THE RAZOR-SELLER.

291

XVII. - THE TIPPLER CONFOUNDED.
Out of the tavern I've just stepped to-night:
Street! you are caught in a very bad plight:
Right hand and left hand are both out of place -
Street, you are drunk, 't is a very clear case !
Moon, 't is a very queer figure you cut;
One eye is staring, while ť other is shut.
Tipsy, I see; and you 're greatly to blame;
Old as you are, 't is a horrible shame !
Then the street-lamps, what a scandalous sight!
None of them soberly standing upright;
Rocking and staggering; why, on my word,
Each of the lamps is as drunk as a lord !
All is confusion :

now, is n't it odd ?
I am the only thing sober abroad!
Sure it were rash with this crew to remain, -
Better go into the tavern again.

XVIII. - THE RAZOR-SELLER. A FELLOW, in a market-town, most musical, cried “Razors ! ” up and down, and offered twelve for eighteen-pence; which cer, tainly seemed wondrous cheap, and, for the money, quite a heap, as every man should buy

with cash and sense. A country bumpkin the great offer heard : poor Hodge, who suffered by a thick, black beard, that seemed a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose.

With cheerfulness the eighteen-pence he paid, and proudly to himself, in whispers, said, “ This rascal stole the razors, I suppose ! No matter if the fellow be a knave, provided that the razors shave! It sartinly will be a monstrous prize." So, home the clown with his good fortune went, smiling – in heart and soul content and quickly soaped himself to ears and eyes.

Being well lathered from a dish or tub, Hodge now began with grinning pain to grub, just like a hedger cutting furze. T was a vile razor

then the rest he tried. All were impostors. “ Ah!” Hodge sighed, “I wish my eighteen-pence were in my purse !

In vain to chase his beard, and bring the graces, he cut, and dug, and winced, and stamped, and swore ; brought blood, and danced, gaped, grinned, and made wry faces, and tried each razor's body o'er and o'er! His muzzle, formod of opposition stuff, erect and wiry, would not lose its ruff; so kept it - laughing at the steel and suds. Hodge, in a passion, stretched his angry jaws, vowing the direst vengeance, with clinched claws, on the vile cheat that sold the goods. • Razors ! a vile confounded dog! Not fit to scrape a hog!”

Hodge sought the fellow — found him, and began –“ Perhaps, Master Razor-rogue, to you 't is fun, that people flay themselves out of their lives. You rascal ! for an hour have I been grubbing, giving my scoundrel whiskers here a scrubbing, with razors just like oyster-knives. Sirrah! I tell you, you 're a knave, to cry up razors that can't shave.”

Friend," quoth the razor-merchant, “I'm no koave. As for the razors you have bought, upon my word, I never thought that they would shave.” — “ Not think they'd shave!” cried Hodye, with wondering eyes, and voice not much unlike an Indian yell. “What were they made for, then, you dog ?” he cries. “Made!. quoth the fellow, with a smile, — "to sell !”

WOLCOTT (altezer!).

XIX. — THE DIRECTING POST.
In winter, once, an honest traveling wight
Pursued his road to Derby, late at night;
'T was very cold, the wind was bleak and high,
And not a house nor living thing was nigh;
At length he came to where some four roads met,

rained, too, and he was completely wet, And, being doubtful which way he should take, He drew up to the finger-post to make It out and after much of poring, fumbling, Some angry oaths, and a great deal of grumbling, 'Twas thus the words he traced - "To Derby — five.”. “A goodly distance yet, as I 'm alive!” But on he drove a weary length of way; And wished his journey he'd delayed till day : Ile wondered that no town appeared in view, The wind blew stronger, it rained faster, too, When, to his great relief, he met a man: “I say, good friend, pray tell me, if you can, How far is 't hence to Derby ? ” Derby, hey! Why, zur, thee be'est completely come astray, This y’ant the road.” " Why, zounds, the guide-post showed * To Derby, five,' -- and pointed down this road!

ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.

293

“Ay, hang it, that may be, for you maun know,
The post it war blown down last night, and so
This morn I put it up again, but whether —
As I can't put great A and B together -
The post is right, I’m zure I can not zay:
The town is just five miles the other way." ANON.

XX. — ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY. And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!)

In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago ;
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,

And Time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.
Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy;
Thou hast a tongue,

come, let us hear its tune ; Thou 'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!

Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.
Tell us, for doubtless thou canst recollect,

To whom should we assign the Sphinx’s fame ?
Was Cheops * or Ce-phre'nēs architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer ?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer ?
Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade ;
Then say what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played ? Perhaps thou wert a priest, and hast been dealing In human blood, and horrors past revealing. Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,

Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass ;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,

Has any Roman soldier mauled or knuckled,
For thou wert dead and buried, and embalmed,

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled !
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after thy primeval race was run.
Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,

And the great deluge still had left it green ;
Or was it then so old that history's pages
Contained no record of its early ages ?
Still silent, incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy ? then keep thy vows;
But prythee tell us something of thyself,

Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house !
Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,
What thou hast seen, what strange adventures numbered.
Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations ;
The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen – we have lost old nations -
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.
Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,

When the great Persian conqueror, Camby'ses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,

O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder ?
If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,

The nature of thy private life unfold :
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,

And tears adown thy dusty cheek have rolled.
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race ?
Statue of flesh — Immortal of the dead!

Imperishable type of evanescence !
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence,

THE DOCTOR AND HIS APPRENTICE.

295

Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning!
Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost for ever?
0, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue; that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom !

HORACE SMITH.

XXI. — THE DOCTOR AND HIS APPRENTICE. A PUPIL of the Æsculapian school, ambitious to get on a little faster in physic, asked (if not against the rule) that he might pay a visit with his master to his next patient. The master gave consent, so off they went; and now, before the day had fed, behold them at a sick man's bed.

The master-doctor solemnly perused the patient's face, and o'er his symptoms mused ; looked wise, said nothing — an unerring way, when people nothing have to

say;

- then felt his pulse and smelt his cane — and paused, and blinked, and smelt again, and went through all the customary motions, maneuvers that for Death's platoon are meant; a kind of a “ Make ready and present,” before the fell discharge of pills and potions.

At length the patient's wife he thus addressed : “ Madam, your husband's danger's great, and (what will never his complaint abate) the man's been eating oysters, I perceive.”

• Dear! you 're a witch, I verily believe!” madam replied, and to the truth confessed.

Skill so prodigious Bobby, too, admired, and home returning of the sage inquired how these same oysters came into his head. “Psha ! my dear Bob, the thing was plain ; sure that can ne'er distress thy brain ; I saw the shells lie underneath the bed.”

So, wise by such a lesson grown, next day Bob ventured forth alone, and to the self-same sufferer paid his court. But soon, with haste and wonder out of breath, returned the stripling minister of death, and to his master made this dread report: “Why, sir, we ne'er can keep that patient under! Zounds ! such a maw I never came across ! The fellow must be dying, and no wonder, for hang me if he has n't eat a horse !”

A horse ! ” the elder man of physic cried, as if he meant his pupil to deride. “ How came so wild a notion in

head ?" “How ! think not in my duty I was idle ; like you, I took a peep beneath the bed, and there I saw a saddle and a bridle! ”