My luck in life was never good, But this my fate will burden: I ne’er shall like my farming more,-- I know I shan’t the Garden. The turnips all may have the fly, The wheat may have the smut on, I care not,--I’ve a blight at heart,-- Ah me!--a bachelor’s button! THE STAGE-STRUCK HERO. ‘It must be. So Plato?--Thou reasonest?--Well.” --_School Cato._ It’s very hard! oh, Dick, my boy, It’s very hard one can’t enjoy A little private spouting; But sure as Lear or Hamlet lives, Up comes our master, bounce! and gives The tragic muse a routing! Ay, there he comes again! be quick! And hide the book--a playbook, Dick, He must not set his eyes on! It’s very hard, the churlish elf Will never let one stab one’s self Or take a bowl of p’ison! It’s very hard, but when I want To die--as Cato did--I can’t, Or go _non compos mentis_-- But up he comes, all fire and flame;-- No doubt he’d do the very same With Kemble for a ‘prentice! Oh, Dick! Oh, Dick! it was not so Some half a dozen years ago! Melpomene was no sneaker, When, under Reverend Mister Poole, Each little boy at Enfield School Became an Enfield speaker! No cruel master-tailor’s cane Then thwarted the theatric vein; The tragic soil had tillage. O dear dramatic days gone by! You, Dick, were Richard then--and I Play’d Hamlet to the village, Or, as Macbeth, the dagger clutch’d, Till all the servant-maids were touch’d-- Macbeth, I think, my pet is; Lord, how we spouted Shakespeare’s works-- Dick, we had twenty little Burkes, And fifty Master Betties! Why, there was Julius Cæsar Dunn, And Norval, Sandy Philip,--one Of Elocution’s champions-- Genteelly taught by his mamma To say, not father, but papa, Kept sheep upon the Grampians! Coriolanus Crumpe--and Fig In Brutus, with brown-paper wig, And Huggins great in Cato; Only he broke so often off, To have a fit of whooping-cough, While reasoning with Plato. And Zangra too,--but I shall weep, If longer on this theme I keep, And let remembrance loose, Dick; Now forced to act--it’s very hard-- “Measure for Measure” with a yard-- You Richard, with a goose, Dick! Zounds! Dick, it’s very odd our dads Should send us there when we were lads To learn to talk like Tullies; And now, if one should just break out, Perchance, into a little spout, A stick about the skull is. Why should stage-learning form a part Of schooling for the tailor’s art? Alas! dramatic notes, Dick, So well record the sad mistake Of him who tried at once to make Both _Romeo_ and _Coates_, Dick! YE TOURISTS AND TRAVELLERS.