ANACREONTIC TO A LITTLE PIG'S TAIL.
LITTLE tail of Little Pig,
Once as merry as a grig;
Twisting up, and curling down,
When he grunted through the town;
Though by nature well design'd,
Low to wave in form behind,
Strong to guard each needful part,
And to dabble in the dirt.
Thee, I hail! so sweet and fair,
Tip of gristle, root of hair,
Courting either stump or log,
When attack'd by spiteful dog;
Gradual less'ning as a cone,
With thy curling points of bone;
Joints all grateful to the knife,
In the hour of deadly strife;
Knife of little roguish boy,
Who thee seizes for a toy-
When the butcher sad or grinning,
Round thy suburbs falls to cleaning,
With his smoking water hot,
Lately boiling in a pot;
Pot which often did contain
Dinner costly, dinner plain;
Dinner from the land and water,
Turtle soup and bullock's quarter;
Lobster red as setting sun,
Duck destroy'd by faithful gun;
Side of sheep, joint of ram,
Breast of veal, leg of lamb,
Or a bit of oxen tripe ;
Or a partridge, or a snipe;
Or a goose, or a widgeon;
Or a turkey, or a pigeon.
But of all it did contain,
What invokes the muse's strain;
A delicious sav'ry soup
As was ever taken up;
Form'd of pettitoes and tail
Of animal that's known to squeal.
Happy thrice, and thrice again,
Happiest he of happy men ;
Who, with tail of little pig,
Thus can run a rhyming rig;
As of Delia, or of Anna,
On the gentle banks of Banna,
Bardlings write, and maidens sing,
Till with songs old cellars ring;
Till each hillock, dale, and alley,
Grows as vocal as the valley;
And in inspiration's trance,
Oysters, clams, and mussels dance.
Happy thrice, and thrice again,
Happiest he of happy men;
Who with tail of little pig,
Thus can run a rhyming rig.
Abraham Cowley, the author of the following piece of satire, was born in London in 1618. He was educated at Westminster School and Cambridge, and became a poet very early in life. He attributed this direction of his genius to the perusal of Spenser, whose works were wont to lye in his mother's parlour.' Johnson in his Lives speaks very highly of Cowley as a poet. He died in 1667, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
SHE that can sit three sermons in a day,
And of those three scarce bear three words away;
She that can rob her husband, to repair
A budget-priest, that noses a long prayer ;
She that with lamp-black purifies her shoes,
And with half-eyes and Bible softly goes;
She that her pockets with lay-gospel stuffs,
And edifies her looks with little ruffs;
She that loves sermons as she does the rest,
Still standing stiff that longest are the best;
She that at christenings thirsteth for more sack,
And draws the broadest handkerchief for cake;
She that sings psalms devoutly, next the street,
And beats her maid i̇' th' kitchen where none see't;
She that will sit in shop for five hours' space,
And register the sins of all that pass,
Damn at first sight, and proudly dares to say,
That none can possibly be saved but they
That hang religion in a naked ear,
And judge men's hearts according to their hair;
That could afford to doubt, who wrote best sense,
Moses, or Dod on the commandments;
She that can sigh, and cry 'Queen Elizabeth,'
Rail at the Pope, and scratch-out 'sudden death?'
And for all this can give no reason why:
This is an holy sister, verily.
This spirited translation from the German of SELBER appeared anonymously in the Dublin University Magazine a few years ago.
I'm rather slow at extravaganzas,
And what your poets call thunderclaps ;
I'll therefore spin you some sober stanzas
Concerning nothing at all but Schnapps.
And though my wisdom, like Sancho Panza's,
Consists entirely of bits and scraps,
I'll bet you fourpence that no man plans as
Intense a poem as I on Schnapps.
Schnapps is, you know, the genteelest liquid
That any tapster in Potsdam taps;
When you've tobacco, and chew a thick quid,
You've still to grin for your glass of Schnapps.
You then wax funny, and show your slick wit,
And smash to smithers with kicks and slaps
Whatever's next you-in Latin quicquid-
For I quote Horace when lauding Schnapps.
I've but one pocket for quids and coppers,
Which last moreover are mostly raps,
Yet 'midst my ha'pence and pipes and stoppers
I still find room for a flask of Schnapps.
My daily quantum is twenty croppers,
Or ten half-naggins ;-but, when with chaps
Who, though good Schnappers, are no slipsloppers,
I help to empty a keg of Schnapps.
Being fifty, sixty, or therebetwixt, I
Guess many midnights cannot now elapse
Before the hour comes in which my fixt eye
Must look its last upon Earth and Schnapps.
I'll kick the pail, too, in some dark pigstye,
Imbibing hogwash, or whey perhaps,
Which, taken sep'rate, or even mixt, I
Don't think superior at all to Schnapps!
Richard Porson, the eminent Greek scholar and critic, was born at East Ruston in Norfolk, on Christmas day 1759, and died in London on September 25, 1808. The circumstances under which the following jeu-d'esprit was written, are supposed to have been these :-One evening Porson attended a party at the house of Dr. Vincent, and on being cut out at a whist table, he rose to take his leave. Mrs. Vincent pressed him to stay, saying, 'Do stay, the rubber will soon be over, when you may go in. In the meantime, take a pen and ink at another table, and write us
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