The Press.
London, England, 1853-08-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

COALITION CONTEMPLATIONS;
OR, THE PREMIER'S THOUGHTS ON THE SESSION.

The Whitebait Dinner is past and done,
The work of the session o'er;
Silent each major and minor gun,
The great and the little bore.

" Time-honoured Lancaster" now, without breach
Of Parliament manners or loss of a speech,
May indulge in his wonted snore ;
And Statesmen, who late have had awkward work,
In settling the case of the troublesome Turk,
May take their revenge on the Moor.

The Premier sits in his chair at home,
Reviewing his labours past,
And care on his brow, like a sullen gnome,
Has its gloomiest shadow cast.
With blarney and compromise, promise and shift,
Like a youth who's been going a little too " swift "
(I should say, a little too " fast") ;
Though he's somehow contrived in a sort of a way
To put off for a season the reckoning day,
He knows it will come at last.

Alas ! he sighs, and his brow grows hot,
Had ever a chief such an ugly lot ?
Talents enough, and to spare, they've got,
Of credit I'd not be depriving them.
But Lord, when they come to run their rigs,
Turning like so many whirligigs,
They might as well be a drove of pigs
For the comfort and ease of driving them.

'Tis strange that a man should be thus in dumps,
And his heart give so many foreboding thumps,
When ha holds such a hand of undoubted trumps,

All cards of the first condition.
tut, somehow, the fact there's no concealing,
by dint of the shuffle and double dealing,
Each card in the pack, ono can't hell► feeling,
Has got to the wrong position.

Our terrible PAM, the rugged and tough,
Of Foreign Affairs has had quantum Arid:,
And leaver; to an Irish ex-First•Luff
(Who between ourselves is a bit of a mull)

To settle those dreadful Turks.
There's Gzr►DDY, to whom all High Church flocks,
Instead of converting, bows down to stocks ;
And MOM?, whose Faith would scarce move rocks,
Presides at the Board of Works.

'Twits an awkward affair, I must confess,
The way I got over that Irish mess,
When those brigadier subs would hare redress
For JOHNNY'S Protestant speeches.
Humble-pie with a Premier scarce agrees,
And it's hardly the thing to go down on one's knees
Before such a trio of rapparecs,
To heal coalition breaches.

and slack ! I am ill at case,
think of the terrible coming breczo,
next time Mother Church shall please

up an Irish riot;
settled'thc principle, Lord knows how,
only a Priest at the head of a row,
e march of the row•dow-dow
Shall keep his Reverence quiet.

SA'ITRDAY,

Oh! would that the Pope, my patron true,
Would open his miracle-box anew,
And teach me the secret St. Patrick knew—

That saint so holy and clever—
Who, blessings upon his sanctified fist,
Gave the Irish reptiles a deadly twist,
And shut up the father of snakes in his kist,
And settled his hash for ever.

Then what shall we say about Foreign Affairs—
And how shall we manage the Bulls and Bears
Who doctor the market of stocks and shares

With rumours of peace or battle?
It's a ticklish thing to refuse to disclose,
And snub the questions of Parliament foes,
And lead the Bulls upon 'Change by the nose,
Like the monarch of horned cattle.

When the Russians crossed their frontier lines,
We said it was only a question of shrines
'Twixt the Pope's and the Patriarch's hot divines—

Mere clerical fire and flax ;
But Talents, alas ! may be sometimes blocks—
When we thought it a case of mere cassocks,
It sadly affected the price of stocks,
By becoming a case of Cossacks.

In Finance, for the present, we've 'scaped some trouble,
Except from the burst of the South Sea bubble,
For the Income Tax, fixed for a period double,
Has set us upon our legs ;
But the people wish the tax at the deuce,
And the CHAxCELLOR owns it a great abuse,
So he's promised in '6O to kill the goose
That lays us the golden eggs.

Then in Home Affairs is a question vexed,
" What to do with our convicts," assails us next,
For we wont transport, and we're much perplexed
How to keep them at home as neighbours.
Our notion at present for all who thieve
Is--confine them a little, and then reprieve,
And send them about with a ticket of leave,
To cheapen honest men's labours.

One triumph at least will mark our year :
The chivalrous PAM has sworn to clear
The blacks of the London atmosphere,
And the thanks of the Cockneys earn ;
But the burners find it far from a joke
To be driven to fuel that makes no smoke ;
It may, they say, be the Law of Coke,
But it is not the Justice of Burn.

To sum up our deeds in a few brief notes,
We've bribed the Brigade to turn their coats,
By treating rebellion as mere wild oats ;
To Tag, Rag, and Bobtail we've promised votes,
And secured the support of the loudest throats
Of Democrat Agitation.
We've made Church reserves a lay possession,
We've winked at an Irish priest's transgression,
We've saddled the land with a tax on succession,
We've talked a good deal about Progression,
And made on the whole a respectable session,
In the way of conciliation.

Oh ! for a Principle, only one !
(For we've only Free Trade, which is worse than none)
A rule to follow, a rock to shun,
A chart for the course we have Just begun,

Could we beg one, or steal, or borrow !
However, we've staved off the evil day,
And (as many a honester man must say,
With duns in abundance and nought to pay),
When matters of principle cross our way,
We must thank them to call to-morrow.

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