DOMESTIC ASIDES; OR, TRUTH IN PARENTHESES.

"I REALLY take it very kind,
This visit, Mrs. Skinner!

I have not seen you such an age

(The wretch has come to dinner!)

"Your daughters, too, what loves of girls

What heads for painters' easels!

Come here and kiss the infant, dears,

(And give it p'r'aps the measles !)

"Your charming boys I see are home
From Reverend Mr. Russell's;

'Twas very kind to bring them both,-
(What boots for my new Brussels!)

"What! little Clara left at home?
Well now I call that shabby:

I should have loved to kiss her so,
(A flabby, dabby, babby!)

"And Mr. S., I hope he's well,
Ah! though he lives so handy,

He never now drops in to sup, –
(The better for our brandy!)

-

I long to hear

66 Come, take a seat -
About Matilda's marriage;

You're come of course to spend the day!
(Thank Heaven, I hear the carriage!)

"What! must you go? next time I hope You'll give me longer measure;

Nay

I shall see you down the stairs (With most uncommon pleasure!)

"Good-bye! good-bye! remember all,
Next time you 'll take your dinners!
(Now, David, mind I'm not at home
In future to the Skinners!")

EPIGRAMS.

COMPOSED ON READING A DIARY LATELY PUB. LISHED.

THAT flesh is grass is now as clear as day,

To

any but the merest purblind pup, Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay, My Lady Bury comes and rakes it up.

THE LAST WISH.

WHEN I resign this world so briary,
To have across the Styx my ferrying,
O, may I die without a DIARY!

And be interred without a BURY-ing!

THE

poor dear dead have been laid out in vain, Turned into cash, they are laid out again!

THE DEVIL'S ALBUM.

Ir will seem an odd whim
For a Spirit so grim

As the Devil to take a delight in ;

But by common renown

He has come up to town,
With an Album for people to write in!

On a handsomer book
Mortal never did look,

Of a flame-colour silk is the binding,

With a border superb,

Where through flow'ret and herb,

The old Serpent goes brilliantly winding

By gilded grotesques,

And embossed arabesques,

The whole cover, in fact, is pervaded;
But, alas! in a taste

That betrays they were traced
At the will of a Spirit degraded !

As for paper

But extremely hot-pressed, Courts the pen to luxuriate upon it, And against every blank

There's a note on the Bank, As a bribe for a sketch or a sonnet.

Who will care to appear
In the Fiend's Souvenir,

Is a question to morals most vital;
But the very first leaf,

It's the public belief,
Will be filled by a Lady of Title !

EPIGRAM.

THE SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY,

A Mechanic his labor will often discard
If the rate of his pay he dislikes ;

But a clock and its case is uncommonly hard-
Will continue to work though it strikes.

JOHN DAY.

A PATHETIC BALLAD.

"A Day after the Fair. "

- OLD PROVERB.

JOHN DAY he was the biggest man

Of all the coachman-kind,

With back too broad to be conceived By any narrow mind.

The very horses knew his weight
When he was in the rear,
And wished his box a Christmas-box

To come but once a year.

Alas! against the shafts of love,

What armour can avail?

Soon Cupid sent an arrow through
His scarlet coat of mail.

The bar-maid of the Crown he loved,
From whom he never ranged,
For tho' he changed his horses there,
His love he never changed.