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MRS. F.

Great bags of stones! they're pretty things to help a boat to swim!

BOATMAN.

The wind is fresh-if she don't scud, it's not the breeze's fault!

MRS. F.

Wind fresh, indeed! I never felt the air so full of salt!

BOATMAN.

That Schooner, Bill, harn't left the roads, with oranges and nuts!

MRS. F.

If seas have roads, they're very rough-I never felt such ruts!

BOATMAN.

It's neap, ye see, she's heavy lade, and couldn't pass the bar.

MRS. F.

The bar what, roads with turnpikes too? I wonder where they are!

BOATMAN.

Ho! brig ahoy! hard up! hard up! that lubber cannot steer!

MRS. F.

Yes, yes,-hard up upon a rock! I know some danger 's near!
Lord, there's a wave! it's coming in! and roaring like a bull!

BOATMAN.

Nothing, Ma'am, but a little slop! go large, Bill! keep her full!

MRS. F.

What, keep her full! what daring work! when full, she must go down!

BOATMAN.

Why, Bill, it lulls! ease off a bit—it's coming off the town!
Steady your helm ! we'll clear the Pint! lay right for yonder pink!

MRS. F.

Be steady-well, I hope they can! but they've got a pint of drink!

BOATMAN.

Bill, give that sheet another haul-she'll fetch it up this reach.

I'm getting rather pale, I know,
I wonder what it is, now, but

MRS. F.

and they see it by that speech!
I never felt so queer!

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BOATMAN.

Bill, mind your luff-why Bill, I say, she 's yawing-keep her near !

MRS. F.

Keep near! we're going further off; the land 's behind our backs.

BOATMAN.

Be easy, Ma'am, it's all correct, that 's only 'cause we tacks:
We shall have to beat about a bit,-Bill, keep her out to sea.

MRS. F.

Beat who about? keep who at sea?-how black they look at me!

BOATMAN.

It's veering round-I knew it would! off with her head! stand by!

MRS. F.

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Off with her head! whose? where? what with ?-an axe I seem to spy!

BOATMAN.

She can't not keep her own, you see; we shall have to pull her in!

MRS. F.

They'll drown me, and take all I have! my life 's not worth a pin!

BOATMAN.

Look out you know, be ready, Bill-just when she takes the sand!

MRS. F.

The sand-O Lord! to stop my mouth! how every thing is plann’d!

BOATMAN.

The handspike, Bill-quick, bear a hand! now Ma'am, just step ashore !

MRS. F.

What ain't I going to be kill'd-and welter'd in my gore?
Well, Heaven be praised! but I'll not go a sailing any more!

LITERARY AND LITERAL

THE March of Mind upon its mighty stilts,
(A spirit by no means to fasten mocks on,)

In travelling through Berks, Beds, Notts, and Wilts,
Hants-Bucks, Herts, Oxon,

Got up a thing our ancestors ne'er thought on,

A thing that, only in our proper youth,

We should have chuckled at-in sober truth.

A Conversazione at Hog's Norton !

A place whose native dialect, somehow,
Has always by an adage been affronted,
And that it is all gutturals, is now
Taken for grunted.

Conceive the snoring of a greedy swine,
The slobbering of a hungry Ursine Sloth-
If you have ever heard such creature dine-
And-for Hog's Norton, make a mix of both!--
O shades of Shakspeare! Chaucer! Spenser !
Milton! Pope! Gray! Warton !

O Colman! Kenny! Planché! Poole! Peake !
Pocock! Reynolds! Morton !

O Grey! Peel! Sadler! Wilberforce! Burdett!
Hume! Wilmot Horton !

Think of your prose and verse, and worse-delivered in
Hog's Norton !-

The founder of Hog's Norton Athenæum
Framed her society

With some variety

From Mr. Roscoe's Liverpool museum;
Not a mere pic-nic, for the mind's repast,
But tempting to the solid knife-and-forker,
It held its sessions in the house that last
Had killed a porker.

