THE LADIES' PETITION TO DR. MOYES.
DEAR Doctor! let it not transpire,
How much your lectures we admire;
How at your eloquence we wonder,
When you explain the cause of thunder,
Of lightning, and of electricity,
With so much plainness and simplicity:
The origin of rocks and mountains,
Of seas and rivers, lakes and fountains;
Of rain and hail, and frost and snow,
And all the winds and storms that blow.
Besides a hundred wonders more,
Of which we never heard before.
But now, dear Doctor! not to flatter,
There is a most important matter -
A matter which you never touch on-
A matter which our thoughts run much on.
A subject, if we right conjecture,
Which well deserves a long, long lecture,
Which all the ladies would approve —
The natural history of Love.
O list to our united voice,
Deny us not, dear Doctor Moyes!
Tell us, why our poor tender hearts
So willingly admit Love's darts:
Teach us the marks of Love's beginning;
What is it makes a beau so winning;
What makes us think a coxcomb witty,
A dotard wise, a red coat pretty;
Why we believe such horrid lies-
That we are angels from the skies;
Our teeth are pearl, our cheeks are roses;
Our eyes are stars; such charming noses!
Explain our dreams, waking and sleeping;
Explain our laughing and our weeping;
Explain our hoping and our doubting,
Our blushing, simpering, and pouting;
Teach us all the enchanting arts
Of winning, and of keeping hearts :
Teach us, dear Doctor, if you can,
To humble that proud creature, Man;
To turn the wise ones into fools,
The proud and insolent to tools;
To make them all run helter-skelter,
Their necks into the marriage-halter.
Then leave us to ourselves with these,
We'll rule and turn them as we please.
Dear Doctor! if you grant our wishes,
We promise you five hundred kisses;
And, rather than the affair be blunder'd,
We'll give you six score to the hundred.
A WELL there is in the west country,
And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a wife in the west country,
But has heard of the well of St. Keyne.
An oak and an elm tree stand beside,
And behind does an ash tree grow!
And a willow from the bank above,
Droops to the water below.
A traveller came to the well of St. Keyne,
Joyfully he drew nigh;
For from cock-crow he had been travelling,
And there was not a cloud in the sky.
He drank of the water so cool and clear,
For hot and thirsty was he;
And he sat down upon the bank,
Under the willow tree.
There came a man from the neighboring town,
At the well to fill his pail;
On the well side he rested it,
And he bade the stranger hail.
"Now art thou a bachelor, stranger?" quoth he.
"For an if thou hast a wife,
The happiest draught thou hast drunk this day,
That ever thou didst in thy life.
"Or has thy good woman, if one thou hast,
Ever here in Cornwall been?
For an if she have, I'll venture my life,
She has drank of the well of St. Keyne."
"I have left a good woman who never was here," The stranger he made reply;
"But that my draught should be better for that, I pray you answer me why."
"St. Keyne," quoth the Cornishman, "many a time Drank of this crystal well;
And before the angel summon'd her,
She laid on the water a spell : —
"If the husband, of this gifted well, Shall drink before his wife,
A happy man henceforth is he,
For he shall be master for life.
"But if the wife should drink of it first,
God help the husband then!"
The stranger stoop'd to the well of St. Keyne,
And drank of the water again.
"You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes,"
He to the Cornishman said;
But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head.
"I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch:
But i'faith, she had been wiser than I,
For she took a bottle to church."
AN Eton stripling, training for the law,
A dunce at Syntax - but a dab at taw,
One happy Christmas laid upon the shelf
His cap
and gown, and store of learned pelf;
With all the deathless bards of Greece and Rome,
To spend a fortnight at his uncle's home.
Arrived, and pass'd the usual How d'ye do's,
Inquiries of old friends, and college news
"Well, Tom, the road - What saw you worth discerning! And how goes study? What is it you're learning?"
"Oh, Logic, sir, but not the common rules
"Tis wit and wrangler's logic! — Thus, d'ye see,
"A fish-pie may be a jack-pie.' "Well, proceed."
"A jack-pie must be a John-pie - thus it's done,
For every John-pie must be a pi-geon!"
"Bravo!" Sir Peter cried, "Logic for ever!
That beats my grandmother, and she was clever.
But hold, my boy, it surely is too hard
That wit and learning should have no reward;
To-morrow, for a stroll, the park we'll cross,
And there I'll give thee"
"A horse!" quoth Tom-"blood, pedigree, and paces! O what a dash I'll cut at Epsom races
To bed he went, and wept for downright sorrow,
To think the night must pass before the morrow.
Dreamt of his boots and spurs, and leather breeches,
His hunting whips, and leaping rails and ditches.
Left his warm nest an hour before the lark;
Dragg'd his old Uncle fasting through the park.
Each craggy vale he scours — quite at a loss
To find out something like a chesnut horse;
But no such animal the meadow cropp'd.
At length beneath a tree Sir Peter stopp'd,
And took a bough; shook it, and down fell
A fine horse-chesnut in its prickly shell.
"There, Tom, take that!”.
"Well, sir, and what beside?" 'Why, since you're booted, saddle it, and ride!” A chesnut?" - Aye, come, get across, "Ride what?
I tell you, Tom, the chesnut is a horse!
And all the horse you'll get; for I can show
As clear as sunshine, that 'tis really so.
Not by the musty, fusty, worn-out rules
Of Locke and Bacon-addle-headed fools!
All maxims but the wrangler's I disown,
And stick to one sound argument alone.
Since you have proved to me, I don't deny,
That a pie-John's the same as a John-pie,
What follows, then, but as a thing of course.
That a horse-chesnut is a chesnut horse!"
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