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! that picture. It reminds me of a long-lost daughter. In moments of
darkness it has smiled upon me, and seemed to say, "True happiness is in
our own minds. It is not purchased by riches, or dependent on fraud. It
is only acquired by virtue, but shrinks abashed from vice." Ah! the
picture smiles again! The eyes beam on me—the nostrils dilate—the mouth
speaks—everything counsels me to be good. Yes! I _will_ return my
ill-begotten wealth, and henceforth strive to become that noblest work
of Nature, an honest man.—[_Falls down before the picture and weeps._]
[Illustration:
THE DAY AFTER—"St. Patrick's Day in the morning."
]
THE REASON FOR FUDDLING ON ST. PATRICK'S DAY,
I've often heard it asked by many,
Why on St. Patrick's Day
Poor Paddies will expend their only penny,
Moistening their thirsty clay:
There is no record that the saint was given
To that strong "dew," which smacks of earth—not heaven.
Yet, stop!
'Tis said, in a profane effusion
Of some old villain,
That Patrick's mother, to the Saint's confusion,
Kept in Inniskillin
A sheebeen shop;
But this I honestly believe's abuse,
Invented by some faithless boozing sinner,
Who wanted anything as an excuse
To take his fourteenth tumbler after dinner.
The saint I'm certain was a saint devout,
Drinking the purling stream quite "cold without;"
In fact he'd taken the teetotal pledge:
For what cared he for whisky, port, or sherries,
Who ate his hunk of bacon 'neath a hedge,
From which he plucked a poor dessert of berries?
Because
Red hips and haws
Are not like filberts, and their attendant salt,
Those strong provocatives to make men "malt."
The only cause that I could e'er discover,
Why on the anniversary of ST. PAT.
Your true Milesian will get half-seas-over
(And sometimes more than that),
Is—and the reason's simpler than you think it—
Whilst any man,
Like Kinahan,
Brews L L whisky—somebody must drink it.
[Illustration]
LONDON IMPROVEMENTS.
Improvement, hail! Thy busy hand
To court or alley gives no quarter;
Against thee nothing now can stand:
Thou art too strong for bricks and mortar.
Before the parapets and tiles,
Houses and streets promiscuous fall;
Thou hast so altered old St. Giles,
Few now would know him, by St. Paul.
The gallant captains, Parry, Ross,
Each made the trial once or twice,
To take a desperate cut across
Some awful blocks of thick-ribbed ice.