Your Lordship's praises of the scraps
I sent you from my Journal lately,
(Enveloping a few laced caps
For Lady C,) delight me greatly.
_Her_ flattering speech--"What pretty things
"One finds in Mr. FUDGE's pages!"
Is praise which (as some poet sings)
Would pay one for the toils of ages.
Thus flattered, I presume to send
A few more extracts by a friend;
And I should hope they'll be no less
Approved of than my last MS.--
The former ones, I fear, were creased,
As BIDDY round the caps _would_ pin them;
But these will come to hand, at least
Unrumpled, for there's--nothing in them.
_Extracts from Mr. Fudge's Journal, addressed to Lord C._
_August 10_.
Went to the Mad-house--saw the man[2]
Who thinks, poor wretch, that, while the Fiend
Of Discord here full riot ran,
_He_, like the rest, was guillotined;--
But that when, under BONEY'S reign,
(A more discreet, tho' quite as strong one,)
The heads were all restored again,
He, in the scramble, got a _wrong one_.
Accordingly, he still cries out
This strange head fits him most unpleasantly;
And always runs, poor devil, about,
Inquiring for his own incessantly!
While to his case a tear I dropt,
And sauntered home, thought I--ye Gods!
How many heads might thus be swopt,
And, after all, not make much odds!
For instance, there's VANSITTART'S head--
("Tam _carum_" it may well be said)
If by some curious chance it came
To settle on BILL SOAMES'S[3] shoulders,
The effect would turn out much the same
On all respectable cash-holders;
Except that while, in its _new_ socket,
The head was planning schemes to win
A _zig-zag_ way into one's pocket,
The hands would plunge directly in.
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