Oh! who would bear time’s whips and scorns, The pangs of disprized love; When he might his quietus make By one bare bodkin’s shove? Who would these fardels bear, unless That bourne he could foresee, From which no traveller returns!―― To be, or not to be!” Arrangements will be made for the characters to promenade in the daytime full dressed, upon the top of the Portico, to the Music of the Orchestra in Beef-eaters dresses. The pageant will be very splendid. ――――:o:―――― To be or not to be?――that is the question; Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer Vile strokes and scratches from outrageous Pens, Or to take up THATCHER’S, ’gainst a sea of others, And, using it, to end them? To write――with ease―― For ever! And with that ease to say we end The headache and the thousand natural shocks Which clerks are heir to――’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished! To write――with ease―― With ease! enhanced to speed! Aye, there’s the rub! As ’tis with ease of Pen our thoughts will flow, Now we have shuffled off that mortal toil We cease to pause! Here’s the good Pen That lessens the calamities of life; For who will suffer the whips and scorns of time, The writer’s wrongs, the schoolmaster’s contumely? The fangs of despised Pens, cause of delays A nuisance in an office, and the spurns Which patient merit of Pen unworthy takes, When he himself can his quietus make By using THATCHER’S? Who would Gillott’s bear, Or grunt and sweat over a Mitchell’s J, When but the act of trying THATCHER’S Pen, That well-discovered luxury, from which boon No traveller will turn, puzzles no will, And makes us cease to bear the ills we had―― To write with comfort, which we knew not of? As knowledge should make wise men of us all, Then let the native hue of resolution Stick fast no more, ’til this good Pen is sought; And enterprises of great pith and moment With this resolve their currents turn or glide The Pen, the spring, of action! SHAKESPEN. This trade Parody was written by Mr. T. THATCHER, of College Green, Bristol. ――――:o:―――― The following Parody appeared originally in _Punch_, February 9, 1884, and was afterwards reprinted, without the slightest acknowledgement, in a silly little pamphlet entitled “The Burlesque of Liberal Government,” published by Stoneham, of Cheapside, in 1884. It referred to Sir William Vernon Harcourt’s proposals to reform the abuses in the government of the Metropolis:―― IRRESOLUTION. SCENE――_The Home Office――Tables covered with huge heaps of official returns, from the Corporation, the Metropolitan Board of Works, and the Thirty-Eight Districts of the Metropolis._