Exhibition
Down to zero seemed likely to drop,
Mayors Provincial, at your requisition,
Of a sudden showed souls above shop.
Inspired up they went, like sky-rockets,
At the call of a Patriot Prince--
Nay, more, put their hands in their pockets
To a tune ne'er before known--nor since.

Foundation stones, past calculation,
Workmanlike, you have laid, true and square
And a curiously dinner-rid nation
Has still found you a saint in the chair.
Goodness knows what ineffable dinners,
What drinks deleterious you've borne,
What prosing from long-winded sinners
You've endured with a patience unworn!

You have never pressed forward unbidden;
When called on you've never shown shame
Not paraded, nor prudishly hidden
Your person, your purse, or your name;
You've lent no man occasion to call you
Intruder, intriguer, or tool;
Even I've not had often to haul you
O'er the coals, or to take you to school.

All this, my dear PRINCE, gives me boldness--
Which, _au reste_, our positions allow--
For a hint (which you'll not charge to coldness,
After all I have written just now):
Which is to put down certain flunkies,
Who by flatt'ry your favour would earn,
Pelting praise at your head, as at monkeys
Tars throw stones--to get nuts in return.

My LORD MAYOR may beplaster his liveries
With velvet and gingerbread gold;
Though all, what he'd perhaps call "diskiveries,"
Are bursting from every fold:
He may perch up a JUSTICE from Astley's
Atop of a property car,
Not less fit for the day, or less ghastly's
Her rouge, than frauds corporate are.

He may summon his friends to swill turtle,
And gulp ven'son, like pigs in a stye;--
Line the Mansion House staircase with myrtle
And laurel--the Sphynx can tell why;--
He may bow to the Bench of Exchequer,
Have Ministers sit at his board;--
Civic barges no farther from wreck are,
GOG and MAGOG no less shall be floored.

The hands that prepare your ovation,
My dear PRINCE, ought at least to be clean;
Not the hands of a doomed Corporation,
Fouled with all that is venal and mean:
There's the smut of the poor man's coals there,
Whereof tithe they've unrighteously taken;
There's the flour of the poor man's rolls there,
And the grease of the poor man's bacon.

Then silence your civic applauders,
Lest better men cease fro