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THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER.

Besides, he knew, whate'er the plan
That tempts the fond pursuits of man,
Though pleasure may the course attend,
The wise are heedful of the end.

Hence, though of mirth a lucky store,
So aptly tumbled in his way,
Yet still be linger'd after more,

And thus he said, or seem'd to say :-
"How will the people fret and scold,
When they the bony wreck behold;
And how the drunken rogue will stare,
When first he sees what was the hare.
The denouement must needs be droll,
Twere folly not to see the whole."
Presuming thus the future pleasure,

Haman kept post, to wait the sleeper's leisure.

At length our porter's slumbers o'er
He jogg'd on tott'ring as before;
Unconscious any body, kind,
Had eas'd him of his load behind.
Now on the houses turn'd his eye,
As if his journey's end was nigh,
Then read a paper in his hand,

And made a stand.

Haman drew near with eager inien,
To mark the closing of the scene,
Expecting straight a furious din,
His features ready for a grin.

And now we need but mention one thing more,
To show how well he must have lik'd the whim,
Tho' drunk, our porter hit at last the door,

And Haman found the hare was sent to him.

RATES OF CONSCIENCE.

347

|believes at the rate of 'seven thousand a year, and I only at that of fifty."

THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.

A man, in many a country town, we know,
Professing openly with death to wrestle,
Enters the field against the foe,

Arm'd with a mortar and a pestle.
Yet some affirm no enemies they are;
But meet, just like prize-fighters in a fair:
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguy knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother.
So (many a suff'ring patient saith)
Though the apothecary fights with death,
Still they're sworn friends to one another.
A member of this Esculapian line,
Liv'd at Newcastle upon Tyne:
No man could better gild a pill,
Or make a bill;

Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister;
Or draw a tooth out of your head;
Or chatter scandal by your bed:

Or give a glister.

Of occupations, these were quantum suff.,
Yet still he thought the list not long enough:
And therefore midwifery he chose to pin to't.
This balanc'd things :-for if he hurl'd
A few score mortals from the world,

He made amends by bringing others into't, His fame full six miles round the country ran: In short, in reputation he was solus;

All the old women called him "a fiue man!" His name was Bolus.

Benjamin Bolus, though in trade,

(Which oftentimes will genius fetter);

A clergyman was so much averse to the Athanaian creed, that he never would read it. The arch-Read works of fancy, it is said; bishop having been informed of his recusancy sent the archdeacon to ask him the reason. believe it," said the priest.

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But your metropolitan does," replied the archdeacon. "It may be so,' joined the other," and he can well afford it.

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He

And cultivated the Belles Lettres.
And why should this be thought so odd?
Can't men have taste who cure a phthisic?
Of poetry though patron god,
Apollo patronises physic.

Bolus lov'd verse, and took so much delight in't, That his prescriptions he resolv'd to write in't. No opportunity he e'er let pass

Of writing the directions on his labels,
In dapper couplets-like Gay's Fables;
Or rather like the lines in Hudibras.

Apothecary's verse !-and where's the treason;
"Tis simply honest dealing;-not a crime;
When patients swallow physic without reason,
It is but fair to give a little rhyme.
He had a patient lying at death's door,

Some three miles from the town, it might be four,
To whom one evening Bolus sent an article
In pharmacy, that's call'd cathartical,
And, on the label of the stuff,

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And terse: "When taken,

To be well shaken."

Next morning, early, Bolus rose,
And to the patient's house he goes
Upon his pad,

Who a vile trick of stumbling had :
It was indeed a very sorry hack;
But that's of course,

For what's expected from a horse,
With an apothecary upon his back?
Bolus arriv'd and gave a loudish tap,
Between a single and a double rap.
Knocks of this kind

Are giv'n by gentlemen who teach to dance,
By fiddlers and by opera singers:

One loud, and then a little one behind,
As if the knocker fell by chance

Out of their fingers.

The servant lets him in with dismal face,
Long as a courtier's out of place-

Portending some disaster;
John's countenance as rueful look'd and grim,
As if th' apothecary had physick'd him,
And not his master.

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A jocky lord met his old college tutor at a great horse fair. "Ah! doctor," exclaimed the peer, "what brings you here among these high-bred cattle? Do you think you can distinguish a horse from an ass ?"-" My lord," replied the tutor, "I soon perceived you among these horses."

THE COUNTRYMAN AND THE RAZOR SELLER.

