What strains of trembling rapture round her play; Hear from thy grave, immortal Shakespeare, hear; She breathes a soul to animate thy clay; Bright nature calls, and, soaring as she sings, Waves, in the eye of Heaven, her many-colour’d wings. Lo! they adorn again Fierce war and faithful love, And truth, in fairy fiction dress’d. In buskin’d measures move Pale grief and pleasing pain, With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. And, hark, a cherub choir; Gales of harmony, that bear, Sounds that my very heart-strings tear; Their horrid warblings pain my startled ear, That, lost in Melody’s soft notes, expire. Vain was our hope that deem’d the sanguine cloud Rais’d by my breath would quench the orb of day; To-morrow he repairs his golden flood, And warms the nation with redoubled ray, Enough for me, with dread I see The different doom our fates assign; Yours is despair and legal care, Sorrow and defeat are mine.” She spoke, and headlong from the gallery’s height, Deep in the roaring pit she plunged to _endless night_. FALKLAND. _The Morning Post._ December 8, 1809. This parody was also included in _The Covent Garden Journal_, 1810, which contains the history of the notorious O.P. Riots at Covent Garden Theatre, when John Philip Kemble was manager. ―――― THE UNION. [A celebrated Debating Society in Cambridge, composed entirely of Members of the University, where political subjects were discussed, which the Master of St. John’s suppressed during his Vice-Chancellorship in 1817; on which occasion the following Parody on _The Bard_, by Mr. Marmaduke Lawson, M.P., for Boroughbridge, and Fellow of Magdalen College, made its appearance.] I. “Ruin seize thee, senseless prig! Confusion on thy “optics” wait! Though prais’d by many a Johnian pig, They crowd the shop in fruitless state. Hood, nor Doctor’s scarlet gown, Nor N――th, nor P――th shall win renown; Nor save thy secret soul from nightly fears, The UNION’S curse, the UNION’S tears.” Such were the sounds that o’er the pedant pride Of W――d, the Johnian, scatter’d wild dismay, As down the flags of Petty-cury’s[55] side, He wound with toilsome march his long array, Stout T-th-m stood aghast with puffy face, “To arms!” cried Beverly,[56] and couch’d his quiv’ring mace. II.