Then with a touchbox of transalpine tar, Turning thrice round, and stirring not a jot, He threw five tons of red hot purple Snow, Into a Pigmy’s mouth, nine inches square. Which straight, with melancholy mov’d, Old Bembus Burgomaster of Pickt-hatch, That plunging through the Sea of Turnbull street, He safely did arrive at Smithfield Bars. Then did the Turntripes on the Coast of France, Catch fifteen hundred million grasshoppers, With fourteen Spanish Needles, bumbasted, Poach’d with the Eggs of fourscore Flanders Mares. Mounted upon the foot of Caucasus, They whirled the football of conspiring Fate, And brake the shins of smug-fac’d Mulciber: With that, grim Pluto all in Scarlet blue, Gave fair Persephone a kiss of Brass, At which all Hell danc’d Trenchmore in a string. Whilst Acheron and Termagant did sing, “The Mold-warp,” all this while in white broth bath’d, Did Carol Didoes happiness in love, Upon a Gridiron made of whiting-mops, Unto the tune of “John Come Kiss Me Now,” At which Avernus Music ’gan to roar, Enthron’d upon a seat of three-leav’d grass, Whilst all the Hibernian Kernes in multitudes, Did feast with Shamrocks stewed in Usquebaugh. At which banquet made of didillary Took great distaste, because the Pillory Was hunger-starv’d for want of Villains ears, Whom to relieve, there was a Mittimus, Sent from Tartaria in an oyster boat, At which the King of China was amaz’d, And with nine grains of Rhubard, stellified, As low as to the altitude of shame, He thrust four Onions in a Candle-case, And spoil’d the meaning of the world’s misdoubt. Thus with a Dialogue of crimson Starch, I was inflamed with a nun-cold fire, Upon the tenterhooks of Charlemagne. The Dogstar howl’d, the Cat a Mountain smil’d, And Sisyphus drank Muscadel and eggs, In the horn’d hoof of huge _Bucephalus_, Time turn’d about, and show’d me Yesterday, Clad in a Gown of mourning; had I wist, The motion was almost too late they said, Whilst sad despair made all the World stark mad; They all arose, and I put up my pen, It makes no matter, where, why, how, or when. IAN TAYLOR. THE PURPLE INSURGENT. Clangingharp told Frostembight the only prophetic way to write an epic was to save all the rough drafts, with interlinear corrections. He said your biographer could thus trace the growth of your work from its earliest inception to its final bloom, and the photographic reproductions would do away with the cost of sketches. Frostembight said a man that would write an epic was a lunk-head. Clangingharp started to get up and destroy Frostembight, but he stepped on Marcus Aurelius, and with a rush of words to the throat fell helpless into his chair. Marcus Aurelius was the cat. “Dam that cat,” added Clangingharp.