LETTER IX.

FROM PHIL. FUDGE, ESQ. TO THE LORD VISCOUNT C-ST-GH.

My Lord, th' Instructions, brought to-day,
"I shall in all my best obey."

Your Lordship talks and writes so sensibly!
And-whatsoe'er some wags may say-
Oh! not at all incomprehensibly.

I feel th' inquiries in your letter

About my health and French most flattering; Thank ye, my French, though somewhat better,

Is, on the whole, but weak and smattering:
Nothing, of course, that can compare
With his who made the Congress stare

(A certain Lord we need not name),

Who ev'n in French, would have his trope,

And talk of "batir un systême

"Sur l'équilibre de l'Europe!"

:

Sweet metaphor!-and then th' Epistle,
Which bid the Saxon King go whistle, —
That tender letter to "Mon Prince*,"
Which show'd alike thy French and sense;
Oh no, my Lord—there's none can do
Or say un-English things like you;
And, if the schemes that fill thy breast
Could but a vent congenial seek,

And use the tongue that suits them best,
What charming Turkish would'st thou speak!
But as for me, a Frenchless grub,

At Congress never born to stammer,

Nor learn like thee, my Lord, to snub

Fall'n Monarchs, out of CHAMBAUD's grammar—

Bless you, you do not, cannot know

How far a little French will go;

For all one's stock, one need but draw

On some half-dozen words like these

*The celebrated letter to Prince Hardenburgh (written, however, I believe, originally in English,) in which his Lordship, professing to see "no moral or political objection" to the dismemberment of Saxony, denounced the unfortunate King as "not only the most devoted, but the most favoured of Bonaparte's vassals.”

Comme ça -par-là — là-bas—ah ha!

They'll take you all through France with ease.

Your Lordship's praises of the scraps
I sent you from my Journal lately,
(Enveloping a few lac'd 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 flatter'd, I presume to send
A few more extracts by a friend;
And I should hope they'll be no less
Approv'd of than my last MS.-

The former ones, I fear, were creas'd,

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.

Aug. 10.

Went to the Mad-house-saw the man*,

Who thinks, poor wretch, that, while the Fiend Of Discord here full riot ran,

He, like the rest, was guillotin'd;

But that when, under BONEY's reign,

(A more discreet, though quite as strong one,)

The heads were all restor❜d 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 dev'l, about,

Inquiring for his own incessantly!

While to his case a tear I dropt,

And saunter'd home, thought I-ye Gods!

* This extraordinary madman is, I believe, in the Bicêtre. He imagines, exactly as Mr. Fudge states it, that, when the heads of those who had been guillotined were restored, he by mistake got some other person's instead of his own.

How many heads might thus be swopp'd,
And, after all, not make much odds!
For instance, there's V-S-TT-T's head-
("Tam carum *” it may well be said)
If by some curious chance it came

To settle on BILL SOAMES'S+ shoulders,
Th' 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.

Good Viscount S-DM-H, too, instead
Of his own grave, respected head,
Might wear (for aught I see that bars)
Old Lady WILHELMINA FRUMP's —

So while the hand sign'd Circulars,

The head might lisp out "What is trumps?" The R-G-T's brains could we transfer

To some robust man-milliner,

* Tam cari capitis. - HORAT.
† A celebrated pickpocket.