A fellow in a market town,

Most musical cried razors up and down,
And offer'd twelve for eighteen-pence;

Which certainly seem'd wondrous cheap,
And for the money quite a heap,

As ev'ry man would buy, with cash and sense.
A country bumpkin the great offer heard:
Poor Hodge, who suffer'd by a broad black beard,
That seem'd a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose :-
With cheerfulness the eighteen-pence he paid,
And proudly to himself in whisper said,
"This rascal stole the razors suppose.

No matter if the fellow be a knave,
Provided that the razors shave,

It certainly will be a monstrous prize."

So home the clown with his good fortune went,
Smiling, in heart and soul content,

And quickly soap'd himself to ears and eyes,

Being well lather'd from a dish or tub,

Hodge now began, with grinning pain, to grub, Just like a hedger cutting furze :

'Twas a vile razor!-then the rest he try'dAll were impostors-"Ah!" Hodge sigh'd, "I wish ny eighteen-pence within my purse." In vain to chase his beard, and bring the graces, He cut, and dug, and winc'd, and stamp'd, and

swore,

Brought blood, and danc'd, blasphem'd, and made wry faces,

And curs'd each razor's body o'er and o'er. His muzzle, form'd of opposition stuff, Firm as a Foxite, would not lose it's ruff, So kept it-laughing at the steel and suds. Hodge in a passion stretch'd his angry jaws, Vowing the direst vengeance, with clench'd claws, On the vile cheat that sold the goods. "Razors!-a vile, confounded dogNot fit to scrape a hog!"

Hodge sought the fellow-found him-and begun,
"P'rhaps, Master Razor-rogue, to you 'tis fun,
That people flay themselves out of their lives:
You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing,
Giving my rascal whiskers here a scrubbing,
With razors just like oyster-knives.

Sirrah! I tell you you're a knave,
To cry up razors that can't shave.”

"Friend," quoth the razor man, "I'm not a knave:
As for the razors you have bought,
Upon my soul, I never thought

That they would shave."

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O'er the evils of life 'tis a folly to fret,
Despondence and grief never lessen'd them yet;
Then a fig for the world-let it come as it goes,
I'll sing to the praise of my landlady's nose.
My landlady's nose is in noble condition,
For longitude, latitude, shape, and position;
'Tis as round as a horn, and as red as a rose,
Success to the bulk of my landlady's nose!
To jeweller's shops let your ladies repair,
For trinkets and nicknacks to give them an air;
Here living carbuncles, a score of them glows
On the big massy sides of my landlady's nose.
Old Patrick M'Dougherty, when on the fuddle,
Pulls out a segar, and looks up to her noddle;
For Dougherty swears, when he swigs a good dose,
By Marjory's firebrand, my landlady's nose.
Ye wishy-wash butter-milk drinkers so cold,
Come here, and the virtues of brandy behold;
Here's red burning Etna-a mountain of snows

"Not think they'd shave?" quoth Hodge, with Would roar down in streams from my landlady's nose.

wond'ring eyes,

And voice not much unlike an Indian yell, "What were they made for then, you dog?" he cries: "Made!" quoth the fellow, with a smile—“ to sell.'

FOWLS AND FOOLS.

P. PINDAR.

A clergyman of Edinburgh dining with a friend, the lady of the house desired the servant to take away the

But, Gods! when this trunk with an uplifted arm,
She grasps in the dish-clout to blow an alarm;
Horns, trumpets, and conchs, are but screaming of

crows,

To the loud-thund'ring twang of my landlady's nose.
My landlady's nose unto me is a treasure,
A care-killing nostrum-a fountain of pleasure;
If I want for a laugh to discard all my woes,
I only look up to my landlady's nose.

WOMAN'S WISDOM.

One of the Cecil family, minister to Scotland from England, was speaking to Mary, queen of Scots, of the wisdom of his sovereign, queen Elizabeth. Mary stopped him short by saying," Pray, Sir, don't talk to me of the wisdom of a woman; I think I know my own sex pretty well, and can assure you, that the wisest of us all is only a little less a fool than the others."

THE ROYAL LIBRARIAN.

George III., shortly after his accession to the throne, walking one morning into his library, found one of the under librarians asleep in a chair. He stepped up softly to him, and gave him a slight slap on the cheek; the sleeper clapt his hand on the place instantly, and, with his eyes still closed, taking the disturber of his nap for his fellow librarian, whose name was George, exclaimed, "Hang it, George, let me alone, you are always doing one foolish trick or another."

PROLOGUE, FOR A COMPANY OF COMEDIANS, WHO PERFORMED AT WINCHESTER OVER A BUTCHER'S

SHAMBLES.

