents, and prevent any other candidate from insinuating himself into the repair of their pots and their frying-pans. It is with sincere satisfaction that I perceive, on my return, the complete adoption of the schemes proposed in my former letters, and that my coadjutors the State Tinkers (who are so laudably polishing the handle of the State Kettle while they are boring a large hole in its bottom) have so thoroughly entered into and adopted my plans. No man, though I say it who should not say it, takes a wariner interest in the welfare of my country than myself. I never replace the nozzel in the extremity of a decayed pair of bellows, without glowing at the hope of a Reform in Parliament; or solder a tin spout on a dismantled teapot, unmoved by the services of the Bullion Committee: judge, then, of my rapture at the adoption of the Irish plan of a depreciated currency, and the oracular words" a new coinage is about to be introduced to the public, and directions

have

66

have been already given at the Mint for the immediate preparation of silver pieces of coin, one of which is to pass for three shillings, and the other for eighteenpence.' Mind, Mr. Editor, the precious wordsthey are to pass for three shillings and eighteenpence"-they are not said to be intrinsically worth three shillings and eighteen-pence, for then they would follow the gold out of circulation, before perhaps the last of them was issued from the Mint. But they are said to pass for three shillings and eighteen-pence! Here is a stroke of artificial finance, worthy of that first of all tinkerly Statesmen, yea even of Pitt himself! And observe too, Mr. Editor, how respectfully the nation is treated in this business-a new coinage is about to be introduced to the public: this is quite in the style of a presentation at a drawing-room, or the first appearance of a country cousin of a Ministerial Member of Parliament, who is cringing for a place, at the levee of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

It is, I must confess, Mr. Editor, with genuine complacency I look upon this realization of my Irish plan. The Irish early saw the necessity of marrying depreciated silver to depreciated paper, which now, like man and wife, jog on very contentedly together. In England there was a balance of impediment in the obstinate prejudices of John Bull, which are at length happily giving way-his note is changed as well as depreciated he no longer grumbles at the disappearance of guineas, and will pocket these representatives of shillings with just as much glee as Perceval pockets any other Representatives; and every man will walk about with a Parliament of counter-votes in his purse, in which the alloy will universally obtain a dead majority. I am, Sir, your humble servant,

T. TINKER.

HORACE,

HORACE, ODE XXII.

Vili potabis modicis Sabinum
Cantharis.

[From the same.]

TO J. P. KEMBLE, ESQ. OME, Kemble, thou chivalrous wight, And tipple my humble Brown Stout; "T was bottled and seal'd on the night When Timour the Tartar came out.

The Theatre set up a bawl

On seeing his cream-colour'd hobby, That made Shakspeare shake in the hall, And startled the Muse in the lobby.

Thalia, Melpomene-shrews!

A fig for their Ladyships' ire ;-:
Half your stage is already a Mews,
I offer you Meux's Entire!

HA

THE LONG-EARED REFORMERS.

A FABLE.

[From the Morning Post, May 14.]

THAT Asses once could speak we know,
In history 't is recorded so;

And that shrewd beast which Balaam rode,
Who stopp'd to gossip with his load,
Had a most numerous progeny
(Although we've lost the pedigree),
Who long surviv'd to rail and chatter
On whate'er chanc'd to be the matter.

Once on a time a general meeting
Was call'd for speaking and for eating;
At which these sages rose to prate,
And talk about affairs of State.
They held their meeting in a cavern
(To them a sort of London Tavern),

In