A NEW VERSION OF BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST.

[Illustration:  OLD GLORY’S WHIG TOP-BOOTS REFUSING TO CARRY HIM TO THE DINNER TO CAPTAIN ROUS.]

Such, we are credibly assured, was the determination of these liberal and enlightened leathers.  They had heard frequent whispers of a general indisposition on the part of all lovers of consistency to stand in their master’s shoes, and taking the insult to themselves, they lately came to the resolution of cutting the connexion.  They felt that his liberality and his boots were all that constituted the idea of Burdett; and now that he had forsaken his old party and joined Peel’s, the “tops” magnanimously decided to forsake him, and force him to take to—­Wellingtons.  We have been favoured with a report of the conversation that took place upon the occasion, and may perhaps indulge our readers with a copy of it next week.

In the mean time, we beg to subjoin a few lines, suggested by the circumstance of Burdett taking the chair at Rous’s feast, which strongly remind us of Byron’s Vision of Belshazzar.

  Burdett was in the chair—­
    The Tories throng’d the hall—­
  A thousand lamps were there,
    O’er that mad festival. 
  His crystal cup contain’d
    The grape-blood of the Rhine;
  Draught after draught he drain’d,
    To drown his thoughts in wine.

  In that same hour and hall
    A shade like “Glory” came,
  And wrote upon the wall
    The records of his shame. 
  And at its fingers traced
    The words, as with a wand,
  The traitorous and debased
    Upraised his palsied hand.

  And in his chair he shook,
    And could no more rejoice;
  All bloodless wax’d his look,
    And tremulous his voice. 
  “What words are those appear,
    To mar my fancied mirth! 
  What bringeth ‘Glory’ here
    To tell of faded worth?”

  “False renegade! thy name
    Was once the star which led
  The free; but, oh! what shame
    Encircles now thine head! 
  Thou’rt in the balance weigh’d,
    And worthless found at last. 
  All! all! thou hast betray’d!”—­
    And so the spirit pass’d.

* * * * *

PUNCH’S PENCILLINGS.—­No.  VI.

[Illustration: 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: 

SIR RHUBARB PILL MESMERISING THE BRITISH LION.]

* * * * *

SUPREME COURT OF THE LORD HIGH INQUISITOR PUNCH.

PAT V. THE WHIG JUSTICE COMPANY.

This is a cause of thorough orthodox equity standing, having commenced before the time of legal memory, with every prospect of obtaining a final decree on its merits somewhere about the next Greek Kalends.  In the present term,