Mrs.
E***n, and who, it is said, most wickedly turned her pen, and pointed
the following _jeu d'esprit_ against her late protector, when he was
laid up by a serious accident, which happened to his knee after the more
serious loss of a--_Foote_.
3 "A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind" says Pope; and
it would appear so from the intimacy which subsists between
the colonel and his jackall Bunn, the would-be captain, who
it is said is the _filius nullius_ of old Ben Bunn the
_conveyancer_, not of legal title or estate by roll of
parchment, but of the very soil itself. Lord W. Lennox, too,
no doubt, prides himself upon the illegitimate origin of his
ancestry; and the publisher of the infamous scandals
manufactured in the Quadrant is also of the same kidney,
being the reputed natural son of jolly old Bardolph Jennyns.
What the remaining portion of the coterie spring from, the
Gents and Bs., the sensitive nose of a sensible man will
very easily discover.
~231~~
'To Cupid's colonel help, ye people all;
He's missed his _Footing_, 'Pride has had a fall;'
The knee's uncapp'd, the calf laid open quite,
The Foote presents the most distressing sight;
Its form so perfect, pity none were nigh,
With warning voice to guard from injury.
Waltzers! your peerless partner view,
The gallant gay Lothario quite _perdu;
Sans Foote_ to rest upon, his claims deny'd
To take a birth by English nobles' side.
Let him to Cheltenham, 'tis not to go far;
He's sure to find a _seat--on Irish car_.'
"I am told, but I cannot discover the allusion myself, that Miss B*g*rs
was prompted to this effusion of the satiric muse by the green-eyed
monster, Jealousy, Observe that machine yonder, rumbling up the street
like an Irish jaunting-car, that contains the numerous family of M***r,
the vinegar merchant, whose lady being considered by the Chelts as
lineally descended from the Tartar race, they have very facetiously
nicknamed muriatic acid. The mad wag with the sandy whiskers yonder, and
somewhat pleasant-looking countenance, is a second-hand friend of the
colonel's; mark how he is ogling the young thing in the milliner's shop
through the window: his daily occupation, making assignations, and his
nightly amusement, a new favourite. A story is told of his father, a
hig
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