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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.

NORTH.

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

ODOHERTY.

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

TICKLER.

And even this must not be published, for fear of offending the delicate ears of Sheilinagig and Co.!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?

ODOHERTY.

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.

TICKLER.

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?

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.

NORTH.

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

ODOHERTY.

Of course-of course-a most excellent fellow that said bibliopole is.

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My blackguard review, Mr Adjutant-it was you who wrote it.

I-Well, that beats Banagher.

ODOHERTY.

TICKLER.

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.

NORTH.

N'importe. Has Murray much on hand?

ODOHERTY.

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

Heavy, I suppose.

NORTH.

ODOHERTY.

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

NORTH.

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.

TICKLER.

NORTH.

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

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!

TICKLER.

Was the Universal the name originally proposed?

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ODOHERTY.

No-the Bimensial-as it is to come out every two months. Rogers knocked up that name by a pun. Ay," said he, "you may cry Bi-men-sial, but the question is, whether Men-shall-buy?" A bad pun in my opinion.

NORTH.

O hideous-aside] it is his own.

TICKLER.

Abominable-aside] evidently his. We'll spoil his fishing for compliments.

ODOHERTY.

Why, lookye, gentlemen, I do not think it quite so bad as that—I can tell you I have heard worse at this table.

NORTH.

Ha! ha! ha! Caught, Ensign ?-empty your glass, man, and don't think to impose on us.

ODOHERTY.

Well, so be it.-Anything for a quiet life. Here I have brought you Mr Gleig's pamphlet about the Missionaries. I assure you few things have made more noise about town. 'Tis really a pithy performance-devilish well written too-a rising sprig of the Mitre this, sirs.

TICKLER.

Just the thing I was wanting to see I saw it quoted in the John Bull.Such authors are much wanted now-a-days-anything else, Ensign ?

ODOHERTY.

Why, here's the new comedy too-spick and span.

NORTH.

"Pride shall have a fall." Whose is it?

ODOHERTY.

Moore's-Luttrell's-Croly's-Jones's-Rogers's-Soane's. All of which

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Never dispute with the newspapers-all must be right. I only think it proper to mention that Soane is given on the authority of the Old Times.

TICKLER.

A lie, of course. Nothing more is needed to prove that it is not Soane. How did it run?

ODOHERTY.

Like Lord Powerscourt's waterfall-full and fast. It is the most successful comedy since John Bull.

NORTH.

I shall read it in the morning. It seems to be elegantly written.

ODOHERTY.

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

NORTH.

How George Colman suppressed it?

ODOHERTY.

Yes-and on what grounds?

NORTH.

Something political, I understand; but I do not know exactly what.

ODOHERTY.

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

TICKLER.

That is, a ruffian “nulla virtute redemptus.”

ODOHERTY.

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

What review, do you say?

NORTH.

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 Frosers 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.

TICKLER.

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.

NORTH.

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

ODOHERTY.

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 !

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

VOL. XV.

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.

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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-

IV.

&c. &c.

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,-

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,

&c. &c.

Be our dishes like mountains, our bumpers like seas,
Be the fatness with us, and the leanness with these-

NORTH.

&c. &c.

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.

ODOHERTY.

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

NORTH.

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?

NORTH.

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

TICKLER.

They found the organ of punch-drinking very large, which tends, more than any other fact I have ever heard, to prove the truth of their wise science.

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Oh! the asses-if they found it somewhere under my gullet, they would be nearer the mark.-But come, here they go !—(sings.)

I.

Of all the asses in the town,

None's like the Phreno-lógers,-
They sport a braver length of ears
Than all the other codgers.
There's not a jackass in the land
Can bray so true and sweetly,
Nor prove a turnip is a head
As wise as theirs completely.

II.

'Tis they who write in learned words,
By no means long or braggart;
'Tis they who proved no saint e'er lived,
If none was Davie Haggart.

For Davie is a favourite name

Among our northern witches;

Twas David Welsh who made the club,

Along with David Breeches.-—

I meant to say Bridges, but I could not think of a rhyme. Davie, who is an excellent fellow in all other respects, is turned phrenologer, and has an interesting paper on a young thief of his acquaintance, in the Idiot Transactions, which is quite edifying to read.

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