Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

ON A PALE LADY WITH A RED-NOSED HUSBAND.

Whence comes it that in Clara's face

The lily only has its place?

Is it because the absent rose

Has gone to paint her husband's nose?

ON SOME SNOW THAT MELTED ON A LADY'S BREAST.

Those envious flakes came down in haste,

To prove her breast less fair,

But, grieved to find themselves surpassed,*
Dissolved into a tear.

SELVAGGI'S DISTICH ADDRESSED TO JOHN MILTON.

While at Rome.

Græcia Moonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem,
Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem.

DRYDEN'S AMPLIFICATION.

Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both, the last.
The force of nature could no further go:

To make a third, she joined the former two.

The following madrigal was addressed to a Lancastrian lady, and accompanied with a white rose, during the opposition of the "White Rose" and "Red Rose" adherents of the houses of York and Lancaster:

If this fair rose offend thy sight,

It in thy bosom wear;

"Twill blush to find itself less white,
And turn Lancastrian there.

COWPER'S TRANSLATION OF THE FOREGOING.

Tres tria, sed longe distantia, sæcula vates
Ostentant tribus e gentibus eximios.
Grecia sublimem, cum majestate disertum
Roma tulit, felix Anglia utrique parem.
Partubus ex binis Natura exhausta, coacta est,
Tertius ut fieret, consociare duos.

OVERDRAWN COMPLIMENT.

So much, dear Pope, thy English Homer charms,
As pity melts us, or as passion warms,

That after-ages will with wonder seek
Who 'twas translated Homer into Greek.

SUGGESTED BY A GERMAN TOURIST.

Who accompanied Prince Albert into Scotland.
Charmed with the drink which Highlanders compose,
A German traveller exclaimed, with glee,
"Potztausend! sare, if this be Athol Brose,*

How good the Athol Boetry must be !"-Tom HOOD.
ETERNITY.

Reason does but one quaint solution lend
To nature's deepest yet divinest riddle;
Time is a beginning and an end,
Eternity is nothing but a middle.

OCCASIONED BY THE LOSS OF A CLERGYMAN'S PORTMANTEAU,
Containing his Sermons.

I've lost my portmanteau.

"I pity your grief."

It contained all my sermons.
"I pity the thief!"

TO A LIVING AUTHOR.

Your comedy I've read, my friend,
And like the half you pilfered, best;
But sure the piece you yet may mend:

Take courage, man! and steal the rest.

* Athol brose is a favorite Highland drink, composed of honey, whiskey, and water, although the proportion of the latter is usually so homœopathically minute as to be difficult of detection except by chemical or microscopical analysis. Possibly the Scotch aversion to injuring the flavor of their whiskey by dilution arises from a fact noted by N. P. Willis, that the water has tasted so strongly of sinners ever since the Flood.

THE FRUGAL QUEEN.

One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell,

When deprived of her husband she loved so well,
In respect for the love and affection he showed her,
She reduced him to dust, and she drank off the powder.
But Queen Netherplace, of a different complexion,
When called on to order the funeral direction,
Would have ate her dead lord, on a slender pretence,
Not to show her respect, but-to save the expense!-BURNS,

ON COMMISSARY GOLDIE'S BRAINS.

Lord, to account who dares thee call,

Or e'er dispute thy pleasure?

Else why within so thick a wall

Enclose so poor a treasure?-Burns.

GIVING AND TAKING.

"I never give a kiss," says Prue,

"To naughty man, for I abhor it."

She will not give a kiss, 'tis true:

She'll take one, though, and thank you for it.-MOORE.

ΤΟ

"Moria pur quando vuol non è bisogna mutar ni faccia ni voce per esser un Angelo."

Die when you will, you need not wear

At Heaven's court a form more fair

Than beauty here on earth has given;
Keep but the lovely looks we see,-
The voice we hear,-and you will be

An angel ready-made for heaven!-MOORE.

THE LOVER TO HIS MISTRESS, WITH A PRESENT OF A MIRROR.

This mirror my object of love will unfold
Whensoe'er your regard it allures:

Oh, would, when I'm gazing, that I might behold
On its surface the object of yours!

TO A CAPRICIOUS FRIEND.

Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem,
Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te.-MARTIAL.

[In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow,

Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,

Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,

There is no living with thee, nor without thee.-ADDISON.]

MENDAX.

See! yonder goes old Mendax, telling lies

To that good, easy man with whom he's walking.

How know I that? you ask, with some surprise;

Why, don't you see, my friend, the fellow's talking!-LESSING.

ON FELL.

While Fell was reposing himself on the hay,

A reptile, concealed, bit his leg as he lay;

But, all venom himself, of the wound he made light,
And got well, while the scorpion died of the bite.-LESSING.

ON AN ILL-READ LAWYER.

An idle attorney besought a brother

For "something to read,-some novel or other,
That was really fresh and new."

"Take Chitty!" replies his legal friend:

"There isn't a book that I could lend,

That would prove more novel' to you!"-SAXE.

WOMAN'S WILL.

Men dying make their wills; but wives
Escape a work so sad:

Why should they make what all their lives
The gentle dames have had?-SAXE.

WELLINGTON'S NOSE.

"Pray, why does the great Captain's nose
Resemble Venice?" Duncomb cries.
"Why," quoth Sam Rogers, "I suppose
Because it has a bridge of size (sighs)."

ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER.
A poor man went to hang himself,

But treasure chanced to find:

He pocketed the miser's pelf,

And left the rope behind.

His money gone, the miser hung

Himself in sheer despair:

Thus each the other's wants supplied,

And that was surely fair.

BAD SONGSTERS.

Swans sing before they die: 'twere no bad thing

Did certain persons die before they sing.-COLEridge.

ON A BAD FIDDLER.

Old Orpheus played so well, he moved Old Nick;
But thou mov'st nothing but thy fiddle-stick.

ON A CERTAIN D.D.

Who, from a peculiarity in his walk, had acquired the sobriquet of Dr. Toe, being jilted by Miss H., who eloped with her father's footman.

"Twixt footman Sam and Doctor Too

A controversy fell,

Which should prevail against his foe,
And bear away the belle.

The lady chose the footman's heart.
Say, who can wonder? no man:
The whole prevailed above the part:
'Twas Foot-man versus Toe-man.

ON AN OLD LADY WHO MARRIED HER FOOTMAN.
Old Lady Lovejoy, aged just threescore,
Whose lusty footboy rode behind, before,
Is, in a fit of fondness, grown so kind,
He rides within, who rode before, behind.

[ocr errors][merged small]

"How much corn may a gentleman eat?" whispered P,
While the cobs on his plate lay in tiers.

"As to that," answered Q, as he glanced at the heap,
""Twill depend on the length of his ears."

BONNETS.

In 1817, when straw bonnets first came into general use, it was common to trim them with artificial wheat or barley, in ears; whence the following:

Who now of threatening famine dare complain,
When every female forehead teems with grain?
See how the wheat-sheaves nod amid the plumes:
Our barns are now transferred to drawing-rooms,
And husbands who indulge in active lives,

To fill their granaries, may thresh their wives!

Campbell, the poet, was asked by a lady to write something original in her album. He wrote,—

An original something, dear maid, you would win me

To write; but how shall I begin?

For I'm sure I have nothing original in me,

Excepting original sin.

« PreviousContinue »