as for forcing "proper frames of mind,"
Minds are not _framed_, like melons, for such _forcing_!

Remember, as a Scottish legislator,
The Scotch Kirk always has a Moderator;
Meaning one need not ever be sojourning
In a long Sermon Lane without a turning.
Such grave old maids as Portia and Zenobia
May like discourses with a skein of threads,
And love a lecture for its many heads,
But as for me, I have the Hydra-phobia.

Religion one should never overdo:
Right know I am no minister you be,
For you would say your service, sir, to me,
Till I should say, "My service, sir, to you."
Six days made all that is, you know, and then
Came that of rest--by holy ordination,
As if to hint unto the sons of men,
After creation should come re-creation.
Read right this text, and do not further search
To make a Sunday Workhouse of the Church.

THE LOST HEIR.

"Oh where, and oh where
Is my bonny laddie gone?"
_Old Song_.

One day, as I was going by
That part of Holborn christened High,
I heard a loud and sodden cry,
That chill'd my very blood;
And lo! from out a dirty alley,
Where pigs and Irish wont to rally,
I saw a crazy woman sally,
Bedaub'd with grease and mud.
She turn'd her East, she turn'd her West,
Staring like Pythoness possest,
With streaming hair and heaving breast,
As one stark mad with grief.
This way and that she wildly ran,
Jostling with woman and with man--
Her right hand held a frying pan,
The left a lump of beef.
At last her frenzy seemed to reach
A point just capable of speech,
And with a tone almost a screech,
As wild as ocean bird's,
Or female Banter mov'd to preach,
She gave her "sorrow-words."

"O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall
go stick stark staring wild!
Has ever a one seen anything about the streets
like a crying lost-looking child?
Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to
run, if I only knew which way--
A Child as is lost about London Streets, and especially
Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay.
I am all in a quiver--get out of my sight, do, you
wretch, you little Kitty M'Nab!
You promised to have half an eye to him, you
know you did, you dirty deceitful young drab.
The last time as ever I see him, poor thing;
was with my own blessed Motherly eyes,
Sitting as good as gold in the gutter,
a-playing at making little dirt pies.
I wonder he left the court where he was better off
than all the other young boys,
With two bric