"--
_Quarterly Review_.
[4] "Lord Lorton, for instance, who, for clearing his estate of a village
of Irish Thuggists," etc.--_Quarterly Review_.
[5] "Observe how murder after murder is committed like minute-guns."--
_Ibid_.
GRAND DINNER OF TYPE AND CO.
A POOR POET'S DREAM.[1]
As I sate in my study, lone and still,
Thinking of Sergeant Talfourd's Bill,
And the speech by Lawyer Sugden made,
In spirit congenial, for "the Trade,"
Sudden I sunk to sleep and lo!
Upon Fancy's reinless nightmare flitting,
I found myself, in a second or so,
At the table of Messrs. Type and Co.
With a goodly group of diners sitting;--
All in the printing and publishing line,
Drest, I thought, extremely fine,
And sipping like lords their rosy wine;
While I in a state near inanition
With coat that hadn't much nap to spare
(Having just gone into its second edition),
Was the only wretch of an author there.
But think, how great was my surprise,
When I saw, in casting round my eyes,
That the dishes, sent up by Type's she-cooks,
Bore all, in appearance, the shape of books;
Large folios--God knows where they got 'em,
In these _small_ times--at top and bottom;
And quartos (such as the Press provides
For no one to read them) down the sides.
Then flasht a horrible thought on my brain,
And I said to myself, "'Tis all too plain,
"Like those well known in school quotations,
"Who ate up for dinner their own relations,
"I see now, before me, smoking here,
"The bodies and bones of my brethren dear;--
"Bright sons of the lyric and epic Muse,
"All cut up in cutlets, or hasht in stews;
"Their _works_, a light thro' ages to go,--
"_Themselves_, eaten up by Type and Co.
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