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“That incomparable baronet, Sir Francis B---d*tt.” So re-christened by the Reverend John Horne Tooke at the Crown and Anchor Tavern.

I pry'thee, sweet Wag, shall there be a gallows standing in England when thou art King? and resolution thus fobb'd as it is with the rusty curb of old Father Antick the Law? I Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 2.

Juvenal.

“Sir Francis's coach was drawn into Brentford by the populace, preceded by twenty Butchers with marrowbones and cleavers.”

—Courier, July 14.

“Sir Francis proceeded in procession with marrowbones and cleavers, four Blue Flags, with “No Bastile” on them.—The Duke of Bedford and Earl Thanet followed.”

“As soon as Sir F. B. had concluded his address, the bands of music struck up “Ca Ira,”—and the populace drew him amidst triumphant huzzas, and the usual exclamations of “No Bastile,” “No Mainwaring.”

The zeal which induced Sir F. B.'s advanced guard of patriotic calf-killers to display their blue aprons, as banners, in this respectable procession, we must allow to have been highly meritorious: their cleavers have already been associated with weapons of heroic temper and description in the lays of our late most estimable Laureat—

N. B. This association may, not improperly, be extended from the weapons to the wielders of them, the generality of heroes being only Butchers incog.

The reader is cautioned against the supposition that this line is to be understood literally, or that any such individual is here alluded to as Count Snip, the political Oracle of the Coach and Horses Ale-house, Leicester-fields, the parties being no other than metaphorical tinkers and tailors, whom Sir F. B. retains to mend and botch up our tattered Constitution.

The following sample will fully justify the high opinion entertained of this gentleman's rhetorical powers:

“He felt the utmost gratitude to Sir F. B. for having stood forward to release the county from the stain and degradation of such a representative as Mr. M. and he trusted the Electors would give him a long pull, a strong pull, and pull all together to obtain an object so desirable.”

While the flowers of oratory bloom so luxuriantly on Middlesex soil, who would waste a thought upon

“ Mr. F--- in a former election for Westminster was an active agent for Lord Hood, in opposition to Mr. Fox; but he afterwards changed sides, and now ranks with the Man of the People. This gentleman appeared afterwards at the bar of the Convention in Paris, as an accredited Delegate from one of the disaffected societies in England.”

Few readers will be inclined to dispute Mr. F.'s pretensions to the oscillatory discretion of Butler's fanatical politicians, who, shifting as occasion served, from this to the opposite party,

This honest gentleman, employed amongst Sir F. B.'s inspectors and check-clerks, took a trip to sea some years ago, at the recommendation of the police Magistrates. He was on board the Grand Fleet at the Nore; and, finding things went badly with his associates, he turned King's evidence, swearing that he was only a traitor on compulsion.

P. W. D---n, an United Irishman of no small celebrity, sentenced, in 1793, to two years imprisonment in the New Compter, for an attempt to escape from the Fleet and posting up a bill calling it “an infamous Bastile,” &c.

Mr. H. B---, the intimate friend of O'Connor, an Irish wine merchant.

Mr. B---y,

Mr. Frost's successor, when that gentleman had been struck off the list of attorneys. Sir Francis's solicitor.

See New Annual Register for 1772, page 37; and 1793, p. 6, of the Principal Occurrences.

Green F---y, the assistant of A. O'Connor, who was the sworn proprietor and publisher of an infamous paper called “The Press;” pointing out the late Lord Clare and the most respectable of his countrymen as objects of popular vengeance.—This gentleman appeared constantly arm in arm with Sir F. B. and was dressed in green even to his stockings. A writer for the newspapers.

Mr. T. D---n, author of many unread works, particularly “The Dramatic Censor,” till his bookseller, tired of a losing game, would publish it no longer. He was formerly in orders, and has lately joined the party in Paris.

Juv. iii. 73.

For a most satisfactory sample of the lyrical merit and talent of this learned Counsel, the reader may consult the authentic record of the proceedings at the Shakespeare Tavern on the 10th of October 1800, published for S. Jordan, Fleet-street.

Extract from Sir F. B.'s Speech.—“There is one thing which it is fit that I should throw out for the consideration of the gentlemen at large of the county: I mean the degrading and degraded state to which this country is reduced, and the ignominy which it suffers from the unlimited assumption of power and authority by the county Magistrates. Gentlemen will consider the best means of bringing within bounds this Unbridled Magistracy, whom a nine years exercise of powers inconsistent with the law, and irreconcileable with the safety of the subject, has habituated to think themselves beyond the reach of controul or correction.”

For a correct statement of the ground on which near four hundred of Sir F. B---tt's voters rested their pretensions, viz. their having severally purchased shares (at two guineas each) in a corn-mill, the building of which was not completed, nor any benefit received from it, on the 30th of July 1802. See Considerations on the Westminster and Middlesex Elections. Hatchard.

“I tell them (the Millers) as a Barrister, that they have a legal freehold, and have a right to vote. I advise them to take the oath—I would take it in their situation.” —Speech of Sir F. Burdett's Counsel, Courier, July 28, 1802.

How far it may be decorous for a reverend pastor to attend his flock on their rout to the goal, or mark of their high calling, towards which he has cordially encouraged them to press forward, is a point yet unsettled: on a former occasion indeed it was not deemed expedient for their spiritual escort to accompany them further than the ten miles' stone at Hounslow.