“Farewell to the freaks of the jovial
spark,
Who rejoiced in a gentle riot,—
To the midnight spree, and the morning
lark,
There’ll never more be any fun after
dark,
And people will sleep in quiet.
“No more shall a Tom or a Jerry
now
Engaging in fisty battle,
Break many heads and the peace;—for
how,
I should like to know, can there be a
row,
When there is ne’er
a rattle?
“One cry no more on the ear shall
grate,
Convivial friends alarming,
Who straightway start and separate,
Blessing themselves that it is so late;—
To break up a party is charming!
“But our ruthless foe wilt be punish’d
anon;—
Bundled out without
pity or parley,
His office and occupation gone,
Lost, disgraced, despised, undone,
Oh! then he’ll remember
the Charley.”
Just then I beheld a Jarvey near,
Which on the spot presenting,
I scrambled in like one in fear
With a ghost at his heels, or a flea in
his ear,
And he was left lamenting!
Blackwood’s Magazine.
* * * * *
GOOD AND BAD STYLES OF LIVING.
Good style of living consists in having a mansion exquisitely fitted up with all the expensive bijouterie compatible with true elegance, yet avoiding the lavish superabundance of gimcrackery which borders on vulgarity; comely serving men in suitable liveries, all so well initiated into the mysteries of their respective duties, that a guest could imagine himself in a fairy palace, where plates vanish without the contamination of a mortal finger and thumb, and glasses move without a jingle: then the feast is exquisitely cooked and exquisitely served; the table groans not, the hostess carves not; but one delicious dainty is followed by another, and each remove brings forth a dish more piquante than the last: every thing is delightful, but there must appear to be an abundance of nothing; two spoonsful alone of each delicious viand should repose under its silver cover; and he who dared ask to be helped a second time to any thing, ought to be sentenced to eternal transportation from the regions of haut ton.
Bad style of living—Shocking even to describe! A large house in streets or squares unknown; hot, ugly men servants, stumbling over one another in their uncouth eagerness to admit you; your name mispronounced, and shouted at the drawing-room door; your host and hostess in a fuss, apologizing, asking questions, and boring you to death; dinner at length announced, but no chance of extrication from the dull drawing-room, because the etiquette of precedence is not rightly understood, and nobody knows who ought to be led out first; all the way down stairs a dead silence, and then the difficulty of distributing the company almost equals the previous dilemma of the drawing-room: