Like friends indeed

And faith! not without need,

'Twas such an awkward place for falling out!

Say, after your gastronomy,
Kept you a watch all night,

Marking the planets bright,

Like three more Airys, studying astronomy;
Or near the midnight chime,

Did some one haul his nightcap on his head,
Hold out his mounted watch, and say "high time
To go to bed?"

Didn't your coming scare

The sober Germans, until every cap Rose lifted by a frightened fell of hair; Meanwhile the very pipe, mayhap,

Extinguished, like the vital spark in death,
From wonder locking up the smoker's breath!
Didn't they crouch like chickens, when the kite
Hovers in sight,

To see your vehicle of huge dimension
Aloft, like Gulliver's Laputa-nay,

I'd better say,

The Island of Ascension?

Well was it planned

To come down thus into the German land,
Where Honors you may score by such event-
For, if I read the prophecy aright,

You'll have the Eagle Order for your flight,

And all be Von'd, because of your descent!

REMONSTRATORY ODE

FROM THE ELEPHANT AT EXETER 'CHANGE, TO MR. MATHEWS,

AT THE ENGLISH OPERA-HOUSE.

See with what courteous action

8

He beckons you to a more removed ground."—Hamlet.

[WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.]

Он, Mr. Mathews! Sir!

(If a plain elephant may speak his mind,
And that I have a mind to speak I find
By my inward stir)

I long have thought, and wished to say, that we
Mar our well-merited prosperity

By being such near neighbors;

My keeper now hath lent me pen and ink,
Shoved in my truss of lunch, and tub of drink,
And left me to my labors;

The whole menagerie is in repose,

The Coatamundi is in his Sunday clothes,
Watching the Lynx's most unnatural doze ;
The Panther is asleep, and the Macaw;
The Lion is engaged on something raw ;
The white Bear cools his chin
'Gainst the wet tin;

And the confined old Monkey's in the straw;
All the nine little Lionets are lying

Slumbering in milk. and sighing;

Miss Cross is sipping ox-tail soup

In her front coop;

So here's the happy mid-day moment;-yes,
I seize it, Mr. Mathews, to address

A word or two

To you

On the subject of the ruin which must come
By both being in the Strand, and both at home
On the same nights; two treats

So very near each other,

As, oh my brother!

To play old gooseberry with both receipts.

When you begin

Your summer fun, three times a week, at eight,
And carriages roll up, and cits roll in,

I feel a change in Exeter 'Change's change.
And, dash my trunk! I hate

To ring my bell, when you ring yours, and go
With a diminished glory through my show!
It is most strange;

But crowds that meant to see me eat a stack,
And sip a water-butt or so, and crack

A root of mangel-wurzel with my foot,
Eat little children's fruit,

Pick from the floor small coins,

And then turn slowly round and show my India-rubber loins: 'Tis strange-most strange, but true,

That these same crowds seek you!

Pass my abode, and pay at your next door!
It makes me roar

With anguish when I think of this; I go
With sad severity my nightly rounds

Before one poor front row,

My fatal funny foe!

And when I stoop, as duty bids, I sigh

And feel that, while poor elephantine I,

Pick up the sixpence, you pick up the pounds!

Could you not go?

Could you not take the Cobourg or the Surrey?
Or Sadler's Wells-(I am not in a hurry,:
I never am!) for the next season ?—oh !
Woe! woe! woe!

To both of us, if we remain; for not
In silence will I bear my altered lot,
To have you merry, sir, at my expense;
No man of any sense,

No true great person (and we both are great
In our own ways) would tempt another's fate;
I would myself depart

In Mr. Cross's cart,

But, like Othello, "am not easily moved."
There's a nice house in Tottenham Court, they say,
Fit for a single gentleman's small play;

And more conveniently, near your home;
You'll easily go and come.

Or get a room in the City-in some street→
Coachmakers' Hall, or the Paul's Head,

Cateaton Street;

Any large place, in short, in which to get your bread; But do not stay, and get

Me into the Gazette !

Ah! The Gazette !

I press my forehead with my trunk and wet
My tender cheek with elephantine tears,
Shed of a walnut size

To think of ruin after prosperous years.

What a dread case would be

For me-large me!

To meet at Basinghall Street, the first and seventh

My last examination!

To cringe, and to surrender,
Like a criminal offender,

All my effects-my bell-pull, and my bell,
My bolt, my stock of hay, my new deal cell;
To post my ivory, sir!

And have some commissioner

Very irreverently search my trunk ;
'Sdeath! I should die

With rage, to find a tiger in possession
Of my abode; up to his yellow knees
In my old straw; and my profound profession
Entrusted to two beasts of assignees!

The truth is simply this-if you will stay
Under my very nose,

Filling your rows

Just at my feeding time, to see your play,

My mind's made up,

No more at nine I sup,

Except on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays ; From eight to eleven,

As I hope for heaven,

On Thursdays, and on Saturdays, and Mondays,
I'll squeak and roar, and grunt without cessation,
And utterly confound your recitation.