RIVAL TOPICS.* AN EXTRAVAGANZA. OH W-11-ngt-n and Stephenson, Times, Herald, Courier, Globe, and Sun, The everlasting two! Still doom'd, from rise to set of sun, To hear what mischief one has done, What bills the banker pass'd to friends, But never meant to pay; What Bills the other wight intends, As honest, in their way;— *The date of this squib must have been, I think, about 1828-9. Bills, payable at distant sight, Beyond the Grecian kalends, When all good deeds will come to light, When W-ll-ngt-n will do what's right, And Rowland pay his balance. To catch the banker all have sought, While t'other juggler-who'd have thought? And, such the power of papal crook, Sir Richard Birnie doth decide And t'other hero, all agree, St. Luke's will soon arrive at, If thus he shows off publicly, When he might pass in private. Oh W-11-ngt-n, oh Stephenson, Ye ever-boring pair, Where'er I sit, or stand, or run, Ye haunt me every where. Though Job had patience tough enough, Till one's turn'd out and t'other off, But small's the chance that Law affords— And, 'twixt the' Old Bailey and the Lords, They both, I fear, will get off. THE BOY STATESMAN. BY A TORY. "That boy will be the death of me." Matthews at Home. Ан, Tories dear, our ruin is near, With St-nl-y to help us, we can't but fall; Already a warning voice I hear, Like the late Charles Matthews' croak in my ear, "That boy-that boy'll be the death of you all." He will, God help us!—not ev'n Scriblerius As such "Masters Shallow" well could go; And where we shall all both low and high, As already doth Gr-h-m of Netherby! And a foolish lad was that only one, And Sir Thomas said, one day to his wife, "My dear, I can't but wish you joy, "For you pray'd for a boy, and you now have a boy, "Who'll continue a boy to the end of his life." Ev'n such is our own distressing lot, With the ever-young statesman we have got; - While ours such power of boyhood shows, And ourselves to witness it heav'n condemn, A whipper-snapper Methusalem; |