gave them, and merely summed up their deeds, or rather their misdeeds, with remarking on their dynasty, that "there never were such times! It is not our intention, to give a minute detail of of their tricks in general. We could make our readers laugh at our narrations if we did so, but we remember the old story of the "Priest and the Hostler" and, as we have young readers, refrain. There was one of their tricks, however, which was so ingeniously contrived, and so ludicrous in many of its results, and which moreover led to a settlement of the question "Who wrote the lines on the burial of Sir John Moore?" that we are induced to give a particular account of it. Before doing so, however, we would observe, that in the year 1824, there resided in or near the city of Durham, an eccentric farrier, well known by the cognomen of "Veterinary Doctor Marshall," a title which he not only required himself to be addressed by, but which he even subscribed to all his letters and poems, instead of his Christian and sirname "Henry Marshall." We believe the Doctor, though long since removed from his ancient quarters, is still living, and at a very advanced age, and we regret to say, in adverse circumstances. Marshall was a poet, and although he has been called the “legitimate successor of James Brown," it is but justice to say, that he was very superior in poetic talent, to that celebrated personage. There was some little merit in Marshall's poems, a stroke of wit would now and then obtrude itself, and occasionally a really good idea might be met with, though clothed in an uncouth garb. However nothing could be more dissimilar between the style of the "Veterinary Doctor" and that of the late Rev. Charles Woolf, and no one who knew anything of the productions of the former, would have thought him capable of writing the lines on Sir John Moore, much less of dishonourably putting forward, a false and barefaced claim to their authorship. However in the London Courier of December 30, 1824, there appeared the following letter

Sir,

"To the Editor of the Courier.

Permit me, through the medium of your respectable journal, (which I have chosen as the channel of this communication, from my having been a subscriber to it, for the last fifteen years) to observe, that the statement lately published in the Morning Chronicle, the writer of which, ascribes the lines on the burial of Sir John Moore, to Woolf, is FALSE and as bare-faced a FABRICATION, as ever was foisted on the public. The lines in question are not written by Woolf, nor by Hailey, nor is Deacon* the author, but they were composed by me. I

The lines had been attributed to Mr. Deacon, the author of the Innkeeper's Album, and are now, often printed with his name attached.

published them originally, some years ago, in the Durham County Advertiser, à journal in which I have, at different times, inserted several poetical trifles as "The Prisoner's Prayer to Sleep."*"Lines on the lamented death of Benjamin Galley, Esq.,"+ and some other little effusions.

I should not, Sir, have thought the lines on Sir John Moore's funeral worth owning, had not the false statement of the Chronicle met my eye. I can prove by the most incontestible evidence the truth of what I have asserted. The first copy of my lines was given by me to my friend and relation Captain B and it is in his possession at present; it agrees perfectly with the copy now in circulation, with this exception, it does not contain the stanzas commencing with "Few and short" which I added afterwards at the suggestion of the Rev. Dr. Alderson of Butterby.‡

I am Sir, yours &c,

South St. Durham, Nov. 1. 1824."

H. Marshall, M. D.

It is almost unnecessary to say, that the above letter emanated from the "Durham Wags," and was a pure invention from beginning to end. Marshall had nothing whatever to do with it. It was in fact, written to draw forth the Author, of an anonymous paragraph, in the "Morning Chronicle," and so put him, whoever he might be, to the proof of what he had asserted, viz:-that "the lines on the burial of Sir John Moore, were the production of the late Rev. Charles Woolf." The design of the letter, was seen through at once, by the good citizens of Durham, who laughed heartily at it, at the same time that they condemned the liberty taken with the name of Dr. Marshall, who however having for years figured as a local satirist, could not himself complain of being in one solitary instance, brought before the public under a "waggish" guise.

"The Prisoner's Prayer to Sleep" a most beautiful poem, had long been ascribed to the writer of the lines on the burial of Sir John Moore, but in consequence of the above letter, Professor Wilson of Edinburgh, acknowledged himself to be the author.—Thus the disputed authorship of two productions, was set at rest by the "Wags of Durham," whose motto might have been appropriately, "ex fumo dare lucem.”

+ Benjamin Galley was a poor Durham idiot-Marshall never wrote any "lines" on his death, nor did any of Marshall's poems, ever appear in the Durham Advertiser, except in the way of quiz or joke. The Doctor's poems were never ushered to the public, through so respectable a source.

Dr. Alderson-by this personage was meant Hutchinson Alderson, the then Bellman of Durham, whose claim to rank as a Rev. Doctor, and Church Dignitary, was derived from the same imaginary source, which invested Marshall with a Physician's Diploma. See a humorous article in Hone's Table Book, called "The Bishop of Butterby."

