But waiving this, of which it was not my intention to speak, let me remark, that the reason why poetry will no longer go down with the public, as poetry, is, that the whole frame-work is worn out.  No new rhymes can be got at.  When we come to a “mountain,” we are tolerably sure that a “fountain” is not very far off; when we see “sadness,” it leads at once to “madness”—­to “borrow” is sure to be followed by “sorrow;” and although it is said, “when poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window,”—­a saying which seems to imply that poverty may sometimes enter at the chimney or elsewhere—­yet I assure you, in poetry, “the poor” always come in, and always go out at “the door.”

My new invention has closed the “door,” for the future, against the vulgar crew of versifiers.  A man must be original.  He must write common-sense too—­hard exactions I know, but it cannot be helped.

I transmit you a specimen.  Like all great discoveries, the chief merit of my invention is its simplicity.  Lest, however, “the meanest capacity” (which cannot, by the way, be supposed to be addicted to PUNCH) should boggle at it, it may be as well to explain that every letter of the final word of each alternate line must be pronounced as though Dilworth himself presided at the perusal; and that the last letter (or letters) placed in italics will be found to constitute the rhyme.  Here, then, we have

A RENCONTRE WITH A TEA-TOTALLER.

  On going forth last night, a friend to see,
  I met a man by trade a s-n-o-b;
  Reeling along the path he held his way. 
  “Ho! ho!” quoth I, “he’s d-r-u-n-k.” 
  Then thus to him—­“Were it not better, far,
  You were a little s-o-b-e-r? 
  ’Twere happier for your family, I guess,
  Than playing off such rum r-i-g-s. 
  Besides, all drunkards, when policemen see ’em,
  Are taken up at once by t-h-e-m.” 
  “Me drunk!” the cobbler cried, “the devil trouble you! 
  You want to kick up a blest r-o-w. 
  Now, may I never wish to work for Hoby,
  If drain I’ve had!” (the lying s-n-o-b!)
  “I’ve just return’d from a tee-total party,
  Twelve on us jamm’d in a spring c-a-r-t. 
  The man as lectured, now, was drunk; why, bless ye,
  He’s sent home in a c-h-a-i-s-e. 
  He’d taken so much lush into his belly,
  I’m blest if he could t-o-dd-l-e. 
  A pair on ’em—­hisself and his good lady;—­
  The gin had got into her h-e-a-d. 
  (My eye and Betty! what weak mortals we are;
  They said they took but ginger b-e-e-r!)
  But as for me, I’ve stuck (’twas rather ropy)
  All day to weak imperial p-o-p. 
  And now we’ve had this little bit o’sparrin’,
  Just stand a q-u-a-r-t-e-r-n!”

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