*

CON. BY SIBTHORP AND STULTZ.

Why are batteries and soldiers like the hands and feet of
tailors?--Because the former make breaches (_breeches_), and the latter
pass through them.

* * * * *

THE ROMANCE OF A TEACUP.

SIP THE THIRD. GOS-SIP.

That hour devoted to thy vesper "service"--
Dulcet exhilaration! glorious tea!--
I deem my happiest. Howsoe'er I swerve, as
To mind or morals, elsewhere, over thee
I am a perfect creature, quite impervious
To care, or tribulation, or _ennui_--
In fact, I do agnize to thee an utter
Devotion even to the bread and butter.

The homely kettle hissing on the bar--
(Urns I detest, irrelevant pomposities)--
The world beyond the window-blinds, as far
As I can thrust it--this defines what "cosset" is--
What woe that rhyme such scene of bliss must mar!
But rhyme, alas! is one of my atrocities;
In common with those bards who have the scratch
Of writing, and are all right with Catnach.

"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 cr