146 Ode to Sir Charles Wether ell [FEB. 



The fabled nibbler, the illustrious Mouse, 

 c&UTUAtl? Burning to set the British lion free 

 (As Castlereagh 

 Was wont to say) 

 From the vile net of Liberty. 

 Isio ; Oh ! great Grimaldi of the lower-house ; 



Clown in the parliament's long pantomime ; 

 A merry-Andrew, holding up the pall 

 Of sixty boroughs stifled in their prime- 

 Mourning their fall 



In fine Joe-Miller jokes and apothegms, 

 That, set in dulness, glisten more than gems; 

 Oh ! Lord Low Chancellor in that strange cause 

 Of " Twenty Millions versus Twenty Tories," 

 Ungrateful would it be to give thy glories 

 Less than a super-natural cognomen. 

 Thou art a. link in nature though not lit ; 

 Zoology must leave thee still unclassed 



Unless some showman, 

 W T ho deals in curious monsters unsurpassed, 

 Fine dwarfish giants, and fierce poodle-bears, 

 Should in his great sagacity think fit 

 To take thee, as first conjuror, to fairs. 



III. 



An odd conundrum art thou, great Sir Charles ; 



A sort of Philip Quarles, 

 Mistaking England for a desert isle, 

 Where "learned lions, and " right reverend" leopards, 



Should feast instead of shepherds. 

 Thy arguments quite equal Captain Shandy's ; 

 Thy speeches might be measured by the mile ; 

 Thou beau-ideal of the anti-dandies, 

 The very Brummel of the race of slovens ! 

 Yet chiefly this thy future bards shall sing ; 

 Thou art the rival of the famed Fire-King, 

 Who for a " crown" (but not like thine, we know) 

 Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 

 Would shut himself, rare oddity ! in ovens. 

 Yes, though thou art indeed the " ancient Pistol" 

 To that most funless, and yet fine " old Jack," 



Whose sack 



(I mean the woolsack) was his constant care 

 Thy letter to posterity must bear 



The postmark " Bristol." 

 Of this renown thou canst not be bereft ; 

 Thou art the martyred knight who fled, in fear, 

 A blazing city, to be roasted here 

 , The lawyer who, in common, somewhat thrifty, 

 And long inured to smoke, behind him left 

 One Wig, to fall beneath the strokes of fifty. 

 What were Napoleon's retreats to thine ? 

 Oh ! clear " explainer," learned inuendo, 



Lucus a non lucendo, 



Oh ! greater than Guy Fawkes, oh ! Phosnix fine, 

 Thou with the heroes of mythology, 

 When the Millenium comes, must take thy station ; 

 And Herschels yet unborn shall find in thee, 

 A tail-less comet, or a constellation. 



