She was deaf as any tradesman’s dummy,
Or as Pharaoh’s mother’s mother’s mummy;
Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics,
Were plugg’d with gums and antiseptics.

She was deaf as a nail—­that you cannot hammer
A meaning into for all your clamor—­
There never was such a deaf old Gammer! 
    So formed to worry
    Both Lindley and Murray,
By having no ear for Music or Grammar!

Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of soundings,
Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings,
Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle,
Deaf to even the definite article—­
No verbal message was worth a pin,
Though you hired an earwig to carry it in!

In short, she was twice as deaf as Deaf Burke,
Or all the Deafness in Yearsley’s work,
Who in spite of his skill in hardness of hearing,
  Boring, blasting, and pioneering,
  To give the dunny organ a clearing,
Could never have cured Dame Eleanor Spearing.

Of course the loss was a great privation,
For one of her sex—­whatever her station—­
And none the less that the Dame had a turn
For making all families one concern,
And learning whatever there was to learn
In the prattling, tattling village of Tringham—­
As who wore silk? and who wore gingham? 
And what the Atkins’s shop might bring ’em? 
How the Smiths contrived to live? and whether
The fourteen Murphys all pigg’d together? 
The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners,
And what they boil’d for their Sunday dinners? 
What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf,
Crockery, china, wooden, or delf? 
And if the parlor of Mrs. O’Grady
Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady?

Did Snip and his wife continue to jangle? 
Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle? 
What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown? 
And the weekly score they ran up at the Crown? 
If the Cobbler could read, and believed in the Pope? 
And how the Grubbs were off for soap? 
If the Snobbs had furnish’d their room upstairs,
And how they managed for tables and chairs,
Beds, and other household affairs,
Iron, wooden, and Staffordshire wares? 
  And if they could muster a whole pair of bellows? 
In fact, she had much of the spirit that lies
Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys,
  By courtesy called Statistical Fellows—­
A prying, spying, inquisitive clan,
Who have gone upon much of the self-same plan,
  Jotting the Laboring Class’s riches;
And after poking in pot and pan,
  And routing garments in want of stitches,
Have ascertained that a working man
  Wears a pair and a quarter of average breeches!