Doth punning Peake not sit
Of his own jokes, and shake in all his joints, During their trial?
And does not Pocock, feeling, like a peacock, All eyes upon him turn to very meacock? And does not Planché, tremulous and blank, Meanwhile his personages tread the boards, Seem goaded by sharp swords,
And called upon himself to "walk the plank?
As for the Dances, Charles and George to boot,
What have they more
Of ease and rest, for sole of either foot,
Than bear that capers on a hotted floor?
Thus pending-does not Mathews, at sad shift
For voice, croak like a frog in waters fenny?—
Serle seem upon the surly seas adrift ?—
And Kenny think he's going to Kilkenny?—
Haynes Bayley feel Old ditto, with a note
Of Cotton in his ear, a mortal grapple
About his arms, and Adam's apple,
Big as a fine Dutch codling, in his throat?
Did Rodwell, on his chimney-piece, desire
Or not to take a jump into the fire?
Did Wade feel as composed as music can ?
And was not Bernard his own Nervous Man?
Lastly, don't Farley, a bewildered elf,
Quake at the Pantomime he loves to cater,
And ere its changes ring, transform himself?—
A frightful mug of human delf?
A spirit-bottle-empty of "the cratur"?
A leaden-platter ready for the shelf?
A thunderstruck dumb-waiter?
Myself, once guilty, of one small rash act,
Committed at the Surrey
Quite in a hurry,
Felt all this flurry,
Corporal worry,
And spiritual scurry,
Dram-devil-attic curry!
All going well,
From prompter's bell,
Until befell
A hissing at some dull imperfect dunce—
There's no denying,
I felt in all four elements at once!
My head was swimming, while my arms
My legs for running-all the rest was frying!
Thrice welcome, then, for this peculiar use
Thy pens so innocent of goose!
For this shall Dramatists, when they make merry,
Discarding Port and Sherry,
Drink-" Perry!"
Perry, whose fame, pennated, is let loose
To distant lands,
Perry, admitted on all hands,
Text, running, German, Roman,
For Patent Perryans approached by no man!
And when, ah, me! far distant be the hour!
Pluto shall call thee to his gloomy bower,
Many shall be thy pensive mourners, many!
And Penury itself shall club its penny,
To raise thy monument in lofty place;
Higher than York's, or any son of War;
Whilst Time all meaner effigies shall bury,
On due pentagonal base,
Shall stand the Parian, Perryan, perriwiged Perry,
Perched on the proudest peak of Penman Mawr!
"He shall not die."-UNCLE TOBY.
Of all the verses, grave or gay,
That ever wiled an hour,
I never knew a mingled lay
At once so sweet and sour,
As that by Ladye Norton spun,
And christened the "Undying One."
I'm very certain that she drew
A portrait, when she penned
That picture of a perfect Jew,
Whose days will never end:
I'm sure it means my Uncle Lunn, -
For he is an Undying One!
These twenty years he's been the same,
And may be twenty more;
But Memory's Pleasures only claim
His features for a score;
Yet in that time the change is none-
The image of th' Undying One!
They say our climate's damp and cold,
And lungs are tender things;
My uncle's much abroad and old,
But when "King Cole" he sings,
A Stentor's voice, enough to stun,
Declares him an Undying One.
Others have died from needle-pricks,
And very slender blows;
From accidental slips or kicks,
Or bleedings at the nose;
Or choked by grape-stone, or a bun-
But he is the Undying One!
A soldier once, he once endured
A bullet in the breast-
It might have killed-but only cured
An asthma in the chest;
He was not to be slain with gun,
For he is the Undying One.
In water once too long he dived,
And all supposed him beat,
He seemed so cold-but he revived
To have another heat,
Just when we thought his race was run,
And came in fresh-th' Undying One!
To look at Meux's once he went,
And tumbled in the vat-
And greater Jobs their lives have spent
In lesser boils than that,-
He left the beer quite underdone,
No bier to the Undying One!
He's been from strangulation black,
From bile, of yellow hue,
Scarlet from fever's hot attack,
From cholera morbus blue;
Yet with these dyes-to use a pun-
He still is the Undying One.
He rolls in wealth, yet has no wife
His Three per Cents. to share;
He never married in his life,
Or flirted with the fair;
The sex he made a point to shun,
For beauty an Undying One.
To judge him by the present signs,
The future by the past,
So quick he lives, so slow declines,
The Last Man won't be last,
But buried underneath a ton
Of mould by the Undying One!
Next Friday week his birthday boast,
His ninetieth year he spends,
And I shall have his health to toast
Amongst expectant friends,
And wish-it really sounds like fun-
Long life to the Undying One!
THOSE Who much read advertisements and bills,
Must have seen puffs of Cockle's Pills,
Called Anti-bilious-
Which some Physicians sneer at, supercilious,
But which we are assured, if timely taken,
May save your liver and bacon;
Whether or not they really give one ease,
I, who have never tried,
But no two things in union go like these—
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