Whoe'er our stage examines, must excuse
The wondrous shifts of the dramatic Muse;
Then kindly listen, while the prologue rambles
From wit to beef, from Shakspeare to the shambles;
Divided only by one flight of stairs,

The actor swaggers, and the butcher swears!
Quick the transition when the curtain drops,
From meek Monimia's moans, to mutton chops!
While for Lothario's loss Lavinia cries,
Old women scold, and dealers d--n your eyes!
Here Juliet listens to the gentle lark,
There in harsh chorus hungry bull-dogs bark;
Cleavers and scimitars give blow for blow,
And heroes bleed above, and sheep below!
While magic thunders shake the pit and box,
Rebellows to the roar the stagg'ring ox.
Cow-horns and trumpets mix their martial tones,
Kidneys and kings, mouthing and marrow-bones,
Suet and sighs, blank verse and blood abound,

And form a tragi-comedy around.
With weeping lovers dying calves complain;
Confusion reigns-chaos is come again!
Hither your steelyards, butchers, bring, to weigh
The pound of flesh Autonio's blood must pay!
Hither your knives, ye Christians clad in blue,
Bring to be whetted by the worthless Jew.

Hard is our lot, who, seldom doom'd to eat, Cast a sheep's-eye on this forbidden meatGaze on sirloins, which, ah! we cannot carve, And in the midst of beef, of mutton-starve!

But would ye to our house in crowds repair, Ye gen'rous captains, and ye blooming fair, The fate of Tantalus we should not fear, Nor pine for a repast that is so near; Monarchs no more would supperless remain, Nor hungry queens for cutlets long in vain.

SPEAKING IN TIME.

WARTON.

A buffoon at the court of Francis I. complained to the king that a great lord threatened to murder him for uttering some jokes about him. "If he does," said Francis," he shall be hanged in five minutes after." "I wish," replied the complainant, "your majesty would hang him five minutes before."

A LONG TEXT.

A clergyman was once going to preach upon the text of the Samaritan woman, and after reading it, he said, "Do not wonder, my beloved, that the text is so long, for it is a woman that speaks."

THE JFW BEGINNING THE WORLD AGAIN.

Two criminals, a Christian and a Jew,
Who'd been to honest feelings rather callous,
Were on a platform once expos'd to view;

Or come, as some folks call it, to the gallows;
Or, as of late a quainter phrase prevails,
To weigh their weight upon the city scales.
In dreadful form, the constables and shrieve,

The priest, and ordinary, and crowd attended,
Till fix'd the noose, and all had taken leave;
When the poor trembling Israelite, befriended,

Heard, by express, from officer of state,
A gracious pardon quite reverse his fate.
Unmov'd he seem'd, and to the spot close sticking,
Ne'er offers, tho' he's bid, to quit the place,
Till in the air the other fellow's kicking;

The sheriff thought that some peculiar grace,
Some Hebrew form of silent, deep devotion,
Had for a while depriv'd him of his motion.
But by the sheriff being ask'd aloud,

Why not with proper officer he went?

He answer'd thus, (surprising all the crowd,)
With eyes upon the dying Christian bent,

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I only wait awhile pefore I cocs,

Of Mister Catch to puy te tead man's clo’es.”

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Neglected mansion!-for 'tis said,

Whene'er the snow came feath'ring down,
Four barbed steeds, from the Bull's-head,
Carried thy master up to town.
Weep, Hoppergollop!-Lords may moan,
Who stake, in London, their estate
On two small rattling bits of bone,
On little figure, or on great.

Swift whirl the wheels-He's gone-A rose
Remains behind, whose virgin look,
Unseen, must blush in wintry snows,

Sweet beauteous blossom!-'twas the cook.

A bolder far than my weak note,

Maid of the moor, thy charms demand;
Eels might be proud to lose their coat,
If skinn'd by Molly Dumpling's hand.
Long had the fair one sat alone,

Had none remain'd save only she ;—
She by herself had been-if one

Had not been left, for company.
"Twas a tall youth, whose cheek's clear hue
Was ting'd with health and manly toil;
Cabbage he sow'd; and, when it grew,
He always cut it off, to boil.

Oft would he cry, "Delve, delve the hole!
And prune the tree, and trim the root!
And stick the wig upon the pole,

To scare the sparrows from the fruit."
A small, mute favourite, by day
Follow'd his step; where'er he wheels
His barrow round the garden gay,

A bob-tail cur is at his heels.
Ah, man! the brute creation see!
Thy constancy oft needs the spur!
While lessons of fidelity

Are found in ev'ry bob-tail cur.
Hard toil'd the youth, so fresh and strong,
While Bob-tail in his face would look,

And mark his master troll the song

"Sweet Molly Dumpling! Oh, thou cook!"

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