shops half forgot to snore;
Stern Cobbett,[Sec.]--who for one whole week forbore
To question aught, once more with transport leapt,
And bit his devilish quill agen, and swore
With foes such treaty never should be kept,
While roared the blatant Beast,[Sec.Sec.] and roared, and raged, and--slept!!

Thus unto Heaven appealed the people: Heaven
Which loves the lieges of our gracious King,
Decreed that ere our Generals were forgiven,
Enquiry should be held about the thing.
But Mercy cloaked the babes beneath her wing;
And as they spared our foes so spared we them;
(Where was the pity of our Sires for Byng?)[Sec.Sec.Sec.]
Yet knaves, not idiots should the law condemn;
Then live ye gallant Knights! and bless your Judges' phlegm!

[Sec.] [Sir Hew Dalrymple's despatch on the so-called Convention of Cintra
is dated September 3, and was published in the _London Gazette
Extraordinary_, September 16, 1808. The question is not alluded to in
the _Weekly Political Register_ of September 17, but on the 24th Cobbett
opened fire with a long article (pp. 481-502) headed, "Conventions in
Portugal," which was followed up by articles on the same subject in the
four succeeding issues. Articles iii., iv., v., vi., of the "Definitive
Convention" provided for the restoration of the French troops and their
safe convoy to France, with their artillery, equipments, and cavalry.
"Did the men," asks Cobbett (September 24), "who made this promise beat
the Duke d'Abrantes [Junot], or were they like curs, who, having felt
the bite of the mastiff, lose all confidence in their number, and,
though they bark victory, suffer him to retire in quiet, carrying off
his bone to be disposed of at his leisure? No, not so; for they
complaisantly carry the bone for him." The rest of the article is
written in a similar strain.]

[Sec.Sec.] "'Blatant beast.'[*] A figure for the mob. I think first used by
Smollett, in his _Adventures of an Atom_.[**] Horace has the 'bellua
multorum capitum.'[***] In England, fortunately enough, the illustrious
mobility has not even one."--[MS.]

[*] [Spenser (_Faerie Queene_, bk. vi. cantos iii. 24; xii. 27, sq.)
personifies the _vox populi_, with its thousand tongues, as the "blatant
beast."]

[**][In _The History and Adventures of an Atom_ (Smollett's Works, 1872,
vi. 385), Foksi-Roku (Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland) passes judgment
on the populace.