Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,359 pages of information about Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,359 pages of information about Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete.

  “How Nancy Sniggles was the village pride,—­
    How Will, her sweetheart, went to be a sailor;
  How much at parting Nancy Sniggles cried,—­
    And how she snubb’d her funny friend the tailor;
  How William boldly fought and bravely died;
    How Nancy Sniggles felt her senses fail her—­”
  Then comes a sad denouement—­now-a-days
  It is not virtue dominant that pays.

  Such tales, in this, the post-octavo age,
    Our novelists incontinently tells us—­
  Tales, wherein lovely heroines engage
    With highwaymen, good-looking rogues but callous,
  Who go on swimmingly till the last page,
    And then take poison to escape the gallows—­
  Tales, whose original refinement teaches
  The pride of eloquence in—­dying speeches!

  What an apotheosis have we here! 
    What equal laws th’ awards of fame dispose! 
  Capture a fort—­assassinate a peer—­
    Alike be chronicled in startling prose—­
  Alike be dramatised—­(how near
    Is clever crime to virtue!)—­at Tussaud’s
  Be grouped with all the criminals at large,
  From burglar Sheppard unto fiend Laffarge!

  The women are best judges after all! 
    And Sheridan was right, and Plagi-ary;
  To their decision all things mundane fall,
    From court to counting-house; from square to dairy;
  From caps to chemistry; from tract to shawl,
    And then these female verdicts never vary! 
  In fact, on lap-dogs, lovers, buhl, and boddices,
  There are no critics like these mortal goddesses!

  To please such readers, authors make it answer
    To trace a pedigree to the creation
  Of some old Saxon peer; a monstrous grandsire,
    Whose battles tell, in print, to admiration—­
  But I, unfortunate, have never once a
    Mysterious hint of any great relation;
  I know whether Shem or Japhet—­right sir—­
  Was my progenitor—­nor care a kreutzer.

  For, though there’s matter for regret in losing
    An opportune occasion to record
  The feats in gambling, duelling, seducing—­
    Conventional acquirements of a lord—­
  Still I have stories startling and amusing,
    Which I can tell and vouch, upon my word. 
  To anybody who desires to hear ’em—­
  But don’t be nervous, pray,—­you needn’t fear ’em.

  But what of my poor Hy-son all this while? 
    She saved the gardener by a timely kiss. 
  Few husbands are there proof against a smile,
    And Te-pott’s rage endured no more than this. 
  Ah, reader! gentle, moral, free from guile,
    Think you she did so very much amiss? 
  She was not love-sick for the fellow quite—­
  She merely thought of him—­from morn till night!

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Project Gutenberg
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.