ns and turns to give the world a notion
Of endless torments and perpetual motion.

XIV.

A bungler even in its disgusting trade,
And botching, patching, leaving still behind
Something of which its masters are afraid,
States to be curb'd, and thoughts to be confined,
Conspiracy or Congress to be made--
Cobbling at manacles for all mankind--
A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains,
With God and man's abhorrence for its gains.

XV.

If we may judge of matter by the mind,
Emasculated to the marrow _It_
Hath but two objects, how to serve, and bind,
Deeming the chain it wears even men may fit,
Eutropius of its many masters,--blind
To worth as freedom, wisdom as to wit,
Fearless--because _no_ feeling dwells in ice,
Its very courage stagnates to a vice.

XVI.

Where shall I turn me not to _view_ its bonds,
For I will never _feel_ them:--Italy!
Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds
Beneath the lie this State-thing breathed o'er thee--
Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet green wounds,
Have voices--tongues to cry aloud for me.
Europe has slaves--allies--kings--armies still,
And Southey lives to sing them very ill.

XVII.

Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to dedicate,
In honest simple verse, this song to you.
And if in flattering strains I do not predicate,
'Tis that I still retain my "buff and blue";
My politics as yet are all to educate:
Apostasy's so fashionable, too,
To keep _one_ creed's a task grown quite Herculean:
Is it not so, my Tory, Ultra-Julian?

VENICE, September 16, 1818.

THOMAS HOOD.

(1798-1845.)

LXI. COCKLE _v_. CACKLE.

This is not meant as a "cut" at that standard medicine named
therein which has wrought such good in its day; but is a satire on
quack advertising generally. The more worthless the nostrum, the
more universal the advertising of it, such is the moral of Hood's
satire.

Those who much read advertisements and bills,
Must have seen puffs of Cockle's Pills,
Call'd Anti-bilious--
Which some physicians sneer at, supercilious,
But which we are assured, if timely taken,
May save your liver and bacon;
Whether or not they really give one ease,
I, who have never tried,
Will not decide;
But no two things in union go like these--
Viz.--quacks and pills--save ducks and pease.
Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow