Chincapin.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Prussic acid.

“Fifty DOUSAND FENIANS armed mid repeaters for France!  Let ’em go!  BEESMARK will make DEM not coom Pack to repeat in DIS GOONDERY no more!”]

* * * * *

The poems of the Cradle.

Canto IV.

    Little Jack Horner
    Sat in a corner. 
      Eating a Christmas Pie: 
    He put in his thumb
    And pulled out a plum,
      And said, “What a brave boy am I.”

In Canto I, I have shown the varied emotions which seized the tender soul of Old Mother Hubbard’s Dog.  Emotions so fierce in their sorrow, that they left not a single wiggle in his tail:  his hopes were crushed, his expectations ruined.  In Canto II I have pictured the musical propensities of the genus Cat, the wandering vagaries of the moon-dane cow, the purp’s withering contempt thereat, and the frisky evolutions of the dish which rolled off on its ear.  In Canto III I have portrayed the “tender passion” and its melancholy result on the hill-side—­a fitting illustration of the fact that the course of true love never did run smooth, especially if there were big rocks to knock one’s toes against.  And now, in Canto IV, I am about to portray childish innocence in the pursuit of bliss.

All things are graded, with the trifling exception of many of our streets.  But who cares about this grade of bliss?  I don’t, and I am sure the poet didn’t when he sang the lines at the head of this chapter.  Bliss is graded.  The old man in Wall street, with white hair and white necktie, and smooth polished tongue, has his degree of bliss when he is engaged in throwing stones at the Apes in the tree-top, that they may return the throw with gold cocoa-nuts.  The young lady has her degree of bliss when her waist is entwined by “Dear CHAWLES,” who soothes her troubled spirit with the tender melody of “Red as a beet is she,”—­alluding to her would-be rival.  The nice young man has his degree of bliss when he chews a tooth-pick—­poor goose! (not the nice young man, but the fowl which gave the quill,)—­and is given a smile by a dark-eyed female in a passing stage.

And Infantdom has—­But our poet beautifully illustrates this in the stanzas we have quoted.

    “Little JACK HORNER,”

says he, with the easy grace of one perfectly familiar with the subject he is to treat; neither frightened at its immensity, nor putting himself in the way of a dilemma by stopping to examine details.  Little JACK was the poet’s pet because he was the afflicted one of the household, and poets know full well how to sympathize with affliction.  Perhaps JACK sat down to dinner next to cross-eyed SUSAN ANN, “by Brother BILL’S gal,” and perhaps JACK’S nose was tickled by a little blue-bottle, and that he sneezed right into her soup-plate; and then he was hurried from the table for blowing a fly into SUSAN ANN’S soup!  He would lose his dinner.  His napkin would miss its accustomed wash!