EVENING.

THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS. BY A TAILOR.

A BRACE of sinners, for no good,' Day hath put on his jacket, and around Were ordered to the Virgin Mary's shrine, His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. Who at Loretto dwelt, in wax, stone, wood, Here will I lay me on the velvet grass,

And in a fair white wig looked wondrous fine. That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs, And hold communion with the things about me.

Fifty long miles had those sad rogues to travel, Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid

| With something in their shoes much worse than That binds the skirt of night's descending robe ! |

gravel ; The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, in

In short, their toes so gentle to amuse, Do make a music like to rustling satin,

The priest had ordered peas into their shoes : As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.

A nostrum famous in old popish times

For purifying souls that stunk of crimes : Ha! what is this that rises to my touch,

A sort of apostolic salt,

Which popish parsons for its powers exalt, So like a cushion ? Can it be a cabbage ? It is, it is that deeply injured flower,

For keeping souls of sinners sweet, Which boys do flout us with ; - but yet I love thee,

Just as our kitchen salt keeps meat. Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout. The knaves set off on the same day, Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright | Peas in their shoes, to go and pray ; As these, thy puny brethren ; and thy breath

But very different was their speed, I wot: Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air ; One of the sinners galloped on, But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, Swift as a bullet from a gun ; Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences,

The other limped, as if he had been shot. And growing portly in his sober garments. One saw the Virgin soon, Peccavi cried,

Had his soul whitewashed all so clever;
Is that a swan that rides upon the water? Then home again he nimbly hied,
O no, it is that other gentle bird,

Made fit with saints above to live forever.
Which is the patron of our noble calling.
I well remember, in my early years,

In coming back, however, let me say, When these young hands first closed upon a goose ;

He met his brother rogue about half-way, I have a scar upon my thimble finger,

Hobbling, with outstretched arms and bended Which chronicles the hour of young ambition.

knees, My father was a tailor, and his father,

Cursing the souls and bodies of the peas ; And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors ;

His eyes in tears, his cheeks and brow in sweat, They had an ancient goose, - it was an heir-loom

Deep sympathizing with his groaning feet. From some remoter tailor of our race.

“How now," the light-toed, whitewashed pil. It happened I did see it on a time

grim broke, When none was near, and I did deal with it,

“You lazy lubber !"

“Ods curse it !” cried the other, “'t is no joke ; And it did burn me, – 0, most fearfully!

My feet, once hard as any rock, It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs,

Are now as soft as blubber. And leap elastic from the level counter,

“Excuse me, Virgin Mary, that I swear, Leaving the petty grievances of earth,

As for Loretto, I shall not get there ;
The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, |
And all the needles that do wound the spirit,

No, to the Devil my sinful soul must go,
For such a pensive hour of soothing silence.

For damme if I ha' n't lost every toe. Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress,

But, brother sinner, pray explain Lays bare her shady bosom ;- I can feel

How 't is that you are not in pain. With all around me;- I can hail the flowers

What power hath worked a wonder for your toes That sprig earth's mantle, — and yon quiet bird, |

| Whilst I just like a snail am crawling, That rides the stream, is to me as a brother.

Now swearing, now on saints devoutly bawling, The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets,

Whilst not a rascal comes to ease my woes ? Where Nature stows away her loveliness.

“How is 't that you can like a greyhound go, But this unnatural posture of the legs Cramps my extended calves, and I must go

Merry as if that naught had happened, burn ye!" Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion.

“Why,” cried the other, grinning, “ you must OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

know,

That just before I ventured on my journey, Sirrah! I tell you you 're a knave,
To walk a little more at ease,

To cry up razors that can't shave !"
I took the liberty to boil my peas."

“Friend," quoth the razor-man, “I'm not a Dk. WOLCOTT (PETER PINDAR).

knave;
As for the razors you have bought,

Upon my soul, I never thought
THE RAZOR-SELLER.

That they would shave."

“ Not think they'd shave !" quoth Hodge, with A fellow in a market-town,

wondering eyes, Most musical, cried razors up and down,

And voice not much unlike an Indian yell; And offered twelve for eighteen pence; “What were they made for, then, you dog?” Which certainly seemed wondrous cheap,

he cries. And, for the money, quite a heap,

“Made," quoth the fellow with a smile, As every man would buy, with cash and sense. " to sell."

