The good old times for cutting throats, that cried out in their need, The good old times for hunting men who held their father’s creed, The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed, Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed. Oh, the fine old English Tory times; When will they come again? In those rare days, the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, But sweetly sang of men in power like any tuneful lark; Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark; And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. Oh, the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again! (The following stanza was omitted by Mr. Forster.) Those were the days for taxes, and for war’s infernal din; For scarcity of bread, that fine old dowagers might win; For shutting men of letters up, through iron bars to grin, Because they didn’t think the Prince was altogether thin, In the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again! But Tolerance, though slow in flight, is strong-wing’d in the main; That night must come on these fine days, in course of time was plain; The pure old spirit struggled, but its struggles were in vain; A nation’s grip was on it, and it died in choking pain, With the fine old English Tory days, All of the olden time. The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, In England there shall be――dear bread! in Ireland――sword and brand, And poverty and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, Of the fine old English Tory days; Hail to the coming time! The allusions contained in the sixth stanza require some explanation. In 1813 Leigh Hunt and his brother, as proprietors of _The Examiner_, were sentenced to undergo two years imprisonment, and each to pay a fine of five hundred pounds, for publishing an article in that paper containing the following remarks on the Prince Regent:――