Oh, worthy of the house! the King’s commission! Isn’t thy condition “a most bless’d condition?” Thou reignest over Winston, Kean, and all The very lofty and the very small-- Showest the plumbless Bunn the way to kick-- Keepest a Williams for thy veriest stick-- Seest a Vestris in her sweetest moments, Without the danger of newspaper comments-- Tellest Macready, as none dared before, Thine open mind from the half-open door!-- (Alas! I fear he has left Melpomene’s crown, To be a Boniface in Buxton town!)-- Thou holdst the watch, as half-price people know, And callest to them, to a moment,--“Go!” Teachest the sapient Sapio how to sing-- Hangest a cat most oddly by the wing--” Hast known the length of a Cubitt-foot--and kiss’d The pearly whiteness of a Stephen’s wrist-- Kissing and pitying--tender and humane! “By heaven she loves me! Oh, it is too plain!” A sigh like this thy trembling passion slips, Dimpling the warm Madeira at thy lips! Go on, Lessee! Go on, and prosper well! Fear not, though forty glass-blowers should rebel-- Show them how thou hast long befriended them, And teach Dubois _their_ treason to condemn! Go on! addressing pits in prose--and worse! Be long, be slow, be anything but terse-- Kiss to the gallery the hand that’s gloved-- Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Beloved, Go on--and but in this reverse the thing, Walk backward with wax lights before the King-- Go on! Spring ever in thine eye! Go on! Hope’s favourite child! ethereal Elliston! SHOOTING PAINS. “The charge is prepared.”--MACHEATH. If I shoot any more I’ll be shot, For ill-luck seems determined to star me, I have march’d the whole day With a gun--for no pay-- Zounds, I’d better have been in the army! What matters Sir Christopher’s leave? To his manor I’m sorry I came yet! With confidence fraught, My two pointers I brought, But we are not a point towards game yet! And that gamekeeper too, with advice! Of my course he has been a nice chalker, Not far, were his words, I could go without birds: If my legs could cry out, they’d cry “Walker!” Not Hawker could find out a flaw,-- My appointments are modern and Mantony, And I’ve brought my own man, To mark down all he can, But I can’t find a mark for my Antony! The partridges,--where can they lie? I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas, As the least I could do; But without even two To brace me,--I’m getting quite nervous! To the pheasants--how well they’re preserved! My sport’s not a jot more beholden, As the birds are so shy, For my friends I must buy;-- And so send “silver pheasants and golden.”