The Joss and His Folly,

An Extract of an overland Dispatch.

I stare at it from out my casement,
And ask for what is such a place meant.

Byron.

July 29, 1820.

——The queerest of all the queer sights
I've set sight on;—
Is, the what dye-call'-t thing, here,
The Folly at Brighton

The outside—huge teapots,

all drill'd round with holes,
Relieved by extinguishers,

sticking on poles:

The inside—all tea-things,

and dragons, and bells,

The show rooms—all show,

the sleeping rooms—cells.

But the grand Curiosity

's not to be seen—

The owner himself—

an old fat Mandarin;

A patron of painters

who copy designs,

That grocers and tea-dealers

hang up for signs:

Hence teaboard-taste artists

gain rewards and distinction,
Hence his title of 'Teapot'

shall last to extinction.

I saw his great chair

into which he falls—soss—
And sits, in his China Shop,

like a large Joss;

His mannikins round him,

in tea-tray array,

His pea-hens beside him,

to make him seem gay.

It is said when he sleeps

on his state Eider-down,

And thinks on his Wife,

and about half a Crown;

That he wakes from these horrible dreams in a stew;

And that, stretching his arms out,

he screams, Mrs. Q.!

He's cool'd on the M—ch-ss,

but I'm your debtor

For further particulars—

in a C letter.

You must know that he hates his own wife, to a failing;—

And it's thought, it's to shun her,
he's now gone out