The Durham Wags' were certainly successful, in raising a good laugh in that city, where Marshall's character, literary and otherwise, was well known; but in the South, in one breast at least, the letter excited feelings of a very opposite nature. The anonymous paragraph in the Morning Chronicle, as it turned out, had been inserted by the late John Sidney Taylor, Esq., a gentleman who was one of the kindest creatures that ever breathed, and whose exertions to ameliorate the criminal code of this country, as well as to put down cruelty to the brute creation, will be ever remembered. Yet with all his kindness of disposition, Mr. Taylor ever laboured under strong nervous excitement, owing to the weakness of his constitution, and his generally debilitated state of health. He and the late Rev. Chas. Woolf had been bosom friends, and indignant at the claim put forward in Marshall's letter (and which claim of course Mr. Taylor well knew to be false), he, not knowing the letter signed 'H. Marshall, M. D.' to be a fabrication, treated it as the bona fide production of a real physician, and in a letter in reply, in which he acknowledged himself, to be the inserter of the anonymous paragraph, and incontestibly proved the truth of what he had there asserted, he penned one of the most powerful and angry philippics, that we ever met with. "I know not" says he "who this professor of medicine is, but this rampant rudeness strikes me, as being characteristic of the Quack!" he then goes on to advise Doctor Marshall, to "go back to CELSUS and GALEN names we dare say the Doctor had never before heard of, and after telling him that he is "not ambitious of takng his medicine" Horse balls! recommends him "instead of claiming verses which do not belong to him" to "content himself with writing verses for the tomb stones of his patients!!" His patients!

In reference to Mr. Taylor's angry letter, the Durham Chronicle observed "In glancing over the Morning Chronicle of Thursday last, the first thing that attracted our attention, was a long and well written, though somewhat elaborate, letter of John Sidney Taylor, in which he maintains, that his deceased friend Mr. Woolf was the Author of the lines in dispute, and in which he animadverted in rather severe lauguage on our worthy fellow citizen Dr. Marshall, whom he designated a quack, and abused most unsparingly. We could not help pitying the poor Doctor, but we could not refrain at the same time from indulging in a hearty laugh, at the idea of a student of the middle Temple, throwing aside his Brackton, Glanville, and Coke, and sitting down to pen a philippic against an humble practitioner of the Veterinary art, and thinking (there's the rub!) all the time he was thus employed, he was cutting up a regular physician!!"

There was one good result from all this "waggery." The lines were proved, beyond a doubt, to have been written by the Rev. Charles Woolf, and the long disputed question as to their Authorship, was for ever set at rest; and we may here state, that we have good reasons for knowing, John Sydney Taylor not only forgave the "Wags of Durham" but said over and over again, that their letter was the best practical joke he ever met with. It certainly was a good joke, so good, that the Wags did not seem to like to part with it too soon, and therefore, as a second act in the same drama, they persuaded Dr. Marshall, that the world was by no means satisfied, that he was not the Author of the lines, and that he ought accordingly, to send up to London, a specimen of his veritable writing, and this he actually did the lines he sent to the Globe Newspaper, for the purpose of clearing his poetical character, are entitled "Lines on the death of Mr. John Bolton, (formerly of Chester le-street) Clock and Watch maker, Elvet, Durham." They are too long for insertion, but the first four lines, we think, must have been enough, to convince the most hardened sceptic, that Marshall did not write the lines on the burial of Sir John Moore-they are as follows

"Bolton the great Mechanic is no more;

I hope he's landed on the Elysian shore.
He died on Saturday, collected, sober,
The twenty seventh day of last October."

In reference to the above joke, there appeared in the Durham Chronicle of Oct. 24, 1824, the following admirable parody, and which, we know not how justly, has been attributed to the Author of some popular ballads.

Ode on the Writing of Doctor Marshall's letter.

Not a snoring note, not a sound was heard,

As we sat by our old round table;

And we none of us laughed, tho' we all averred

To refrain we were scarcely able.

We in conclave met at the dead of night,

All fear of detection spurning,

By a farthing candle's twinkling light,
And an oil lamp dimly burning.

No useless masks did our forms invest,
Nor in cloaks for disguise we bound us;
But calmly, we did in our arm chairs rest,
With the brandy bottles round us.

Few and short were the words we wrote,
For to brevity we were partial;

But we put Hut Alderson' into our note,
And signed it Henry Marshall.'

We "waggishly" thought as we penned our hoax,
And leaned o'er the bath-post paper,

How the wits of the North, would laugh at our jokes,
And Taylor would storm and vapour.

We thought how Taylor, our new M. D.
Would abuse, and in print upbraid him,
And how the horse doctor would laugh to see
What We "Durham Wags" had made him.

But now that our pleasant task was done,
The hour was each enquiring,

When the bell of St. Cuthbert's tolling one,
Told it was time for retiring.

So we gave the Doctor's health as a toast,
And we all sallied forth in our glory;
Our effusion we put in the Durham post,

And the knowing ones gulled with the story.

With this ode we leave the subject of the "Durham Wags merely remarking in conclusion, that, during the five or six years of their reign, so complete was their organization, and so admirably did they keep their own counsel, that not in one single instance, could any of their mischievous pranks be brought home to any of their doors. They were marshalled under an able leader, and the secrets of Freemasonry could not be better kept, than were the secrets of the "Wags of Durham."-The communication of a Durham Gentleman who was in the confidence of "the Wags," and well acquainted, with all the circumstances above narrated.