And when before your eyes I've set him,
If you don't find him black, I'll eat him."
He said; then full before their sight
Produced the beast, and lo!-'twas white.
How-D'ye-Do, and Good-Bye.
ONE day Good-bye met How-d'ye-do,
Too close to shun saluting;
But soon the rival sisters flew
From kissing to disputing.
Away!" says How-d've-do, "vour mien
Appals my cheerful nature;
No name so sad as yours is seen
In sorrow's nomenclature.
Where'er I give one sunshine hour,
Your cloud comes in to shade it;
Where'er I plant one bosom's flower,
Your mildew drops to fade it.
'Ere How-d'ye-do has tuned each tongue
To hope's delighted measure,'
Good-bye in friendship's ear has rung
The knell of parting pleasure!
"From sorrows past, my chemic skill
Draws smiles of consolation;
While you, from present joys, distil
The tears of separation."
Good-bye replied, “Your statement's true,
And well your cause you've pleaded;
But, pray, who'd think of How-d'ye-do,
Unless Good-bye preceded!
Could yours have ever flourish'd?
And can your hand one flower dispense,
But those my tears have nourish'd?
"How oft,-if at the court of love
Concealment is the fashion,— When How-d'ye-do has fail'd to move, Good-bye reveals the passion?
"How oft, when Cupid's fires decline,-
As every heart remembers,—
One sigh of mine, and only mine,
Revives the dying embers?
"Go, bid the timid lover choose
And I'll resign my charter,
If he for ten kind How-d'ye-do's,
One kind Good-bye would barter!
From love and friendship's kindred source
We both derive existence;
And they would both lose half their force
Without one joint assistance.
""Tis well the world our merit knows,
Since time, there's no denying,
One half in How-d'ye-doing goes,
And t'other in Good-bying."
The Three Black Crows.
Two honest tradesmen, meeting in the Strand,
One took the other briskly by the hand;
Hark ye," said he, " 'tis an odd story this
About the crows!"—" I don't know what it is,"
Replied his friend." No! I'm surprised at that;
Where I come from, it is the common chat;
But you shall hear an odd affair indeed!
And that it happen'd they are all agreed:
Not to detain you from a thing so strange,
A gentleman, who lives not far from 'Change,
This week, in short, as all the Alley knows,
Taking a vomit, threw up Three Black Crows!"
Impossible!"-- Nay, but 'tis really true;
I had it from good hands, and so may you."
From whose I pray? -So, having named the man, Straight to inquire, his curious comrade ran.
"Sir, did you tell?"- -relating the affair.
"Yes, sir, I did; and, if 'tis worth your care,
'Twas Mr."-such a one- who told it me;
But, by the bye, 'twas Two black crows, not Three!"
Resolved to trace so wondrous an event,
Quick to the third the virtuoso went.
Sir," and so forth.-" Why, yes; the thing is fact, hough in regard to number not exact;
It was not Two black crows, 'twas only One;
The truth of that you may depend upon;
The gentleman himself told me the case.'
Where may
I find him?"—" Why, in"-such a place. Away he went, and having found him out, Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt."
Then to his last informant he referr'd,
And begg'd to know, if true what he had heard:
Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?"-" Not I!"–
Bless me!--how people propagate a lie!
Black crows have been thrown up, Three, Two, and One;
And here, I find, all comes at last to None!
Did you say nothing of a crow at all?"-
"Crow-crow-perhaps I might; now I recall
The matter over."—" And pray, sir, what was't?"
"Why, I was horrid sick, and at the last
I did throw up, and told my neighbour so,
Something that was- as black, sir, as a crow."
OH! then, I see Queen Mab has been with you.
She is the fairy's midwife: and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the forefinger of an alderman;
Drawn, by a team of little atomies,
Athwart men's noses, as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes, made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spiders' web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And, in this state, she gallops, night by night,
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream of fees;
O'er courtiers' knees, who dream on courtesies straight;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream:
Sometimes she driveth o'er a lawyer's nose,
And then he dreams of smelling out a suit:
And sometimes comes she, with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling the parson, as he lies asleep;
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck;
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats;
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades;
Of healths five fathoms deep; and then, anon,
Drums in his ears; at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighten'd, swears a prayer or two—
And sleeps again.
Shakspeare.
Contest between the Eyes and the Nose.
BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose:
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong:
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So the Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig-full of learning;
While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning. "In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,
And your lordship," he said, "will undoubtedly find, That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind." Then, holding the spectacles up to the court,
Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short, Design'd to sit close to it, just like a saddle. Again, would your lordship a moment suppose'Tis a case that has happen'd, and may be againThat the visage or countenance had not a Nose, Pray who would, or who could wear spectacles then? On the whole, it appears, and my argument shows, With a reasoning the court will never condemn, That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, And the Nose was as plainly intended for them." Then shifting his side, as a lawyer knows how, He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes; But what were his arguments few people know,
For the court did not think they were equally wise.
So his lordship decreed, with a grave solemn tone,
Decisive and clear, without one if or but,
That whenever the Nose put his Spectacles on-
By day-light or candle-light-Eyes should be shut.
ALAS! what pity 'tis, that regularity
Like Isaac Shove's, is such a rarity.
But there are swilling wights in London town,
Term'd-Jolly dogs-Choice spirits-alias swine,
Who pour, in midnight revel, bumpers down,
Making their throats a thoroughfare for wine.
These spendthrifts, who life's pleasures thus run on,
Dozing with headachs till the afternoon,
Lose half men's regular estate of
By borrowing too largely of the moon.
One of this kidney-Toby Tosspot hight-
Was coming from the Bedford, late at night:
And being Bacchi plenus,-full of wine,
Although he had a tolerable notion
Of aiming at progressive motion,
"Twasn't direct-'twas serpentine.
He work'd with sinuosities along,
Like Monsieur Corkscrew, worming through a cork, Not straight, like Corkscrew's proxy, stiff Don Prong, a fork.
At length, with near four bottles in his pate,
He saw the moon shining on Shove's brass plate,
When reading, "Please to ring the bell,"
And being civil beyond measure,
"Ring it!" says Toby-" very well;
I'll ring it with a deal of pleasure."
Toby, the kindest soul in all the town,
Gave it a jerk that almost jerk'd it down.
He waited full two minutes-no one came;
He waited full two minutes more;-and then,
Says Toby," If he's deaf, I'm not to blame,
I'll pull it for the gentleman again."
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