LETTER II.

FROM COLONEL M'MAHON TO GOULD FRANCIS LECKIE, ESQ.

DEAR SIR-- I've just had time to look Into your very learned Book, Wherein--as plain as man can speak. Whose English is half modern Greek-- You prove that we can ne'er intrench Our happy isles against the French, Till Royalty in England's made A much more independent trade;-- In short until the House of Guelph Lays Lords and Commons on the shelf, And boldly sets up for itself.

All that can well be understood In this said Book is vastly good; And as to what's incomprehensible, I dare be sworn 'tis full as sensible.

But to your work's immortal credit The Prince, good Sir, the Prince has read it (The only Book, himself remarks, Which he has read since Mrs. Clarke's). Last levee-morn he lookt it thro', During that awful hour or two Of grave tonsorial preparation, Which to a fond, admiring nation Sends forth, announced by trump and drum, The best-wigged Prince in Christendom.

He thinks with you, the imagination Of _partnership_ in legislation Could only enter in the noddles Of dull and ledger-keeping twaddles, Whose heads on _firms_ are running so, They even must have a King and Co., And hence most eloquently show forth On _checks_ and _balances_ and so forth.

But now, he trusts, we're coming near a Far more royal, loyal era; When England's monarch need but say, "Whip me those scoundrels, Castlereagh!" Or, "Hang me up those Papists, Eldon," And 'twill be done--ay, faith, and well done.

With view to which I've his command To beg, Sir, from your travelled hand, (Round which the foreign graces swarm)[1] A Plan of radical Reform; Compiled and chosen as best you can, In Turkey or at Ispahan, And quite upturning, branch and root, Lords, Commons, and Burdett to boot.

But, pray, whate'er you may impart, write Somewhat more brief than Major Cartwright: Else, tho' the Prince be long in rigging, 'Twould take at least a fortnight's wigging,-- Two wigs to every paragraph-- Before he well could get thro' half.

You'll send it also speedily-- As truth to say 'twixt you and me, His Highness, heated by your work, Already thinks himself Grand Turk! And you'd have laught, had you seen how He scared the Chancellor just now, When (on his Lordship's entering puft) he Slapt his back and called him "Mufti!"

The tailors too have got commands To put directly into hands All sorts of Dulimans and Pouches, With Sashes, Turbans and Paboutches, (While Yarmouth's sketching out a plan Of new _Moustaches à l'Ottomane_) And all things fitting and expedient To _turkify_ our gracious Regent!

You therefore have no time to waste-- So, send your System.-- Yours in haste.

POSTSCRIPT.

Before I send this scrawl away, I seize a moment just to say There's some parts of the Turkish system So vulgar 'twere as well you missed 'em. For instance--in _Seraglio_ matters-- Your Turk whom girlish fondness flatters, Would fill his Haram (tasteless fool!) With tittering, red-cheekt things from school. But _here_ (as in that fairy land, Where Love and Age went hand in hand;[2] Where lips, till sixty, shed no honey, And Grandams were worth any money,) _Our_ Sultan has much riper notions-- So, let your list of _she_-promotions Include those only plump and sage, Who've reached the _regulation_-age; That is, (as near as one can fix From Peerage dates) full fifty-six.

This rule's for _favorites_--nothing more-- For, as to _wives_, a Grand Signor, Tho' not decidedly _without_ them, Need never care one curse about them.

[1] "The truth indeed seems to be, that having lived so long abroad as evidently to have lost, in a great degree, the use of his native language, Mr. Leckie has gradually come not only to speak, but to feel, like a foreigner."--_Edinburgh Review_.

[2] The learned Colonel must allude here to a description of the Mysterious Isle, in the History of Abdalla, Son of Hanif, where such inversions of the order of nature are said to have taken place.--"A score of old women and the same number of old men played here and there in the court, some at chuck-farthing, others at tip-cat or at cockles."--And again, "There is nothing, believe me, more engaging than those lovely wrinkles."--See "_Tales of the East_," vol. iii. pp. 607, 608.