Twopenny Post-Bag, Intercepted Letters, Etc. Letter V.

FROM THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF CORK TO LADY---.


My dear Lady---! I've been just sending out
About five hundred cards for a snug little Rout--
(By the by, you've seen "Rokeby"?--this moment got mine--
The "Mail-Coach Edition"--prodigiously fine!)
But I can't conceive how in this very cold weather
I'm ever to bring my five hundred together;
As, unless the thermometer's near boiling heat,
One can never get half of one's hundreds to meet.

(Apropos--you'd have thought to see Townsend last night,
Escort to their chairs, with his staff, so polite,
The "three maiden Miseries," all in a fright;
Poor Townsend, like Mercury, filling two posts,
Supervisor of thieves and chief-usher of ghosts!)

    But, my dear Lady----, can't you hit on some notion,
At least for one night to set London in motion?--
As to having the Regent, that show is gone by--
Besides, I've remarkt that (between you and I)
The Marchesa and he, inconvenient in more ways,
Have taken much lately to whispering in doorways;
Which--considering, you know, dear, the size of the two--
Makes a block that one's company cannot get thro';
And a house such as mine is, with door-ways so small,
Has no room for such cumbersome love-work at all.--
(Apropos, tho', of love-work--you've heard it, I hope,
That Napoleon's old mother's to marry the Pope,--
"What a comical pair!)--but, to stick to my Rout,
'Twill be hard if some novelty can't be struck out.
Is there no Algerine, no Kamchatkan arrived?
No Plenipo Pacha, three-tailed and ten-wived?
No Russian whose dissonant consonant name
Almost rattles to fragments the trumpet of fame?

    I remember the time three or four winters back,
When--provided their wigs were but decently black--
A few Patriot monsters from Spain were a sight
That would people one's house for one, night after night.
But--whether the Ministers pawed them too much--
(And you--know how they spoil whatsoever they touch)
Or, whether Lord George (the young man about town)
Has by dint of bad poetry written them down.
One has certainly lost one's peninsular rage;
And the only stray Patriot seen for an age
Has been at such places (think, how the fit cools!)
As old Mrs. Vaughan's or Lord Liverpool's.

    But, in short, my dear, names like Wintztschitstopschinzoudhoff
Are the only things now make an evening go smooth off:
So, get me a Russian--till death I'm your debtor--
If he brings the whole Alphabet, so much the better.
And--Lord! if he would but, in character, sup
Off his fish-oil and candles, he'd quite set me up!

    Au revoir, my sweet girl--I must leave you in haste--
Little Gunter has brought me the Liqueurs to taste.

POSTSCRIPT.

By the by, have you found any friend that can conster
That Latin account, t'other day, of a Monster?[1]
If we can't get a Russian, and that think in Latin
Be not too improper, I think I'll bring that in.