Hibernian Teague, whom Nature had design'd
A tool by custom, had the knave combin'd,
As poor he was as poverty could be,-
To beg, or steal, objection none had he;
And, being caught, while practising the latter
(The scene was England, when and how, no matter),
Was soon escorted, almost wit bereft,
To stand his trial for the petty theft:
Pray, culprit, say, by whom will you be tried?" Thus Teague interrogated, naught replied;
The prompting turnkey whisper'd in his ear,
By God and my country."-"No, my dear,"
Quoth Teague," can they convince me by their larning,
That Ireland's not my country with their blarning;
And God shan't try me, nor for love nor money,
Because as he knows all about it, honey."
Gold is so ductile, learned chymists say,
That half an ounce will stretch a wondrous way;
The metal's base, or else the chymists err,
For now-a-days our sovereigns won't go far!
ON A RECENT PROVINCIAL MARRIAGE,
In which Mr. Head was united to Miss Head.
The wits of the day of a late marriage say,—
And they think it an excellent pun-
As Head unto Head is united, why pray,
Are not two Heads much better than one?
Nature abhors a vacuum! Bubo said,
Bubo, you're wrong—the vacuum's in your head.
A NOT UPRIGHT JUDGE.
An idle lad, who lack'd employ,
Was full of wanton tricks,
And playing with another boy,
At throwing stones and bricks,
Judge R., by age a little bent,
Rode by, and felt some dread,
For one large brick-bat scarcely went
An inch above his head.
"You hear me, lads-I hope no grudge,
My blood you might have spill'd;
Were I," said he, "an upright judge,
I surely had been kill'd."
ON READING THE NAME OF KISS, SOME TIME BACK, IN THE GAZETTE.
Love must no more pretend to smile,
Though erst by poets hail'd,
Cupid has surely fled our isle;
A Kiss we know has fail'd.
Which path of life is free from hate and jar?
They vex the court, the senate and the bar.
We toil abroad: if upon sea we roam,
How dreadful! and curst care infests our home.
If rare success with wealth our efforts bless,
Fears come, and poverty is wretchedness.
Vexation is his doom who takes a wife,—
Yet who is happy in a single life?
Children torment us: childless, we're unbless'd:
In youth we're fools, in age with ills oppress'd.
If, then, our choice were free, all must desire,
Noto be born, or, when born, to expire.
LINES WRITTEN ON A PANE OF GLASS AT AN
Dust is lighter than a feather,
The wind much lighther is than either;
But, alas! frail womankind
Is far much lighter than the wind.
Friend, you mistake the matter quite!
How can you say that woman's light?
Poor Comus swears, throughout his life,
His heaviest plague has been a wife.
ON THE PRISON TREADING-MILL, INVENTED BY
MR. CUBITT, IPSWICH.
The coves in prison, grinding corn for bread,
Denounce thee, Cubitt, every step they tread;
And, though the ancients used thee, sure 'tis hard
The moderns cannot use the prison-yard,-
By law, they work, and walk, and toil in spite,
Yet ne'er exceed two feet from morn till night.
"You ride," said Sponge, to Paunch in spite, “To get for dinner an appetite:”
"True! and you walk," said Paunch, "poor grinner, To seek for appetite a dinner."
That in your face a swindling rogue I view;" ""Tis fact," says Will, "for, if my eyes reflect, They show one rogue reflected into two!"
THE CHELTENHAM CRIER.
Old Stentor, the crier, had pass'd with his wife
Full thirty long years of contrition and strife:
Her mouth was a bell, and her Billingsgate tongue
In his ears, like a clapper, incessantly rung;
But Pluto, at last, changed the shrew to a ghost,
And whisk'd her away to the Stygian coast.
On the day that her bones were consigned to the earth,
More joyful to him than the day of her birth,
Comes an order, in haste, he should cry through the town, For a lady's lost dog, the reward of a crown:
When the roaring old blade thunder'd out, "May I die, On this day, for his majesty's self, if I'd cry."
BILL FOR ACCEPTANCE.
A banker, from Lombard Street, Temple Bar through,
To see Mister Kean, drove away,
And thus was accosted, "Do buy a bill, do,—
Fine fruit, and a bill of the play."
Away!" cried the banker, " your noise pry'thee stop,
I wish you your paper had kept hence;
I thought at the play to get rid of the shop,
Yet you bore me with bills for acceptance."
IN IMITATION OF CHAUCER.
Right welle of lerned clerkis, it is said,
That womanhood for man, his use is made;
But naughtie man liketh not one or soe,
But wishes, aye, unthriftillie, for moe:
And when, by holy church, to one he's ty'd,
Then for his soul he cannot her abyde.
Thus, when a dogge first lyeth on a bone,
His tayle he waggeth, gladde thereof ye growne;
But if thilkie bone unto his tayle you tye,.
Pardie, he feareth it, awaie doth flie.
DURATION OF CAPTAIN ROCK.
As long as millions shall kneel down
To ask of thousands for their own,
While thousands proudly turn away,
And to the millions answer 66
Nay,”
So long the merry reign shall be
Of Captain Rock and his family.
ON A PARSON, WHO FELL ASLEEP AT A PARTY.
Still let him sleep, still let us talk, my friends,—
When next he preaches we'll have full amends.
IMPORTANCE OF A BED.
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry ;
And, born in bed, in bed we die :
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss and human woe.
Mr. Burke once intended a lady to please,
Observing some work that was pinn'd to her knees,
By asking what work she had got?
"I'm knotting," she answer'd, " 'tis tiresome work,
But pretty, when dore; can you knot? Mr. Burke?"
"No, madam," said he, "I can not."
A high-titled gamester by chance lost an eye,
And, complaining to Foote of the same,
To the utmost amusement of those who stood by,
Foote said, "Pray, my lord, at what game?"
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