Yes, Winchelsea (I tremble while I pen it),
Winehelsea's Earl hath _cut_ the British Senate--
Hath said to England's Peers, in accent gruff,
"_That_ for ye all"[snapping his fingers] and exit in a huff!
Disastrous news!--like that of old which spread,
From shore to shore, "our mighty Pan is dead,"
O'er the cross benches (cross from _being_ crost)
Sounds the loud wail, "Our Winchelsea is lost!"
Which of ye, Lords, that heard him can forget
The deep impression of that awful threat,
"I quit your house!!"--midst all that histories tell,
I know but _one_ event that's parallel:--
It chanced at Drury Lane, one Easter night,
When the gay gods too blest to be polite
Gods at their ease, like those of learned Lucretius,
Laught, whistled, groaned, uproariously facetious--
A well-drest member of the middle gallery,
Whose "ears polite" disdained such low canaillerie,
Rose in his place--so grand, you'd almost swear
Lord Winchelsea himself stood towering there--
And like that Lord of dignity and _nous_,
Said, "Silence, fellows, or--I'll leave the house!!"
How brookt the gods this speech? Ah well-a-day,
That speech so fine should be so thrown away!
In vain did this mid-gallery grandee
Assert his own two-shilling dignity--
In vain he menaced to withdraw the ray
Of his own full-price countenance away--
Fun against Dignity is fearful odds,
And as the Lords laugh _now_, so giggled _then_ the gods!