Don't frown, for we are serious, we protest,

There's many a true word may be spoken in jest ;
We've double meaning, but no double dealings,
And though we play on words, we don't on feelings.
The charity which smooths misfortune's pillow
We hope will cover every peccadillo,

And save the thieves who shall in crambo-verses,

Cry "Open sesame to cram-full purses.

When we can screen one shorn lamb from sharp

PROLOGUE TO “ VALENTINE AND

ORSON."

ROM a gay woodcut-no dull tract with trees

on,

Behold me here! "The Lion of the Season,"
Mr. Gorilla! I announce myself,

For the stage-door keeper, poor timid elf,
Soon as he saw me in the distance dim,
Bolted!-no doubt for fear I should bolt him.
His fear was groundless. Really I am not
The great gorilla Monsieur Chaillu shot.
That monster, about whom there's so much jaw,
Must be the perfect one the world ne'er saw ;
Nor am I e'en like those whose bones you see,
But débonnaire, and full of bonhommie.
In short, of Mr. Punch's own creation,
Proof of his power of investigation;
Cut off on wood myself, to aid I came
The orphans of a woodcutter of fame.

Stern fate has left them few sticks and small stock,

We trust to save some chips of the old block!

A strange wild set of harum-scarum savages,
Of whom the town before have felt the ravages,
Have formed a club, with which they take great
pains,

For their poor friends to cudgel their own brains!
From this you might suppose, no brains they've got,
But you'd be wrong, for they've dashed out a lot,
On paper, which is now from duty free,

In hopes to pay the widow's tax on tea,
The times and their intents are savage, wild,
They've seized upon the story of a child;
Torn it piecemeal, mangled its mother's tongue,
Excruciating puns from out it wrung;

And are exulting in the hope soon after

To feast upon your groans and shrieks of laughter.
Well, what from savages can you expect?
Yet glimmerings of sense you may detect.
There's method in their madness, much barbarity
Is oft enacted in the name of Charity;
While, on the other hand, we sometimes find,
We "must be cruel only to be kind."

And now, perhaps, you may begin to see,
To speak the prologue, why they fixed on me;
I'm thought a link, though some the fact dispute,
Between the "genus homo " and the brute,
Something that was, ere peg-tops made the man,
Or "wild in woods the lordly savage ran."
Now granting that in war all weapons are fair,
Particularly in gorilla warfare;

100 PROLOGUE TO "VALENTINE AND ORSON."

And without weighing of each fact the value,
Or standing on the matter shilly-Chaillu,
Whether I'm both at once, or one, or t'other,
Say, "Am not I a savage and a brother?"
Do not I bear in this especial case

A strong resemblance to the human race?
Then let me hope, with pardonable vanity,
To prove a link 'twixt our and your humanity.
In brief-for sure I need no longer pause-
In your good-will let me insert my claws;
Spare not, I pray, your purses or your palms,

The actors crave your hands, the fatherless your alms.

OMITTED IN THE REPRESENTATION.

H! not alone in ocean's caves or waters
Monsters are like the fierce octopus found;
Crawling amongst earth's fairest sons and
daughters,

Such fiends in human shape, alas! abound, Out of their dens, the graves of victims strangled, Their fatal feelers stealthily they stretch;

Once in the deadly grasp of them entangled,
No mortal power can save the sinking wretch !

On the young guardsman, gallant gay, unheeding,
Prodigal heir, or ill-paid, struggling clerk,
Do we not see some vile octopus feeding
Sixty per cent. above high water mark?
Upon the turf, or at the gaming table

(Neither so green as those who bet or play)
In rich saloons, the ring, or e'en the stable
Is no octopus watching for his prey!