His scanty hair he wildly tore: “That’s right,” said I, “it shows your breed.” He danced—he stamped—he wildly swore— “Bless me, that’s very fine indeed!” “Sir,” said the grand Shakesperian boy (Continuing to blaze away), “You think my face a source of joy; That shows you know not what you say. “Forgive these yells and cellar-flaps: I’m always thrown in some such state When on his face well-meaning chaps This wretched man congratulate. “For, oh! this face—this pointed chin— This nose—this brow—these eyeballs too, Have always been the origin Of all the woes I ever knew! “If to the play my way I find, To see a grand Shakesperian piece, I have no rest, no ease of mind Until the author’s puppets cease. “Men nudge each other—thus—and say, ‘This certainly is SHAKESPEARE’S son,’ And merry wags (of course in play) Cry ‘Author!’ when the piece is done. “In church the people stare at me, Their soul the sermon never binds; I catch them looking round to see, And thoughts of SHAKESPEARE fill their minds. “And sculptors, fraught with cunning wile, Who find it difficult to crown A bust with BROWN’S insipid smile, Or TOMKINS’S unmannered frown, “Yet boldly make my face their own, When (oh, presumption!) they require To animate a paving-stone With SHAKESPEARE’S intellectual fire. “At parties where young ladies gaze, And I attempt to speak my joy, ‘Hush, pray,’ some lovely creature says, ‘The fond illusion don’t destroy!’ “Whene’er I speak, my soul is wrung With these or some such whisperings: ‘’Tis pity that a SHAKESPEARE’S tongue Should say such un-Shakesperian things!’ “I should not thus be criticised Had I a face of common wont: Don’t envy me—now, be advised!” And, now I think of it, I don’t! GREGORY PARABLE, LL.D. A LEAFY cot, where no dry rot Had ever been by tenant seen, Where ivy clung and wopses stung, Where beeses hummed and drummed and strummed, Where treeses grew and breezes blew— A thatchy roof, quite waterproof, Where countless herds of dicky-birds Built twiggy beds to lay their heads (My mother begs I’ll make it “eggs,” But though it’s true that dickies do Construct a nest with chirpy noise, With view to rest their eggy joys, ’Neath eavy sheds, yet eggs and beds, As I explain to her in vain Five hundred times, are faulty rhymes). ’Neath such a cot, built on a plot Of freehold land, dwelt MARY and Her worthy father, named by me GREGORY PARABLE, LL.D. He knew no guile, this simple man, No worldly wile, or plot, or plan, Except that plot of freehold land That held the cot, and MARY, and Her worthy father, named by me GREGORY PARABLE, LL.D.