t--rattling rubbish!
Once let the sect, triumphant to their text,
Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday,
And sure as fate they will deny us next
To see the Dandelions on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

A BLACK JOB.

"No doubt the pleasure is as great,
Of being cheated as to cheat."--HUDIBRAS.

The history of human-kind to trace,
Since Eve--the first of dupes--our doom unriddled,
A certain portion of the human race
Has certainly a taste for being diddled.

Witness the famous Mississippi dreams!
A rage that time seems only to redouble--
The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes,
For rolling in Pactolian streams,
That cost our modern rogues so little trouble.
No matter what,--to pasture cows on stubble,
To twist sea-sand into a solid rope,
To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble,
Or light with gas the whole celestial cope--
Only propose to blow a bubble,
And Lord! what hundreds will subscribe for soap!

Soap!--it reminds me of a little tale,
Tho' not a pig's, the hawbuck's glory,
When rustic games and merriment prevail--
But here's my story:
Once on a time--no matter when--
A knot of very charitable men
Set up a Philanthropical Society,
Professing on a certain plan,
To benefit the race of man,
And in particular that dark variety,
Which some suppose inferior--as in vermin
The sable is to ermine,
As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster,
As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow,
As blacking, or as ink, to "milk below,"
Or yet a better simile to show,
As ragman's dolls to images in plaster!

However, as is usual in our city,
They had a sort of managing Committee,
A board of grave responsible Directors--
A Secretary, good at pen and ink--
A Treasurer, of course, to keep the chink,
And quite an army of Collectors!
Not merely male, but female duns,
Young, old, and middle-aged--of all degrees--
With many of those persevering ones,
Who mite by mite would beg a cheese!
And what might be their aim?
To rescue Afric's sable sons from fetters--
To save their bodies from the burning shame
Of branding with hot letters--
Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes,
Their necks from iron yokes?
To end or mitigate the ills of slavery,
The Planter's avarice, the Driver's knavery?
To school the heathen Negroes and enlighten 'em,
To polish up and brighten 'em,
And make them worth