When Patriots no longer are branded by knaves; When Freedom's best friends are not scoff'd at by slaves; When Men practice the precepts they preach from the Bible; When the free shall be peaceful, the peaceful be free; RUSSELL'S PURGE; Sketch of an Address to be presented to Lord John Russell, in consequence of Col. Trench's notice of a Motion, Aug. 8, 1832, for the appointment of a Committee to take into consideration the practicability of rendering the House in which the Commons assembled more commodious and less unwholesome. MY LORD, TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. No ventilation will avail That House to purify; To cleanse out such a sty: Your Lordship's purge alone will do; The borough bugs can't bear it ; "Twill scour the vermin through and through Then pray, my Lord, don't spare it. Signed, in behalf of millions, by ONE OF THE UNREPRESENTED. AN OBLIGING EPISTLE. To avoid all proceedings unpleasant, THE NEW CHARTER OF BRITISH LIBERTY. [WRITTEN ON THE PASSING OF THE REFORM BILL.] Thank God! the triumph is achiev'd at last, The Boroughmongers' reign's for ever past; Through the deep gloom more cheering prospects rise; No more to Juggernaut will bend the knee. The odious faction which our birthright sold, Reform has laid the firm foundation-stone THE SUBLIMITIES OF STEAM. "This is the age of new inventions, One makes new noses, one a guillotine; One breaks your bones, one sets them in the sockets." BYRON. TO THE EDITOR. Lord Byron has designated this the age of bronze and the age of cant; but, with all proper deference to his Lordship, I am of opinion that the age of steam would be quite as appropriate a term for the times in which we live. We have steam carriages without horses, steam engines to break the stones on the highway, steam to supply the ordinary office of Æolus in propelling our ships, and Bramah actually uses a steam engine to cut his patent pens, with one of which I have now the honour to address you. What miracles Perkins may effect with his new machine I know not; but if he does not very shortly enlighten us on the subject, I shall begin to suspect that he will fail to realize the sanguine expectations he has raised on the subject. You must know, Mr. Editor, that I have myself been a projector of no ordinary rank, having dabbled in patents and caveats with the zest with which other people dabble in the stocks. Years have elapsed since I gave the world some sublime conceptions respecting new applications of steam, through the medium of one of the Liverpool newspapers; since which I find that the Americans have adopted some of my ideas in the construction of their steam frigate. That my claims to priority of invention may no longer be questionable, I beg you will do me the favour to republish the letter which I originally addressed to a Liverpool editor, with whom you are pretty well acquainted. I have omitted certain political allusions, in order to render little Beelzebub fit to appear in your "utile dulce." I am, dear Mr. Editor, Your old friend and well-wisher, Liverpool. WARFARE THE NATURAL STATE OF MANKIND. "Cry havock, and let slip the dogs of war." SHAKSPEARE. There is nothing on earth I so cordially detest as your chicken-hearted, pigeon-livered poltroons, who are eternally boring us with their cant about peace; when a survey of nature must convince every one, except these incorrigible asses, that warfare is the natural state of man, and of all created life. Philosophers tell us that "Nature abhors a vacuum;" and I venture to add that she holds a calm in equal abhorrence. Let the tempests cease to agitate the waves, and the ocean itself would become the foul source of putrefaction and loathsome disease. Turn from the physical to the moral world, and we shall find from the time of Cain and Abel to the present day one uninterrupted series of commotion and butchery amongst the human race. It is the same with what are called the lower animals. The spider seems to be born for no other end than to wage war upon the fly; the cat to devour the mouse, and so on, to the end of the chapter. Take a peep at two kittens or a brace of sucking puppies even at their play; see how Nature, that great master of the art of war, is preparing them for the noble purposes of their creation: their very gambols are so many sham fights, where we have a pleasing variety of biting, scratching, rearing, charging, lying in ambush, and various other military manœuvres; not to forget the masterly one of retreating, or "turning tail." Since this then is clearly Nature's plan, why should not man, who is Nature's master-piece, chime in with her humour: nor do I deny that in general they do so; but there are exceptions amongst a set of milk-and-water Quaker politicians, who are perpetually bawling out for peace, or in the language of a distinguished individual, as given by way of toast, "A speedy peace and soon." I know these whining sons of peace will tell us that the Christian doctrine was intended to correct the infirmities of human nature, and that its mild spirit forbids all strife; but theory and practice are two distinct things; and I appeal to the latter in support of my position, that "warfare is the natural state of man." Was there ever before known, in any age, such continued scenes of bloodshed as we have witnessed in Europe for the last score years? and yet all the potentates engaged in the struggle profess the mild doctrines of Christianity. My early years were marked by an extraordinary proficiency in what some canting fools may term the art of ingeniously tormenting; no boy in the school had so noble a string of birds' eggs, all my own lawful prizes; these I hung up in triumphant festoons, and would survey with as proud a feeling as that with which our polished North American allies view the scalps they have seized in the more glorious conquests over their copper-coloured neighbours. I excelled all my schoolfellows in the art of flying a cockchaffer by a thread with a crooked pin through its tail; nor could any of my companions project a frog to such an altitude in the air, by what we used to call spangwooing; or blow it up to such a magnitude with a hollow straw. Nor must I forget my favourite amusement of fishing; a noble diversion, although that old cynic, Johnson, has defined the fishing-rod to be " a long rod with a worm at one end and a fool at the other." There is no sport which more completely illustrates the grand law of nature than this; we find the fish wholly regardless of the tortuous gestures of the impaled worm, rushing impetuously upon the barbed hook, which man's ingenuity has there concealed for its destruction. But it is unnecessary to enlarge upon these delightful pursuits of youth, as they must be well known to every boy of the least spirit. I shall, therefore, proceed with my narrative. You must allow that, with such promising dispositions and acquirements as I have described, I was admirably calculated to cut a conspicuous figure on the glorious theatre of war, where I might have become an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a Bonaparte! but my unpropitious stars ordained it otherwise, and I was compelled early in life to bury all these shining qualities behind the counter, and to rest contented with such occasional relaxations as |