[ 78 ] [JAN. 



THE OLD YEAR. 

 BY AN ULTRA-TORY. 



A PLAGUE on all Reform, for raising such a storm ! 



It makes the place too warm for any Tory's son ; 

 A plague upon the day when Brougham came in our way, 



In office with Lord Grey, in the year thirty-one ! 



The world is in a fury, the people are our jury, 



We've lions at Old Drury as tame as Mister Bunn ; 



While Cholera plays its rigs (I wish the foreign brigs 

 Had brought it to the Whigs in the year thirty-one). 



And then there's so much burking, and revolutions working, 

 With secret mischiefs working, which angry fate has spun, 



I fear that their intentions, as every rascal mentions, 

 Have threatened all our pensions in the year thirty one. 



'Neath London Bridge who steers, feels something like my fears, 

 And trembles for the peers Ah me ! I have made a pun ! 



But oh ! I mourn our fate for rich men and the great 

 Were driven from the state in the year thirty-one. 



We had a glorious bustle with little Lord John Russell, 



Expecting in the tustle we surely must have won ; 

 And though but by a fraction we failed in our re-action, 



They called us all a faction in the year thirty-one. 



We sought who could do less ? assistance from the press ; 



That left us in a mess Courier, Chronicle, and Sun ; 

 And had (oh, deed infernal !) since we smashed the Morning Journal, 



Scarce a weekly or diurnal in the year thirty-one. 



Though we bribed the Morning Post (the John Bull we paid the most), 



The ministers to roast yet certain as a gun, 

 The Herald and the Times, and more too hard for rhymes 



Have chronicled our crimes in the year thirty-one. 



The people have made merry with corporation sherry, 



And pelted Londonderry till he was forced to run, 

 Because his elocution defeated revolution, 



And saved the constitution in the year thirty-one. 



They talk about it still, and dare to say they will 



Have that accursed Bill and must have that, or none ; 



While all this troubled nation is one Association, 

 In spite the proclamation, in the year thirty-one. 



And no one ever hinders the breaking of our windows,* 



They burn our homes to cinders, and think it monstrous fun ; 



And then, with shouts and groans, the poor Recorder's bones 

 They set with " Bristol stones" in the year thirty-one. 



Our boroughs will be lost, I fear it to our cost, 



Before the coming frost the fate we cannot shun ; 

 And then, dear brother Tory, farewell to all our glory 



We shall not live in story in the year thirty-one. 



* " Kings are not more imperative then rhymes." 



