O, Duke of Wellington!-I mean the late-
Ere thy life's thread was sternly snapped by Fate,
Hoping, great sir, you'd haply call to mind
How gallant Sydney was to Spenser kind-
With a broad-piece rewarding every rhyme—
O blest example for succeeding time !—

I penned an ode to thee-the act was rash-
You sent no answer, but pronounced it trash!
Yet I, unangered, when thy race was run
Composed an elegy, and sent thy son-
A doleful elegy, heart-breaking lay-
But grieved am I in such a case to say
(Though no one than myself cares less for pelf)
Thy son was not more generous than thyself!

Sometimes I think, to eke my stipend bare,
My pen I'll offer to the next Lord-Mayor;
With short-legged lines his proud procession sing,
Guildhall's high potentate, the city's king!
A witty fool was used his state to grace;
Might not a modern bard obtain the place?
Time was when Fleet Street echoed with a strain ;
Time was—and why should not time be again?
O blest were I, beyond all poets blest,
Laureat to be alike of east and west:
Of Westminster and Wapping shine the star,
Nor intervene for me, old Temple-Bar!

O thou! 'midst fogs and sterile mountains bred-
Types of thy hard-bound heart and misty head,-
Whose welcome voice, late ringing through the sky,
Made squabbling grunters cease their hungry cry,
Rush crowding, jostling, shoving, head and tail,
And plunge their noses in their country's pail,-
Scotch Aberdeen! in whom all virtues meet,

So long as thou art throned in Downing Street:
I know not if I love or honour most

That great good man who rules the official roast!-
Heavens! when I think audacious Derby dare,
For ten whole months, usurp the Treasury chair;
Dull Disraeli at the Exchequer sit,
While Wood, the modern Colbert, wanted it;

St. Leonard's lawyer, void of sense and skill,
Wise Truro's place impertinently fill;

While great Newcastle did his office see
In hands of rustic knight of low degree;
And Machiavellian Graham grimly scan
The navy governed by a naval man ;-
Such consternation doth my breast distend
As if the world were coming to an end!
What though they say—all frontless as they are—
You waged a treacherous, base, clandestine war,
Lied, plotted, truckled, undermined, betrayed,
Until your chequered Cabinet was made
Motley as Joseph's coat, or Scotsman's plaid,—
(Whig, Peelite, Papist, Deist, Puseyite, Rad)
Heed not, great ministers, their clamorous din:
'Tis theirs to rail who lose, to laugh who win!
Like Epicurus' gods, with unmoved eye,
Poor struggling mortals at your feet descry;
Snug, salaried, envied, oligarchic be-

But think, oh sometimes think, of Alfred T-!

TOM SUFFRAGE'S VOTE:

A TALE.

BY A SITTING MEMBER.

CHAPTER VI.

Electioneering.

Now, good people all, to whom this is written, you must not conceive that all the Liberal party, nor even the Democratic section, of Lower Fleecington was comprised in the club at the "Cat and Trumpet!" There were many tradesmen in the town who were prepared to vote for any man who would come forward and place himself in opposition to the Grouseland family; but they were mostly too idle, too timorous, or too indifferent, to use any effort to procure such a man to head them.

Some, seeing that there never had been an opposition to the old family, thought that therefore there never could be; and became resigned to the state of things, half-forgetting they possessed a vote at all (which they might as well not have done, for the good it was to them). One or two thought it would be a desirable thing to raise an opposition; but they feared for their custom and their patronage. And the great bulk did not know, and wondered, why nothing was done to throw out the Grouselands at each election: and while they were wondering, one Honourable Mr. Grouseland after another walked into the Senate from Lower Fleecington.

Mr. Francis Sniggers-who, with all his faults of puppyism and selfconceit, was really shrewd and knowing in the ways of the world, and a perfect genius in the estimable art of setting people by the ears—saw all this, with his quick London eyes, before he had been in the town for one twelve-month, and considered how he should make use of it. He was often sent, by his principal-to whom he had become indispensable-on legal business, to the large detached houses in the neighbourhood; and old Screwman little thought that whilst he was nominally examining abstracts and giving small parcels of advice respecting mortgages, he was in reality

