SIR, TO MR. COX. Should the press of more important matter permit the following trifle to make its appearance in your deservedly esteemed Magazine, it would much gratify your ardent admirer and (un known) friend. Church-street, Oct. 18th, 1810, LEANDER. Lines respectfully inscribed to my much esteemed friend and benefactor, THE POTATOE. Hail humble offspring of a distant soil, At once the poor man's comfort and his toil. Bles't be the man whose patriotic hand, First spread thy grateful plenty o'er our land. Blest be the great Sir Walter's worthy name, Long dear to science-dear to honest fame, In ev'ry corner of our burthen'd isle, You feed the poor, and make the hovel smile. The toil-worn peasant, prest by taxes down, And crush'd beneath some civil Tyrant's frown, Drags, thro' the live-long day his weary load, And feels the thankless master's painful goad: Yet when, at eve', he seeks his lowly cot, The chearful partner of his humble lot, Close by the clean swept hearth her little board Spreads out, and on it lays her frugal hoard. No spoils of shambles there in reeking Ah! surely, could you feel th' extatic joy, That flows, eternal from the sweet employ, Of pouring gladness round the poor-man's heart To break the point of grief's corroding dart, To banish want and make the cottage smile, And poor affliction's rankling cares beguile, The rays of wealth on all mankind to turn, Which prest to self-love's focus only burn: Could you once feel the bliss that fills his breast, Who sees whole hundreds by his bounty blest ; Who makes, with Heav'n-taught hand his riches flow Around that land from whence those riches grow; No more you'd squander on a thankless soil Poor bleeding Erin's ill-requited toil; No more your weeping tenantry would view, Their worst oppressors stand reveal'd in you; Nor see that wealth from pining wretches torn To glut the bloated maw of England borne. Then should we see, in pristime splendor rise Domestic chiefs to bless their people's eyes, Who thron'd in hearts would hold far sweeter sway Than he whose nod whole bleeding realms obey; Then Genius, Commerce, Arts again would rise, And Erin's fame once more would reach the skies. And then kind root, (without whose fost'ring aid, The population of our land would fade,) The The dairy's produce should assist thy Calls foud for thee-my little board is care, And beef itself industry's sons would share! Adieu! my friend-but not a long adieu My stomach, to its duty ever true, spread All-hail! sweet root by whom our isle is fed! All-hail! sweet root-O! may we never FOR THE IRISH MAGAZINE. MR. Cox, Looking over the papers of a deceased friend, I stumbled upon the following Stanzos, dated July 21, 1800, and as your publication professes to be an "asylum for fugitive pieces," I take leave to submit it to your taste and prudence for publication. Its author, as a staunch republican, hated TITLES, and left his "jeu d'esprit" without a name. I give it in its native nudity. RUMMAGEM. Yours, sincerely, IMITATED FROM DR. PORTEOUS, LATE PROTESTANT BISHOP OF The Letter signed F. we would insert, were it not so very long. The conduct of Mrs. Free, whom he mentions, is very reprehensible, and should be noticed by the Governors of that wretched asylum, Channel Row. This woman, who superintends the education of the children of the Institution, in defiance of those regulations which allow the children to be instructed in the religious tenets of their parents, presumes to set up her Judgment, against that of the public by whom the establishment is supported, and forces the Catholic infants under her care, to go to whatever meeting-house the in her pro selyting wisdom thinks right to visit. We expect the present Sovereign of ChannelRow will not so far discredit his ancestors, who long and prosperously wielded the Beggar sceptre from the foundation of the monarchy, as to countenance religious intolerance. As the First Vol. of the Irish Magazine kas been a long time out of print, and a very nu merous part of our readers are anxious to have it reprinted, we propose to have it done by subscription, at 17s. Ad. each Volume bound, to contain thirteen numbers, as sufficient to defray the expense have subscribed. as 2004 ΤΟ TOWN-MAJOR SIRR. SIRR, " to a pint of porter or a glass of wine, will subject himself to the serious penalty of a surrender of his livelihood. So I must travel at least eight miles to buy a drink, and even at that distance I rum the hazard of coming under the authori ty of another pro-consul, and so be ativen from one district to another until I am starved. A man who is a magistrate in every county in Ireland, may treat me in the provinces as he has done in the metropolis, and at last exhausted with hunger and persecution, Walter Cox must, like Jane Shore, perish on a dunghill, or like Nebuchadnezzer, graze with the beasts of the field. Dear Major, you must have read, as you are said to be a man of lettered manners, that there existed a law in, ATHENS, which banished a citizen, by writing his sentence on a shell;-your improvement would starve or banish me by engraving my name on every pewter pot the Ancients named their law OSTRACISM, You have lately taken some particular pains, in your official capacity as a Police Magistrate, to inflict a serious injury on me and my character, and at a time when a prosecution, on the part of the Crown, is pending over me, you had the audacity to refuse a tavern-keeper his license for the great crime of entertaining me in his house, and so intimidated other people in the same line of business, by your illegal menaces, that they dare not allow me any refreshment, lest the knowledge of the circumstance going to you should involve themselves and their families in ruin. This kind of proscription is of modern invention-it was unknown to any of the Majors in antiquity it has grown up in the catalogue of tortures, with the pitch-caps, the triangle and the whip, or it has, un--your pandects may be justly called der the name of Law, risen from their TANKARDISM With all the levity that ruins. You, Town. Major Sirr, make me I apparently treat the subject, 1 must understand, that I shall not drink with- now seriously say, that if Walter Cox, in the circuit of your municipal authori- who is designated a British subject, can ty that any person who dare help me be thus hunted from social life by any 'December, 1810. 3 X vulgar |