Are crowding the "boxes," and looking on coolly as
Though 'twas but one of their common tertulias,
Partaking, as usual, of wafers and ices,
Snow-water, and melons cut out into slices,
And chocolate, -furnished at coffee-house prices;

While many a suitor, And gay coadjutor
In the eating-and-drinking line scorns to be neuter;
One, being perhaps just return'd with his tutor
From travel in England, is tempting his "future"
With a luxury neat as imported, "The Pewter,"
And charming the dear Violantes and Iñeses

With a three-corner'd Sandwich, and soupçon of "Guin

ness's;"

While another, from Paris but newly come back,
Hints "the least taste in life" of the best cogniac.

Such ogling and eyeing, In short, and such
sighing

And such complimenting (one must not say 1-g),
Of smart Cavaliers with each other still vying,

Mix'd up with the crying, And groans of the
dying,

All hissing, and spitting, and broiling, and frying,
Form a scene which, although there can be no denying
To a bon Catholique it may prove edifying,
I doubt if a Protestant smart Beau, or merry Belle,
Might not shrink from it as somewhat too terrible.
It's a question with me if you ever survey'd a
More stern-looking mortal than old Torquemada,

Renown'd Father Dominic, famous for twisting dom-estic and foreign necks all over Christendom;

Morescoes or Jews, Not a penny to choose, If a dog of a heretic dare to refuse A glass of old port, or a slice from a griskin, The good Padre soon would so set him a frisking, That I would not, for-more than I'll say-be in his

skin.

Twas just the same thing with his own race and

nation,

And Christian Dissenters of every persuasion,
Muggletonian or Quaker, Or Jumper or Shaker,
No matter with whom in opinion partaker,
George Whitfield, John Bunyan, or Thomas Gat-acre,
They'd no better chance than a Bonze or a Fakir ;
If a woman, it skill'd not-if she did not deem as he
Bade her to deem touching Papal supremacy,

By the Pope, but he'd make her! From error
awake her,

Or else-pop her into an oven and bake her !

No one, in short, ever came half so near, as he

Did, to the full extirpation of heresy;

And if, in the times of which now I am treating,

There had been such a thing as a "Manchester Meet

ing,"

"Pretty pork" he'd have made "Moderator" and

"Minister,"

Had he but caught them on his side Cape Finisterre ;Pye Smith, and the rest of them once in his bonfire,

hence

-forth you'd have heard little more of the "CONFERENCE,"

And-there on the opposite side of the ring,
He, too, sits " in his GLORY," confronting the King,
With his cast-iron countenance frowning austerely
That matched with his en bon point body but queerly,
For, though grim his visage, his person was pursy,

Belying the rumour Of fat folks' good humour;
Above waves his banner of "Justice and Mercy,"
Below and around stand a terrible band ad-

-ding much to the scene-viz., The "Holy Hermandad,"

That's "Brotherhood,"-each looking grave as a Grand

dad.

Within the arena Before them is seen a Strange, odd-looking group, each one dress'd in a

garment

Not "dandified" clearly, as certainly "varment,"
Being all over vipers and snakes, and stuck thick
With multiplied silhouette profiles of NICK;

And a cap of the same, All devils and flame,
Extinguisher-shaped, much like Salisbury Spire,
Except that the latter's of course somewhat higher;

A long yellow pin-a-fore Hangs down each chin

afore,

On which, ere the wearer had donn'd it, a man drew The Scotch badge, a Saltire, or Cross of St. Andrew; Though I fairly confess I am quite at a loss

To guess why they should choose that particular

cross,

Or to make clear to you What the Scotch had

to do

At all with the business in hand, though it's true
That the vestment aforesaid, perhaps from its hue,
Viz., yellow, in juxta-position with blue,
(A tinge of which latter tint could but accrue
On the faces of wretches, of course, in a stew
As to what their tormentors were going to do,)
Might make people fancy, who no better knew,
They were somehow connected with Jeffrey's Review;
Especially too As it's certain that few

Things would make Father Dominic blither or hap

pier

Than to catch hold of it, or its Chef, Macvey Napier.-
No matter for that-my description to crown,
All the flames and the devils were turn'd upside down
On this habit, facetiously term'd San Benito,

Much like the dress suit Of some nondescript
brute

From the show-van of Wombwell (not George), or Polito.

And thrice happy they,* Dress'd out in this way To appear with éclat at the Auto-da-fé,Thrice happy indeed whom the good luck might fall to Of devils tail upward, and "Fuego revolto,"

For, only see there, In the midst of the Square,
Where, perch'd up on poles six feet high in the
air

Sit, chained to the stake, some two, three, or four pair
Of wretches, whose eyes, nose, complexion, and hair
Their Jewish descent but too plainly declare,
Each clothed in a garment more frightful by far, a
Smock-frock sort of gaberdine, call'd a Samarra,
With three times the number of devils upon it,-
A proportion observed on the sugar-loaf'd bonnet,
With this farther distinction-of mischief a proof-
That every fiend Jack stands upright on his hoof!

While the pictured flames, spread Over body and
head,

Are three times as crooked, and three times as red:
All, too, pointing upwards, as much as to say,
"Here's the real bonne bouche of the Auto-da-fé."

Torquemada, meanwhile, With his cold, cruel smile,

Sits looking on calmly, and watching the pile,

* O fortunati nimium sua si bona norint!