Were charitable boxes handed round, [guinea? And would not Guinea Pigs subscribe their Perchance, the Demoiselle refused to moult The feathers in her head-at least till Monday; Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt A tract presented to be read on Sunday- IX. At whom did Leo struggle to get loose? Who mourns through Monkey tricks his damaged clothing? Who has been hiss'd by the Canadian Goose? As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday— X. To me it seems that in the oddest way About the grounds from Saturday till Monday, As any harmless man to take a walk, If Saints could clap him in a cage on SundayBut what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? XI. In spite of all hypocrisy can spin, (Unless he's loose) to look upon a lion. I really think that one may go, perchance, To see a bear, as guiltless as on Monday(That is, provided that he did not dance) Bruin's no worse than bakin' on a SundayBut what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? XII. In spite of all the fanatic compiles, I cannot think the day a bit diviner, Because no children, with forestalling smiles, Throng, happy, to the gates of Eden MinorIt is not plain, to my poor faith at least, That what we christen "Natural" on Monday, The wondrous history of Bird and Beast, Can be Unnatural because it's SundayBut what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? XIII. Whereon is sinful fantasy to work? The Dove, the wing'd Columbus of man's haven? The tender Love-Bird-or the filial Stork? The punctual Crane-the providential Raven? The Pelican whose bosom feeds her young? Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday That feather'd marvel with a human tongue, Because she does not preach upon a Sunday— But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?" XIV. The busy Beaver—that sagacious beast! The horn'd Rhinoceros-the spotted LeopardThe Creatures of the Great Creator's hand Are surely sights for better days than Monday The Elephant, although he wears no band, XV. What harm if men who burn the midnight-oil, Weary of frame, and worn and wan in feature, Seek once a week their spirits to assoil, And snatch a glimpse of " Animated Nature?" Better it were if, in his best of suits, The artisan, who goes to work on Monday, Should spend a leisure hour amongst the brutes, Than make a beast of his own self on SundayBut what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? XVI. Why, zounds! what raised so Protestant a fuss (Omit the zounds! for which I make apology) But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus Had somehow mix'd up Dens with their Theology? Is Brahma's Bull-a Hindoo God at home- XVII. Spirit of Kant! have we not had enough As vessels cant their ballast-rattling rubbish! NOTE. THERE is an anecdote of a Scotch Professor who happened during a Sunday walk to be hammering at a geological specimen which he had picked up, when a peasant gravely accosted him, and said, very seriously, "Eh! Sir, you think you are only breaking a stone, but you are breaking the Sabbath." In a similar spirit some of our over-righteous sectarians are fond of attributing all breakage to the same cause-from the smashing of a parish lamp, up to the fracture of a human skull; --the "breaking into the bloody house of life," or the breaking into a brick-built dwelling. They all originate in the breaking of the Sabbath. It is the source of every crime in the county the parent of every illegitimate child in the parish. The picking of a pocket is ascribed to the picking of a daisy-the robbery on the highway to a stroll in the fields the incendiary fire to a hot dinner-on Sunday. All other causes- the want of education - the want of moral culture the want of bread itself, are totally repudiated. The criminal himself is made to confess at the gallows that he owes his appearance on the scaffold to a walk with "Salley in our alley" on the "day that comes between a Saturday and Monday." Supposing this theory to be correct, and made like the law "for every degree," the wonder of Captain Macheath that we haven't "better company at Tyburn tree" (now the New Drop) must be fully shared by every body who has visited the Ring in Hyde Park on the day in question. But how much greater must be the wonder of any person who has happened to reside, like myself, for a year or two in a Continental city, inhabited, according to the strict construction of our Mawworms, by some fifteen or twenty thousand of habitual Sabbath-breakers, and yet, without hearing of murder and robbery as often as of blood-sausages and dollars! A city where the Burgomaster himself must have come to a |