Volume Iv Part 28 (2/2)

Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order.-- Bleak blows the blast;--your hat has got a hole in't.

So have your breeches!

Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, ”Knives and Scissors to grind O!”

Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?

Did some rich man tyrannically use you?

Was it the squire? or parson of the parish?

Or the attorney?

Was it the squire for killing of his game? or Covetous parson, for his t.i.thes destraining?

Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little All in a lawsuit?

(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) Drops of compa.s.sion tremble on my eyelids, Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your Pitiful story.

KNIFE-GRINDER Story? G.o.d bless you! I have none to tell, sir; Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers, This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were Torn in a scuffle

Constables came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the justice; Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honor's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; But for my part, I never love to meddle With politics, sir.

FRIEND OF HUMANITY I give thee sixpence! I will see thee d.a.m.ned first,-- Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance!-- Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast!

(Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.)

George Canning [1770-1827]

VILLON'S STRAIGHT TIP TO ALL CROSS COVES ”Tout aux tavernes et aux fiells.”

Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack?

Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?

Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?

Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?

Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?

Or get the straight, and land your pot?

How do you melt the multy swag?

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack; Or moskeneer, or flash the drag; Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack; Pad with a slang, or chuck a f.a.g; Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag; Rattle the tats, or mark the spot; You can not bag a single stag; Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Suppose you try a different tack, And on the square you flash your flag?

At penny-a-lining make your whack, Or with the mummers mug and gag?

For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag!

At any graft, no matter what, Your merry goblins soon stravag: Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

THE MORAL It's up the spout and Charley Wag With wipes and tickers and what not, Until the squeezer nips your scrag, Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

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