FullReads

Sir,–

Most of your readers are no doubt acquainted with the anecdote told of a certain not over-wise judge who, when in the act of delivering a charge in some country court-house, was interrupted by the braying of an ass at the door. “What noise is that?” asked the angry judge. “Only an extraordinary echo there is in court, my Lord,” answered one of the counsel.

As there are a number of such “extraordinary echoes” abroad just now, you will not, perhaps, be unwilling, Mr. Editor, to receive the following few lines suggested by them.

Yours, etc. S.

1828

huc coeamus,[1] ait; nullique libentius unquam responsura sono,

coeamus, retulit echo.
OVID.

There are echoes, we know, of all sorts,
From the echo that “dies in the dale,”
To the “airy-tongued babbler” that sports
Up the tide of the torrent her “tale.”

There are echoes that bore us, like Blues,
With the latest smart mot they have heard;
There are echoes extremely like shrews
Letting nobody have the last word.

In the bogs of old Paddy-land, too.
Certain “talented” echoes[2] there dwell,
Who on being askt, “How do you do?”
Politely reply, “Pretty well,”

But why should I talk any more
Of such old-fashioned echoes as these,
When Britain has new ones in store,
That transcend them by many degrees?

For of all repercussions of sound
Concerning which bards make a pother,
There’s none like that happy rebound
When one blockhead echoes an other;–

When Kenyon commences the bray,
And the Borough-Duke follows his track;
And loudly from Dublin’s sweet bay
Rathdowne brays, with interest, back!–

And while, of most echoes the sound
On our ear by reflection doth fall,
These Brunswickers[3] pass the bray round,
Without any reflection at all.

Oh Scott, were I gifted like you,
Who can name all the echoes there are
From Benvoirlich to bold Benvenue,
From Benledi to wild Uamvar;

I might track thro’ each hard Irish name
The rebounds of this asinine strain,
Till from Neddy to Neddy, it came
To the chief Neddy, Kenyon, again;

Might tell how it roared in Rathdowne,
How from Dawson it died off genteelly–
How hollow it hung from the crown
Of the fat-pated Marquis of Ely;

How on hearing my Lord of Glandine,
Thistle-eaters the stoutest gave way,
Outdone in their own special line
By the forty-ass power of his bray!

But, no–for so humble a bard
‘Tis a subject too trying to touch on;
Such noblemen’s names are too hard,
And their noddles too soft to dwell much on.

Oh Echo, sweet nymph of the hill,
Of the dell and the deep-sounding shelves;
If in spite of Narcissus you still
Take to fools who are charmed with themselves,

Who knows but, some morning retiring,
To walk by the Trent’s wooded side,
You may meet with Newcastle, admiring
His own lengthened ears in the tide!

Or, on into Cambria straying,
Find Kenyon, that double tongued elf,
In his love of ass-cendency, braying
A Brunswick duet with himself!

NOTES:
[1] “Let us from Clubs.”

[2] Commonly called “Paddy Blake’s Echoes”.

[3] Anti-Catholic associations, under the title of Brunswick Clubs, were at this time becoming numerous both in England and Ireland.