New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue;
So saith the muse: my, what say you?*
Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain
Her new preferments in this novel reign:
Such was the time, nor ever yet was such;
Hoops are no more, and petticoats not much;
Morals and minuets, virtue and her stays,
And tell-tale powder-all have had their days.
The ball begins-the honours of the house
First duly done by daughter or by spouse,
Some potentate-or royal or serene-

With Kent's gay grace, or sapient Glo'ster's mien,
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush
Might once have been mistaken for a blush.

From where the garb just leaves the bosom free,

That spot where hearts were once supposed to be; +
Round all the confines of the yielded waist,

The stranger's hand may wander undisplaced;
The lady's in return may grasp as much

As princely paunches offer to her touch.

Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip,
One hand reposing on the royal hip;
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal!

Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;
And all in turn may follow in their rank,
The Earl of Asterisk-and Lady-Blank;
Sir-Such-a-one-with those of fashion's host,
For whose blest surnames-vide Morning Post
(Or if for that impartial print too late,

Search Doctors' Commons six months from my date)-
Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,

The genial contact gently undergo;

Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,

If "nothing follows all this palming work?"+

True, honest Mirza!-you may trust my rhyme-
Something does follow at a fitter time;

The breast thus publicly resign'd to man
In private may resist him- -if it can.

*The gentle, or ferocious, reader may fill up the blank as he pleases-there are several dissyllabic names at his service, (being already in the Regent's); it would not be fair to back any peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every month will add to the list now entered for the sweepstakes:-a distinguished consonant is said to be the favourite, much against the wishes of the knowing

ones.

"We have changed all that," says the Mock Doctor-'tis all gone-Asmodeus knows where. After all, it is of no great importance how women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history, viz., a mass of solid stone-only to be opened by force-and when divided, you find a toad in the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous.

In Turkey a pertinent, here an impertinent and superfluous questionliterally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing a waltz in Pera. -Vide Morier's Travels.

O ye who loved our grandmothers of yore, Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, and many more!

And thou, my prince! whose sovereign taste and will.
It is to love the lovely beldames still!

Thou ghost of Queensbury! whose judging sprite
Satan may spare to peep a single night,
Pronounce if ever in your days of bliss
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this?
To teach the young ideas how to rise,
Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes;
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame,
With half-told wish and ill-dissembled flame:
For prurient nature still will storm the breast-
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

But ye-who never felt a single thought
For what our morals are to be, or ought;
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,
Say-would you make those beauties quite so cheap?
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side,
Where were the rapture then to clasp the form
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm?
At once love's most endearing thought resign,
To press the hand so press'd by none but thine;
To gaze upon that eye which never met
Another's ardent look without regret;
Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough-if not to touch-to taint;
If such thou lovest-love her then no more,
Or give like her-caresses to a score;
Her mind with these is gone, and with it go
The little left behind it to bestow.

Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme?
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme.
Terpsichore, forgive!—at every ball

My wife now waltzes-and my daughters shall;
My son-(or stop-'tis needless to inquire-
These little accidents should ne'er transpire;
Some ages hence our genealogic tree

Will wear as green a bough for him as me)—
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends,
Grandsons for me-in heirs to all his friends.

POEMS ON NAPOLEON.

ODE TO NAPOLEON.

Expende Annibalem :-quot libras in duce summo
JUVENAL, Sat. x.

Invenies?" "The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity. By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor and an Exile, till."-GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 220.

'TIS done but yesterday a King!
And arm'd with Kings to strive-
And now thou art a nameless thing;
So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,

Who strew'd our hearth with hostile bones,

And can he thus survive?

Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,

Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.

With might unquestion'd-power to save,-
Thine only gift hath been the grave,

To those that worshipp'd thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

Thanks for that lesson-it will teach
To after-warriors more,

Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preach'd before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,

That led them to adore

Those Pagod things of sabre sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife-
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;

The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seem'd made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife-

All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

The Desolator desolate !

The Victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others' fate

A Suppliant for his own!
Is it some yet imperial hope,

That with such change can calmly cope?
Or dread of death alone?

To die a prince-or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak,
Dream'd not of the rebound;
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke-
Alone-how look'd he round?

Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found!
He fell the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!

The Roman, when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home-
He dared depart in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

His only glory was that hour

Of self-upheld abandon'd power.

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;

A strict accountant of his beads,

A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:

Yet better had he neither known

A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.

But thou-from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung-

Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;

* "Certaminis gaudia"-the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus.

All Evil Spirit as thou art,

It is enough to grieve the heart

To see thine own unstrung;

To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean!

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!

And Monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne !
Fair Freedom! may we hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain-
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:
If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?

Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;

Thy scales, Mortality! are just

To all that pass away:

But yet methought the living great

Some higher sparks should animate,

To dazzle and dismay;

Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth

Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,

Thy still imperial bride;

How bears her breast the torturing hour?

Still clings she to thy side?

Must she, too, bend,—must she, too, share, Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless Homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem;

"Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem!

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;

That element may meet thy smile-
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand,
In loitering mood upon the sand,
That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.