BOOK THE FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

IN Bancok,*-all the world must know
Bancok's the Capital of Siam,-
There lived, not quite an age ago,

A gentleman whose name was Fiam.
Of moderate sense and decent fortune,
He ne'er had need his friends to' importune;
He asked them not to clothe or board him,
And therefore all his friends adored him!
For Bancok is a place where you,

If rich, have love enough to sate you; But only ask them for a sous,

And, Gad! how bitterly they hate you!

• Or Bangkok.

Our Fiam was a handsome fellow,

His nose was flat, his skin was yellow;
Tho' black his locks, with truth you'd swear
His teeth were blacker than his hair;

He might have seemed Apollo's grandson,
And borne the bell from Colonel Ans-n.

But, spite of this surpassing beauty,
His wife had quite forgot her duty;
And, (tho' 'twas twenty years ago,

Since marriage first had joined the pair,) She ne'er had managed to bestow

Upon this charming spouse an heir. Now this neglect was aught but proper, And half her friends began to drop her.

At length (it was one Van-a-thed,*)
Our dame was fairly brought to bed;
And-better day the better deed-
To' atone for all her former sins,

To Fiam she to-day decreed
The kind gratuity of twins.

So far, so good! the Siam nation

Is somewhat thin of population;

And (there, as here, two sects are clamorous, The Economic and the Amorous,)

* Sunday.

It must have charmed the Siam Saddlers,*
This doubling on the Malthus Twaddlers!

But, ah!—the worst's to come!—for Fate
Her boon with bane will ever mate,
And often with her childish antics

The fairest hope of mortal man tricks;
So now she, by a bony tether,

Joined breast to breast-our Twins together.

This freak of Mrs. Fate's, I fear,

Would nowhere give much satisfaction,
But really—as enacted here—

It was a most flagitious action.
For-reader-not like us! the way

At Bancok's always to look down on
Whatever Nature may betray

The smallest pre-resolve to frown on.

I leave you to conceive the scene !
The Siam-parson's face serene:
(Parsons possess in every nation
That greatest virtue, resignation!

* Mr. Sadler, on whom his godfathers bestowed the most just of all epithets by the most prophetic of all initials—Mr. M. T. (commonly pronounced Empty) Sadler, has lately published a book in opposition to the followers of Malthus; the size of it is very remarkable.

They also boast--there's no concealing--
A very liberal turn of feeling,
Which makes that virtue always shown
To your afflictions-not their own!)
The witch-read midwife's hint of awe;
The posed look of the man of law;
The wonder of the startled nurses;
And the smote father's stifled curses,-
Until at length he sinks him down,
With moving lip, but moveless frown;
Familiar footsteps pass him by-
Their forms are glassed not on his eye;
And voices merge in clamour near;
But sense lies locked within his ear.

So sate he in a marble grieving---
The comic of the crowd relieving;
And, proving the old dogma wrong,
That nought of grief can well belong*
To scenes where gayer verse makes rife
The humour and the farce of life.

Meanwhile, of course, with kindly chatter,
Comes half the town to learn the matter;
His lunch-(cold pigt)- the gourmand quits,
The very cooks desert their spits,

*Aristot. de Poetica, sect. xi.

↑ Pig and ducks are the favourite food of the Siamese.