To Joseph Hume, Esq., M.P.

Oh, Mr. Hume, thy nameIs travelling post upon the road to fame,With four fast horses and two sharp postilions;Thy reputationHas friends by numeration,Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, Millions.Whenever public men together dine,They drink to theeWith three times three--That’s nine.And oft a votary proposes thenTo add unto the cheering one cheer more--Nine and One are Ten;Or somebody, for thy honour still more keen,Insists on four times four--Sixteen!

In Parliament no star shines more or bigger,And yet thou dost not care to cut a figure;Equally art thou eloquent and able,Whether in showing how to serve the nationOr laying its petitions on the TableOf Multiplication.In motion thou art second unto none,Though fortune on thy motions seems to frown,For though you set a number downYou seldom carry one.Great at speech thou art, though some folks cough,But thou art greatest at a paring off.

But never blench,Although in stirring up corruption’s wormsYou make some factionsVulgar as certain fractions,Almost reduced unto their lowest terms.Go on, reform, diminish, and retrench;Go on, for ridicule not caring;Sift on from one to nine with all their noughts,And make state cyphers eat up their own orts,And only in thy saving be unsparing;At soldiers’ uniforms make awful rackets,Don’t trim though, but untrim their jackets.Allow the tin mines no tin tax,Cut off the Great Seal’s wax!

Dock all the dock-yards, lower masts and sails,Search foot by foot the Infantry’s amounts,Look into all the Cavalry’s accounts,And crop their horses’ tails.Look well to Woolwich and each Money-vote,Examine all the cannons’ charges well,And those who found th’ Artillery compelTo forge twelve-pounders for a five-pound note.Watch Sandhurst too, its debts and its Cadets--Those Military pets.Take army--no, take Leggy TailorsDown to the Fleet, for no one but a nincumOut of our nation’s narrow incomeWould furnish such wide trousers to the Sailors.Next take, to wonder him,The Master of the Horse’s horse from under him;Retrench from those who tend on Royal illsWherewith to gild their pills.And tell the Stag-hound’s Master he must keepThe deer, &c., cheap.Close as new broomsScrub the Bed Chamber Grooms;Abridge the Master of the CeremoniesOf his very monies;In short, at every salary have a pull,And when folks come for payOn quarter-day,Stop half and make them give receipts in full.

Oh, Mr. Hume, don’t drink,Or eat, or sleep, a wink,Till you have argued over each reduction:Let it be food to you, repose and suction;Though you should make more motions by one halfThan any telegraph,Item by item all these things enforce,Be on your legs till lame, and talk till hoarse;Have lozenges--mind, Dawson’s--in your pocket,And swing your arms till aching in their socket;Or if awake you cannot keep,Talk of retrenchment in your sleep;Expose each Peachum, and show up each Lockit--Go down to the M.P.’s before you sup,And while they’re sitting blow them up,As Guy Fawkes could not do with all his nous;But now we live in different Novembers,And safely you may walk into the House,First split its ears and then divide its members!