looking about for the man to put forward at the ensuing election. It was not long before the right person was found in that Mr. Winnegar of whom we have heard him say that "he is a stunning fellow-can drink nothing but water-lives on vegetables-has a stupendous forehead-and is a regular saviour of his country!" Mr. Timothy Winnegar, as stated also by Sniggers, had once been in business in the tin line; but having got rich, and wanting something to do, he turned patriot. Mr. Winnegar was very vain of his "sound sense," as he called it; and Sniggers knew well how to play upon that note, and did play upon it with admirable execution: he served him with a judicious course of flattery, and prevailed upon him to believe that all the Fleecingtonians were only waiting for him, and him alone, to come forward "and rescue them from the pit of aristocracy" (these words are from the mouth of Mr. Sniggers himself). And so Mr. Sniggers rang the changes upon "him" and "his," and "his" and "him," until he wound up Mr. Timothy Winnegar to the necessary pitch of satisfaction; and then left him, impressed with the belief that he (Winnegar) was like a second Jean Paul-the ONE, the ONLY ONE !

When a chance of election was to be seen, Mr. Sniggers was again at Mr. Winnegar, with all his might; and never rested till he dragged a promise from him to risk his own precious person, and a cool thousand or so, in the coming struggle.

Now a committee was, of course, required; and Sniggers knew very well that the worthy small tradesmen, who composed his club at the "Cat and Trumpet," however well they might do as hearers of his flaming speeches in the club-room, and however well they might smoke to the discomfiture of the "upper classes," were yet not the men of whom a committee of an election should be formed-for, to say the truth, Sniggers, like Falstaff, was rather ashamed of his followers.

Sniggers then went to work upon the class of inert respectables, of whom mention has lately been made: he fished out two surveyors, a young lawyer, an architect, and three proprietors of woollen manufactories, who were of Liberal principles; and, by dint of showing them a letter received from the immortal Winnegar himself, and of expatiating thereon, he enlisted a tolerably respectable band of committee-men; then he dubbed himself and Mr. Thomas Suffrage as canvassers of the borough, for Timothy Winnegar, Esq.

He was too wise to put himself, or his honest friend Tom, upon the list of the committee. Dull dogs would have done it, and so brought the opposition down to a mere farce, concocted by a small grocer and a lawyer's clerk. Sniggers knew better: his creed was that none look so much at money and standing as your true democrats-none despise equality so much as the levellers-so he had his committee of moneyed

and professional men; and he enrolled Tom, with himself, as their humble

servants.

But how had Tom time for all this; and what became of the neat little stock-in-trade that he had been set up with?

It was mentioned, in the first chapter of this tale, that when Tom and the little shopkeepers became innoculated with the political vein, they left their "businesses to mind themselves, while they minded their country. Tom, however, was more prudent than many. The neighbours, indeed, said that Tom's business was going fast "to the dogs," while he was going to the old Mill-house or to the "Cat and Trumpet: " but we know everybody's neighbours are fond of saying the same thing of everybody; and if all the persons consigned by others to the tender mercies of those mythical dogs went there, the poor animals would have enough to do!

Tom, as soon as the actual stir of the election began-for he found that it was impossible for a man to weigh out justice to his country and sugar to his customers at one and the same time, or to become a light to the nation whilst dispensing candles to his fellow-townsmen-sought out an old crone, who kept a green-grocery stall, who by a long course of charing and bile had become as yellow as her own onions, and as withered as their skins. She, having had some shadowy connections with Tom's childhood in the way of nursing or something of that sort, was thought by him worthy of all confidence; and so was appointed to satisfy his customers, whilst he satisfied his conscience.

Tom, though proud of his appointed part as a canvasser, was neither very zealous nor very successful in its fulfilment.

Indeed, upon one occasion, a call upon one of their staunchest supporters proved rather an unfortunate thing for the said partisan-it happened to be the person with whom the old Indian had taken up his abode. Tom and Sniggers were in the parlour, with the person in question-Sniggers relating some wonderful anecdotes of gallant struggles and brilliant victories made and achieved by the democratic party, in time out of mind, and discussing the merits of the committee-men whom he had chosen—when the door opened, and in came the old Indian. Tom's hand was stretched out cordially, in a moment: it was not taken-a cold gaze from two grey eyes met Tom's astonished look. Tom blushed with shame, and the Indian passed out again.

"A dead cut that," said Sniggers: "what a cold-blooded old buffer.” Tom did not answer: he was too much vexed; and not only vexed, but astonished, to the very verge of his powers of astonishment.

"Nice old gentleman, seemingly," said the master of the house: "tells jolly tales-but I fancy he's high you know, rather high!"