But no--If Thibet _had_ M.P.'s, They were far better bred than these; Nor gave the slightest opposition, During the Monarch's whole dentition. But short this calm:--for, just when he Had reach'd th' alarming age of three, When Royal natures, and, no doubt, Those of _all_ noble beasts break out-- The Lama, who till then was quiet, Show'd symptoms of a taste for riot; And, ripe for mischief, early, late, Without regard for Church or State, Made free with whosoe'er came nigh; Tweak'd the Lord Chancellor by the nose, Turn'd all the Judges' wigs awry, And trod on the old Generals' toes: Pelted the Bishops with hot buns, Rode cockhorse on the City maces, And shot from little devilish guns, Hard peas into his subjects' faces. In short, such wicked pranks he play'd, And grew so mischievous, God bless him! That his Chief Nurse--with ev'n the aid Of an Archbishop--was afraid, When in these moods, to comb or dress him. Nay, ev'n the persons most inclined Through thick and thin, for Kings to stickle, Thought him (if they'd but speak their mind, Which they did _not_) an odious pickle. Praed himself never equalled the ease and gaiety of these admirable compositions, and their only defect as satire is that they are too gay and too good-humoured, though certainly not too respectful. Moore's shafts have no poison: there is no strength of hatred to drive home the barb. Yet the sincerity is real, and here and there the wit leaps into real poetry, as in this stanza from "The Torch of Liberty"-- "I saw th' expectant nations stand, To catch the coming flame in turn;-- I saw, from ready hand to hand, The clear, though struggling, glory burn." For finish and force these productions are far ahead of the earlier verses of the _Postbag_ and _Fudge Family in Paris_: they are also clear of the rhetoric which occasionally overloads the latter. But none of them quite reaches the pitch attained in the lines on the Death of Sheridan (reprinted in the 1823 volume) which were based on the report that the Prince of Wales, after repeated neglect of entreaties, sent at last a gift of £200 to the dying man, who, knowing it too late, returned the missive. A few stanzas must be cited. "How proud they can press to the fun'ral array Of one whom they shunn'd in his sickness and sorrow;-- How bailiffs may seize his last blanket, to-day, Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow! "And Thou, too, whose life, a sick epicure's dream, Incoherent and gross, even grosser had pass'd, Were it not for that cordial and soul-giving beam, Which his friendship and wit o'er thy nothingness cast:--