1830.] The Club-Room. 45 



was written oh the occasion of a fete champetre, to which the author 



was not invited. Of the authorship, I shall say no more than 



The Chairman. Come, " leave your damnable faces, and begin." 

 Flourish. (Sings, giving himself the key-note from a musical snuff-box.) 



THE FETE CHAMPETRE. 



Tune The Woodpecker. 



I knew by the smoke of the flambeaux so curled, 

 By the belles and the blue-devils clustering near, 



That if there were fools to be found in this world, 

 The man that loved folly might feast on it here. 



For if for the bluest of nonsense you'd ask, 



At Vassall's it's sure to be found in a mask. 



No more on back-benches a dumbie to pine, 



Here the Whig may his passion for pension disclose; 



Burdett speak his lungs out ; nay, Jack Russell shine ; 

 Here Tierney and Jekyll may pun nose to nose: 



Here the fondest confession that party can ask 



May breathe from the lips if it breathes in a mask. 



Here the radical patriot, the asinine peer, 



Finds the courage of crowds, for they're all of a trade 



The same breadth of conscience, the same length of ear, 

 The same solemn blunder ! no more must be said. 



If the wine of reform turns to lees in the cask, 



Here you'll have But my speech must be under a mask. 



Here Brougham might look civil, here Denman might pray ; 



Here Lloyd (or his ghost) might look honest awhile; 

 Here Hume might look human a tiger at play ; 



Here men feel no shudder, though Arbuthnot smile. 

 All's candour and honour But how ? you may ask ; 

 'Tis by pasteboard and whitewash the spell's in the mask. 



[The Chairman yawns, and they all rise. He waves his hand towards the 

 door, and they retire in solemn silence, as he rings the 



A NIGHT ON DARTMOOR. 



IN journeying through the south of Devon, especially through that 

 luxuriant portion of which Dawlish forms the commencement, and Tor- 

 quay, with its romantic air-hung terraces, the termination, the admired 

 of the picturesque must have often marked with astonishment, not un- 

 mingled with awe, the forbidding aspect of a gloomy, barren range of 

 hills rising in some places to the dignity of mountains which 

 abruptly bound the inland horizon. From whatever point of view 

 beheld, whether from the still and lofty lanes of Bishopsteignton, 

 the bluff cliffs of Teignmouth, or the unique villa-studded Babicombe, 

 this range wears the same inhospitable character; tracing its bold 

 outline on the sky, not gracefully, like the sylvan perspectives of 

 Claude, but in the fixed, massive, gigantic spirit of Michael Angelo. 

 While every other part of the landscape glows with varied magic, Dart- 

 moor for it is of this vast deserted region I am speaking stands sternly 

 out in her desolation. The very sunbeams that light up in beauty the 



