WITTY AND HUMOROUS.

ON TRADES, &c.

ON A PEN AND QUILL MANUFACTURER.

You put above your door, and in your bills,
You're manufacturer of pens and quills;
And, for the first, you well may feel a pride;
Your pens are better far than most I've tried;
But for the quills, your words are somewhat loose;
Who manufactures quills must be a goose!

ON TWO CONTRACTORS FOR RUM AND GRAIN.

To rob the public two contractors come,
One cheats in corn, the other cheats in rum;
Which is the greater rogue, can you explain-
The rogue in spirit, or the rogue in grain?

LINES ADDRESSED TO MR. ACCUM, WHO EXPOSED THE ADULTERATION OF BREAD.

How shocking 'tis our fate to dread
Our dealings with our baker!
And, while we eat our daily bread,
Befriend the undertaker!

Death oft, by pistol, sword, or knife,
Inflicts a mortal wound;

But who would think the staff of life
Would fell us to the ground!

RATHER DUSTY.

THE following humorous simile was written by Christopher Smart, an unfortunate and irregular man of genius, born 1722, at Shipbourne, in Kent, and who died in the King's Bench prison in 1770.

THUS when a barber and a collier fight,

The barber beats the luckless collier WHITE;
The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack,
And, big with vengeance, beats the barber BLACK;
In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o'erspread,
And beats the collier and the barber RED.

BLACK, RED, and WHITE, in various clouds are tossed,
And in the dust they raise, the combatants are lost.

BREWERS.

THE only fair traders in London that are,
Are those that brew beer for the table;

They tell us they'll give us small beer for our fare,
And they brew it as small as they're able.

ON A WATCHMAN.

SOUND sleeps yon guardian of the night;
The hour's uncalled; youth rests no sweeter :
I thought he was a watch. "You're right,
But a stop-watch, not a repeater."

BUSINESS versus PLEASURE.

A BANKER from Lombard Street, Temple Bar through,
To see Mr. 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 prithee 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."

SENT TO A FRIEND ON RECEIVING A BRACE OF WOODCOCKS.

My thanks I'll no longer delay

For birds which you've shot with such skill;
But, though there was nothing to pay,

Yet each of them brought in a bill!

I mean not, my friend, to complain;
The matter was perfectly right;

And, when bills such as these come again,
I'll always accept them at sight.

ON MADAM BLAIZE, THE GLORY OF HER SEX.

GOOD people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word—
From those who spake her praise.

The needy seldom passed her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor-
Who left a pledge behind.

She strove the neighbourhood to please
With manners wondrous winning;
And never followed wicked ways-
Except when she was sinning.

At church, with silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size;
She never slumbered in her pew-
But when she shut her eyes.

Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The king himself has followed her-
When she has walked before.

But now, her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers on cut short all;
The doctors found, when she was dead,
Her last disorder-mortal.

Let us lament in sorrow sore;

For Kent Street well may say,

That, had she lived a twelvemonth more,

She had not died to-day.

GOLDSMITH.

THE TWENTY-FIFTH OF MARCH.

BY AN IMPROVIDENT TENANT.

THAT when a lady's in the case,
All other things of course give place,
Was once a doubt with me, friend Gay;
But Lady-Day the fact explains,
Who never comes but she distrains,
And carries all my things away!

A QUESTION FOR THE PEERAGE.

As the late Trades' Unions, by way of a show, Over Westminster Bridge strutted five in a row, "I feel for the bridge," whispered Dick, with a shiver; "Thus tried by the mob, it may sink in the river." Quoth Tom, a Crown lawyer, "Abandon your fears, "As a bridge it can only be tried by its piers."

WITTY AND HUMOROUS.

ON PECULIARITIES.

ON AN UGLY FELLOW.

LET Dick some summer's day expose
Before the sun his monstrous nose,
And stretch his giant mouth to cause
Its shade to fall upon his jaws;
With nose so long, and mouth so wide,
And those twelve grinders side by side,
Dick, with a very littletrial,

Would make an excellent sun-dial.

TRAJAN. J. H. MERIVALE.

WHO KNOWS?

HEAVENS! what a nose! Forbear to look,
Whene'er you drink in fount or brook.
For as the fair Narcissus died,
When hanging o'er a fountain's side,
You, too, the limpid water quaffing,
May die, my worthy Sir, with laughing.

LUCILLIUS. BLAND.

ON COUNT ZENOBIO.

(WHO WAS REMARKABLE FOR A NOSE OF PRODIGIOUS SIZE.)

WALKING out the other day,

Upon a certain plan,

I met a nose upon the way;
Behind it was a man;

I called upon the nose to stop,

And, when it had done so,

The man behind the nose came up:

They made-Zenobio.

TOM PAINE.

ON ONE PETER WHITE.

PETER WHITE will ne'er go right;
Would you know the reason why?
Where'er he goes, he follows his nose,
And that stands all awry.

ON A VENTRILOQUIST.

THE stomach is a thrifty thing;
So Juvenal of old did sing.

I deemed his saying was not sooth,
But now experience proves its truth;
For here is one whose stomach's feats
Procure the food his stomach eats.

BEN JONSON.