(Robert Southey, Poet Laureate.)
[The Laureate’s Lay will of course exist only in a blank page. His lyre hath no chord left. He hath taken out a patent in the Court of Apollo, for treating birthdays and coronations with contempt. He basks in the sunshine of idleness—the poetical privilege of doing nothing, except calling at the treasury once a-year. As he could not be conveniently omitted among the contributors to this collection, some emblematic device may be introduced—a chamelion, or a rainbow: or you may paint him, if you will, glancing back upon the light of his earlier years, and paraphrasing the story of “Little Wilhelmine” and the “famous victory:”—
“They say it was a splendid sight,
Such sums were lavished then,
Although the nation at the time
Was full of famished men;
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous pageantry.
“Much praise our gentle Monarch won,
And so did Grey and Brougham;”