The Sun.
London, England, 1832-09-01 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN.

The present number, which is one of more
than average merit, is headed by some lines ad-
dressed by Mr. T. Campbell to Sir Francis
Burdett, on the subject of his late speech in the
House of Commons on our Foreign Policy.
The lines are smooth enough, but have no
particular recommendation. " The Evidence
on the Bank of England Chatter" is a paper
wholly of a practical character. It is well timed,
and exhibits infinite pains-taking. " Ultimus
Romanorum" is a❑ ironical Lament for the re-
moval of Bowles's and Carver's Print-shop in
St. Paul's churchyard. It is but so-so.
" Clavering's Autobiography" is less anecdo-
tical than usual, which is bad ; and more
sentimental, which is worse. " French Poli-
tics" is a well• digested, well-considered essay,
evidently the production of a man accustomed to
think and compare for himself, and whose every
faculty is awake to what passes round him. The
present position of Louis Philippe is most truly
and happily described. We close our brief cur-
sory notice with the following lines by Moore :
SONG OF THE DEPARTING SPIRIT OF TITHE.

Di" THE EDITOR OF CAPTAIN ROCK'S MEMOIRS.
" The parting Genius is with sighing sent."—MaioN.
It is o'er, it is o'er, my reign is o'er ;
I hear a Voice, like that of yore,
Which over the earth its wailings spread,
Crying aloud, " Great Pan is dead!"—
Such Voice I hear, from shore to shore,
From Dunfanaghy to Baltimore,
And it saith, in sad, parsonic tone,
" Great Tithe,—and Small,—are dead and gone!"

Even now, I behold your vanishing wings,
Ye Tenths of all conceivable things
Which Adam first, as Doctors deem,
Saw, in a sort of night-mare dream,*
After that feast of fruit abhorr'd,—
First indigestion on record!—
Ye decimate ducks, ye chosen chicks,
Ye pigs which, even when Catholics,
Or of Calvin's most select depraved,
In the Church must have your bacon saved;—
Ye fields, where Labour counts his sheaves,
And, whatsoever himself believes,
Must bow to th' Established Church belief,
That the tenth is always a Protestant sheaf;—
Ye calves, of which the Man of Heaven
Takes Irish tithe, one calf in seven ;-1"
Ye tenths of rape, hemp, barley, flax,
Eggs,: timber, milk, fish,—and bees' was ;
All things, in short, since earth's creation,
Doom'd, by the Church's dispensation,
To suffer eternal decimation,—
Leaving the whole lay world, since then,
Reduced to nine parts out of ten ;
Or,—as we calculate thefts and arsons,—
Just ten per cent. the worse for Parsons !
Alas, and is all this wise device
For the saving of souls thus gone in a trice ?
The whole put down in the simplest way,
By the souls resolving not to pay !
And even the Papists, thankless race,
Who have had so much the easiest case,—
To pay for our sermons doom'd, 'tis true,
But not condemned to hear them too,—
(Our holy business being, 'tis known,
With the ears of their barley, not their own,)
Even they object to let us pillage,
By right divine, their tenth of tillage,
And, horror of horrors, even decline
To find us in sacramental wine! II

It is o'er, it is o'er, my reign is o'er,
Ah never shall rosy Rector more,
Like the shepherds of Israel, idly eat,
And make of his flock " a prey and meat."
No more shall be his the pastoral sport
Of suing his flock in the Bishop's Court,
Through various steps, Citation, Libel,—
Scriptures all, but not the Bible,—
Working the law's whole apparatus
To get a few pre-doom'd potatoes,
And summoning all the powers of wig,
To settle the fraction of a pig!—
Till, parson and all committed deep
In the case of Shepherd versus Sheep,
The Law usurps the Gospel's place,
And, on Sundays, meeting face to face,
While Plaintiff fills the preacher's station,
Defendants form the congregation.

So lives he, Mammon's priest, not Heaven's,
For Tenths thus all at sizes and sevens,
Seeking what parsons love no less,
Than tragic poets, a good distress.
Instead of studying St. Augustin,
Gregory Nyss, or old 3t. Justin,
(Books fit only to hoard dust in,)
His reverence stints his evening readings
To learned Reports of Tithe Proceedings,
Sipping, the while, that port so ruddy,
Which forms his only ancient study ;
Port so old, you'd swear its tartar,
Was of the age of Justin Martyr,
And, had the Saint sipp'd such, no doubt
His martyrdom would have been—to gout.
And is all then lost ?—alas, too true,—
Ye Tenths beloved, adieu, adieu!
My reign is o'er, my reign is o'er,—
Like Old Thumb's ghost, " I can no more."
• A reverend prebendary of Hereford, in an essay on the
Revenues of the Church of England, has assigned the origin of
Tithes to " some unrecorded revelation made to Adam."
t " The tenth calf is due to the parson of common right ;
and if there are seven, he shall have one."—Rees's CyclopaTlia,
art. " Tithes."
Chaucer's Plowman complains of the parish rectors, that
" For the tithing of a duck,
Or an apple, or an aye (egg,)
They make him swear upon a boke,
Thus they foulen Christ's fay."
II Among the specimens laid before Parliament of the sort of
Church rates levied upon Catholics in Ireland, was a charge of
two pipes of port for sacramental wine.
I Ezekiel xxxiv. B.—" Neither shall the shepherds feed them-
selves any more ; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth,
that they may not he meat for them."—v. 10.