But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus A Papal Bull to be tied up till Monday — That there is such a dread of them on Sunday - Spirit of Kant! have we not had enough To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, MORNING MEDITATIONS. LET Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, For my part, getting up seems not so easy By half as lying. What if the lark does carol in the sky, Talk not to me of bees and such-like hums, A bed of time. To me Dan Phoebus and his car are naught, Right beautiful the dewy maids appear My stomach is not ruled by other men's, Why from a comfortable pillow start An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn, With charwomen such early hours agree, All up all up! So here I lie, my morning calls deferring, A BLACK JOB. "No doubt the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat." THE history of human-kind to trace - HUDIBRAS. Since Eve the first of dupes - our doom unriddled, A certain portion of the human race Has certainly a taste for being diddled. Witness the famous Mississippi dreams! That cost our modern rogues so little trouble. To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble, And, Lord! what hundreds will subscribe for soap! Soap! it reminds me of a little tale, Though not a pig's, the hawbuck's glory, When rustic games and merriment prevail But here's my story: Once on a time no matter when A knot of very charitable men And in particular that dark variety, Which some suppose inferior as in vermin, The sable is to ermine, As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster, As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow, As blacking, or as ink to "milk below " However, as is usual in our city, A board of grave, responsible Directors - Not merely male, but female duns, Young, old, and middle-aged- of all degrees With many of those persevering ones, Who mite by mite would beg a cheese! And what might be their aim? To rescue Afric's sable sons from fetters To save their bodies from the burning shame Of branding with hot letters Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes, Their necks from iron yokes? To end or mitigate the ills of slavery, The Planter's avarice, the Driver's knavery? And make them worthy of eternal bliss ? They looked so ugly in their sable hides; Might wash themselves, Nobody knew if they were clean or not On Nature's fairness they were quite a blot! That even while they joined in pious hymn, In face and limb, They looked like Devils, though they sang like Saints ! They wanted washing! not that slight ablution Merely removing transient pollution — But good, hard, honest, energetic rubbing Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head So spoke the philanthropic man Who laid, and hatched, and nursed the plan And, O! to view its glorious consummation! The tubs and slops, The baths and brushes in full operation! To see each Crow, or Jim, or John, Go in a raven and come out a swan! While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, and Russels. Black Venus rises from the soapy surge. And all the little Niggerlings emerge As lily-white as mussels. Sweet was the vision-but, alas! However in prospectus bright and sunny. To bring such visionary scenes to pass One thing was requisite, and that was-money! |