When open-handed Justice wields the scale That rights the just, and bids offenders quail. But to our Sheriff; we have strangely bent A wandering course in search of sentiment. Back to the "Star;" we want no Advertiser, My lords being gone, he'll prove no early riser. Hah! here we have him, slumbering sweetly still, We must not wake him, lest he take it ill; And when his dander's up, let them stand by-- Who'd singe a lion! I've no wish to try. Steady a moment, just pull up the blind, The sun breaks out, right on him, very kind; May be 'twill wake him; ah, one other ray Will do the trick; but, I say, look this way, This jug, with water fill'd, so cold, so big, I wish we dared to give him a cold pig.[2] But sheriffs stand not gammon, in a crack I'd have his rapier walking[3] through my back; Good! he awakes, without our intervention, (This, though no consequence, I wish to mention,) And having rubb'd his eyes, and clear'd his throat, Apostrophizes thus his Sheriff's coat:-- "O thou bless'd emblem of my shrievalty, Perpetual witness of my dignity; In which I've braved the concentrated gaze Of wondering myriads, for the last few days; How can I thanks sufficiently express For thy assistance, for I here confess How much I owe[4] thee, when I lay thee by; Thou at Cane End in lavender shalt lie, Snug in a chest, secure from curious eye, Save mine; and I whene'er the lid I raise, Will laud thy virtues, and renew thy praise. Now, on my pony, straightway I'll depart, Lighter in pocket, lighter far in heart, Back to Cane End; I fear my anxious mother In rapturous joy her boy will almost smother; But this I'll risk, and should the Fates prove kind, Should they restore my long lost peace of mind, In slumbers light I'll close my wearied eyes, And doze in quiet till the next Assize." [1] The name of Weippert recalls the memory of many happy balls in Upper Harley Street, where Weippert always conducted in person. The memory of the host lives in the author's mind. The hostess still lives, and long may she live. (September 16, 1868.) The author is happy to say that Assize Balls are now "gone out;" when he wrote this opusculum they did exist. (September 16, 1868.) [2] Should any fair reader be at a loss for the meaning of this expression, ask any school-boy brother, if you have one, for a practical illustration thereof, and mark the result. [3] The author remembers that "being pretty considerably walked into at Collections," was a favourite phrase with undergraduates. Hence he thus ventures to describe the undesirable transit of the sheriff's toasting fork through his body. [4] From this sentiment of the Sheriff he seems to differ from William of Wykeham, who, if the plates at New College high table are to be relied upon, held that "manners makyth man." The Sheriff, on the contrary, would seem to hold that "the coat makes the sheriff."