"What lovely wench is that there here?"
"Ventch! Je vous n'entends pas, Monsieur.”
"What, he again? Upon my life!

A palace, lands, and then a wife

Sir Joshua might delight to draw:

I should like to sup with Nongtongpaw.

But hold! whose funeral's that?" cries John.
“Je vous n'entends paw.”—“What, is he gone?
Wealth, fame, and beauty could not save
Poor Nongtongpaw then from the grave!
His race is run, his game is up, —
I'd with him breakfast, dine and sup;
But since he chooses to withdraw,
Good-night t'ye, Mounseer Nongtongpaw."

CCCLXIV.

THE SWELL'S SOLILOQUY ON THE WAR.

I

DON'T appwove this hawid waw ;

Those dweadful bannahs hawt my eyes; And guns and dwums are such a baw,

Why don't the pawties compwamise?

Of cawce, the twoilet has its chawms;
But why must all the vulgah crowd
Pawsist in spawting unifawms
In cullaws so extwemely loud?

And then the ladies-pwecious deahs!
I mawk the change on ev'wy bwow;
Bai Jove! I weally have my feahs

They wathah like the howid wow!

To hear the chawming cweatures talk,
Like patwons of the bloody wing,
Of waw and all its dawty wawk, —
It does n't seem a pwappah thing!

C. Dibdin

I called at Mrs. Gween's last night,
To see her niece, Miss Mary Hertz,
And found her making — cwushing sight! —

The weddest kind of flannel shirts!

Of cawce I wose and saught the daw,
With fewy flashing from my eyes!
I can't appwove this hawid waw ;

Why don't the pawties compwamise?

Vanity Fair

CCCLXV.

THE ALARMED SKIPPER.

MANY a long, long year ago,

Nantucket skippers had a plan

Of finding out, though "lying low,"

How near New York their schooners ran.

They greased the lead before it fell,

And then, by sounding through the night,
Knowing the soil that stuck, so well,
They always guessed their reckoning right.

A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim,

Could tell by tasting, just the spot, And so below, he'd "dowse the glim," After, of course, his "something hot."

Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock,

This ancient skipper might be found;
No matter how his craft would rock,
He slept, for skippers' naps are sound!

The watch on deck would now and then

Run down and wake him, with the lead;

He'd up and taste, and tell the men

How

many miles they went ahead.

One night, 't was Jotham Marden's watch,

A curious wag,

And so he mused (the wanton wretch), "To-night I'll have a grain of fun.

"We're all a set of stupid fools,

To think the skipper knows by tasting, What ground he's on; Nantucket schools Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting!"

And so he took the well-greased lead,

And rubbed it o'er a box of earth

That stood on deck (a parsnip bed), –
And then he sought the skipper's berth.

"Where are we now, sir, please to taste."

The skipper yawned, put out his tongue, Then oped his eyes in wondrous haste,

And then upon the floor he sprung!

The skipper stormed, and tore his hair,

Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden, "Nantucket 's sunk, and here we are

Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!"

The jury gave their verdict, that
'T was nothing else but gin,
That caused the fisherman to be
So sadly taken in;

Though one stood out upon a whim,
And said the angler's slaughter,
To be exact about the fact,
Was clearly gin-and-water.

The moral of this mournful tale,
To all is plain and clear, -
That drinking habits bring a man
Too often to his bier;

And he who scorns to "take the pledge,"

And keep the promise fast,

May be, in spite of fate, a stiff
Cold-water man, at last!

J. G. Saze.

CCCLXVII.

WHITTLING.

THE Yankee boy, before he's sent to school,
Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool,
The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye
Turns, while he hears his mother's lullaby;
His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it,

Then leaves no stone unturned till he can whet it;
And, in the education of the lad,

No little part that implement hath had, -
His pocket-knife to the young whittler brings
A growing knowledge of material things.

Projectiles, music, and the sculptor's art,
His chestnut whistle and his shingle dart,
His elder pop-gun with its hickory rod,
Its sharp explosion and rebounding wad,