Currants have checked the current of my blood, And berries brought me to be buried here; Pears have pared off my body’s hardihood, And plums and plumbers spare not one so spare: Fain would I feign my fall; so fair a fare Lessens not fate, but ’tis a lesson good: Gilt will not long hide guilt; such thin-washed ware Wears quickly, and its rude touch soon is rued. Grave on my grave some sentence grave and terse, That lies not, as it lies upon my clay; But, in a gentle strain of unstrained verse, Prays all to pity a poor patty’s prey; Rehearses I was fruit-full to my hearse, Tells that my days are told, and soon I’m toll’d away! Previous to the battle of Culloden, when Marshal Wade and Generals Cope and Hawley were prevented by the severity of the weather from advancing as far into Scotland as they intended, the following lines were circulated among their opposers:— Cope could not cope, nor Wade wade through the snow, Nor Hawley haul his cannon to the foe. When Mrs. Norton was called on to subscribe to a fund for the relief of Thomas Hood’s widow, which had been headed by Sir Robert Peel, she sent a liberal donation with these lines:— To cheer the widow’s heart in her distress, To make provision for the fatherless, Is but a Christian’s duty, and none should Resist the heart-appeal of _widow-Hood_. M. Mario’s visit to this country recalls to mind the sharpest witticism of Madame Grisi, at the time his wife, and one of the best bits of repartee on record. Louis Phillippe, passing through a room where Grisi stood, holding two of her young children by the hand, said gaily: “Ah! Madame, are those, then, some of your little _Grisettes_?” “No, Sire,” was the quick reply, perfect in every requirement of the pun, “No, Sire, these are my little _Marionettes_.” A learned judge, of facetious memory, is reported to have said, in an argument in arrest of the judgment of death, “I think we had better let the subject drop.” SWIFT’S LATIN PUNS. Among the _nugæ_ of Dean Swift are his celebrated Latin puns, some of which are well known, having been frequently copied, and having never been excelled. The following selections will serve as specimens. They consist entirely of Latin words; but, by allowing for false spelling, and running the words into each other, the sentences make good sense in English:— Mollis abuti, (Moll is a beauty, Has an acuti, Has an acute eye, No lasso finis, No lass so fine is, Molli divinis. Molly divine is. Omi de armis tres, O my dear mistress, Imi na dis tres, I’m in a distress, Cantu disco ver Can’t you discover Meas alo ver? Me as a lover?)