The Comic Almanack, Volume 2: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities — David Hume — John Shaqi
The Comic Almanack, Volume 2: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities
David Hume · en
"Ah! who would bear Time's whips and scorns,
The pangs of disprized love;
When he might his quietus make
By one bare bodkin's shove?
Who would these fardels bear, unless
That bourne he could foresee,
From which no traveller returns!—
To be, or not to be!"
Arrangements will be made for the characters to promenade in the day,
time full dressed, upon the top of the portico, to the music of the
orchestra—in beef-eater's dresses. The pageant will be very splendid.
A TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT will happen, from the engine running up a
cutting, and then falling back on the train.
[Illustration]
MAY.
Several young ladies will now receive bouquets on the mornings of
parties, without having the "slightest idea" from whom they come. Human
glow-worms will appear hovering at night, with lanterns, round
door-steps and scrapers, until the Polkas commence; when the
street-doors in the newly-built houses will take to knocking themselves.
A new musical court of justice will condemn offending professors to
eight hours at the quadrille piano, instead of so many days at the
treadmill. A hapless _pianiste_ will be found dead at the instrument, at
a _réunion_ in Eaton Square, after the "after-supper cotillion."
[Illustration]
Several grand morning concerts will take place at the Opera Concert
Room, in which every _artiste_ in London will sing or play twice. They
will commence at two P.M., and always conclude in time for breakfast the
next morning. An elegant little article will be invented, called "The
Nutritive Lozenge; or, Concert Portable Larder," to support the
existence of those who _will_ wait the programme out. Arrangements will
be made with some machinery from the stage for hauling those who faint
or die through the windows on to the top of the colonnade, without
disturbing the rest of the audience.
DREADFUL RAILWAY ACCIDENT, from the bursting of a boiler, which will
blow everybody and everything into an impalpable powder. The steam will
cook a number of greens in an adjacent field, and boil a number of pigs;
providing a choice meal for a number of residents in an adjacent union,
who will be turned out to feed for the day.
JUNE.