[Illustration]
Kind friends in need are they who make no bones,
When paupers ask for bread, to give them stones.
[Illustration:
APRIL.——_Low_ Sunday.
]
ODE TO SIR ANDREW AGNEW:
AND ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.
Sir Andrew Agnew, oh! thou scourge of sinners,
Thou legislator against vice
And nice
Hot Sunday dinners!
What shall we do
Now thou art gone—thou and Sir Oswald[3] too—
To make men fast and pray
Each seventh day?
Who now shall save us from sin's burning embers?
Now that we've lost our two old _Marrowbone_ members?
But seriously, Sir Andrew, do you think
There's so much harm in meat and drink?
That a hot steak
Ate once a week
Shows a depraved state of society?
That frizzled bacon
Argues a soul mistaken?
And—pray don't start!—
That devil'd kidneys show a dev'lish heart?
That there is irreligion in hot fry?
And that cold pie alone is pie-ty?
If so, begin, Sir, with the rich: ask these
To give up their ragouts, and stews, and fricassees.
I guess they'd think your application rather strange;
But if you _will_ work out your Bill,
Believe me, you must take a wider kitchen range.
Then, Sir, you think it wrong
In 'bus or cab to ride along
The streets,
Intent on rural treats
At Hampstead, Islington, or Turnham Green;
But have you never seen
The crowd
Of knights and dames, on palfreys fierce and proud,
That fill
Hyde Park o' Sundays? I don't wish to tease,
But, Sir, for riders such as these,
There ought, I think, to be a rider to your Bill.
No doubt it's very wrong, and shows but little _nous_,
To go a tea-drinking, and making merry
At th' _Eagle_, _Rosemary Branch_, or _Yorkshire Stingo_;—
_Chalk Farm's_ as vile, by jingo!
There's something very black about _White Conduit House_.
Richmond is sad;
And Twickenham's as bad:
And Hampton Wick is very wicked—very.
But, Sir,—excuse the freedom of my pen—
D'ye think that they
Who spend the day
At Tattersall's, in laying wagers
On Derbys, Oaks, and Legers,
Are _better_ men?
And then, the Clubs!—where gambling of all kinds,
And vices such as daylight never saw,
Are carried on behind cast-metal blinds—
For these, Sir, can't you frame some new Club Law?
Then, Sir, I know
You vote rat-killing low;
And wouldn't sit
For worlds in the Westminster Pit.
And so no doubt it is—extremely shocking;
But so is cocking!
And I have known full many a _noble_ lord
(I have, upon my word,)
Fight cocks upon this day:
So pray,
Before for us poor folks you legislate,
Just try to quell this main-ia in the great.
Then music drives you mad:
And, Scotchman tho' you be,
I know
You wouldn't suffer even a Scotch fiddle;
And, as for "down the middle,"
And such-like tricks of Dame Terpsichore,
I've often heard you say they're quite as bad:
And that all persons merit a sound whipping
Who are found tripping.
(_Àpropos_—
How you'd be shock'd in France,
To see, Sir, a whole country dance!)
Mind! I don't say but that all this is wrong:
But is it worse, Sir, than the Sunday song
Of Grisi, Albertazzi, Betts, Rubini,
Lablache, or Tamburini?
And would it not be better first to wipe out
This sin among the high and mighty of the State,
Before you put the poor man's pipe out?
For my part, I think _Vivi tu_
As wicked as _All round my hat_—don't you?
And really I don't know
How you can stop _Jim Crow_,
And let the rich
Carry their concerts, Sir, to such a concert pitch.
And, if, Sir, I may speak
My mind, your plan to gag our week
(Tho' done, perhaps, with very best intention)
Is but a _weak_ invention.
Besides, Sir, here's a poser,—
At least to _me_ it seems a closer,
And shows a shocking lack of legislative skill—
If nothing, Sir, 's to work from Saturdays to Mondays,
Pray how's your Bill
To work on Sundays?
Footnote 3:
Sir O. Moseley, who lost his election, they say, from having seconded
Sir Andrews' Sunday Bill.
[Illustration:
MAY,—"All a growing!"
]