French and English. Erskine
The French have taste in all they do, Which we are quite without;
For Nature, that to them gave GOUT
To us gave only gout.
Epigrams by Thomas Moore
To Sir Hudson Lowe
Sir Hudson Lowe, Sir Hudson LOW
(By name, and ah! by nature so),
As thou art fond of persecutions,
Perhaps thou’st read, or heard repeated,
How Captain Gulliver was treated,
When thrown among the Lilliputians.
They tied him down-these little men did—
And having valiantly ascended
Upon the Mighty Man’s protuberance,
They did so strut!—upon my soul,
It must have been extremely droll
To see their pigmy pride’s exuberance!
And how the doughty mannikins
Amused themselves with sticking pins
And needles in the great man’s breeches;
And how some VERY little things,
That pass’d for Lords, on scaffoldings
Got up and worried him with speeches.
Alas! alas! that it should happen
To mighty men to be caught napping!—
Though different, too, these persecutions
For Gulliver, THERE, took the nap,
While, HERE, the NAP, oh sad mishap, Is taken by the Lilliputians!
Dialogue Between a Catholic Delegate and His Royal Highness Duke of Cumberland
Said his Highness to NED, with that grim face of his,
“Why refuse us the VETO, dear Catholic NEDDY?”—
“Because, sir” said NED, looking full in his phiz,
“You’re FORBIDDING enough, in all conscience, already!”
To Miss
With woman’s form and woman’s tricks
So much of man you seem to mix,
One knows not where to take you;
I pray you, if ’tis not too far,
Go, ask of Nature WHICH you are,
Or what she meant to make you.
Yet stay—you need not take the pains
With neither beauty, youth, nor brains,
For man or maid’s desiring:
Pert as female, fool as male,
As boy too green, as girl too stale
The thing’s not worth inquiring!
To
Die when you will, you need not wear
At heaven’s court a form more fair
Than Beauty here on earth has given;
Keep but the lovely looks we see
The voice we hear and you will be
An angel READY-MADE for heaven!
UPON BEING OBLIGED TO LEAVE A PLEASANT PARTY FROM THE WANT OF A PAIR OF BREECHES TO DRESS FOR DINNER IN.
Between Adam and me the great difference is,
Though a paradise each has been forced to resign,
That he never wore breeches till turn’d out of his,
While, for want of my breeches, I’m banish’d from mine
What’s My Thought Like?
QUEST.-Why is a Pump like Viscount CASTLEREAGH?
ANSW.-Because it is a slender thing of wood,
That up and down its awkward arm doth sway,
And coolly spout, and spout, and spout away,
In one weak, washy, everlasting flood!
From the French
Of all the men one meets about,
There’s none like Jack—he’s everywhere:
At church—park—auction—dinner—rout—
Go when and where you will, he’s there.
Try the West End, he’s at your back—
Meets you, like Eurus, in the East—
You’re call’d upon for “How do, Jack?”
One hundred times a-day, at least.
A friend of his one evening said,
As home he took his pensive way,
“Upon my soul, I fear Jack’s dead—
I’ve seen him but three times to-day!”
A Joke Versified
“Come, come,” said Tom’s father, “at your time of life,
There’s no longer excuse for thus playing the rake—
It is time you should think, boy, of taking a wife.”—
“Why, so it is, father—whose wife shall I take?”
The Surprise
Doloris, I swear, by all I ever swore,
That from this hour I shall not love thee more.—
“What! love no more? Oh! why this alter’d vow?
Because I CAN NOT love thee MORE—than NOW!”
On ——
Like a snuffers, this loving old dame,
By a destiny grievous enough,
Though so oft she has snapp’d at the flame,
Hath never more than the snuff.
On a Squinting Poetess
To no ONE Muse does she her glance confine,
But has an eye, at once to ALL THE NINE!
On a Tuet-Hunter
Lament, lament, Sir Isaac Heard,
Put mourning round thy page, Debrett,
For here lies one, who ne’er preferr’d
A Viscount to a Marquis yet.
Beside his place the God of Wit,
Before him Beauty’s rosiest girls,
Apollo for a STAR he’d quit,
And Love’s own sister for an Earl’s.
Did niggard fate no peers afford,
He took, of course, to peers’ relations;
And, rather than not sport a lord,
Put up with even the last creations.
Even Irish names, could he but tag ’em
With “Lord” and “Duke,” were sweet to call,
And, at a pinch, Lord Ballyraggum
Was better than no Lord at all.
Heaven grant him now some noble nook,
For, rest his soul, he’d rather be
Genteelly damn’d beside a Duke,
Than saved in vulgar company.
The Kiss
Give me, my love, that billing kiss
I taught you one delicious night,
When, turning epicures in bliss,
We tried inventions of delight.
Come, gently steal my lips along,
And let your lips in murmurs move
Ah, no!—again—that kiss was wrong
How can you be so dull, my love?
“Cease, cease!” the blushing girl replied
And in her milky arms she caught me
“How can you thus your pupil chide;
You know ’T WAS IN THE DARK you taught me!”
Epitaph on a Well-Known Poet — (Robert Southey.)
Beneath these poppies buried deep,
The bones of Bob the bard lie hid;
Peace to his manes; and may he sleep
As soundly as his readers did!
Through every sort of verse meandering,
Bob went without a hitch or fall,
Through Epic, Sapphic, Alexandrine,
To verse that was no verse at all;
Till fiction having done enough,
To make a bard at least absurd,
And give his readers QUANTUM SUFF.,
He took to praising George the Third:
And now, in virtue of his crown,
Dooms us, poor whigs, at once to slaughter,
Like Donellan of bad renown,
Poisoning us all with laurel-water.
And yet at times some awkward qualms he
Felt about leaving honor’s track;
And though he’s got a butt of Malmsey,
It may not save him from a sack.
Death, weary of so dull a writer,
Put to his works a FINIS thus.
Oh! may the earth on him lie lighter
Than did his quartos upon us!
WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY’S COMMON-PLACE BOOK,
Called the “Book of Follies.”
This journal of folly’s an emblem of me;
But what book shall we find emblematic of thee?
Oh! shall we not say thou art LOVE’S DUODECIMO?
None can be prettier, few can be less, you know.
Such a volume in SHEETS were a volume of charms;
Or if BOUND, it should only be BOUND IN OUR ARMS!
The Rabbinical Origin of Women
They tell us that Woman was made of a rib
Just pick’d from a corner so snug in the side;
But the Rabbins swear to you that this is a fib,
And ’t was not so at all that the sex was supplied.
For old Adam was fashion’d, the first of his kind,
With a tail like a monkey, full a yard and a span;
And when Nature cut off this appendage behind,
Why—then woman was made of the tail of the man.
If such is the tie between women and men,
The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf;
For he takes to his tail, like an idiot, again,
And makes a most damnable ape of himself!
Yet, if we may judge as the fashions prevail,
Every husband remembers the original plan,
And, knowing his wife is no more than his tail,
Why—he leaves her behind him as much as he can.
Anacreontique
Press the grape, and let it pour
Around the board its purple shower;
And while the drops my goblet steep,
I’ll think—in WOE the clusters weep.
Weep on, weep on, my pouting vine!
Heaven grant no tears but tears of wine.
Weep on; and, as thy sorrows flow,
I’ll taste the LUXURY OF WOE!
Speculation
Of all speculations the market holds forth,
The best that I know for a lover of pelf,
Is to buy —- up at the price he is worth,
And then sell him at that which he sets on himself.