DR. WOLCOTT (PETER PINDAR). A country bumpkin the great offer heard, — Poor Hodge, who suffered by a broad black beard, That seemed a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose :

THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY. With cheerfulness the eighteen pence he paid, And proudly to himself in whispers said,

A MAN in many a country town we know, “This rascal stole the razors, I suppose.

Professing openly with death to wrestle ; “No matter if the fellow be a knave,

Entering the field against the grimly foe,
Provided that the razors shave;

Armed with a mortar and a pestle.
It certainly will be a monstrous prize.” Yet some affirm no enemies they are,
So home the clown, with his good fortune, went, But meet just like prize-fighters at a fair,
Smiling, in heart and soul content,

Who first shake hands before they box, · And quickly soaped himself to ears and eyes. Then give each other plaguy knocks,

With all the love and kindness of a brother; Being well lathered from a dish or tub,

So, (many a suffering patient saith,) Hodge now began with grinning pain to grub, Though the apothecary fights with death, Just like a hedger cutting furze ;

Still they 're sworn friends with one another. "T was a vile razor!- then the rest he tried, All were impostors. “Ah!" Hodge sighed,

„A member of this Esculapian race "I wish my eighteen pence within my purse." Lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne ; In vain to chase his beard, and bring the graces, No man could better gild a pill, He cut, and dug, and winced, and stamped, Or make a bill, and swore ;

Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister, Brought blood, and danced, blasphemed, and Or draw a tooth out of your head, made wry faces,

Or chatter scandal by your bed,
And cursed each razor's body o'er and o'er : ' . Or tell a twister.
His muzzle formed of opposition stuff,

Of occupations these were quantum suff.,
Firm as a Foxite, would not lose its ruff;

Yet still he thought the list not long enough, So kept it, – laughing at the steel and suds.

And therefore surgery he chose to pin to 't; Hodge, in a passion, stretched his angry jaws,

This balanced things ; for if he hurled Vowing the direst vengeance with clenched claws,

A few more mortals from the world, On the vile cheat that sold the goods.

He made amends by keeping others in it. “Razors ! a mean, confounded dog, .

His fame full six miles round the country ran, Not fit to scrape a hog!"

In short, in reputation he was solus; Hodge sought the fellow, – found him, and All the old women called him “a fine man!' begun :

His name was Bolus. “P'rhaps, Master Razor-rogue, to you 't is fun,

That people flay themselves out of their lives. Benjamin Bolus, though in trade,
You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing, Which oftentimes will genius flatter,
Giving my crying whiskers here a scrubbing, Read works of fancy, it is said,
With razors just like oyster-knives.

! And cultivated the belles-lettres,

And why should this be thought so odd? . “Shook him !- how?” Bolus stammered out. Can't men have taste to cure a phthisic ?

“We jolted him about." Of poetry, though patron god, A pollo patronizes physic.

"What! shake a patient, man ! — a shake won't

do."
Bolus loved verse, and took so much delight in 't, “No, sir, — and so we gave him two."
That his prescriptions he resolved to write in 't; “Two shakes! Foul nurse,
No opportunity he e'er let pass

'T would make the patient worse !" Of writing the directions on his labels

“ It did so, sir, -- and so a third we tried." In dapper couplets, - like Gay's fables,

“Well, and what then?” “Then, sir, my masOr rather like the lines in Hudibras.

ter died !” Apothecary's verse !-- and where's the treason?

GEORGE COLMAN. 'T is simply honest dealing, - not a crime : When patients swallow physic without reason, It is but fair to give a little rhyme.

MORNING MEDITATIONS. He had a patient lying at death's door,

LÉT Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, Some three miles from the town, — it might be How well to rise while nights and larks are flyfour,

ing, To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article

For my part, getting up seems not so easy
In pharmacy, that 's called cathartical;

By half as lying.
And on the label of the stuff
He wrote verse,

What if the lark does carol in the sky,
Which, one would think, was clear enough, Soaring beyond the sight to find him out, —
And terse:-

Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly?
“When taken,

I'm not a trout.
To be well shaken."

