“The heavenly bodies!” echoed John, “Ahem!” His mind still full of famishing alarms, “‘Zooks, if your Honour sups with _them_, In helping, somebody must make long arms!” He thought his master’s stomach was in danger, But still in the same tone replied the Knight, “Go down, John, go, I have no appetite, Say I’m engaged with a celestial stranger.”-- Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs, “Wouldn’t the stranger take a bit down stairs?” “No,” said the master, smiling and no wonder, At such a blunder, “The stranger is not quite the thing you think, He wants no meat or drink, And one may doubt quite reasonably whether He has a mouth, Seeing his head and tail are join’d together, Behold him,--there he is, John, in the South.” John look’d up with his portentous eyes, Each rolling like a marble in its socket. At last the fiery tad-pole spies, And, full of Vauxhall reminiscences, cries, “A rare good rocket!” “A what! A rocket, John! Far from it! What you behold, John, is a comet, One of those most eccentric things That in all ages Have puzzled sages And frighten’d kings; With fear of change that flaming meteor, John, Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range”-- “Do he?” cried John; “Well, let him flare on, _I_ haven’t got no sovereigns to change!” MORE HULLAH-BALOO. “Loud as from numbers without number.”--MILTON. “You may do it extempore, for it’s nothing but roaring.”--QUINCE. Amongst the great inventions of this age, Which every other century surpasses, Is one,--just now the rage,-- Called “Singing for all Classes -- That is, for all the British millions, And billions, And quadrillions, Not to name _Quintilians_, That now, alas! have no more ear than asses, To learn to warble like the birds in June, In time and tune, Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses! In fact, a sort of plan, Including gentleman as well as yokel, Public or private man, To call out a Militia,--only Vocal Instead of Local, And not designed for military follies, But keeping still within the civil border, To form with mouths in open order, And sing in volleys. Whether this grand harmonic scheme Will ever get beyond a dream, And tend to British happiness and glory, Maybe no, and maybe yes, Is more than I pretend to guess-- However, here’s my story.