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1823.]

A STAMPEDE.

331

pounds, and a hundred pounds for cost frae Mr. North, yet I hereby give you notice, in due form of law, that I intend forthwith, unless satisfied in the interim, to bring an action against you all severally, saving and excepting Mr. North, whose offer I have accepted; and having estimated my damage at five thousand pounds, I will have that paid down to the uttermost farthing.

(Exeunt Omnes, in the greatest panic and consternation.)

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Odoherty. Chorus then. Buller, awake, man. Chorus, all of you,

I say.

of

Chorus of Contributors.

So triumph to the Tories, and woe to the Whigs,

And to all other foes of the nation;

Let us be through thick and thin caring nothing for the prigs
Who prate about conciliation.

Dr. Mullion. Bravo, Odoherty, bravissimo!-that is decidedly one your very best effusions.

Odoherty. No blarney to me, mon ami. I have taken my degrees in that celebrated university. In candor, however, and equity, I am bound to say, that I do think it a pretty fairish song, as songs go now-a-days.

North. Why, it must be admitted, that there is an awful quantity of bad songs vented just now.

Tickler. It must be the case as long as they issue in such shoals ; the bad must bear a huge proportion to the good at all times; for they are just the off-throwings of the ephemeral buoyancy of spirit of the day; and as actual buoyancy of spirit generally breeds nonsense, and affectation of it is always stupidity, you must e'en be content with your three grains of wheat in a bushel of chaff.

North. Yes, yes-they must be from their very nature ephemeral. Which of all our songs-I don't mean particularly those of the present company-but of all the songs now written and composed by all the song-writers now extant-will be alive a hundred years hence?

Ŏdoherty. Just as many as are now alive of those written and composed, as you most technically phrase it, a hundred years since.

Tickler. And that is but poor harvest indeed. Look over any of the song-books that contain the ditties of our grandmothers or great-grandmothers, and you will scarcely ever turn up a song familiar to any body but professed readers.

Odoherty. More's the pity. By all that's laughable, the reflection

JULY, 1823.]

DR. KITCHENER.

333

saddens me. "Pills to purge Melancholy," has become a melancholious book in itself.. You read page after page, puzzling yourself to make out the possibility-how any human mouth could by any device have got through the melodies-the uncouth melodies

Buller. You know Tom D'Urféy's plan? He used to take a country dance, the more intricate the better-for as you see by his dedication, he prided himself on that kind of legerdemain-and then put words to it as well as he could.

Odoherty. I know-I know-but I was saying that it is an unpleasant sort of feeling you have about you, when you peruse, like a groping student, songs that you are sure made palace and pot-houses ring with jollity and fun in the days of merry King Charles, and warmed the gallantry of the grenadiers of Britain at the siege of Namur, under hooked-nose Old-glorious,* or of

Our countrymen in Flanders

A hundred years ago,

When they fought like Alexanders

Beneath the great Marlboro'.

North. Ay, “the odor's fled." They are like uncorked soda-water. Honest Tom D'Urféy, I think I see him now in my mind's eye, Horatio. Holding his song-book with a tipsy gravity, and trolling forth

Joy to great Cæsar,
Long life and pleasure,

with old Rowley leaning on his shoulder, partly out of that jocular familiarity which endeared him to the people in spite of all his rascalities, and partly to keep himself steady, humming the bass.

Buller. Have you seen Dr. Kitchener's book?

North. I have, and a good, jovial, loyal book it is. The Doctor is, by all accounts, a famous fellow-great in cookery, medicine, music, poetry, and optics, on which he has published a treatise.f

Odoherty. I esteem the Doctor.

North. The devil you do!—after cutting him up so abominably in my Magazine, in an article, you know, inserted while I was in Glasgow, without my knowledge.

Odoherty. Why are you always reminding a man of his evil-doings?

* William III., whose "pious, glorious, and immortal memory" used to be the Orange charter toast in Ireland.-M..