Talk not to me of bees and such-like hums,
Next morning, early, Bolus rose,

The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime, And to the patient's house he goes,

Only lie long enough, and bed becomes
Upon his pad,

A bed of time.
Who a vile trick of stumbling had :

To me Dan Phoebus and his car are naught,
It was, indeed, a very sorry hack ;

His steeds that paw impatiently about, –
But that's of course, -

Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought, .
For what's expected of a horse

The first turn-out!
With an apothecary upon his back ?
Bolus arrived, and gave a loudish tap,

Right beautiful the dewy meads appear
Between a single and a double rap.

Besprinkled by the rosy-fingered girl ;

What then, — if I prefer my pillow-beer
Knocks of this kind

To early pearl ? .
Are given by gentlemen who teach to dance,
By fiddlers, and by opera-singers ; !

My stomach is not ruled by other men's,
One loud, and then a little one behind,

And, grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs As if the knocker fell by chance

Wherefore should master rise before the hens Out of their fingers.

Have laid their eggs ? The servant lets him in with dismal face,

Why from a comfortable pillow start
Long as a courtier's out of place,

To see faint flushes in the east awaken?
Portending some disaster;

A fig, say I, for any streaky part,
John's countenance as rueful looked, and grim,

Excepting bacon.
As if the apothecary had physicked him,
And not his master.

| An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn,

Who used to haste the dewy grass among, “Well, how's the patient ?” Bolus said :

“To meet the sun upon the upland lawn," — John shook his head.

Well, — he died young. “Indeed !- hum !-- ha !--- that's very odd ! He took the draught ?" John gave a nod. | With charwomen such early hours agree, “Well, how ? -- what then? Speak out, you And sweeps that earn betimes their bit and sup; dunce !”

| But I'm no climbing boy, and need not be “Why, then,” says John, “we shook him once."!

All up, — all up!

So here I lie, my morning calls deferring,
Till something nearer to the stroke of noon;-
A man that's fond precociously of stirring
Must be a spoon.

THOMAS HOOD.

So let us sleep, and give the Maker praise.

I like the lad who, when his father thought To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase

Of vagrant worm by early songster caught, Cried, “Served him right !- it's not at all sur.

prising; The worm was punished, sir, for early rising !”

JOHN G. SAXE

EARLY RISING.

** Now blessings light on him that first invented sleep 1 it covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot." - DON QUIXOTE. Part II. ch. 67.

SWELL'S SOLILOQUY.

“God bless the man who first invented sleep!”] I DON'T appwove this hawid waw; So Sancho Panza said, and so say I;

Those dweadful bannahs hawt my eyes ; And bless him, also, that he did n't keep

And guns and dwums are such a baw,-
His great discovery to himself, nor try

Why don't the pawties compwamise ?
To make it -- as the lucky fellow might-
A close monopoly by patent-right !

Of cawce, the twoilet has its chawms;
Yes, – bless the man who first invented sleep,

But why must all the vulgah cwowd

Pawsist in spawting unifawms, (I really can't avoid the iteration ;)

In cullahs so extwemely loud ?
But blast the man with curses loud and deep,
Whate'er the rascal's name or age or station,

And then the ladies, - pwecious deahs !Who first invented, and went round advising,

· I mawk the change on ev'wy bwow; That artificial cut-off, - Early Rising !

Bai Jove! I weally have my feahs “ Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,” | They wathah like the hawid wow!

Observes some solemn, sentimental owl ; Maxims like these are very cheaply said ;

To heah the chawming cweatures talk, But, ere you make yourself a fool or fowl,

Like patwons of the bloody wing, Pray just inquire about his rise and fall,

Of waw and all its dawty wawk, And whether larks have any beds at all !

It does n't seem a pwappah thing! “The time for honest folks to be abed

I called at Mrs. Gweene's last night, Is in the morning, if I reason right;

To see her niece, Miss Mawy Hertz,
And he who cannot keep his precious head And found her making — cwushing sight !-
Upon his pillow till it's fairly light,

The weddest kind of flannel shirts !
And so enjoy his forty morning winks,
Is up to knavery, or else – he drinks !

Of cawce, I wose, and sought the daw,

With fawyah flashing from my eyes ! Thomson, who sung about the “ Seasons," said

I can't appwove this hawid waw ;It was a glorious thing to rise in season ;

Why don't the pawties compwamise ? But then he said it — lying — in his bed,

ANONYMOUS At ten o'clock A, M., — the very reason He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is, His preaching was n't sanctioned by his practice.

