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Free-traders, Chartists, Puseyites!

Your warfare, with its wrongs and rights,

In me no rage arouses;

I read the news, and cry, if hurt

At Whigs and Tories throwing dirt,

"A plague on both your houses!"

Tailors! avaunt your bills and spells!-When fashion plays on folly's bells,

No haddock can be deafer;

Comfort and neatness all my care,

I stick to broadcloth, and forswear

Both Macintosh and Zephyr.-

"Tis but our sensual pleasures' zest

That time can dull;-our purest, best

Defy decay or capture.

A landscape-book-a work of art

My friends, my home-still fill my heart

With undiminish'd rapture.

Fled some few years, old Time may try

Again to wake my rhyme, when I,

Obeying the vagary,

May thus subscribe the muse's frisk:

"My pensive public-yours!-A BRISK

YOUNG SEPTUAGENARY!"

ANSWER TO "AN OLD MAN'S PEAN."

[Written (invitá Minerva) at the instigation of J. H.]

THOU greybeard gay! whose muse-(perchance In second childhood's ignorance,)

Inspired "An Old Man's Pean,"

Hear how a brother senior sings

Sexagenarian sufferings,

In strains antipodean!

Young, I could take a morning's sport;

Play matches in the Tennis Court,

So strong was I and plastic;

Dine out, and yet with spirit light

And body unfatigued, at night

Could sport the toe fantastic.

Behold me now!-my limbs are stiff:

An open door, an east-wind's whiff,

Brings sharp rheumatic touches;

A chamber-horse my only nag,

I mope at home, or slowly drag
My gouty feet on crutches.

Once I devour'd whatever came,

And never knew, except by name,

The heartburn, bile, dyspepsy:

Now I must fast-eat what I hate,

Or all my ailments aggravate,

From ache to epilepsy.

How starving Tantalus of old

Was punish'd by the Gods, is told

In many a classic stanza;

And all must recollect the wand

That whisk'd the viands from the hand

Of hungry Sancho Panza:

Their fate without their fault is mine.

Champagne and claret, drinks divine

As nectar or ambrosia,

I may not quaff, but-(horrid bore!)

My sherry from a cruet pour

And think of past symposia.

At home my wife will supervise

Each meal I take. I wish her eyes

Were sometimes touch'd with blindness!

But no-they move not from my plate:

God bless her! how I love, yet hate

Her ever watchful kindness.

"My dear! you know you 're bilious--pray

Avoid the turtle soup to-day,

And do not touch the salmon ;

Just take a chicken wing, or leg,
But no rich sauce and let me beg

You will not taste the gammon."

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