Full many a country gentleman and squire, The hinder seats and those back benches bear; Full many a one who represents a shire, There wastes his sweetness on the desert air: Some city member, with his meal opprest, May there, perhaps, in sleep digest his food; Some mute inglorious Alderman may rest, Some grocer, guiltless of his country’s good. For knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne’er enroll; Fair Science smil’d not on their early age, Nor Genius gave an impulse to the soul. Their names, their merits in the _Morning Post_, The place of honest eulogy supply, With many an idle tale, and many a boast, And many a silly speech, and many a lie. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, A place or pension ever yet resigned, Quitted the Court, like Canning, as they say, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? This parody (consisting of thirty-two verses in all) originally appeared in _The British Press_ of September 14, 1812; it was afterwards reprinted in _The Spirit of the Public Journals_, Volume XVI. 1813. ――――:o:―――― ELEGY IN ST. STEPHEN’S CHAPEL. The candles tell the close of parting day, The members bor’d wind slowly up to tea, Some few to dinner plod their hungry way. And leave the House to Dyson and to Ley. Now fades in slow debate the lingering night, And each dull speech in solemn stillness ends, Save where Bragge-Bathurst wheels his droning flight, Or drowsy Hiley cheers his stammering friends; Save that, from yonder nook with placemen stor’d, Old Rose doth to the Treasury Bench complain Of such as wandering near the Navy Board, Molest his ancient pensionary reign. Beneath that gallery’s height, that pillar’d shade, Where heave those seats with many a slumbering heap, Each, in his narrow row, supinely laid, A silent band, the Country Members, sleep. The pettish call of nonsense-breathing Pole, Vansittart, tittering o’er his boxes red, The shrill Charles Yorke, Sir Joseph, livelier soul, No more can rouse them from their rugged bed. Oft did the question to their influence yield; Their vote, full oft, the Court’s designs hath broke; How jocund was the Income-Tax repeal’d! How bow’d the Malt-tax to their sturdy stroke! Let not proud office mock their useful toil, Their votes, though silent, and career obscure; Nor grandeur mock, with a disdainful smile, The “ignorant impatience” of the poor[24]. The boast of place, of interest, and of power, Of all that worth can claim, or gold can buy, Must yield alike, in dread division’s hour, To Country Gentlemen’s majority. Nor you, ye Whigs, impute to these the blame, If some faint cheer its puny homage pays, While, through some long drawn speech, in periods lame, A stammering placeman courts their lingering praise.