TOBY TOSSPOT. 'T is, doubtless, well to be sometimes awake, Awake to duty, and awake to truth,

ALAS ! what pity 't is that regularity, But when, alas ! a nice review we take

I Like Isaac Shove's, is such a rarity! Of our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth, But there are swilling wights in London town, The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep Termed jolly dogs, choice spirits, alias swine, Are those we passed in childhood or asleep! | Who pour, in midnight revel, bumpers down,

Making their throats a thoroughfare for wine. 'T is beautiful to leave the world awhile

For the soft visions of the gentle night; These spendthrifts, who life's pleasures thu And free, at last, from mortal care or guile,

run on, To live as only in the angels' sight,

Dozing with headaches till the afternoon, In sleep's sweet realm so coseyly shut in, Lose half men's regular estate of sun, Where, at the worst, we only dream of sin! By borrowing too largely of the moon.

cork,

One of this kidney — Toby Tosspot hight

THE ONE-HOSS SHAY;
Was coming from the Bedford late at night ;

OR THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE.
And being Bacchi plenus, full of wine,
Although he had a tolerable notion

A LOGICAL STORY.
Of aiming at progressive motion,

HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 'T was n't direct, —'t was serpentine.

That was built in such a logical way He worked with sinuosities, along,

It ran a hundred years to a day, Like Monsieur Corkscrew, worming through a

cho And then of a sudden, it - ah, but stay,

I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Not straight, like Corkscrew's proxy, stiff Don Scaring the parson into
Prong, - a fork.

Frightening people out of their wits, –

Have you ever heard of that, I say? At length, with near four bottles in his pate,

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. He saw the moon shining on Shove's brass plate,

Georgius Secundus was then alive, When reading, “ Please to ring the bell,"

Snuffy old drone from the German hive. And being civil beyond measure,

That was the year when Lisbon-town “Ring it !” says Toby, - “ very well ;

Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
I'll ring it with a deal of pleasure.”
Toby, the kindest soul in all the town,

And Braddock's army was done so brown,

Left without a scalp to its crown. Gave it a jerk that almost jerked it down.

It was on the terrible Earthquake-day He waited full two minutes, - no one came;

That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. He waited full two minutes more ; - and then Now in building of chaises, I tell you what. Says Toby, “ If he's deaf, I'm not to blame;

There is always somewhere a weakest spot, — I'll pull it for the gentleman again.”

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, But the first peal woke Isaac in a fright,

In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, Who, quick as lightning, popping up his head,

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still,

Find it somewhere you must and will, – Sat on his head's antipodes, in bed,

| Above or below, or within or without, — Pale as a parsnip, — bolt upright.

And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, At length he wisely to himself doth say, calming

A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out. his fears, —

But the Deacon swore, (as Deacons do, “Tush ! 't is some fool has rung and run away”; With an “I dew vum," or an “I tell yeou,”) When peal the second rattled in his ears. He would build one shay to beat the taown

'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; Shove jumped into the middle of the floor;

It should be so built that it could n' break daown; And, trembling at each breath of air that stirred,

– “Fur," said the Deacon, “'t's mighty plain He groped down stairs, and opened the street |

| Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain ; door,

l'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, While Toby was performing peal the third.

- Is only jest Isaac eyed Toby, fearfully askant,

T make that place uz strong uz the rest." And saw he was a strapper, stout and tall;

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Then put this question, “Pray, sir, what d'ye Where he could find the strongest oak, want?"

That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, -Says Toby, “I want nothing, sir, at all.” That was for spokes and floor and sills ;

He sent for lancewood to make the thills ; “Want nothing ! Sir, you've pulled my bell, I

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees; vow,

The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese, As if you 'd jerk it off the wire."

But lasts like iron for things like these ; Quoth Toby, gravely making him a bow,

The hubs of logs from the “Settler's ellum," — "I pulled it, sir, at your desire."

Last of its timber, — they could n't sell 'em, “At mine ?” “Yes, yours ; I hope I've done

Never an axe had seen their chips, it well.

And the wedges flew from between their lips, High time for bed, sir ; I was hastening to it;

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; But if you write up. Please to ring the bell.' | Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Common politeness makes me stop and do it.” | Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,

GEORGE COLMAN. | Steel of the finest, bright and blue ;