Now, you’re my pupil! On the good ancient plan I shall do what I can For _your_ hundred guineas to give _my_ law’s blue pill (Let high jurisprudence which thinks me and you dense, Set posse of cooks to stir new Roman soup ill): First volume of Smith shall give you the pith Of leading decision that shows the division Of action _on case_ from plain action of _trespass_ Where to count in assault law benignantly says “Pass.” Facts o’ case first. At Milborne Port Was fair-day, October the twenty and eight, And folk in the market like fowls in a crate; Shepherd, one of your town-fool sort, (From Solomon’s time they call it sport, Right to help holiday, just make fun louder), Lights me a squib up of paper and powder, (Find if you can the law-Latin for ’t) And chucks it, to give their trading a rouse, Full i’ the midst o’ the market-house. It happ’d to fall on a stall where Yates Sold gingerbread and gilded cates (Small damage if _they_ should burn or fly all); To save himself and said gingerbread loss One Willis doth toss the thing across To stall of one Ryall, who straight an espial Of danger to _his_ wares, of selfsame worth, Casts it in market-house farther forth. And by two mesne tossings thus it got To burst i’ the face of plaintiff Scott. And now ’gainst Shepherd, for loss of eye, The question is, whether _trespass_ shall lie. * * * * * Well――liquor’s out, why look more at old bottle? Gulp down with gusto, you that are young, These new Rules’ ferment, tastes ill in my throttle Since Justice, _in nubibus_ no more on high sitter Descends to speak laymen’s vulgar tongue. So be it! _Explicit-parum feliciter._ It is usually considered that _The Cock and the Bull_, by the late C. S. Calverley, is the best parody extant of Robert Browning’s “The Ring and the Book,” the following are the opening lines:―― “THE COCK AND THE BULL.” You see this pebble stone? It’s a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i’ the mid o’ the day. I like to dock the smaller parts o’ speech, As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur (You catch the paronomasia-play ’po’ words?) Did, rather, i’ the pre-Landseerian days. Well, to my muttons! I purchased the concern, And clapt it i’ my poke, having given for same By way o’ chop, swop, barter or exchange―― “Chop” was my snickering dandiprat’s own term―― One shilling and fourpence, current coin o’ the realm. O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four Pence, one and fourpence――you are with me, sir? What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o’ the clock, One day (and what a roaring day it was Go shop or sightsee――bard spit o’ rain!) In February, eighteen sixty-nine, Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei. Hm――hm――how runs the jargon? being on the throne.