1832.J C 145 ] 



ODE TO SIR CHARLES WETHERELL. 



" Descend, ye Nine !" 



Yet stop ! 

 Ere from your seat celestial ye come down, 



To drop 



Benignity and balm into my line- 

 Teaching me how to win the olden crown 



Pindaric ; 

 To blend, in fact, with drolleries divine 



A pathos deep as Garrick ; 

 Let me but pause a moment to prepare 



A *' name" for him 



Who here hath found a " local habitation" 

 The monarch of all wisdom and all whim, 

 Whose train our pages are most proud to bear. 

 Yet, ah ! to find a fitting designation 

 Would tax the skill of the united Nine, 



When phrases were most fine. 

 How shall I name thee, how conceive the stanza, 



Oh ! Knight illustrious ! 



Knight of the rueful visage, windmill- warrior 

 Or, what is more appropriate, Sancho Panza ; 

 The 'Squire of Toryism stark staring mad, 

 Doomed, on a hack (has Cruikshank shewn a sorrier ?> 

 To stumble on with " motions" most industrious 

 Punning, predicting, proverbizing still 

 To save the falling and to smite the bad ; 

 Slaughtering the Whigs, that take their wicked will 

 Of weak and innocent boroughs washing out 

 The state's dark stains with rhetoric's ablution ; 

 And slaying those foul fiends who go about 

 (As Hampden, Sidney, Russell did, no doubt) 

 Deflowering the virgin-Constitution. 



II. 



Again, and yet again, Sir Knight, I ask, 



How merely mortal quill should treat of thee, 



Most merry and immaculate M.P. 



(I wish the poet-laureate had the task !) 



Oh ! who could paint a rainbow with one hue, 



Or harlequin all blue ? 

 As little may I hope to find one name 

 Descriptive of thy glory and thy fame ; 

 Thine whom a crazy world, that always snarls, 



Calls "mad Sir Charles." 

 Whom brother-members, in familiar parley, 

 Jocosely designate as " old Sir Charley." 

 But whom we here pronounce, in purer taste, 

 The droll Democritus of dull debaters 

 The Pan of politics, the prince of satyrs, 



The Great Unbraced ; 



Patron of habits loose and looser reasons ; 

 So loose that even Tories fear to trust 'em ; 



Denouncer of high treasons 

 Against the hoary majesty of custom ; 

 An ex-expounder of the libel-laws, 

 Levelling the tree of freedom with " old saws ;" 

 M.M. New Series. VOL. XIII. No. 74. L 



