THE END OF BURLEY-BOTTOM.
OUR readers cannot have forgotten the notable expedient devised by the ingenious editor of the Morning Journal, for reviving the hearts of the Tories of the metropolis—the dinner at the Golden Fleece at Maidenhead, and the solemn procession to Hurley-Bottom—the fa- mous bottom that was framed in the days of WILLIAM the Norman, consecrated by the visits of WILLIAM the Dutchman, which PAOLI in I 78 0, and GEORGE the Third and his Queen, of blessed me- mory, in 1785, honoured with their presence and their praise. Alas ! what is man, and what are his labour, ? " Dust and ashes, mortality and vicissitudes," as the black tablet at Hurley hath it. The Morn- ing Journal died on Thursday ; and pass but a few weeks, the sacred building whose wonder-working powers the Journal so eloquently cele- brated, will be no more. The topmost stone of Hurley will be hurled to the ground, the bottom will be turned bottom up. Yes, indignant reader ! the materials of this ancient edifice, having witnessed so many revolutions, are at length to suffer a revolution in their turn— they are about to be applied to the repair of the farm-houses in their vicinity. Oh, the Gothic Utilitarianism of modern times ! If the Reformers are suffered to go on, we shall by and by have nothing that is old and useless in merry England. Had Sir ROBERT INGLIS and his tail but profited by the Journal's enlightened advice, there is no saying what might have ensued. Toryism and Hurley-bottom might have stood for another score of years in mouldering majesty, to tell a degenerate age that such things had been. Now, all the hopes of the one are smothered in the dust of the other's downfall !
"Hi motus animorum atque Mee certamina tanta pulveris exigui facto compressa quiescunt."
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