than all their club compeers. 
  Some were sub-editors, others reporters,
  And more illuminati, joke-importers. 
      The club was heterogen’ous
      By strangers seen as
  A refuge for destitute bons mots—­
  Depot for leaden jokes and pewter pots;
  Repertory for gin and jeux d’esprit,
  Literary pound for vagrant rapartee;
  Second-hand shop for left-off witticisms;
  Gall’ry for Tomkins and Pitt-icisms;[3]
  Foundling hospital for every bastard pun;
  In short, a manufactory for all sorts of fun!
  * * * *
  Arouse my muse! such pleasing themes to quit,
      Hear me while I say
      “Donnez-moi du frenzy, s’il vous plait!"[4]
  Give me a most tremendous fit
  Of indignation, a wild volcanic ebullition,
      Or deep anathema,
      Fatal as J—­d’s bah! 
  To hurl excisemen downward to perdition. 
  May genial gin no more delight their throttles—­
  Their casks grow leaky, bottomless their bottles;
  May smugglers run, and they ne’er make a seizure;
  May they—­I’ll curse them further at my leisure. 
      But for our club,
      “Ay, there’s the rub.” 
  “We mourn it dead in its father’s halls:"[5]—­
  The sporting prints are cut down from the walls;
      No stuffing there,
      Not even in a chair;
  The spirits are all ex(or)_cised_,
  The coffee-cups capsized,
  The coffee fine-d, the snuff all taken,
  The mild Havannahs are by lights forsaken: 
  The utter ruin of the club’s achieven—­
  Our very chess-boards are ex-chequered even. 
  “Where is our club?” X—­sighs,[6] and with a stare
  Like to another echo, answers “Where?”

    [1] “Ye jocal nine,” a happy modification of “Ye vocal nine.” 
        The nine here so classically invocated are manifestly nine
        of the members of the late club, consisting of, 1.  Mr. D—­s
        J—­d. 2.  The subject of the engraving, treasurer and
        store-keeper. 3.  Mr. G—­e S—­h, sub-ed.  J——­ B——. 4.  Mr.
        B—­d, Mem.  Dram.  Author’s Society. 5.  C—­s S—­y, ditto. 6. 
        Mr. C—­e. 7.  Mr. C—­s, T—­s, late of the firm of T—­s and
        P—­t. 8.  Mr. J—­e A—­n, Mem.  Soc.  British Artists. 9, and
        lastly, “though not least,” the author of “You loved me not
        in happier days.”

    [2] “He said.”—­Deeply imbued with the style of the most polished
        of the classics, our author will be found to exhibit in some
        passages an imitation of it which might be considered
        pedantic, for ourselves, we admire the severe style.  The
        literal rendering of the ‘dixit’ of the ancient epicists,
        strikes us as being eitremely forcible here.—­PUNCH.

    [3] A play-bill reminiscence, viz.  “The scenery by Messrs. Tomkins
        and Pitt.”—­THE AUTHORS OF “BUT, HOWEVER.”