THOUGHTS ON TAR BARRELS.
Reading edition
(VIDE DESCRIPTION OF A LATE FÊTE.)[1]
1832.
What a pleasing contrivance! how aptly devised 'Twixt tar and magnolias to puzzle one's noses! And how the tar-barrels must all be surprised To find themselves seated like "Love among roses!"
What a pity we can't, by precautions like these, Clear the air of that other still viler infection; That radical pest, that old whiggish disease, Of which cases, true-blue, are in every direction.
Stead of barrels, let's light up an Auto da Fe Of a few good combustible Lords of "the Club;" They would fume in a trice, the Whig cholera away, And there's Bucky would burn like a barrel of bub.
How Roden would blaze! and what rubbish throw out! A volcano of nonsense in active display; While Vane, as a butt, amidst laughter, would spout The hot nothings he's full of, all night and all day.
And then, for a finish, there's Cumberland's Duke,— Good Lord, how his chin-tuft would crackle in air! Unless (as is shrewdly surmised from his look) He's already bespoke for combustion elsewhere.
[1] The Marquis of Hertford's Fête.—From dread of cholera his Lordship had ordered tar-barrels to be burned in every direction.