ANACREON IN BOW STREET.

325

thought worthy of analysis. Professor Perceval, still bigotted to his theory, is endeavouring to demonstrate this phenomenon synthetically: Dr. Grenville and Dr. Grey have given it as their decided opinion, that it is impossible.

Although we certainly respect the ingenuity of Professor Perceval, which was so successfully exerted in the famous York analysis, we must be allowed to say, that we have met with nothing in the annals of science, since the time of the alchymists, so visionary as his speculations.

EPIGRAM

RESIGNATION OF ADMIRAL

ON THE RUMOURED

PUKE.

[From the County Chronicle, Nov. 28.]

I'm sick of the service-so tell the Grand Duke,
I've thrown up my commission-your servant,

،،

ANACREON IN BOW STREET.
BY THE AUTHOR OF MY POCKET-BOOK."
[From the Morning Chronicle, Dec. 1.]

Θελω λεγειν Ατρειδας.-One Ι.

JOHN PUKE.

AS, rapt, I sweep the golden lyre,

To Love I cry, "My notes inspire,
And let me sing of Rosa!"
But Thespian wars fill all my strain,
Tom Harris junior, hapless swain !
John Kemble and Mendoza.
Then if I to the stage belong,
Oh! let me sing the charms of song,
Of Billington and Braham!
In vain!-again my wishes fail,
I sing of nought but heavy bail,
Of Townsend and of Graham.

The

326

HORACE IN LONDON,

The soul of Harmony is dead,
And vilest Discord reigns instead,
With rioting and battles-

To shrieking owls are turn'd my doves,
To O. P. men the little Loves,
My lyre to horns and rattles!

HORACE IN LONDON.-BOOK II. ODE I.

TO MR. KEMBLE.

[From the Monthly Mirror.]

Motum ex Metello consule civicum, &c.

IN battles provok'd by the blood-tainted Thane,
When tempests aged Lear,

When fortune deserts the poor lunatic Dane,
In Richard the cruel or Hotspur the vain,
Oh! when shall your equal appear?

The wreath of applause what philosopher scorns?
'Tis a crown of the sweetest moss-roses:
But when it the brow of an actor adorns,
The public oft mix a few good-natur'd thorns,
To tickle his ears when he dozes.

Awhile to your theatre now bid adieu !
Fly, fly from the tumult and riot!

Attempt not your truncheon and staff to renew,
But give them to Townsend to help to subdue
The foes to new prices and quiet.

For, hark! what a discord of bugles and bells,
What whistling and springing of rattles,

What screaming, and groaning, and hissing, and yells,
Till mad-headed Mammon his victims compels

To scuffles, rows, riots, and battles!

* I find that Horace makes particular mention of the O. P.'s, and the noise they made in Rome:

"Opes strepitumque Romæ."-OD. LIB. III. 29.

My old friend, the late Mr. Opie, was a man of celebrity: but he never made half so much noise in the world as any one of his numerous relations.

And

ON THE UPROAR AT COVENT GARDEN.

327

And now from the barracks of Bow Street, good lack!
A band under Townsend and Sayers

Wave high their gilt staffs, while the dull sounding thwack
Falls frequent and thick on the enemies' back,
Or visits their pate with a merry-ton'd crack,
In aid of King John and the players.

The Billingsgate Muses, indignant to find
Catalani, and fiddlers from Paris,
Usurping their place; in revenge have combin'd,
To kick up this dust in the popular mind,
So fatal to Kemble and Harris.

What surly Brown Bear has not gladly receiv'd
The misers who old prices stick to?

At Bow Street what Knight is not sorely aggriev'd,
Where Christians are cross'd, unbelievers believ'd,
O story mirabile dictu!

To mix in this warfare, regardless of fear,
What 'prentice or clerk is unwilling?
From Smithfield and Wapping what heroes appear,
Who fight, I acknowledge, for all they hold dear,
When the object of war's the last shilling?
What fists of defiance the pugilists wield;
What Jews have not had bloody noses?
What victim of law, who to Mainwaring yields,
But gladly for ever would leave Cold Bath Fields,
To fight here pro Aris et focis?

But gently, my Muse: hush your angry-ton'd lyre,
From rozus so disgraceful remove,

And, seated at home by your own parlour-fire,
Let beauty and claret your numbers inspire
To melody, laughter, and love.

ON THE NIGHTLY UPROAR AT COVENT GARDEN.

[From the same.]

UR writers dramatic must welcome, of course,
OUR
This downfall of sense and ascendance of sound;
Where pantomime gains an accession of force,

And long-sinking dialogue 's finally drown'd.

H.

Let

328

PRIVATE BOXES.

Let them join the loud dunces in Boxes and Pit,

Of clamour and nonsense the instruments willing, Who care not a shilling for genius or wit,

And whose own is confin'd to their care of a shilling, And yet these curmudgeons, who willingly waste

Half a guinea (the Opera's worth it, no doubt!) Must be wanting in thrift, or deficient in taste,

Must be asses with ears, or be spendthrifts without: Half a guinea for singers and shallow-pate scrapers,

Whose resin, not reason, provides them with meals!:
Or a Pirouette puppet's ad libitum capers,

Whose toe 's in his head, and his head in his heels!!
Ye critics, who jingle your bells at your ease,
And flourish on foolscap appropriate wit,
Put both round your noddles instead of O. P.'s,

And seem to the Stage what ye act in the Pit.
So I shall no more in astonishment gaze,
So ye will no longer the reason dissemble
Why guineas are thrown to Da Ponte * and Des Hayes, -
And shillings regretted to Shakspeare and Kemble.

H

PRIVATE BOXES.
[From the same.]

O Venus, regina Cnidi Paphique, &c.

VENUS, Queen of Drury Lane!
Soft partisan of amorous doxies,
O'er tall Soho no longer reign,

But patronize our Private Boxes.
Let Cupid, ardent chaperon,

To Hart Street lead the London Graces,
As loose of manners as of zone,

With bosoms bare, and brazen faces.
Bring with thee, dame, a tempting show
Of girls fantastic, gay, and jolly;
Age without thee is sapient woe,
And with thee, youth is joyous folly.

*The Opera House Poet.

THE OXFORD CHANCELLORSHIP.
[From the Morning Post, Dec. 2.]

329

J.

MR. EDITOR,

IT seems a curious circumstance, that the respective friends of Lords Eldon and Grenville are, on the ensuing election at Oxford, to be entertained, the former at the King's Arms, the latter at the sign of the Cross. Upon this subject I send you the following

IMPROMPTU.

WOULD you judge of each candidate's motives and ends,
You cannot be long at a loss;

The King's Arms will receive the Lord Chancellor's friends,
Those of Grenville the sign of the X.

HM

Thus the realm lost a patriot for uprightness noted;
The King lost a subject fond, true, and devoted;
The world lost a man, than whom no man is better;
And I lost a critic to look at my letter.

LETTER TO THE EARL CN, &c. &c. &c. [From the Morning Chronicle, Dec. 2.] Gloucester Lodge, Nov. 14, 1809.

send

T you an answer, my Lord, I of late meant, Directly your Lordship had publish'd your statement; But I kept it, by Pd's good Duke to be read, Which I cannot accomplish-because he is dead.

So I now shall expunge, with most scrupulous hands,
Whatsoe'er on the late Duke's authority stands,
Which might not be believ'd from my single reciting,
And state only things that I have down in writing;
Or inform you, my Lord, of such facts and no more,
Than were very well known to your Lordship before.

I protest