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+ Dr. William Kitchener, more distinguished by gastronomic than medical knowledge, wrote a book called "The Cook's Oracle," invented new and improved old dishes, had his friends, as a committee of taste," to pass judgment upon them at dinner, had very pleasant conversaziones for the male and female literati, and enjoyed life much. He insisted on punctuality, and had a placard over his chimney-piece, inscribed, "Come at seven, go at eleven." George Colman slily interpolated a monosyllable, making the line run, "go it at eleven." Optics and music, as well as gastronomy, supplied subjects for Kitchener's pen. He died in 1827.-M.

Consider that I have been white-washed by the Insolvent Court since, and let all my sins go with that white-washing. To cut the matter short, I had a most excellent cookery-book written, founded on the principles practised in the 99th mess, and was going to treat with Longman's folks about it, when Kitchener came out, and pre-occupied the market. You need not wonder, therefore, at my tickling up the worthy Doctor, who himself enjoyed the fun, being a loyal fellow to the backbone; a Tory tough and true. We are now the best friends in the world.

Mullion. Well, let that pass-what song-writer of our days, think you, will live?-Moore ?

North. Moore! No, he has not the stamina in him at all. His verses are elegant, pretty, glittering, any thing you please in that line; but they have defects which will not allow them to get down to posterity. For instance, the querulous politics, on your local affairs, Odoherty, which make them now so popular with a very large class of your countrymen, are mere matters of the day, which will die with the day; for I hope you do not intend to be always fighting in Ireland?

Odoherty. I do not know how that will be-better fighting than stagnating; but, at all events, I hope we will change the grounds somewhat I hate monotony; I trust that my worthy countrymen will get some new matter of tumult for the next generation.

North. It is probable that they will-and then, you know, Moore's "Oh! breathe not his name," " Erin, the tear," &c., &c., will be just as forgotten as any of the things in Hogg's Jacobite relics.

Tickler. Which will ever stand, or rather fall, as a memento of the utter perishableness of all party song-writing.

North. And then there's Moore's accursed fancy for showing off learning, and his botany, and zoology, and meteorology, and mythology. Odoherty. O ay, and the mixed metaphor, and the downright nonsense-the song you quoted just now could be finely amended. North. What song?

Odoherty. "Erin, the smile, and the tear in thine eyes, blend like the rainbow," &c. Now, that is a washy, watery comparison for my hard-drinking country. I lay £5 that a jug of punch would be a more accurate and truly philosophical emblem; as thus. There's the Protestant part of the population inferior in quantity, superior in strength, apt to get at the head, evidently the whisky of the compound. The Roman Catholics, greater in physical proportions, but infinitely weaker, and usually very hot, are shadowed forth by the water. The Orangemen, as their name implies, are the fruit, which some palates think too sour, and therefore reject, while others think that it alone gives grateful flavor to the whole.

Mullion. And what's the sugar ?

Odoherty. Why, the conciliators dropped in among us to sweeten

1823.]

SONG OF A FALLEN ANGEL.

335

our acidity—and you know some think that they have supplied with too liberal a hand-very much at the risk of turning the stomachs of

the company.

North. A hopeful illustration-but in truth, Odoherty, your whole conversation is redolent of nothing but drink.

Odoherty. I am like Tom Moore's First Angel-the gentleman without a name, and admire compotation, not exactly "the juice of Earth,” however, as Tom calls it, that being, I take it, ditch-water.

Mullion. You never saw the song Tom intended for this drunken angel of his after his fall?

Odoherty. Not I-parade it-is it not in the poem ?

Mullion. No; Denman, who is Moore's doer of late, cut it out, just as he cut up the Fables.* I have a copy, however, which I shall sing.

SONG OF A FALLEN ANGEL OVER A BOWL OF RUM-PUNCH.

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* It was believed that Moore's "Fables for the Holy Alliance" were submitted to Lord Denman, then Common Sergeant (one of the local judges) of London, previous to publication, that he might decide on the question how libellous they were.-M.

+ The Celtic Society, at their annual dinner, always wore the kilt.-M.

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