* See the Slop-pail of that date. ** Matt, xxvii. Will 'the readers,' for whose 'amusement' Dr. Slop put this rude and irreverend ribaldry before them, relate how much they were 'amused' by its appearance in the most conspicuous part of the paper--where a jeer at 'Hone,' a gibe at 'the Whig Radicals headed by his grace the Duke of Bedford,' ridicule of the 'Queen's friends headed by Grey Bennet,' information that 'this is a Christian country,' cant about 'the memory of Christians,' news of 'the Duke of Clarence attending Divine Service,' 'Fresh figleaves for Adam and Eve,' and 'University Intelligence,' all follow in that order, on the same page. Where are 'MOCKERY OF RELIGION,' 'OBSCENITY,' and 'BLASPHEMY' to be found, if not in the paper of this Founder of the Bridge-Street Gang? This varnished hypocrite is said to be a gentleman:--it may be so. The article, so called, can be easily manufactured by a tailor and a dancing-master, and a few lessons in the school of Chesterfield. A head, powdered and erect, a solemn stalk, a bow to people of certain rank, the cut to people of another rank, and an affected condescension to those termed inferiors, will procure any man the reputation of being genteel, among the groundlings. Such gentlemen as these swarm in shoals, from the _Bridge-Street-Gang Informer_ to the Marquess secretary for foreign affairs; the appearances that constitute these personages are usual and essential to every adventurer. When {208}Slop parted with his integrity, he lost his selfrespect. Attacking the honesty he secretly envies, and has not the courage to imitate, he has nothing to compensate him for a comfortless mind, but an empty consequence among fools and knaves, which yields no repose. His appearance in the Slop-pail is ludicrous. Affecting a semblance to which he has no real pretension, he looks like a nightman in a cocked hat, who pulls up his frill at every discharge of muck, to show his gentility. His case is a common one. He rose from the bottom of society by foul self-inflation, and floats a filthy bubble among the scum upon the surface. A minion of ministers, a parasite to despotism throughout the world, public virtue is the object of his unprincipled hate and unsparing abuse. Hence, there is not a 'public principle' that his mendacity has not 'perverted;' not a man of disinterested public conduct that he has not vilified; not a measure of advantage to the country, emanating from such men, that he has not derided; not a measure of ministerial profligacy that he has not promoted; not a public job that he has not bolstered; not a public knave that he has not shielded; not an inroad upon the constitution that he has not widened; not a treason against the people's liberties that he has not advocated; not a sore upon the people's hearts that he has not enlarged. The Author of the Political House that Jack Built. 45, Ludgate-hill, Augusts, 1821. {209} SONG Imitation of Mr. Canning's in the Rovers.