You kick little Tomkins about, Because he is slighter and slimmer; Are the weak to be thump’d by the stout? But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer. Then you have a sly pilfering trick, Your school-fellows call you the nimmer,-- I will cut to the bone if you kick! For I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer. To-day you made game at my back: You think that my eyes are grown dimmer, But I watch’d you, I’ve got a sly nack! And I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer. Don’t think that my temper is hot, It’s never beyond a slow simmer; I’ll teach you to call me Dame Trot But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer. Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Chapone, Might melt to behold your tears glimmer; Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone, But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer. AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY. “ARCHER. How many are there, _Scrub_? SCRUB. Five-and-forty, sir.”--_Beaux Stratagem._ “For shame--let the linen alone!”--_Merry Wives of Windsor._ Mr. Scrub--Mr. Slop--or whoever you be! The Cock of Steam Laundries,--the head Patentee Of Associate Cleansers,--Chief founder and prime [Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT--MRS. TRIMMER.] [Illustration: PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT.] Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime-- Co-partners and dealers, in linen’s propriety-- That make washing public--and wash in society-- O lend me your ear! if that ear can forego For a moment the music that bubbles below,-- From your new Surrey Geysers[11] all foaming and hot,-- That soft “_simmer’s_ sang” so endear’d to the Scot-- If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger-- If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger, Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub,-- O wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub,-- And lend me your ear,--Let me modestly plead For a race that your labours may soon supersede-- For a race that, now washing no living affords-- Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards, Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease, Not with bread in the funds--or investments of cheese, But to droop like sad willows that lived by a stream, Which the sun has suck’d up into vapour and steam. All, look at the laundress, before you begrudge Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge-- When chanticleer singeth his earliest matins, She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens, And beginneth her toil while the morn is still grey, As if she was washing the night into day-- Not with sleeker or rosier fingers Aurora Beginneth to scatter the dewdrops before her; Not Venus that rose from the billow so early, Look’d down on the foam with a forehead more _pearly_[12]-- Her head is involved in an aërial mist, And a bright-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist;