To my mother for protection I ran, quaking every limb: --She exclaimed, with fond affection, "Gracious Goodness! look at _him_!"-- Pa cried, when he saw my garment, --'Twas a newly-purchased dress-- "Oh! you nasty little _Warment_, How came you in such a mess?" Then he caught me by the collar, --Cruel only to be kind-- And to my exceeding dolour, Gave me--several slaps behind. Grandmama, while yet I smarted, As she saw my evil plight, Said--'twas rather stony-hearted-- "Little rascal! _sarve_ him right!" I remember, I remember, From that sad and solemn day, Never more in dark December Did I venture out to play. And the moral, which they taught, I Well remember; thus they said-- "Little Boys, when they are naughty, Must be whipped and sent to bed!" [Illustration] * * * * * Poor Uncle John! "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well," in the old family vault in Denton chancel--and dear Aunt Fanny too!--the latter also "loo'd me weel," as the Scotch song has it,--and since, at this moment, I am in a most soft and sentimental humour--(--whisky toddy should ever be made by pouring the _boiling_ fluid--_hotter_ if possible--upon the thinnest lemon-peel,--and then--but everybody knows "what _then_--") I dedicate the following "True History" to my beloved AUNT FANNY. A LEGEND OF A SHIRT. Virginibus, Puerisque canto.--HOR. Old Maids, and Bachelors I chaunt to!--T. I. I sing of a Shirt that _never was_ new! In the course of the year Eighteen hundred and two, Aunt Fanny began, Upon Grandmama's plan, To make one for me, then her "dear little man."-- --At the epoch I speak about, I was between A man and a boy, A hobble-de-hoy, A fat, little, punchy concern of sixteen,-- Just beginning to flirt, And ogle,--so pert, I'd been whipt every day had I had my desert, --And Aunt Fan volunteer'd to make me a shirt!