This feast, we said, one Friday was the case When farmer Grayley--from Macbeth to quote-- Screwing his courage to the “sticking place,” Stuck a large knife into a grunter’s throat;-- A kind of murder that the law’s rebuke Seldom condemns by shake of its peruke, Showing the little sympathy of _big-wigs_ With _pig-wigs_! The swine--poor wretch!--with nobody to speak for it, And beg its life, resolved to have a squeak for it; So--like the fabled swan--died singing out, And, thus, there issued from the farmer’s yard A note that notified without a card, An invitation to the evening rout. [Illustration: BREAKING UP, NO HOLIDAY.] And when the time came duly,--“At the close of The day,” as Beattie has it, “when the ham--” Bacon and pork were ready to dispose of, And pettitoes and chit’lings too, to cram,-- Walked in the H. N. B. and double S.’s, All in appropriate and swinish dresses, For lo! it is a fact, and not a joke, Although the Muse might fairly jest upon it, They came--each “Pig-faced Lady,” in that bonnet We call _a poke_. The Members all assembled thus, a rare woman At pork and poetry was chosen _chairwoman_;-- In fact, the bluest of the Blues, Miss Ikey, Whose whole pronunciation was so piggy, She always named the authoress of “_Psyche_”-- As Mrs. _Tiggey_! And now arose a question of some moment,-- What author for a lecture was the richer, Bacon or Hogg? there were no votes for Beaumont, But some for _Flitcher_; While others, with a more sagacious reasoning, Proposed another work, And thought their pork Would prove more relishing from Thomson’s Season-ing! But, practised in Shakspearian readings daily-- O! Miss Macaulay! Shakspeare at Hog’s Norton!-- Miss Anne Priscilla Isabella Grayley Selected _him_ that evening to snort on. In short, to make our story not a big tale, Just fancy her exerting Her talents, and converting The Winter’s Tale to something like a pig-tale! Her sister auditory All sitting round, with grave and learned faces, Were very plauditory, Of course, and clapped her at the proper places; Till fanned at once by fortune and the Muse, She thought herself the blessedest of Blues. But Happiness, alas! has blights of ill, And Pleasure’s bubbles in the air explode;-- There is no travelling through life but still The heart will meet with breakers on the road!