TICKLER

NORTH.

Made Arthur's Seat toss up its lion head,
And snuff the wind in wonder ; while around,
Eastward and westward, northward, southward, all
The ungodly, struck with awe and ominous dread
Of the great ruin thence impending o'er them,
Fled frighted, leaving house and home behind,
In shameful rout-or, grovelling prostrate, shew'd

Their nether parts uncomely-
I think you may stop there.

In all conscience: I not permit Hogg to be quizzed. He is too good a fellow, and I am sure his poem will do him credit. Sing a song, Ensign, for you seem to be in fine voice.

ODOHERTY (sings.)
Would you woo a young virgin of fifteen years,
You must tickle her fancy with Sweets and Dears,
Ever toying and playing, and sweetly, sweetly,
Sing a love-sonnet and charm her ears,
Wittily, prettily, talk her down-
Phrase her and praise her, fair or brown-
Sooth her and smooth her,
And teaze her and please her,

Ah! touch but her fancy, and all's your own.
I must have a glass ere I take the next stanza.

Would you woo a stout widow of forty years Come, stop, stop, ODoherty, none of your stuff. Any literary news in London town?

TICKLER.

ODOHERTY.

Not much. Lord Byron, you are aware, has turned Turk.

NORTH.

Greek, you mean.

ODOHERTY.

Ay, ay-Greek, I meant. I always confound these scoundrels together. But the Greeks in London have met with a sad defeat. That affair of Thurtell's was a bore.

TICKLER.

ODOHERTY.

NORTH

Curse the ruffian—the name ought not to be mentioned in decent society. But Weare was just as great a blackguard.

Yes; and Sam Rogers says that that is the only excuse for Thurtell. He did right, said Sam, to cut such an acquaintance.

Why, Sam is turning quite a Joe Miller. Have you seen the old gentleman lately?

About a fortnight ago_Tom Moore was with him.
I thought Tom was rusticating.

ODOHERTY.

NORTH

ODOHERTY.

Yes, in general; but he is now in town, bringing out a new Number of his Melodies.

NORTH.

Is it good ?

ODOHERTY. Nobody except Power and his coterie has seen it yet; but I understand it is very excellent. It will be out in a couple of months. There is one song in it to the tune of the Boyne Water ; the great Orangemen tune, you know, which is making them nervous.

Why?

NORTH.

NORTH.

ODOHERTY.

ODOHERTY. Because conciliation--curse the five syllables, as Sir Abraham King saysis carried to such a happy pitch in Ireland, that tune, toast, statue, picture, displeasing to the majority, are denounced as abominable.

A pretty one-sided kind of conciliation with a vengeance ! but I am sorry Moore is so squeamish. Are the words Orange ?

Not at all ; some stuff about an angel or nymph rising out of the Boyne, and singing a song to pacify the natives.

And even this must not be published, for fear of offending the delicate ears of Sheilinagig and Co.! Is not Moore doing a jeu d'esprit about your Irish Rugantino, Captain Rock ?

Yes—but he is nervous there too. Longman & Co. are cautious folk, and it is submitted to Denman, or some other doer, who will bedevil it, as he did the Fables for the Holy Alliance.

Well, Longman has published, however, one little book this year, that bears no marks of the knife-have you seen that clever thing—the “ Stranger's Grave," I mean?

TICKLER.

ODOHERTY.

TICKLER.

ODOHERTY.

I have to be sure, so has all the world—but still, upon the whole it is not to be denied, that the divan have not half the spunk of their rival who rules in the west of the Empire of Cockaigne.

Joannes de Moravia ? Have you seen him, ODoherty, in your travels ?

NORTH.

ODOHERTY.

Of course of coursea most excellent fellow that said bibliopole is.

NORTH.

ODOHERTY.

That I know. How does he carry on the war?

In the old style. Morier and his people are mad with you for your blackguard review of Hajji Baba.

NORTH

ODOHERTY.

My blackguard review, Mr Adjutant-it was you who wrote it. 1-Well, that beats Banagher.

No matter who wrote it-it was a very fair quiz-better than anything in the novel though really I must say that I consider Hajji rather an amusing book after all.

TICKLER.

A good deal. Croker is going to publish with him the Suffolk papers.

NORTH.

ODOHERTY.

NORTH.

Heavy, I suppose.

No-the contrary-at least so I am told. Croker could not do anything heavy.

He is fond of editing old papers-Lord Hertford has placed the Conway papers in his hands; and I perceive, by a note in the new edition of D’Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature, that the old gentleman

An excellent judge.

Few better-declares that they will throw much light on our, that is, English history.

TICKLER.

NORTH.

ODOHERTY.

Apropos of Croker-a namesake of his, and a countryman of mine, a fine lad, one of my chiefest chums, indeed, has brought out with Murray a quarto on the South of Ireland.

NORTH.

I have not read it—just looked over the prints-very famous lithography, by my honour.

ODOHERTY.

O the Nicholsons are prime fists at that kind of work. The book has sold in great style, which is no bad thing for a lump of a quarto. How does Maga get on ?

