This day, beyond all contradiction,
This day is all thine own, Queen Fiction!
And thou art building castles boundless
Of groundless joys, and griefs as groundless;
Assuring beauties that the border
Of their new dress is out of order;
And schoolboys that their shoes want tying;
And babies that their dolls are dying.
Lend me, lend me, some disguise;
I will tell prodigious lies:
All who care for what I say
Shall be April fools to-day.
First I relate how all the nation
Is ruined by Emancipation:
How honest men are sadly thwarted;
How beads and faggots are imported;
How every parish church looks thinner;
How Peel has asked the Pope to dinner;
And how the Duke, who fought the duel,
Keeps good King George on water-gruel.
Thus I waken doubts and fears
In the Commons and the Peers;
If they care for what I say,
They are April fools to-day.
Next I announce to hall and hovel
Lord Asterisk's unwritten novel.
It's full of wit, and full of fashion,
And full of taste, and full of passion;
It tells some very curious histories,
Elucidates some charming mysteries,
And mingles sketches of society
With precepts of the soundest piety.
Thus I babble to the host
Who adore the "Morning Post;"
If they care for what I say.
They are April fools to-day.
Then to the artist of my raiment
I hint his bankers have stopped payment;
And just suggest to Lady Locket
That somebody has picked her pocket--
And scare Sir Thomas from the city,
By murmuring, in a tone of pity,
That I am sure I saw my Lady
Drive through the Park with Captain Grady.
Off my troubled victims go,
Very pale and very low;
If they care for what I say,
They are April fools to-day.
I've sent the learned Doctor Trepan
To feel Sir Hubert's broken kneepan;
'Twill rout doctor's seven senses
To find Sir Hubert charging fences!
I've sent a sallow parchment scraper
To put Miss Trim's last will on paper;
He'll see her, silent as a mummy,
At whist with her two maids and dummy.
Man of brief, and man of pill,
They will take it very ill;
If they care for what I say,
They are April fools to-day.
And then to her, whose smiles shed light on
My weary lot last year at Brighton,
I talk of happiness and marriage,
St. George's and a travelling carriage.
I trifle with my rosy fetters,
I rave about her 'witching letters,
And swear my heart shall do no treason
Before the closing of the season.
Thus I whisper in the ear
Of Louisa Windermere--
If she cares for what I say,
She's an April fool to-day.
And to the world I publish gaily
That all things are improving daily;
That suns grow warmer, streamlets clearer,
And faith more firm, and love sincerer--
That children grow extremely clever--
That sin is seldom known, or never--
That gas, and steam, and education,
Are, killing sorrow and starvation!
Pleasant visions--but, alas
How those pleasant visions pass!
If you care for what I say,
You're an April fool to-day.
Last, to myself, when night comes round me,
And the soft chain of thought has bound me,
I whisper, "Sir, your eyes are killing--
You owe no mortal man a shilling--
You never cringe for star or garter,
You're much too wise to be a martyr--
And since you must, be food for vermin,
You don't feel much desire for ermine!"
Wisdom is a mine, no doubt,
If one can but find it out--
But whate'er I think or say,
I'm an April fool to-day,
_London Magazine_.
* * * * *
"WATER BEWITCHED."
A widow of the name of Betty Falla kept an alehouse in one of the
market-towns frequented by the Lammermuir ladies, (Dunse, we believe,)
and a number of them used to lodge at her house during the fair. One year
Betty's ale turned sour soon after the fair; there had been a
thunder-storm in the interim, and Betty's ale was, as they say in that
country, "strongest in the water." Betty did not understand the first of
these causes, and she did not wish to understand the latter. The ale was
not palatable; and Betty brewed again to the same strength of water.
Again it thundered, and again the swipes became vinegar. Betty was at her
wit's end,--no long journey; but she was breathless.
Having got to her own wit's end, Betty naturally wished to draw upon the
stock of another; and where should she find it in such abundance as with
the minister of the parish. Accordingly, Betty put on her best, got her
nicest basket, laid a couple of bottles of her choicest brandy in the
bottom, and over them a dozen or two of her freshest eggs; and thus
freighted, she fidgetted off to the manse, offered her peace-offering,
and hinted that she wished to speak with his reverence in "preevat."
"What is your will, Betty?" said the minister of Dunse. "An unco uncanny
mishap," replied the tapster's wife.
"Has Mattie not been behaving?" said the minister. "Like an innocent
lamb," quoth Betty Falla.
"Then--?" said the minister, lacking the rest of the query. "Anent the
yill," said Betty.
"The ale!" said the minister; "has any body been drinking and refused to
pay?"
"Na," said Betty, "they winna drink a drap."
"And would you have me to encourage the sin of drunkenness?" asked the
minister.
"Na, na," said Betty, "far frae that; I only want your kin' han' to get
in yill again as they can drink."
"I am no brewer, Betty," said the minister gravely.
"Gude forfend, Sir," said Betty, "that the like o' you should be evened
to the gyle tub. I dinna wish for ony thing o' the kind."--"Then what is
the matter?" asked the minister.
"It's witched, clean witched; as sure as I'm a born woman," said Betty.
"Naebody else will drink it, an' I canna drink it mysel'."
"You must not be superstitious, Betty," said the minister. "I'm no ony
thing o' the kin'," said Betty, colouring, "an' ye ken it yoursel'; but
twa brousts wadna be vinegar for naething." (She lowered her voice.) "Ye
mun ken, Sir, that o' a' the leddies frae the Lammermuir, that hae been
comin' and gaen, there was an auld rudas wife this fair, an' I'm certie
she's witched the yill; and ye mun just look into ye'r buiks, an' tak off
the withchin!"
"When do you brew, Betty?"--"This blessed day, gin it like you, Sir."
"Then, Betty, here is the thing you want, the same malt and water as
usual?"
--"Nae difference, Sir?"
"Then when you have put the water to the malt, go three times round the
vat with the sun, and in _pli's_ name put in three shoolfu's of malt; and
when you have done that, go three times round the vat, against the sun,
and, in the devil's name, take out three bucketfuls of water; and take my
word for it, the ale will be better."
"Thanks to your reverence; gude mornin."--_Ibid_.
* * * * *