Woo'd and jilted and all,
Still I will dance at the ball;
And waltz and quadrille
With light heart and heel,
With proper young men, and tall.
But lately I've met with a suitor,
Whose heart I have gotten in thrall,
And I hope soon to tell you in future
That I'm woo'd and married and all:
Woo'd and married and all,
What greater bliss can befall?
And you all shall partake of my bridal cake
When I'm woo'd and married and all.
I WILL invite that merry priest
Arlotto for to-morrow's feast,'
Another, quite as merry, said,
'And you shall see his fun repaid.
When dinner's on the board, we'll draw
(Each of the company) a straw:
The shortest straw shall tap the wine
In cellar, while the others dine:
And now I'll show how we'll contrive
He draws the shortest of the five.'
They learn their lesson: there are few
Good priests (where eating goes) but do,
From Helgabalus ending with
Humour's pink primate Sydney Smith.
Such food more suits them, truth to speak, Than heavy joints of tough-grain'd Greek.
'Where's our Chianti?'
Cries one; without it feasts are scanty.
We will draw lots then, who shall go
And fill the bottles from below.'
They drew. Arlotto saw their glee,
And nought discomfited was he.
Down-stairs he went: he brought up two,
And saw his friends (as friends should do)
Enjoying their repast, and then
For the three others went again.
Although there was no long delay,
Dish after dish had waned away.
Minestra, liver fried, and raw.
Delicious ham, had plumpt the maw.
Polpetti, roll'd in anise, here
Show their fat sides and disappear.
Salame, too, half mules, half pigs,
Moisten'd with black and yellow figs;
And maccaroni by the ell
From high-uplifted fingers fell.
Garlic and oil and cheese unite
Their concert on the appetite,
Breathing an odour which alone
The laic world might dine upon.
But never think that nought remains
To recompense Arlotto's pains.
There surely was the nicest pie
That ever met Pievano's eye.
Full fifty toes of ducks and geese,
Heads, gizzards, windpipes, soaked in grease
Were in that pie; and thereupon
Sugar and salt and cinnamon;
Kid which, while living, any goat
Might look at twice and never know't;
A quarter of grill'd turkey scored
And lean as a backgammon board,
And dark as Saint Bartholomew,
And quite as perfectly done through.
Birds that, two minutes since, were quails,
And a stupendous stew of snails.
'Brother Arlotto!' said the host,
'There's yet a little of our roast.
Brother Arlotto! never spare.'
Arlotto gaily took his chair
And readily fell to: but soon
He struck the table with a spoon,
Exclaiming Brother! let us now
Draw straws again. Who runs below
To stop the casks for very soon
Little is there within, or none."
Far flies the napkin, and our host
Is down the cellar stairs.
Santa Maria! The Devil's own trick!
Scoffer! blasphemer! heretic!
Broaching-by all the Saints-five casks
Only to fill as many flasks!
Methinks the trouble had been small
To have replaced the plugs in all.'
Arlotto heard and answered.' You
Forgot to tell me what to do.
But let us say no more, because
We should not quarrel about straws.
If you must play your pranks, at least
Don't play 'em with a brother priest.'
Walter Savage Landor.
ON fair Augusta's 3 towers and trees
Flitted the silent midnight breeze,
Curling the foliage as it past,
Which from the moon-tipp'd plumage cast
A spangled light, like dancing spray,
Then re-assumed its still array;
When, as night's lamp unclouded hung,
And down its full effulgence flung,
It shed such soft and balmy power
That cot and castle, hall and bower,
And spire and dome, and turret height,
Appeared to slumber in the light.
From Henry's chapel, Rufus' hall,
To Savoy, Temple, and St Paul ;
From Knightsbridge, Pancras, Camden Town,
To Redriffe, Shadwell, Horsleydown,
No voice was heard, no eye unclosed,
But all in deepest sleep reposed.
They might have thought, who gazed around,
1 From "Rejected Addresses."
2 Sir Walter Scott, who said of this parody, "I must certainly have written it myself.”
3 The old Roman name of London.
Amid a silence so profound,
It made the senses thrill,
That 'twas no place inhabited,
But some vast city of the dead,
All was so hushed and still.
As Chaos, which, by heavenly doom,
Had slept in everlasting gloom,
Started with terror and surprise
When light first flash'd upon her eyes :
So London's sons in nightcap woke,
In bedgown woke her dames;
For shouts were heard 'mid fire and smoke,
And twice ten hundred voices spoke,
"The playhouse is in flames!?
And lo! where Catherine Street extends, A fiery tail its lustre lends
To every window-pane ;
Blushes each spout in Martlet Court,
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort,
And Covent Garden kennels sport
A bright ensanguin'd drain;
Meux's new brewhouse shows the light,
Rowland Hill's chapel, and the height
Where patent shot they sell;
The Tennis Court, so fair and tall,
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall,
The Ticket Porters' House of Call,
Old Bedlam, close by London Wall,
Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal,
And Richardson's Hotel,
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