THE INVECTIVE OF H-RC-RT.

(A Fragment in Hexameters, NOT by George Meredith.)

Heigh me! brazen of front, thou glutton for Ground Game, how can one,

Servant here to thy mandates heed thee among the Tories?

Surely thy mission is fudge, oh, DAWNAY, Conservative Colonel!

I, Sir, hither I fared on account of the cant-armed Sportsmen,

Pledged to the combat; they unto me have in no wise a harm done,

Never have they, of a truth, come putting my Hares and my Rabbits,

Never in deep-soiled Hampshire, the nurser of heroes and H-RC-RTS,

Ravaged; but if I found them among my trampled Carnations,

Hares or Rabbits, or gun-bearing Tories, by Jingo, I'd pot 'em!

O hugely shameless! Thee shall we follow to do an injustice

Unto the farmers, seeing the Hares a-munching their crops up?

I do not sit at the feet of the blatant Bordesley Gamaliel,

Or of the unregenerate Agricultural Minister.

Close time? Fudge! The Hares were intended at last to perish

Either by sounding gun or the gaping jaws of the greyhound.

Food for the people? Cant! The promotion of Sport is the purpose

Plain of this pestilent Bill, which neutralises the victory

Won, with much labour, by Me, my gift to the sons of the furrow.

DAWNAY talks as though the Hare were a "domiciled animal."

Shows what a deal he knows of Hares—save the pleasure of killing 'em.

Shall I give the nourishing farmers up to this pillage?

Nay, sure mine were the hands did most in the storm of the combat,

Ay, and when peradventure we share the booty amongst us,

After the General Election, the Tories may find—but no matter-r-r!

Surely a time will come,—not a "close time" that for the Tories,—

I being outraged, then will give them particular pepper!