Part 14 (1/2)

'Hold!' Cupid cries, 'for Love's, for Pity's sake; You'll strangle Beauty, and my bowstring break.'

In altering thus and shortening his oration, Sure the Reporters do Lord Flimsy wrong; It well may fill his Lords.h.i.+p with vexation, When he has toil'd so hard to make it long.

'I've writ an epigram;--here, read it, do.-- The critics praise it highly:--what think you?'

”I don't much like it.” 'No! 'tis very fine.'

”It may be to your taste--'tis not to mine.”

'I say 'tis finely pointed.' ”Well! so be it!-- The point may be too fine for me to see it.”

'Then, let me tell you, Sir, you must be blind.'

”Many more like me I'm afraid you'll find.”

Wise radicals! to make it bear more fruit, They fain would tear the tree up by the root.

Young trees, we know, may sometimes thrive transplanted, But old ones can't;--'tis by all gardeners granted.

'Twill die;--and when the good old tree is dead, What sort of tree, pray, will they plant instead?

The Squire has long imagined that his son Is deeply studying c.o.ke and Lyttelton.

They meet.--'Dear Tom! to see you gives me joy.-- How get you on in Law? my clever boy!

In practice too?--But Tom, what bills you draw!

Expensive work this studying of the law!'

The sly young Templar gulls his easy Sire:-- ”O! I get on, Sir, to my heart's desire; In chamber-practice I have much to do.”-- His answer--in a certain sense--is true.

To move her lover, a coquetish Miss Began to sob, pretending she should faint;-- Her maid restored her straight by whispering this: 'I fear, my lady, you forget your paint.'

ON THE MANY VIOLENT DISPUTES AMONG THE PREACHERS OF THE GOSPEL.

The labourers in the vineyard toil (So numerous are their creeds) Far less to cultivate the soil, Than break each others' heads.

'Write epigrams! why, Sir, there's nothing in it.

I would be bound--the merest scribbler could-- To write one in a minute.'

No doubt you could--but then there would Indeed, be nothing in it.