The Age Reviewed A Satire: In two parts: Second edition, revised and corrected [by Robert Montgomery] |
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| II. |
 | The Age Reviewed |  |
Tories and Whigs hang glutting on the state;
For costly wealth each weekly Thurtell dies,
For money B--- cajoles, and Cobbett lies;
And E--- rotted on his darling sack;
Though Impudence sat grinning in his face;
For this, sweet Wilks and eloquential Moore
Dug golden mines upon a mineless shore!
This gives to C---s the homage for the hiss,
And seats in B---y's arms the scenic Miss,
Covers the nakedness of vice and shame,
Grants B---ll precedence, and F---t fame,
Resistless claimant for the world's renown,
It crams the peerage, but forsakes the crown!
What gifted souls to genial realms have flown,
What lofty powers of unpresuming worth,
Have waned, like sunbeams from a barren earth!
While romp in glitt'ring halls, the wanton jades,
Unhoused, unfed, deserted merit fades;
No gen'rous eye compassionates her doom,
No mercy smooths her pathway to the tomb,
But let poor Worth and Genius slight the bread,
They live in tear-washed monuments when dead!
What a pity it is, that Mr. Brougham does not examine himself, repent him truly of his former sins, and turn, (like many of his predecessors,) a tory. He may be assured, that Lord E--- would then give him a silk gown, and Murray would pay better than Jeffrey, for a few cathartic articles, containing the flippant hauteur of toryism, instead of the less wholesome effluvia of whiggery. I fear he will find the Mechanic's Institution to be a “losing concern” in the long run.
Sir Lopez! Who has not heard of Sir Lopez, the rich Jew, who has his arms quartered over the town hall in Heytsbury, with the following motto: “quod tibi id alteri?”—did one ever hear of such enormous inconsistency?
There is no one more ready than myself to admire Lord E---'s integrity and resplendent talents; nor would I join all the abuse that untempered rancour has thrown on him. (Vide another part of this Satire.) Still, his Lordship's best friends must allow, that he stuck to the sack till the puerilities of old age overtook him: he might wish to have done justice, but certes—he was a dreadful long time about it; exempli gratiâ. His Lordship, some time since, on attempting to decide a cause, was told by Mr. Hart and the other counsel, that his Lordship had deferred his decision so long that they really had forgotten whether they were on the defendant's or plaintiff's side!! Perhaps his Lordship seldom asked himself—
“------ Vir bonus est quis?Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat
Quo multæ, magnæque secantur judice lites.”
Wisdom never whisper'd in his ear—
“Solve senescentem, sanus equum ------”We have certainly no right to intefere with people's private habits; but the following anecdote, illustrative of Lord E---'s auri fanes, (the great epidemic of the day,) is of a public nature. It is the custom for the Chancellor always on the first day of Term, to give a public breakfast to the Judges, &c. &c. Some time since, his Countess' ill health prevented his giving this breakfast at his own residence; the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn, kindly offered their hall, which was accepted—and has been ever since! where the breakfast is paid for by the Benchers. What a blessed thing it is to be bred to the law!—it is such a saving profession!
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