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Punch and Judy. [Ocr, 
I’ve walked where jewels formed a starry way, 
And heard, near some flirtation-corner straying, 
Some fop, some walking suit of fine clothes, say 
The very things I might have just been saying— 
Remarks on Almack’s, Opera, park, or play, 
Trite and unvaried as more vulgar braying, 
And thea—oh, then—the feats of Punch came o’er nie, 
And then the charmsf Judy flashed before me. 
Punch! I have lounged through many an Exhibition, 
Praising the Painter’s and the Sculptor’s art, 
Where by the magic of some modern Titian 
Fair forms from out the canvas seemed to start ; 
Or, wrought by embryo Academician, 
Some shell-borne Venus stole upon my heart : 
And I have heard the eognoscenti speak 
In raptures of the classic and antique: 
Yet, by mine honour, if I must confess it, I 
Believe, that*half the admirers of wert: 
Still chattering on, with, or without, necessity, 
Of Raphaél’s grace, and Rubens? glowing hue, 
And all Corregio’s corregiescity, 
Lovelier than nature, yet to nature true, 
More feel, more understand thy grand grimaces, 
Than nobler things, mere pegs for eommon-places. 
Nor will I add the insult of comparing 
Thee with the Fives-Court, and the mob withing it; 
Nor with that pit, where Billy the unsparing 
Slays at his ease some twenty rats a beens 5 
As heroes, who their fame are fond of wearin, 
Rush through the blood of meaner things to win it !— 
Thine are the bloodless triumphs of broad. humour, 
Which never cause a death, nor e’en a tumour. 
Go, Punch, to court, and shame the polish’d rogues 
Who live by lies supplanting one another : 
The scandal, which their envy disembogues, 
In the full tide of thy gay fancies smother ! 
To Congress go, where kings speak epilogues 
To that stern drama, when man slew his brother, 
Through Eurepe’s many nations, and entreat them, 
Much as they love such plays, not to repeat them, 
Go, Punch, again to country town or village ; 
Go, and amuse the pests, whose tongues, like sabres, 
Hack and destroy; who love fair fame to pillage, 
Half grubs, half hornets, in their deadly labours ! 
Many I know, who reap from such a tillage 
Full crops of libel ’mid their friends and neighbours : 
But through the muse to fame they shal! not clamber— 
Who would preserve such gnats as these in amber ? 
And thus I might proceed, and like a Turk 
All grades, all trades, all sorts, in turn bespatter 5 
But men might in my lay see venom lurk, 
And deem this poem a malicious satire— 
Instead of, as it is, a serious work, 
Replete with moral and didactic matter 5 
The rest, then, I pass over in a bunch, ; 
Nor make comparisons ’twixt them and: Puinehs »/c1>0! 
