In slightly different view we may cite the following:

LET US ALL BE UNHAPPY ON SUNDAY.

A Lyric for Sunday Night.

We Zealots, made up of stiff clay,

The sour-looking children of sorrow,
While not over-jolly to-day,

Resolved to be wretched to-morrow.
We can't for certainty tell

What mirth may molest us on Monday;
But, at least, to begin the week well,
Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.

That day, the calm season of rest,

Shall come to us freshing and frigid;
A gloom all our thoughts shall invest,

Such as Calvin would call over-rigid.
With sermons from morning till night,

We'll strive to be decent and dreary:
To preachers a praise and delight,

Who never think sermons can weary.

All tradesmen cry up their own wares;

In this way they agree well together:
The Mason by stone and lime swears;
The Tanner is always for leather.
The Smith still for iron would go;

The Schoolmaster stands up for teaching;

And the Parson would have you to know,
There's nothing on earth like his preaching.

The face of kind nature is fair;

But our system obscures its effulgence:
How sweet is a breath of fresh air!

But our rules don't allow the indulgence.
These gardens, their walks and green bowers,
Might be free to the poor man for one day;
But no, the glad plants and gay flowers
Mustn't bloom or smell sweetly on Sunday.

What though a good precept we strain
Till hateful and hurtful we make it!
What though, in thus pulling the rein,
We may draw it so tight as to break it!
Abroad we forbid folks to roam,

For then they get social or frisky;

But of course they can sit still at home
And get dismally drunk on whisky.

Then, though we can't certainly tell
How mirth may molest us on Monday:

At least, we begin the week well,—
Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.

We have preferred to give these to the yet better known "Origin of Languages," or the song, "I'm very fond of Water," as being less likely to be familiar to our readers.

Professor Blackie, who not seldom ruins his poems of this class for any purpose but chorus-singing, through his rough-and-ready off-hand style, and his inveterate disregard of form, has written at least two good things, of which we shall present a copy to our reader, assured that he will laugh lightly over them. The first is metaphysical, and is named

CONCERNING I AND NON-I.

Since father Noah first tapped the vine,
And warmed his jolly old nose,

All men to drinking do much incline,
But why, no drinker yet knows;

We drink and we never think how!
And yet, in our drinking,

The root of deep thinking
Lies very profound,

As I will expound

To all who will drink with me now!

The poets-God knows, a jovial race—
Have ever been lauding of wine;
Of Bacchus they sing, and his rosy face,
And the draught of the beaker divine;
Yet all their fine phrases are vain;
They pour out the essence
Of brain-effervescence,

With rhyme and rant

And jingling cant,

But nothing at all they explain.

But I, who quaff the thoughtful well

Of Plato and old Aristotle,

And Kant, and Fichte, and Hegel, can tell

The wisdom that lies in the bottle;

I drink, and in drinking I know.
With a glance keen and nimble
I pierce through the symbol,

And seize the soul

Of truth in the bowl,

Behind the sensuous show!

Now brim your glass, and plant it well
Beneath your nose on the table,
And you will find what philosophers tell
Of I and non-I is no fable:

Now listen to wisdom, my son !

The next is on a very suitable theme for a professor who at once

is a book-worm and is not :

SOME BOOK-WORMS WILL SIT AND WILL STUDY.

Some book-worms will sit and will study

Along with their dear selves alone,

Till their brain like a mill-pond grows muddy,

And their heart is as cold as a stone.

But listen to what I now say, boys,
Who know the fine art to unbend;
And all labour without any play, boys,
Makes Jack a dull boy in the end.
There's Moodie, no doubt he's a fellow
Of heart, and of head has no lack;
But his cheek like a lemon is yellow,
And he bends like a camel his back.

I tell him the worst of all evils

Is cram ; and to live on this plan
Is to nourish a host of blue devils,
To plague him when he is a man.
Sure Solomon knew what was fitting
To keep a man juicy and fresh,
And he says there is nothing like sitting

O'er books to bring grief to the flesh.

From quarto to folio creeping,
Some record of folly to gain,

He says that your red eyes are keeping
Dull watch o'er the night oil in vain.
I guess you have heard many sermons
Not wiser at all than my rhymes,

But perhaps you don't know what determines
Their sense to be nonsense sometimes.
Though bright the great truth may be beaming,
Through dimness it struggles in vain,
Of vapours from stomach upsteaming
Unhealthy, that poison the brain.

Beside her old wheel when 'tis birring,
A spinster may sit and may croon ;
But a meddlesome youth should be stirring
Like Hermes, with wings to his shoon;
With a club, or a bat, or a mallet,

Making sport with the ball on the green,
Or roaming about with a wallet

Where steamboats and tourists are seen.
Then rise from the lean-visaged study,

That drains all the sap from your brains;
Give your face to the breeze, and grow ruddy
With blood that exults in the veins.
Trust me, for I know what I say, boys,-
And use the fine art to unbend,—

All work, with no season of play, boys,
Makes Jack a dull boy in the end!

At no great distance behind these come some of the efforts of Sheriff Nicolson, of which this is perhaps as effective as any:

THE BRITISH ASS.

(Roared in a Den of Scientific Lions at Edinburgh, 7th August, 1871.)

Air, "The British Grenadiers."

Some men go in for Science,

And some go in for Shams,

Some roar like hungry Lions,

And others bleat like lambs;

But there's a Beast that at this Feast
Deserves a double glass,—

So let us bray, that long we may

Admire the BRITISH ASS!

Chorus-With an Ass-Ass-OCIATION,
Etc., etc.

On England's fragrant clover

This beast delights to browse,

But sometimes he's a rover

To Scotland's broomy knowes;

For there the plant supplies his want,
That doth all herbs surpass,

The Thistle rude-the sweetest food-
That feeds the BRITISH Ass!

We've read in ancient story,
How a great Chaldean swell
Came down from all his glory,
With horned beasts to dwell;
If you would know how it happened so,
That a King should feed on grass,
In "Section D, Department B,"
Inquire of the BRITISH ASS !

To Grecian sages, charming,

Rang the music of the spheres,

But voices more alarming

Salute our longer ears

By Science bold we now are told

How Life did come to pass―
From world to world the seeds were hurled
Whence sprung the BRITISH ASS!

In our waltzing through creation

We meet those fiery stones
That bring for propagation, }

The germs of flesh and bones;
And is it not a thrilling thought
That some huge misguided mass
Will, one fine day, come and sweep away
Our dear old BRITISH ASS!

The child who knows his father
Has aye been reckoned wise,

But some of us would rather

Be spared that sweet surprise!
If it be true that, when we view
A comely lad or lass,

We find the trace of the Monkey's face
In the gaze of the BRITISH ASS!

The Ancients, childish creatures!
Thought we derived from heaven
The godlike form and features
To mankind only given;
But now we see our pedigree

Made plain as in a glass,

And when we grin, we betray our kin'

To the sires of the BRITISH ASS!

"He who rejects with scorn the belief that the shape of his own canines, and their occasional great development in other men, are due to our early progenitors having been provided with these formidable weapons, will probably reveal by sneering the line of his descent."-DARWIN'S "Descent of Man,” I., 127.

ALEX. H JAPP