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The following was written by Southey on Queen Elizabeth's dining on board Sir Francis Drake's ship, on his return from circumnavigating the globe:

Oh, Nature! to old England still

Continue these mistakes;

Give us for all our Kings such Queens,
And for our Dux such Drakes.

INVISIBLE.

I cannot praise your parson's eyes;
I never see his eyes divine,

For when he prays he shuts his eyes,
And when he preaches he shuts mine.

IMPERSONAL.

Quoth Madam Bas Bleu, "I hear you have said,
Intellectual women are always your dread;
Now tell me, dear sir, is it true?"

"Why, yes," said the wag, "Very likely I may
Have made the remark in a jocular way;

But then, on my honor, I didn't mean you."

AFFINITIES.

"A lady, once, whose love was sold,
Asked if a reason could be told,

Why wedding rings were made of gold:

I ventured thus to instruct her:

Love and lightning are the same;

On earth they glance, from Heaven they came:
Love is the soul's electric flame-

And gold its best conductor."

THE CRIER WHO COULD NOT CRY.

I heard a judge his tipstaff call

And say, "Sir, I desire

You go forthwith and search the Hall,

And send to me the crier."

"And search, my Lord, in vain, I may❞—

The tipstaff gravely said

"The Crier cannot cry to-day,

Because his wife is dead."

THE PARSON AND BUTCHER.

A parson and a butcher chanced, they say,
To meet and moralize one Sabbath day.
"Ah!" cries the parson, "all things good and fair,
All that is virtuous, wise, belovéd, rare,
Is sure the first to feel the stroke of fate;
While vice and folly have a longer date."
"True," cries the butcher, "for it is decreed,
The fattest pig, alas! must soonest bleed."

THE CLOCK.

A mechanic his labor will often discard,

If the rate of his pay he dislikes ;

But a clock-and its case is uncommonly hard-
Will continue to work though it strikes.-HOOD.

MASCULINE.

"What pity 'tis," said John, the sage,
"That women should, for hire,
Expose themselves upon the stage,
By wearing men's attire!"

"Expose!" cries Ned, who loves a jeer;

"In sense you surely fail:

What do the darlings have to fear

When clad in coats-of-male?"

IN RETURN FOR A LADY'S SKETCH OF THE APOLLO.

If fair Apollo drew his bow

As well as you have drawn it here,

No wonder that he carries woe

To many a maiden far and near.

One difference, though, I understand,
Between this picture and the giver :
Apollo keeps his bow in hand-

You keep your beaux upon the quiver.

WIDOWS.

As in India, one day, an Englishman sat

With a smart native lass at the window,

"Do your widows burn themselves? pray tell me that?'
Said the pretty, inquisitive Hindoo.

"Do they burn? ah, yes," the gentleman said,
"With a flame not so easy to smother:
Our widows, the moment one husband is dead,
Immediately burn for another!"-CANNING

The following epigram by Samuel Rogers, on Lord Dudley's studied speeches in Parliament, was pronounced by Byron, in conversation with Lady Blessington, 66 one of the best in the

English language, with the true Greek talent of expressing, by . implication, what is wished to be conveyed:"—

Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it:

He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.

On the marriage of Dr. Webb with Miss Gould, a classical friend sent him the following:

Tela fuit simplex statuens decus addere telæ,
Fecit hymen geminam puroque intexuit auro.
[Single no more, a double Webb behold;
Hymen embroidered it with virgin Gould.]

AFTER GOING TO LAW.

This law, they say, great nature's chain connects,
That causes ever must produce effects.

In me behold reversed great nature's laws,-
All my effects lost by a single cause.

SAME JAWBONE.

Jack eating rotten cheese did say,
"Like Samson I my thousands slay."
"I vow," says Roger, "so you do,
And with the selfsame weapon too."

A FUNNY DETERMINATION.
Queenly Miss Quaint, the aim of whose life
Is to die an old maid or a minister's wife,
Grotesquely averred, after hearing young Spread,
"I'll hear him all day, if I walk on my head!"

"Good!" said old Hunx, with a comical smile;

"But please, if you're late, don't come up the broad aisle!"

MARRIAGE À LA MODE.

"Tom, you should take a wife." "Nay, God forbid !"
"I found you one last night." "The deuce you did!"

"Softly! perhaps she'll please you." "Oh, of course!"

"Eighteen." "Alarming!" "Witty." "Nay, that's worse!"

"Discreet." "All show!" "Handsome." "To lure the fellows!"

66

High-born." "Ay, haughty!" "Tender-hearted." "Jealous!"

"Talents o'erflowing." "Ay, enough to sluice me!"

And then, Tom, such a fortune!" "Introduce me!"

QUID PRO quo.

"Marriage, not mirage, Jane, here in your letter: With your education, you surely know better."

Quickly spoke my young wife, while I sat in confusion, ""Tis quite correct, Thomas: they're each an illusion."

WOMAN-CONTRA.

When Adam, waking, first his lids unfolds
In Eden's groves, beside him he beholds

Bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and knows
His earliest sleep has proved his last repose.

WOMAN-PRO.

Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung,
Not she denied him with unholy tongue:

She, when apostles shrunk, could danger brave;
Last at the cross, and earliest at the grave.-BARRETT.

ABUNDANCE OF FOOLS.

The world of fools has such a store,
That he who would not see an ass

Must bide at home, and bolt his door,

And break his looking-glass.-LA MONNOYE.

THE WORLD.

"Tis an excellent world that we live in

To lend, to spend, or to give in;

But to borrow, or beg, or get a man's own,

"Tis just the worst world that ever was known.

TERMINER SANS OYER.

"Call silence!" the judge to the officer cries;
"This hubbub and talk, will it never be done?
Those people this morning have made such a noise,
We've decided ten causes without hearing one."

DOUBLE VISION UTILIZED. An incipient toper was checked t'other day, In his downward career, in a very strange way. The effect of indulgence, he found to his trouble, Was that after two bottles he came to see double; When with staggering steps to his home he betook him, He saw always two wives, sitting up to rebuke him. One wife in her wrath makes a pretty strong case; But a couple thus scolding, what courage could face?

Impromptus.

ONE day, as Dr. Young was walking in his garden at Welwyn in company with two ladies, (one of whom he afterwards married,) the servant came to acquaint him that a gentleman wished to speak with him. "Tell him," said the doctor, "I am too happily engaged to change my situation." The ladies insisted that he should go, as his visitor was a man of rank, his patron, and his friend. But, as persuasion had no effect, one took him by the right arm, the other by the left, and led him to the garden-gate; when, finding resistance in vain, he bowed, laid his hand upon his heart, and, in that expressive manner for which he was so remarkable, spoke the following lines:— Thus Adam looked when from the garden driven, And thus disputed orders sent from heaven. Like him I go, but yet to go I'm loath;

Like him I go, for angels drove us both.

Hard was his fate, but mine still more unkind :

His Eve went with him, but mine stays behind.

Ben Jonson having been invited to dine at the Falcon Tavern, where he was already deeply in debt, the landlord promised to wipe out the score if he would tell him what God, and the devil, and the world, and the landlord himself, would be best pleased with. To which the ready poet promptly replied :-

God is best pleased when men forsake their sin;

The devil is best pleased when they persist therein;

The world's best pleased when thou dost sell good wine;

And you're best pleased when I do pay for mine.

A well-known instance of self-extrication from a dilemma is thus rendered in rhyme :

When Queen Elizabeth desired

That Melville would acknowledge fairly
Whether herself he most admired,

Or his own sovereign, Lady Mary?

The puzzled knight his answer thus expressed:-
"In her own country each is handsomest."

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