LES HOMMES AUTOMATES.

1834.

"We are persuaded that this our artificial man will not only walk and speak, and perform most of the outward functions of animal life, but (being wound up once a week) will perhaps reason as well as most of your country parsons."— Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, chap. xii.

IT being an object now to meet
With Parsons that don't want to eat,
Fit men to fill those Irish rectories,
Which soon will have but scant refectories,
It has been suggested,―lest that Church
Should, all at once, be left in the lurch,
For want of reverend men endued
With this gift of ne'er requiring food, —
To try, by way of experiment, whether
There couldn't be made, of wood and leather, 1
(Howe'er the notion may sound chimerical,)
Jointed figures not lay 2, but clerical,
Which, wound up carefully once a week,
Might just like parsons look and speak,
Nay even, if requisite, reason too,
As well as most Irish parsons do.

The' experiment having succeeded quite,
(Whereat those Lords must much delight,
Who've shown, by stopping the Church's food,
They think it isn't for her spiritual good
To be serv'd by parsons of flesh and blood,)
The Patentees of this new invention
Beg leave respectfully to mention,
They now are enabled to produce
An ample supply, for present use,
Of these reverend pieces of machinery,
Ready for vicarage, rectory, deanery,
Or any such-like post of skill
That wood and leather are fit to fill.

Lord Baron of Shamdos sounds nobly as any.
Next, catch a dead cousin of said defunct Peer,
And marry him off-hand, in some given year,
To the daughter of somebody,-no matter who,-
Fig, the grocer himself, if you're hard-run, will do;
For, the Medici pills still in heraldry tell,
And why shouldn't lollypops quarter as well?
Thus, having your couple, and one a lord's cousin,
Young materials for peers may be had by the dozen;
And 'tis hard if, inventing each small mother's son
of 'em,

You can't somehow manage to prove yourself one

of 'em.

Should registers, deeds, and such matters refractory,
Stand in the way of this lord-manufactory,
I've merely to hint, as a secret auricular,
One grand rule of enterprise, don't be particular.
A man who once takes such a jump at nobility,
Must not mince the matter, like folks of nihility,4
But clear thick and thin with true lordly agility.

'Tis true, to a would-be descendant from Kings, Parish-registers sometimes are troublesome things; As oft, when the vision is near brought about, Some goblin, in shape of a grocer, grins out; Or some barber, perhaps, with my Lord mingles bloods,

And one's patent of peerage is left in the suds.

But there are ways-when folks are resolv'd to be lords

Of expurging ev'n troublesome parish records:

3 The Claim to the barony of Chandos (if I recollect right) advanced by the late Sir Eg-r-t-n Br-d-s.

4" This we call pure nihility, or mere nothing."— Watts's Logic.

What think ye of scissors? depend on't no heir Of a Shamdos should go unsupplied with a pair, As, whate'er else the learn'd in such lore may invent, Your scissors does wonders in proving descent. Yes, poets may sing of those terrible shears

With which Atropos snips off both bumpkins and peers,

But they're nought to that weapon which shines in the hands

Of some would-be Patrician, when proudly he stands O'er the careless churchwarden's baptismal array, And sweeps at each cut generations away.

By some babe of old times in his peerage resisted? One snip, and the urchin hath never existed! Does some marriage, in days near the Flood, interfere

With his one sublime object of being a Peer? Quick the shears at once nullify bridegroom and bride,

No such people have ever liv'd, married, or died!

Such the newest receipt for those high-minded elves, Who've a fancy for making great lords of themselves. Follow this, young aspirer, who pant'st for a peerage, Take S-m for thy model and B-z for thy steerage, Do all and much worse than old Nicholas Flam does, And who knows but you'll be Lord Baron of Shamdos?

THE DUKE IS THE LAD.

Air. A master I have, and I am his man, Galloping dreary dun."

Castle of Andalusia.

THE Duke is the lad to frighten a lass,

Galloping, dreary duke;

The Duke is the lad to frighten a lass, He's an ogre to meet, and the d-1 to pass,

With his charger prancing,

Grim eye glancing,

Chin, like a Mufti,

Grizzled and tufty,

Galloping, dreary Duke.

Ye misses, beware of the neighbourhood
Of this galloping dreary Duke;
Avoid him, all who see no good

In being run o'er by a Prince of the Blood.

1 See his Letters to Friends, lib. ix. epist. 19, 20, &c.

TO THE SHIP

IN WHICH LORD C-ST-R-GH SAILED FOR THE CONTINENT.

2 It is thus the noble lord pronounces the word "knowledge"-deriving it, as far as his own share is concerned, from the Latin, “nullus."

8

9

Imitated from Horace, lib. i. ode 3.

So may my Lady's prayers prevail,3
And C-nn-g's too, and lucid Br-gge's,
And Eld-n beg a favouring gale

From Eolus, that older Bags, 4
To speed thee on thy destin'd way,
Oh ship, that bear'st our C-st—r—gh,3
Our gracious R-g-t's better half,6

And, therefore, quarter of a King— (As Van, or any other calf,

May find, without much figuring). Waft him, oh ye kindly breezes,

Waft this Lord of place and pelf, Any where his Lordship pleases, Though 'twere to Old Nick himself!

Circa pectus erat, qui, &c.

præcipitem Africum

Decertantem Aquilonibus.

Nequicquam Deus abscidit

Prudens oceano dissociabili

Terras, si tamen impiæ

Non tangenda Rates transiliunt vada.

This last line, we may suppose, alludes to some distinguished Rats that attended the voyager.