27 JUNE 1846, Page 12

A CORN-LAW BALLAD: ADDRESSED TO SIR ROBERT PEEL, BY AN

ADMIRER.

" Ile that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon the head of him teat Benet], it."—Troo. 21. 28.

The puppy, and the fool, The children of today, Who maunder o'er the crude conceits Or grant a fitting recompense, Of an exploded school, Or slander it away.

May taunt thee with apostaev, No, He the Hero of an age, And make a monstrous noise The mighty one like thee, About your cool abstraction Receives the guerdon of his deeds Of a 'bather's corduroys: From far posterity.

Bat, like the bark of poodle dog, Then in the after ages,

Or a parrot's empty cu-, When Albion is no more,

Or thundenngs theatrical, And London lies a desert waste Their slanders pass thee by; Upon a lonely shore,

While from the crowded city, Long as the kindly accents

And from the lonely moor, Of the English tongue are known, Come the blessings of the millions, Or by the Mississippi, The blessings of the poor. Or in the torrid zone, For e'en amid the thoughtlessness, High o'er the Celtic warrior, The sorrow, and the toil, The carnage-loving Dane,

Which dog the pale mechanic O'er the haughty Norman victor,

And the tiller of the soil, And the sturdy Saxon Thane, A father's arm is strengthened, And a mother dries her tear, When they think that in the time to come Bread will not be so dear.

And so at morn and eventide, And every scanty meal, They pray that God may bless the heart And nerve the hand of PeeL But not to minds gigantic, To men who comprehend The wants of empires, and who look Far onwards to the end, The might of virtuous eloquence Shall consecrate thy name, Foremost upon the bannerrol Of everlasting fame: And thus by statesmen and by bards Thy glory shall be spread- " He braved the mighty and the rich, To give the people bread." E.

King', Colive, Cambridge.