"How very easy 'tis," cries Tom, "to write! "To credit that," quoth Dick, "no oaths we need: Thy verses are eternal, O my friend! For he who reads them, reads them to no end. Unfortunate lady, how sad is your lot! PRUDENT SIMPLICITY. That thou mayst injure no man, dove-like be; 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, A WARM RECEPTION. Rusticus wrote a letter to his love, And filled it full of warm and keen desire; MEDICAL ADVICE. "I'm very ill," said Skinflint, once essaying DEFINITION OF A DENTIST. A dentist fashions teeth of bone And finds provision for his own By pulling other people's out. THE PARSON AND BUTCHER. A parson and a butcher chanced, they say, THE CLOCK. A mechanic his labor will often discard, But a clock-and its case is uncommonly hard- MASCULINE. "What pity 'tis," said John, the sage, "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, 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?" "Do they burn? ah, yes," the gentleman said, 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, AFTER GOING TO LAW. This law, they say, great nature's chain connects, In me behold reversed great nature's laws,- SERMONS IN STONES. "She's secret as the grave, and so "True; but some graves have stones, you know, A FUNNY DETERMINATION. Queenly Miss Quaint, the aim of whose life "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!" "Eighteen." "Alarming!" "Witty." "Nay, that's worse!" "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 WOMAN-PRO. Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung, She, when apostles shrunk, could danger brave; ABUNDANCE OF FOOLS. The world of fools has such a store, 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, Yet oft we do by sad experience find That, clogged with earth, some prayers are left behind, To kneel is easy, to pronounce not hard: Hear what an ancient oracle declared: Some sing their prayers, and some their prayers say; MIDAS AND MODERN STATESMEN. Midas, they say, possessed the art, of old, Of turning whatsoe'er he touched to gold. 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: 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 world's best pleased when thou dost sell good wine; |