After dinner you went to the wine,

And helped yourself — yes, to a brimmer; You couldn't walk straight in a line,

But I'll make you to know I'm a Trimmer.

You kick little Tomkins about,

Because he is slighter and slimmer; Are the weak to be thumped by the stout? But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

Then you have a sly pilfering trick,

Your school-fellows call you the nimmer,I will cut to the bone if you kick!

For I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

To-day you made game at my back :

You think that my eyes are grown dimmer, But I watched you, I've got a sly knack! And I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

Don't think that my temper is hot,

It's never beyond a slow simmer;

I'll teach you to call me Dame Trot,
But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Chapone,

Might melt to behold your tears glimmer; Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone,

But I'll have you to know I'm a Trimmer.

THE FOX AND THE HEN.

A FABLE.

Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer Southcote PIGROGROMITUS:

to Northcote.

ONE day, or night, no matter where or when,
Sly Reynard, like a footpad, laid his pad
Right on the body of a speckled Hen,
Determined upon taking all she had;

And like a very bibber at his bottle,

Began to draw the claret from her throttle; Of course it put her in a pretty pucker,

And with a scream as high

As she could cry,

She called for help - she had enough of sucker.

Dame Partlet's scream

Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream, And, with a savage growl

In answer to the fowl,

He bounded forth against the prowling sinner,
And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner.

Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom,
Thought, self-deceived,

He should not be perceived,

Hiding his brush within a neighbouring broom;

But quite unconscious of a Poacher's snare,

And caught in copper noose,

And looking like a goose,

Found that his fate had "hung upon a hare;

His tricks and turns were rendered of no use to

him.

And, worst of all, he saw old surly Tray

Coming to play

Tray-Deuce with him.

Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable,
Under his Master, a most special constable,
Instead of killing Reynard in a fury,
Seized him for legal trial by a Jury;

But Juries Æsop was a sheriff then
Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men.

But first the Elephant sat on the body –
I mean the Hen and proved that she was dead,

To the veriest fool's head

Of the Booby and the Noddy.
Accordingly, the Stork brought in a bill
Quite true enough to kill ;

And then the Owl was called for mark,
The Owl can witness in the dark.
To make the evidence more plain,
The Lynx connected all the chain.

In short there was no quirk or quibble
At which a legal Rat could nibble ;

The Culprit was as far beyond hope's bounds,
As if the Jury had been packed — of hounds.
Reynard, however, at the utmost nick,

Is seldom quite devoid of shift and trick ;
Accordingly our cunning Fox,

Through certain influence, obscurely channelled, A friendly Camel got into the box,

When 'gainst his life the Jury was impanelled.

Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law,

If Jurors should withdraw,

They are to have no eating and no drinking,
Till all are starved into one way of thinking.

Thus Reynard's Jurors, who could not agree,
Were locked up strictly, without bit or mummock,
Till every Beast that only had one stomach,
Bent to the Camel, who was blest with three.
To do them justice, they debated

From four till ten, while dinner waited,
When thirst and hunger got the upper,
And each inclined to mercy, and hot supper:
"Not guilty" was the word, and Master Fox
Was freed to murder other hens and cocks.

MORAL.

What moral greets us by this tale's assistance-
But that the Solon is a sorry Solon,

Who makes the full stop of a Man's existence.
Depend upon a Colon?

THE COMET.

AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECdote.

"I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this selfsame Starling."

STERNE'S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.

AMONGST professors of astronomy,

Adepts in the celestial economy,

The name of Herschel's very often cited:
And justly so, for he is hand and glove
With ev'ry bright intelligence above ;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
Watching the stars upon the house's top,
That once upon a time he got be-knighted

In his observatory thus coquetting

With Venus or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy it might be upon Mars-
A new André ;

Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping,
At Dian sleeping;