It chanced one Friday,

One Farmer Grayley stuck a very big hog, .
A perfect Gog or Magog of a pig-hog,
Which made of course a literary high day,-
Not that our Farmer was a man to go

With literary tastes-so far from suiting 'em,
When he heard mention of Professor Crowe,

Or Lalla-Rookh, he always was for shooting 'em!
In fact in letters he was quite a log,

With him great Bacon

Was literally taken,

And Hogg-the Poet-nothing but a Hog!

As to all others on the list of Fame,

Although they were discuss'd and mention'd daily,

He only recognised one classic name,

And thought that she had hung herself-Miss Baillie !

To balance this, our Farmer's only daughter
Had a great taste for the Castalian water-
A Wordsworth worshipper-a Southey wooer-
(Though men that deal in water-colour cakes
May disbelieve the fact-yet nothing 's truer)
She got the bluer

The more she dipped and dabbled in the Lakes.

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The secret truth is, Hope, the old deceiver,
At future Authorship was apt to hint,
Producing what some call the Type-us Fever,
Which means a burning to be seen in print.

Of learning's laurels-Miss Joanna Baillie-
Of Mrs. Hemans-Mrs. Wilson-daily
Dreamt Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley;
And Fancy hinting that she had the better
Of L. E. L. by one initial letter,

She thought the world would quite enraptur'd see

'LOVE LAYS AND LYRICS

BY

A. P. I. G.'

Accordingly, with very great propriety,
She joined the H. N. B. and double S.,

That is,-Hog's Norton Blue Stocking Society;
And saving when her Pa his pigs prohibited,
Contributed

Her pork and poetry towards the mess.

This feast, we said, one Friday was the case,
When farmer Grayley-from Macbeth to quote-
Sarewing his courage to the 'sticking place,'
Stuck a large knife into a grunter's throat :-
A kind of murder that the law's rebuke
Seldom condemns by shake of its peruke,
Showing the little sympathy of big-wigs

With pig-wigs !

The swine-poor wretch !-with nobody to speak for it,
And beg its life, resolved to have a squeak for it;

So-like the fabled swan-died singing out,

And, thus, there issued from the farmer's yard
A note that notified without a card,

An invitation to the evening rout.

And when the time came duly,' At the close of
The day,' as Beattie has it, when the ham-'

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Bacon, and pork were ready to dispose of,

And pettitoes and chit'lings too, to cram,-
Walked in the H. N. B. and double S.'s

All in appropriate and swinish dresses,
For lo! it is a fact, and not a joke,

Although the Muse might fairly jest upon it,

They came-each Pig-faced Lady,' in that bonnet
We call a poke.

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The Members all assembled thus, a rare woman
At pork and poetry was chosen chairwoman ;—
In fact, the bluest of the Blues, Miss Ikey,
Whose whole pronunciation was so piggy,

She always named the authoress of 'Psyche '—
As Mrs. Tiggey!

And now arose a question of some moment,—
What author for a lecture was the richer,

Bacon or Hogg? there were no votes for Beaumont,
But some for Flitcher;

While others, with a more sagacious reasoning,

Proposed another work,

And thought their pork

Would prove more relishing from Thomson's Season-ing!

But, practised in Shakspearian readings daily,—

O! Miss Macaulay! Shakspeare at Hog's Norton !—
Miss Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley

Selected him that evening to snort on.

In short, to make our story not a big tale,
Just fancy her exerting

Her talents, and converting

The Winter's Tale to something like a pig-tale!
Her sister auditory,

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All sitting round, with grave and learned faces,
Were very plauditory,

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Of course, and clapped her at the proper places;
Till fanned at once by fortune and the Muse,
She thought herself the blessedest of Blues.
But Happiness, alas! has blights of ill,
And Pleasure's bubbles in the air explode ;-

There is no travelling through life but still
The heart will meet with breakers on the road!

With that peculiar voice

Heard only from Hog's Norton throats and noses,
Miss G., with Perdita, was making choice
Of buds and blossoms for her summer posies,
When coming to that line, where Proserpine
Lets fall her flowers from the wain of Dis;

Imagine this

Uprose on his hind legs old Farmer Grayley, Grunting this question for the club's digestion, 'Do Dis's Waggon go from the Ould Bäaley?

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