DAME. Tubby or not tubby――there’s the rub, Whether I shall get anything to scrub, Or, overcome by all my numerous troubles, Dive headlong down into that sea of bubbles; As to my bus’ness it is something shockin’, Of stockings I’ve got but that small _stock in_. People won’t send their things, complaining (bosh) That, like King John, they’d lost them in the _Wash_. I used to do for schools, and so it follers I used to have a lot of _scholars’ collars_; Now I have none, no collars smooth, nor ruffs, I’ve got to make the best of fortune’s cuffs. To emigrate the best thing now would be―― Yes! _Washington_ would be the place for me. From “_Poll and Partner Joe_”; a Nautical Burlesque by F. C. Burnand. First produced at St. James’s Theatre, May 6th, 1871. ――――:o:―――― THE BACHELOR’S SOLILOQUY. To wed, or not to wed? That is the question Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The pangs and arrows of outrageous love Or to take arms against the powerful flame And by opposing quench it. To wed――to marry―― And by a marriage say we end The heartache and the thousand painful shocks Love makes us heir to――’tis a consummation. Devoutly to be wished! to wed――to marry Perchance a scold! aye, there’s the rub For in that wedded life what ills may come When we have shuffled off our single state Must give us serious pause. There’s the respect That makes us Bachelors a numerous race. For who would bear the dull unsocial hours Spent by unmarried men, cheered by no smile To sit like hermit at a lonely board In silence? Who would bear the cruel gibes With which the Bachelor is daily teased When he himself might end such heart-felt griefs By wedding some fair maid? O who would live Yawning and staring sadly in the fire Till celibacy becomes a weary life But that the dread of something after wedlock (That undiscovered state from whose strong chains No captive can get free) puzzles the will And makes us rather choose those ills we have Than fly to others which a wife may bring. Thus caution doth make Bachelors of us all And thus our natural taste for matrimony Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought And love adventures of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of Wedlock. [Copied from an Album――Author unknown.] ――――:o:―――― CREMATION. (_By a Burning admirer of Sir Henry Thompson._)