And still they kept limping to and fro,
Like Ariels round old Prospero--
Saying, "Dear Master, let us go,"
But still old Prospero answered "No."
And I heard the while that wizard elf
Muttering, muttering spells to himself,
While o'er as many old papers he turned,
As Hume e'er moved for or Omar burned.
He talkt of his virtue--"tho' some, less nice,
(He owned with a sigh) preferred his _Vice_"--
And he said, "I think"--"I doubt"--"I hope,"
Called God to witness, and damned the Pope;
With many more sleights of tongue and hand
I couldn't for the soul of me understand.
Amazed and posed, I was just about
To ask his name, when the screams without,
The merciless clack of the imps within,
And that conjuror's mutterings, made such a din,
That, startled, I woke--leapt up in my bed--
Found the Spirit, the imps, and the conjuror fled,
And blest my stars, right pleased to see,
That I wasn't as yet in Chancery.
[1] The Lord Chancellor Eldon.
THE PETITION OF THE ORANGEMEN OF IRELAND.
1826.
To the people of England, the humble Petition
Of Ireland's disconsolate Orangemen, showing--
That sad, very sad, is our present condition;--
Our jobbing all gone and our noble selves going;--
That forming one seventh, within a few fractions,
Of Ireland's seven millions of hot heads and hearts,
We hold it the basest of all base transactions
To keep us from murdering the other six parts;--
That as to laws made for the good of the many,
We humbly suggest there is nothing less true;
As all human laws (and our own, more than any)
Are made _by_ and _for_ a particular few:--
That much it delights every true Orange brother
To see you in England such ardor evince,
In discussing _which_ sect most tormented the other,
And burned with most _gusto_ some hundred years since;--
That we love to behold, while old England grows faint,
Messrs.
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