"How very easy 'tis," cries Tom, "to write!
I find 't no hardship verses to indite."

"To credit that," quoth Dick, "no oaths we need:
The hardship is for those who have to read."

Thy verses are eternal, O my friend!

For he who reads them, reads them to no end.

Unfortunate lady, how sad is your lot!
Your ringlets are red, and your poems are not.

PRUDENT SIMPLICITY.

That thou mayst injure no man, dove-like be;
And serpent-like, that none may injure thee!-Cowper.

TO A FRIEND IN DISTRESS.

I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend;

For when at worst, they say, things always mend.-CowPER.

HOG vs. BACON.

Judge Bacon once trying a man, Hog by name,
Who made with his lordship of kindred a claim;
"Hold,” said the judge,-"you're a little mistaken:
Hog must be hung first before 'tis good Bacon."

A WARM RECEPTION.

Rusticus wrote a letter to his love,

And filled it full of warm and keen desire;
He hoped to raise a flame, and so he did:
The lady put his nonsense in the fire.

MEDICAL ADVICE.

"I'm very ill," said Skinflint, once essaying
To get a doctor's counsel without paying.
"I see it," quoth the wily old physician;
"You're in a most deplorable condition."
"But tell me," cried the miser, "for God's sake,
Tell me, dear doctor, what I ought to take."
"Take! as to that-why, take, at any price,"
Replied the leech, "take medical advice!"

DEFINITION OF A DENTIST.

A dentist fashions teeth of bone
For those whom fate has left without,

And finds provision for his own

By pulling other people's out.

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, "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 tela,
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.

SERMONS IN STONES.

"She's secret as the grave, and so
Her word you cannot doubt it."

"True; but some graves have stones, you know,
That tell one all about it."

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!"

"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.

PRAYER.

Prayer highest soars when she most prostrate lies,
And when she supplicates, she storms the skies.
Thus to gain heaven may seem an easy task,
For what can be more easy than to ask?

Yet oft we do by sad experience find

That, clogged with earth, some prayers are left behind,
And some, like chaff, blown off by every wind.

To kneel is easy, to pronounce not hard:
Then why are some petitioners debarred?

Hear what an ancient oracle declared:

Some sing their prayers, and some their prayers say;
He's an Elias who his prayers can pray.
Reader, remember, when you next repair
To church or closet, this memoir of prayer.

MIDAS AND MODERN STATESMEN.

Midas, they say, possessed the art, of old,

Of turning whatsoe'er he touched to gold.
This, modern statesmen can reverse with ease:
Touch them with gold, they'll turn to what you please.

Empromptus.

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.