NORTH.

As usual. Are our brother periodicals in statu quo ?

ODOHERTY.

Yes, heavy and harmless. Whittaker is going to start a new bang-up, to be called the Universal-a most comprehensive title.

NORTH.

It is, I understand, a second Avatar of the New Edinburgh, with some fresh hands. God send it a good deliverance!

ODOHERTY.

Very elegantly indeed—and the music is beautiful. Altogether it acts right well. "You have heard of Shee's Alasco ?

NORTH.

ODOHERTY.

NORTH

ODOHERTY.

How George Colman suppressed it?
Yes and on what grounds ?
Something political, I understand; but I do not know exactly what.

Nor I very exactly ;—but it is understood that) the hero, (to be enacted by Charles Kemble) was a Liberal.

That is, a ruffian “ nulla virtute redemptus.”

Exactly, and Shee with no other meaning than to write dramatically-for Shee is a worthy and right-minded fellow-gave this lad all the roaring, rumfustian, upper-gallery, clap-trap, hullaballoows about liberty, emancipation, the cause of freedom all over the world, and the other fine things, on which the Breeches-maker's review

TICKLER.

ODOHERTY.

ODOHERTY.

The Westminster—but as Place, the snip of Charing-Cross, is the great authority in it, it is never called anything in London, but the Breeches-maker's Review. However, as I was saying, the effective part acted by the effective actor, was this sort of gunpowder stuff, while the antagonizing principle, as his holiness Bishop Coleridge would say, was a fellow as humdrum as one of the pluckless Prosers of the Modern Athens, and to be performed by one Cooper or Carpenter. So the Benthamism had it all to itself—and in English too, a language which Jerry, you know, does not understand ; and therefore cannot corrupt the nation by scribbling in it.

If such be the case, Colman was quite right; though, after all, the country is so well disposed, that it might have been left to the decision of the House.

Which would, I think, in the present temper of the people, have damned anything jacobinical or verging thereto.

Ay, ay, countryman O'Connell, with grief, is obliged to confess, that “ Toryism is triumphant.” Fill your glasses---Here's, long may it so continue !

TICKLER.

NORTH

ODOHERTY.

NORTH AND TICKLER.

Amen, amen.

ODOHERTY.

Any news in Edinburgh ?

NORTH (sings.) Order up supper immediately. News in Edinburgh ! Bless your heart, when had we news here?

TICKLER.

The old affair - Listen and you shall hear how it has gone, goeth, and shall go at Ambrose's.--(sings.)

I.
Ye sons of the platter give ear,
Venter habet aures, they say,
The praise of good eating to hear,
You'll never be out of the way ;
But with knives sharp as razors, and stomachs as keen,
Stand ready to cut through the fat and the lean-

Through the fat and the lean,
Sit ready to cut through the fat and the lean.

VOL. XV.

3 A

II.
The science of eating is old,
Its antiquity no man can doubt,
Though Adam was squeamish, we're told,

Eve soon found a dainty bit out;
Then with knives sharp as razors and stomachs as keen,
Our passage let's cut through the fat and the lean-

&c. &c.
III.
Through the world from the West to the East,

Whether City, or Country, or Court,
There's no honest man, Laic or Priest,

But with pleasure partakes in the sport,
And with knife sharp as razor, and stomach as keen,
His passage doth cut through the fat and the lean-

&c. &c.

IV.
They may talk of their roast and their boiled,

They may talk of their stew and their fry,
I am gentle simplicity's child,

And I dote on a West-Riding pye,
While with knife sharp as razor and stomach as keen,
I splash through the crust to the fat and the lean

To the fat and the lean,

&c. &c.

V.
Let the Whigs have sour bannocks to chew,

And their dish-water namesake to swill ;
But, dear boys, let the wet ruby flow

For the comfort of Torydom still,
Be our dishes like mountains, our bumpers like seas,
Be the fatness with us, and the leanness with these

&c. &c.

NORTH.

ODOHERTY.

NORTH

I like to hear you talk of leanness –Well, well, after all, what an infernal bump of gluttony you must sport, Timotheus and you too, Odoherty.--You are not aware, perhaps, that the infernal idiots have got you into their hands.

The infernal idiots-who are they ?-0, the Phrenologists ! How have the asses got me ?

It appears that you were lying on your old bench in the watch-house, after an evening's carouse here, when a party of Craniologists were committed for exercising the Organ of Destructiveness on the windows of somebody, whom they wanted to convince of the truth of the theory—and one of them took a cast of your head.

ODOHERTY. The Devil he did !-What did he find there?

NORTH. Imprimis, one huge bump on the top of the forehead, denoting extraordinary piety.

ODOHERTY. What, this bump here ?-Piety with a vengeance !-To be sure I went on my knees immediately after getting it--for it is the mark of a rap of a shillela which I got in the days of my youth from Cornelius O'Callaghan, in a row at Ballyhooly. What else am I, besides being pious ?

0, I forget the entire but it is to appear in the next volume of their transactions.

NORTH.