Which always give way at the seat and the knee;
Which they are ever outgrowing;

Which take buttons and sewing!

Alas! but four boys would be ruin to me.

They would always be yelping for something to eat;
They would cost me a fortune in bread, sir, and meat.
Then their education

Befitting their station!

I have children already, enough and to spare
Already my wife has found grey in my hair.
At the prospect I 'm ready to die of despair
Of having to provide

For four hungry, howling, nude creatures beside.
Therefore, good sir, if you wake those that sleep.
Clear of my babies, I pray you to keep.

Here's a humble reminder, fifteen louis-d'or:

And, in raising the dead, pray, MY BABIES pass o'er."

Now was heard in the street of wheels a loud rumble;
Then a sudden portentious loud rap at the door.

Are you going to arouse from their graves all the rabble?
Are you, sir, the man who will quicken the dead?"

He stopped, out of breath, but still waggled his head,
Puffing and blowing.

"What! Such an infringement of order, indeed!
Revolution and anarchy certain to breed.

Do you think I am going

To tolerate it for one moment? Odds bobbin !
To pay Peter, in verity, Paul 't would be robbing;
For I fear I should have to vacate my great chair,
If, among all the others, you roused the ex-Mayor.
So, out of the city I bid you be packing,
Or me, ventre gris! sir, you will not find lacking
In putting in force the full weight of the law,
And sending you where you were never before-

Into prison; and mark you, if once you were in it,
You would not be able to slip out in a minute.

But I'm generous, doctor, and ready to offer
A compromise. Here are rouleaux in this coffer:
Take them. Your absence-I 'm ready to buy it;
Only, for mercy's sake, leave the dead quiet.

To the money you 're welcome-accept, and be gone';
But, whatever you do, leave the EX-MAYOR alone.
Now pack

Up your traps; it's a beautiful morning

For shifting your quarters.

No slighting my warning!

Why," added his worship, with iciest stare,

"I'm 'whelmed with amazement to think you should dare

To dream of unseating ME-me, sir, the Mayor!

Then back

With your bottles and drugs to the wilds of Dahomy, There practice at ease, on fresh corpse or old mummy, With nothing to fear,

But only not here,

So! out of the town with you, Doctor Bonomi!"

-S. BARING-Gould.

B

The Quack Doctor

OUT what a thoughtless animal is man!
(How very active in his own trepan!)
For, greedy of physicians' frequent fees,
From female mellow praise he takes degrees;
Struts in a new unlicensed gown, and then
From saving women falls to killing men.
Another such had left the nation thin,
In spite of all the children he brought in.
His pills as thick as hand grenadoes flew,
And where they fell, as certainly they slew.

-Wentworth DILLON, Earl of Roscommon.

The Transferred Malady

(IN AN OCULIST's office.)

OW sweet the girl! I saw her pass

H

The waiting group, with dumb surprise; A golden-haired, trim, willowy lass,

With heaven's soft azure in her eyes. What could there be in them to mend? Nothing, I stoutly should insist; But still she asked to see my friend The bachelor-and oculist.

I saw her take the patient's chair

(Venus and Science matched amain),
And though his search found little there,
He asked the girl to come again.
But while with his ophthalmoscope

He sought the source of her distress,
In the next room, with rhyme and trope,

I tried my rapture to express.

Neuritis of mild type it is,"

He said (whatever that may be);

· Here is a wash I use for this,

But come each day and visit me."

I knew the doctor's ready skill;
Yet while he battled with the case,
His eyes received from hers a thrill;
A crimson flush suffused her face.

Daily, as she was bid, she came ;
Daily the doctor scanned her eyes.
A cardiac spasm I need not name
At length he struggled to disguise;

For gazing in those orbs of blue

So close transferred an aching smart.
No "wash" he ever gave or knew
For ailing eyes could help his heart.

The girl was cured, the patient lost,
What now avails his utmost fees
Or rapid skill, to be so tossed

About my Cupid's sharp caprice?
Those blue eyes, had i had the case,

Should not have been for years dismissed.

To keep them always face to face,

I'd die-a baffled oculist.

-JOEL BENTON.

With the Scapel

ERE'S our subject," tall and strong,
With vermillion well injected;

Where the blood once coursed along,
Ready now to be dissected.

Some one never claimed, it seems,

Friendless amid London's Babel: Did he ever in his dreams

See this table?

Here's a hand that once held fast
All things pleasant, to its liking;
Now its active days are past,

Or for friendship, or for striking.

Nothing colder here could lie,

Yet on some one's palm there lingers Sense of its warm touch, while I

Strip the fingers.

How the dead eyes strangely stare,

When I lift the lids above them!

Yet some woman lives, I swear,

Who too well had learnt to love them; Some one since their final sleep

Holds their smiles in recollection,

While I put them by to keep
For dissection.

Then the heart. I take it out,

Handling it with no compunction;

Once it wildly pulsed, no doubt,

Well performed each wondrous function. Sped the life-blood in its race

In miraculous gyration,

Felt, responsive to one face,
Palpitation.

Where was life then? Was it hid

In each curious convolution, Packed beneath the cranium lid

With such ordered distribution ?

Can we touch one spot and say,

Here all thought and feeling entered,
Here 'twas but the other day—
Life was centered?

No, that puzzle still remains,

One unsolved, supreme attraction;

Here are muscles, nerves and veins

Where was that which gave them action?

Though the scapel's edge be keen,

Comes no answer from the tissues,

Telling us where life has been—

Whence it issues.

We can bid the heart be still,

Stop the life-blood's circulation;

Paralyze the sovereign will,

Through the centres of sensation.