OUT AT LAST!

OR,

THE FALLEN MINISTER.

-Procumbit humi Bos. VIRGIL.

HE's down! amid Saint Stephen's walls,

The mighty Beast in thunder falls.

OUT AT LAST!

OR,

THE FALLEN MINISTER.

PROËMIU M.

SOME time ago, the Lyric Peter,

With much sublimity of metre,

Did prophesy a Minister would tumble:

To verify the Poet's Ode,

Behold, it pleaseth man and God,

In anger, his High Mightiness to humble.

Good man (but not the Man of Ross),
He's down! procumbit humi Bos.

How like unto a Crow, or Rook,

Shot near his nest (a mortal wound),

He hung and bled, with downcast look,

Before he soused at last to ground!

Yes: like those black Birds, much too long we saw The Culprit hanging by a single claw.

What a vile Bramble he has been,

May now with half an eye be seen.

Look at us: what poor shivering Sheep, alack, Naked and lank, most closely shorn!

This hooking, dragging imp has torn

The healthful, warming fleece from every back. Gone! gone, some good-for-nothing ribs to treat; But woe to that poor Sheep which dared to bleat!

Sing, heavenly Muse, to whom our wool all goes:To warm Dundas, Long, Windham, Canning, Rose, Old Liverpool and Cub, with each compeer.While they carousing swill'd their toast and sack, We bit, in anguish, musty bread and black,

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And writhing got the gripes from dead small-beer.

Try Pitt again," some fools exclaim.

He has been tried, and tried, and tried. The hobbling Nation, still more lame,

Has now nor crutch nor ass to ride.

"He'll mend," they roar.-He mend! the mummer: Aye, mend just like sour Ale in summer.

Lo, then, our sad State-carpenter dismiss'd!
No longer now his bungling art befools:
Yet, from the service when the man was hiss'd,
Why leave behind his budget and his tools?

Glad as a Bird that scapes the Kite, I'll drop
The Lamentations of poor Jeremiah;

Of gay Pindarics open a fresh shop,

And pour the Song of Triumph with Isaiah.

READER, in this my Lyric Ode
I imitate a Man of God;

That Poet of Sublimity, Isaiah:

A Man of Quality, of note;
Of Arms possessing a rich Coat;

A brother to the great King Azariah.

Lord! how the Poet did bespatter

The Babylonian Monarch with his satire !-
Were I to talk so of a British King,

What were my fate? Alas, a string!

Not string, dear Reader, that the shoulder decks;

But string that twines at Newgate round our necks.