That body, thus parched, was all one little sting,
He'd have made a most capital flea;

It seemed a disgrace that so puny a thing
Should have spoilt the estate for me

But next a great lawyer was minded to woo;
Peradventure his bended knee,

Though it moved not the Lords, would, without much ado,

Gain the vote of a lady like me.

He tucked up his gown and he perk 'd up his wig,
But his nose I most marvelled to see;

It twitched, for he knew it deserved a good twig;
So he failed in his love suit to me.

The next the Whig ladies all deemed a great prize-
I was blind if I didn't soon see

That of all Whigs he had the most beautiful eyes,
Which he lovingly fixed upon me.

With a "what does it signify" sort of a look,
And an air of so witching a glee,

He skipped like a lamb, and invited my crook,
But no crook was held out by me.

Then a gouty old lord was wheeled in, in a chair,
And right merry he seemed to be,

Till they told him "my Lady" was waiting there,
When he turned off, away from me.

I saw one in sanctity's odour recline,―
Strange guest !-on that lady's settee !
But the odour I smelt was the odour of wine,
It seemed to be Port wine to me.

I looked on the next, less in anger than ruth,

For once of high promise was he;

But they lured him away from the friends of his youth,

And so he was lost to me.

Then swaggering came, with his hat on one side,
A landsman who talked of the sea;

A sharpish young lad, I perhaps might have tried,
But his friends were all too bad for me.

I had nearly forgotten to mention the while
One who proved very wordy to be,
Who spouted a question as long as a mile
Which was all without point to me.

Then a middle-aged beau, with a tittupping walk,
And the best cut of coats you could see,

With the largest of whiskers, the smallest of talk,
Came philandering up to me.

Old Tally was jealously limping behind

With tittering ladies three;

Over-reached, over-womaned, it wouldn't be kind

Or pleasant to take him to me.

What a set! but I told them I found them all out;

I saw how it was and would be;

That they were the cause of the general rout,
And had wronged my poor Uncle and me.

My uncle I told of a straightforward man,
From humbug and treachery free;
Who would save the estate-if anyone can-

And improve it for him and for me.

“I'll take, then,” he said, “this old friend of the Bulls,

An honest good Stewart he 'll be ;

The Tenants no more shall be treated like gulls,
As they have been-between you and me."

ON the publication of Prometheus Unbound
Hook immediately spoke these lines-

Shelley styles his poem Prometheus Unbound,
And 'tis like to remain so while time circles round;
For surely an age would be spent in the finding
A reader so weak as to pay for the binding.

www

THE following was a happy impromptu on seeing the name Milton over a livery

stable :

Two Miltons in separate ages were born;

The cleverer Milton 'tis clear we have got:

Though the other had talents the world to adorn,

This lives by his mews, which the other could not!

ΟΝ a contest, Gaynor v. Sharp, Hook impromptued thus

Poor Gaynor's a loser!

That such a good bruiser

In time will astonish us-nothing is plainer

Tho' Sharp is no flat,

Yet, no matter for that,

Had Gaynor been sharp, Sharp had not been gainer.

HOOK used his marvellous memory with amusing effect on one occasion when he and Cannon-a congenial spirit-were engaged to meet, at the table of a common friend, a certain reviewer well-known in the literary world for his varied information and for the somewhat dictatorial manner in which he was in the habit of dispensing it.

Hook selected a subject which, though not perhaps particularly abstruse to astronomers, he thought was a little out of his friend's line, the Precession of the Equinoxes; and referring to the Encyclopædia Britannica learnt the entire article, a very long one, by heart, without however stopping to comprehend a single

sentence.

Soup had scarcely been removed, when Cannon, as had been previously arranged, led the conversation round to the desired point--and, availing himself of a sudden pause, drew

the eyes of the whole party upon Mr R., whom he had already, with no little tact, contrived to entangle in the topic. The gentleman, as had been anticipated, happened not to be "up" in that particular branch of science; to plead ignorance was not to be thought of, and after a vague, and not very intelligible answer, he made an effort to escape from the dilemma

by adroitly turning the question.

His tor

mentors, however, were men cunning of fence, and not to be easily baffled: Hook returned to the charge.

"My dear sir, you don't seem to have explained the thing to 'the Dean,' with what commentators would call 'your usual acumen,' for everybody, of course, is aware that 'The most obvious of all the celestial motions is the diurnal