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(1825)

The Odes and Addresses are Thirteen in number. The metre is happily varied from the familiar epistolary verse to the Eton College stanza, and loftier parodies of Gray, &c. Among the Great People addressed are—Graham the Aeronaut, Mr. McAdam, Mrs. Fry, Martin of Galway, R. W. Elliston, Esq., &c. &c. from which the reader may gather that the Addresses are not mere unqualified or fulsome dedications. They have, in fact, a fund of fun. They remind us of Peter Pindar, and sometimes of Colman; they have almost as much humour, and they have rather more wit. A too great aim at brilliancy is their excess. We do not think that in any work there can be too much brilliancy of the same kind. We are not of opinion with those critics who condemn Cowley for excess of wit. We could have borne with a double portion of it, and have never cried "Hold." What we allude to is a mixture of incompatible kinds; the perpetual recurrence of puns in these little effusions of humour; puns uncalled for, and perfectly gratuitous, a sort of make-weight; puns, which, if missed, leave the sense and the drollery full and perfect without them. You may read any one of the addresses, and not catch a quibble in it, and it shall be just as good, nay better; for the addition of said quibble only serves to puzzle with an unnecessary double meaning. A pun is good when it can rely on its single self; but, called in as an accessory, it weakens—unless it makes the humour, it enfeebles it. All this critical prosing is not quite a fair introduction to the pleasant specimen we subjoin, from the pleasantest morceau in the volume, which we throw upon the taste of our pantomime-going readers, with a hearty confidence in their sympathies. The subject is no less a one than their and our Joe—the immortal Grimaldi.

Joseph! they say thou'st left the stage.

To toddle down the hill of life,

And taste the flannell'd ease of age,

Apart from pantomimic strife—

Ah, where is now thy rolling head!

Thy winking, reeling, drunken eyes, (As old Catullus would have said,) Thy oven-mouth, that swallow'd pies— Enormous hunger—monstrous drowth!— Thy pockets greedy as thy mouth!

Ah, where thy ears, so often cuff'd!—

Thy funny, flapping, filching hands!—

Thy partridge body, always stuff'd

With waifs, and strays, and contrabands!—

Thy foot—like Berkeley's Foote—for why? 'Twas often made to wipe an eye! X

Ah, where thy legs—that witty pair!

For "great wits jump"—and so did they!

Lord! how they leap'd in lamp-light air!

Caper'd—and bounc'd—and strode away!—

That years should tame the legs—alack!

I've seen spring thro' an Almanack!

But bounds will have their bound X—the shocks Of Time will cramp the nimblest toes: And those that frisk'd in silken clocks May look to limp in fleecy hose—

And gout, that owns no odds between

The toe of Czar and toe of Clown,

Will visit—but I did not mean

To moralize, though I am grown

Thus sad.—Thy going seem'd to beat

A muffled drum for Fun's retreat!

Oh, how will thy departure cloud

The lamp-light of the little breast!

The Christmas child will grieve aloud

To miss his broadest friend and best—

For who like thee could ever stride!

Some dozen paces to the mile!—

The motley, medley coach provide— Or like Joe Frankenstein compile The vegetable man complete!— A proper Covent Garden feat!

Or, who like thee could ever drink,

Or eat—swill, swallow—bolt—and choke!

Nod, weep, and hiccup—sneeze and wink?—

Thy very yawn was quite a joke!

Tho' Joseph, Junior, acts not ill,

"There's no Fool like the old Fool" still!

All that is descriptive here is excellent. It seems to us next in merit to some of Cibber's dramatic comic portraitures, Joe, the absolute Joe, lives again in every line. We have just set our mark X against two puns to exemplify our foregoing remarks. The first of them is a positive stop to the current of our joyous feelings. What possible analogy, or contrast even, can there be between a comic gesture of Grimaldi, and the serious misfortunes of the lady, except in verbal sound purely? The sound is good, because the humour lies in the pun, and moreover has reference to Milton's

——at one bound

High over leaps all bounds.

A pun is a humble companion to wit, but disdains to be a train-bearer merely. But these poems are rich in fancies, which, in truth, needed not such aid.