1830.] The Club-Room. 35 



The story into every service prest 

 The ready riddance of a punster's breast. 



Pillage. I have a production here, on which I hope the most 

 colossal vengeance will be visited. It has been just transmitted to me 

 by my friend, the Great Architect, whose designs so strikingly recal the 

 days of Palladio, Wren, and Jones the sublime embellisher of our reno- 

 vated metropolis or, to sum up his merits in one word, the fabricator 

 of that ninth wonder of the world the Palace of Pimlico ; a perform- 

 ance, which I shall make bold to say has not been equalled in the history 

 of royal residences, as a proof of the benefit of building on the model of 

 a twelfth cake in sight of a stagnant pool, in the smoke of a whole 

 army of steam-engines, and in the closest contact with a suburb popula- 

 tion. The offence to which I beg to draw attention, is entitled, " An 

 appropriate Emblem for the Triumphal Arch of the New Palace. 

 Dedicated to the poor, penniless, priest-ridden, and paralyzed John 

 Bull." 



Flourish. 



By apt alliteration's artful aid, 



Licentious libel thus on libel's laid : 



Thus beggared Britain buries gold in brick ; 



Soane makes us more than smile Nash, more than sick. 



Jonathan Wild. Where did you get that, Flourish ? Stolen, of course ? 



Flourish. I forgive you the surmise, it is so perfectly natural to you. 

 But it was not from your portfolio, at least. 



Pillage. The scene of this intolerable performance is the front of the 

 palace. On the summit of the triumphal arch stands a figure, in a 

 Merry Andrew's jacket, with a cap and bells over the most rueful coun- 

 tenance imaginable, intimating, it may be presumed, that John Bull has 

 been made egregiously to play the fool upon the occasion, with a 

 touch at the Jack-pudding style of architecture. But the costume 

 changes downward; his skirts are in remnants his breeches in rags ' 

 his stockings are falling off his emaciated legs his knees are turned 

 in through weakness, which, my friend Pounce here would say, was 

 a sign of his being in-need ; his meagre hands are drawing out the 

 linings of two huge breeches' pockets, once huge for other purposes, 

 with the inscription on one of " To let ;" and on the other, " Empty." A 

 flight of crows are gathering round him, sagacious of prey ; and, to judge 

 from the impoverished wretch's countenance, they are not likely to be 

 long disappointed. In the rear is the palace, surmounted by three figures, 

 " the Man wot drives the Sovereign/' " the Cad to the Man/' and, 

 backed by the cupola, that emblem of a Norfolk dumpling, or a bald 

 head, or a punch-bowl, or any other architectural monstrosity capable 

 of white-wash, stands a third figure, not to be mentioned without a 

 prostration. 



The Chairman. Well, let those men of mortar sink or swim, what care 

 I for the contempt thrown on a generation of bricklayers ? There is 

 one comfort about the business, which I wish I could say about those of 

 their betters, that their faults are made to be forgotten. There is not a 

 blunder of theirs that will not be covered deep in its own dust within 

 a dozen years. The clay will sink into its kindred clay ; the iron be as 

 rusty as old Bexley's finance ; the plaster gods and goddesses have every 

 grimace washed away, and the whole leave a clear space for the erection 



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