1830.] a Lover of Literature. 413 



An epigram on the Treasury repairs, contains the true spirit of 

 epigram, brief and easy sarcasm : 



From sunset till daybreak, while Walpole's asleep, 

 New watch are appointed the Exchequer to keep ; 

 New bolts and new bars fasten up every door, 

 And the chests are made three times as strong as before. 

 From the night till the morning, I grant you, all's right ; 

 But who will secure it from morning till night ? 



The building of Somerset House renewed the popular clamour against 

 Scotch ascendancy, in the early part of the last reign. The Adams 

 actually employed none but Scotchmen in the whole construction. This 

 produced a vast quantity of sneering at the partiality of Sandy for his 

 countrymen. These lines were popular : 



Four Scotchmen, scoundrels all, and Adams, 

 Who keep their coaches and their macfams, 

 Have gathered frae the North to hum us, 

 And now would steal our river from us. 

 Auld Scotland ! many a day, 'twas said, 

 Thy teeth were sharp for English bread ; 

 But, steal our bread and water too ! 

 'Tis true 'tis hard 'tis hard 'tis true ! 

 Ye friends alike of George and James, 

 Throw down your hods, and leave the Thames ! 

 The princess* fond of raw-boned faces, 

 May give you all our posts and places. 

 Take all, to fill your purse and pride, 

 But dip your oatmeal in the Clyde ! 



The Constantinopolitan Greeks, though in the very jaws of the 

 Turkish tiger, and hourly becoming more obnoxious to hazard in the 

 present state of a tyranny, rendered doubly jealous by defeat, yet retain 

 that singular buoyancy of spirits, which made them remarkable among 

 ancient nations. Songs, poems and predictions administer to this indes- 

 tructible spirit, and the Turco-Greek is the firmest believer in every 

 absurdity sanctioned by an allusion to his future triumph. But on one 

 prediction he fixes with peculiar reverence ; and there are some circum- 

 stances connected with it, which might justify much interest even among 

 a less imaginative and sanguine people. The prediction is said to have 

 been found engraved on the tomb of Constantine the Great. It con- 

 sisted merely of consonants, to which the vowels had been supplied, 

 as the legend says, by Gennadios the patriarch of Constantinople, imme- 

 diately after the conquest by Mahomet the Second. It is certain, that it 

 has been circulating among the Greeks of Constantinople for upwards of 

 a century. Walsh, in his clever and amusing narrative, attempts to 

 account for it, on the supposition that it may have been composed 

 about the time of Peter the Great's first entrance into the Hospodariates, 

 and his offers of protection to the Greeks. But for this he assigns no 

 grounds, and the story of this strange prediction is still in clouds. 



Inscription on the tomb of Constantine the Great. 



" On the first of the Indict, the kingdom of Ishmael, he who is 

 called Mahomet shall overthrow the race of the Paleologi, and shall 



* The late king's mother, supposed to admire Lord Bute. 



