So your own office is forestalled, O Vigors!
Your proper Sirname having but one single
Appropriate jingle,

Tigers!

Where is your gardening volume! like old Mawe's! Containing rules for cultivating brutes,

Like fruits,

Through April, May, or June,

As thus-now rake your Lions' manes, and prune
Your Tigers' claws;

About the middle of the month, if fair,

Give your Chameleons air;

Choose shady walls for Owls,

Water your Fowls,

And plant your Leopards in the sunniest spots;

Earth up your Beavers; train your Bears to climb;

Thin out your Elephants about this time;

And set some early Kangaroos in pots.

In some warm sheltered place,

Prepare a hot-bed for the Boa race,
Leaving them room to swell;

Prick out your Porcupines; and blanch your Ermine;
Stick up Opossums; trim your Monkeys well;
And "destroy all vermin."

Oh, tell me, Mr. Vigors! for the fleas
Of curiosity begin to tease—

If they bite rudely I must crave your pardon,
But if a man may ask,

What is the task

You have to do in this exotic garden?

If from your title one may guess your ends,
You are a sort of Secretary Bird

To write home word

From ignorant brute-beasts to absent friends.
Does ever the poor little Coatamondi
Beg you to write to ma'

To ask papa

To send him a new suit to wear on Sunday?
Does Mrs. L. request you'll be so good
-Acting a sort of Urban to Sylvanus—
As write to her "two children in the wood,"
Addressed-post-paid-to Leo Africanus?
Does ever the great Sea-Bear Londinensis
Make you amanuensis

To send out news to some old Arctic stager-
"Pray write, that Brother Bruin on the whole
Has got a head on this day's pole,

And say my Ursa has been made a Major?”
Do you not write dejected letters-very-
Describing England for poor "Happy Jerry,"
Unlike those emigrants who take in flats,
Throwing out New South Wales for catching sprats ?
Of course your penmanship you ne'er refuse
For "begging letters" from poor Kangaroos;
Of course you manage bills, and their acquittance,
And sometimes pen for Pelican a double
Letter to Mrs. P., and brood in trouble,
Enclosing a small dab, as a remittance;
Or send from Mrs. B. to her old cadger,

Her full-length, done by Harvey, that rare draughtsman,
And skillful craftsman,

A game one too, for he can draw a Badger.

Does Doctor Bennett never come and trouble you
To break the death of Wolf to Mrs. W.?

To say poor Buffalo his last has puffed,
And died quite suddenly, without a will,
Soothing the widow with a tender quill,

And gently hinting-" would she like him stuffed?"
Does no old sentimental Monkey weary

Your hand at times to vent his scribbling itch?
And then your pen must answer to the query
Of Dame Giraffe, who has been told her deary
Died on the spot-and wishes to know which?
New candidates meanwhile your help are waiting-
To fill up cards of thanks, with due refinement,
For Missis 'Possum, after her confinement;
To pen a note of pretty Poll's dictating—
Or write how Charles the Tenth's departed reign
Disquiets the crowned Crane,

And all the royal Tigers;

To send a bulletin to brother Asses

Of Zebra's health, what sort of night he passes:-
Is this your duty, Secretary Vigors?

Or are your brutes but Garden-brutes indeed,
Of the old shrubby breed,

Dragons of holly-Peacocks cut in yew?
But no-I've seen your book,

And all the creatures look

Like real creatures, natural and true!

Ready to prowl, to growl, to prey, to fight,
Thanks be to Harvey who their portraits drew,
And to the cutters praise is justly due,
To Branston always, and to always Wright.
Go on then, publishing your Monthly parts,

And let the wealthy crowd,

The noble and the proud,

Learn of brute beasts to patronise the Arts.
So may your Household flourish in the Park,
And no long Boa go to his long home,
No Antelope give up the vital spark,
But all, with this your scientific tome,
Go on as swimmingly as old Noah's Ark!

ODE TO JOSEPH HUME, ESQ., M. P.2

"I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."

Он, Mr. Hume, thy name

Is travelling post upon the road to fame, With four fast horses and two sharp postillions; Thy reputation

Has friends by numeration,

Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, Millions.
Whenever public men together dine,

They drink to thee

With three times three

That's nine.

And oft a votary proposes then

To add unto the cheering one cheer more-
Nine and One are Ten;

Or somebody for thy honor still more keen,
Insists on four times four-

Sixteen!

In Parliament no star shines more or bigger,
And yet thou dost not care to cut a figure;
Equally art thou eloquent and able,
Whether in showing how to serve the nation

Or laying its petitions on the Table
Of Multiplication.

In motion thou art second unto none,
Though Fortune on thy motions seems to frown,
For though you set a number down

You seldom carry one.

Great at a speech thou art, though some folks cough, But thou art greatest at a paring off.

But never blench,

Although in stirring up corruption's worms
You make some factions

Vulgar as certain fractions,

Almost reduced unto their lowest terms.
Go on, reform, diminish, and retrench;
Go on, for ridicule not caring;

Sift on from one to nine with all their noughts,
And make state cyphers eat up their own aughts,
And only in thy saving be unsparing;

At soldiers' uniforms make awful rackets,
Don't trim though, but untrim their jackets.
Allow the tin mines no tin tax,

Cut off the Great Seal's wax;

Dock all the dock-yards, lower masts and sails,
Search foot by foot the Infantry's amounts,
Look into all the Cavalry's accounts,

And crop their horses' tails.

Look well to Woolwich and each money vote,
Examine all the cannons' charges well,

And those who found th' Artillery compel To forge twelve pounders for a five pound note. Watch Sandhurst too, its debts and its Cadets— Those Military pets.