are so very insignificant;”
  And the author of a speech I read, part scum and partly dreggy,
  Is perhaps the least significant—­that windbag named CARNEGIE. 
  But your kindness most appals me, Sir; how really, truly gracious,
  For one whose home is in the States, free, great, and most capacious,
  To come to poor old England (where the laws but make the many fit
  To lick a Royal person’s boots), and all for England’s benefit. 
  To preach to us, and talk to us, to tell us how effete we are,
  How like a flock of silly sheep who merely baa and bleat we are. 
  And how “this petty little land,” which prates so much of loyalty,
  Is nothing but a laughing-stock to Pittsburg Iron-Royalty. 
  How titles make a man a rake, a drunkard, and the rest of it,
  While plain (but wealthy) democrats in Pittsburg have the best of it. 
  How, out in Pennsylvania, the millionnaires are panting
  (Though there’s something always keeps them fat) for monetary banting. 
  How free-born citizens complain, with many Yankee curses,
  Of fate which fills, in spite of them, their coffers and their purses. 
  How, if the man be only poor, there’s nothing that can stop a cit
  In Yankeeland, while here with us the case is just the opposite. 
  How honest British working-men who fail to fill their larder
  Should sail for peace and plenty by the very next Cunarder. 
  And how, in short, if Britishers want freedom gilt with millions,
  They can’t do wrong to imitate the chivalrous Brazilians.

  Well, well, I know we have our faults, quite possibly a crowd of them,
  And sometimes we deceive ourselves by thinking we are proud of them;
  But we never can have merited that you should set the law to us,
  And rail at us, and sneer at us, and preach to us, and “jaw” to us. 
  We’re much more tolerant than some; let those who hate the law go
  And spout sedition in the streets of anarchist Chicago;
  And, after that, I guarantee they’ll never want to roam again,
  Until they get a first-class hearse to take their bodies home again.

  But stay, I’ve hit upon a plan:  We’ll, first of all, relieve you
  Of all your million dollars that so onerously grieve you;
  Then, if some loud, conceited fool wants taking down a peg, he
  Shall spend an hour or so in talk with democrat CARNEGIE. 
  For all men must admit ’twould be an act of mere insanity
  To try to match this Pittsburger in bluster or in vanity. 
  And oh, when next our Chancellor is anxious for a loan, Sir,
  He’ll buy you in at our price, and he’ll sell you at your own, Sir. 
  And if you don’t like English air, why, dash it, you may lump it,
  Or go and blow in other climes your most offensive trumpet!

* * * * *

ROBERT UP THE RIVER.