FOR THE “TABLE BOOK”

(1827)

Laura, too partial to her friends’ enditing,
Requires from each a pattern of their writing.
A weightier trifle Laura might command;
For who to Laura would refuse his—­hand?

THE ROYAL WONDERS

(1830)

Two miracles at once!  Compell’d by fate,
His tarnish’d throne the Bourbon doth vacate;
While English William,—­a diviner thing,—­
Of his free pleasure hath put off the king.
The forms of distant old respect lets pass,
And melts his crown into the common mass. 
Health to fair France, and fine regeneration! 
But England’s is the nobler abdication.

“BREVIS ESSE LABORO”

“ONE DIP”

(1830)

Much speech obscures the sense; the soul of wit
Is brevity:  our tale one proof of it. 
Poor Balbulus, a stammering invalid,
Consults the doctors, and by them is bid
To try sea-bathing, with this special heed,
“One Dip was all his malady did need;
More than that one his certain death would be.” 
Now who so nervous or so shook as he,
For Balbulus had never dipped before? 
Two well-known dippers at the Broadstairs’ shore,
Stout, sturdy churls, have stript him to the skin,
And naked, cold, and shivering plunge him in. 
Soon he emerges, with scarce breath to say,
“I’m to be dip—­dip—­dipt—.”  “We know it,” they
Reply; expostulation seemed in vain,
And over ears they souse him in again,
And up again he rises, his words trip,
And falter as before.  Still “dip—­dip—­dip”—­
And in again he goes with furious plunge,
Once more to rise; when, with a desperate lunge,
At length he bolts these words out, “Only once!”
The villains crave his pardon.  Had the dunce
But aimed at these bare words the rogues had found him,
But striving to be prolix, they half drowned him.

SUUM CUIQUE

(1830)

Adsciscit sibi divitias et opes alienas
Fur, rapiens, spolians quod mihi, quodque tibi
Proprium erat, temnens haec verba, Meumque Tuumque;
Omne Suum est.  Tandem cuique suum tribuit. 
Dat laqueo collum:  vestes, vah! carnifici dat: 
Sese Diabolo; sic bene, Cuique Suum.

[ON THE LITERARY GAZETTE]

(1830)

In merry England I computed once The number of the dunces—­dunce for dunce; There were four hundred, if I don’t forget, All readers of the L------y G-----e; But if the author to himself keep true, In some short months they’ll be reduced to two.

ON THE FAST-DAY

To name a Day for general prayer and fast
Is surely worse than of no sort of use;
For you may see with grief, from first to last
On fast-days people of all ranks are loose.

NONSENSE VERSES