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Thoughts On the Late Destructive Propositions of the Tories.[1]
BY A COMMON-COUNCILMAN

1835.

I sat me down in my easy chair,
To read, as usual, the morning papers;
But–who shall describe my look of despair,
When I came to Lefroy’s “destructive” capers!
That he–that, of all live men, Lefroy
Should join in the cry “Destroy, destroy!”
Who, even when a babe, as I’ve heard said,
On Orange conserve was chiefly fed,
And never, till now, a movement made
That wasn’t manfully retrograde!
Only think–to sweep from the light of day
Mayors, maces, criers and wigs away;
To annihilate–never to rise again–
A whole generation of aldermen,
Nor leave them even the accustomed tolls,
To keep together their bodies and souls!–
At a time too when snug posts and places
Are falling away from us one by one,
Crash–crash–like the mummy-cases
Belzoni, in Egypt, sat upon,
Wherein lay pickled, in state sublime,
Conservatives of the ancient time;–
To choose such a moment to overset
The few snug nuisances left us yet;
To add to the ruin that round us reigns,
By knocking out mayors’ and town-clerks’ brains;
By dooming all corporate bodies to fall,
Till they leave at last no bodies at all–
Naught but the ghosts of by-gone glory,
Wrecks of a world that once was Tory!–
Where pensive criers, like owls unblest,
Robbed of their roosts, shall still hoot o’er them:
Nor mayors shall know where to seek a nest,
Till Gaily Knight shall find one for them;–
Till mayors and kings, with none to rue ’em,
Shall perish all in one common plague;
And the sovereigns of Belfast and Tuam
Must join their brother, Charles Dix, at Prague.

Thus mused I, in my chair, alone,
(As above described) till dozy grown,
And nodding assent to my own opinions,
I found myself borne to sleep’s dominions,
Where, lo! before my dreaming eyes,
A new House of Commons appeared to rise,
Whose living contents, to fancy’s survey,
Seemed to me all turned topsy-turvy–
A jumble of polypi–nobody knew
Which was the head or which the queue.
Here, Inglis, turned to a sansculotte,
Was dancing the hays with Hume and Grote;
There, ripe for riot, Recorder Shaw
Was learning from Roebuck “Caira:”
While Stanley and Graham, as poissarde wenches,
Screamed “a-bas!” from the Tory benches;
And Peel and O’Connell, cheek by jowl,
Were dancing an Irish carmagnole.

The Lord preserve us!–if dreams come true,
What is this hapless realm to do?

NOTE:
[1] These verses were written in reference to the Bill brought in at this time, for the reform of Corporations, and the sweeping amendments proposed by Lord Lyndhurst and other Tory Peers, in order to obstruct the measure.