"
The humour in the following is of a lighter and more tricksy kind--
WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM.
"Upon your cheek I may not speak,
Nor on your lip be warm,
I must be wise about your eyes,
And formal with your form;
Of all that sort of thing, in short,
On T. H. Bayly's plan,
I must not twine a single line,
I'm not a single man."
On hearing that Grimaldi had left the stage, he enumerates his funny
performances--
"Oh, who like thee could ever drink,
Or eat--smile--swallow--bolt--and choke,
Nod, weep, and hiccup--sneeze and wink?
Thy very gown was quite a joke!
Though Joseph Junior acts not ill,
'There's no fool like the old fool still.'"
His felicity in playing with words is well exhibited in the stanzas on
"John Trot."
"John Trot he was as tall a lad
As York did ever rear,
As his dear granny used to say,
He'd make a Grenadier.
"A serjeant soon came down to York
With ribbons and a frill;
My lad, said he, let broadcast be,
And come away to drill.
"But when he wanted John to 'list,
In war he saw no fun,
Where what is call'd a raw recruit,
Gets often over-done.
"Let others carry guns, said he,
And go to war's alarms,
But I have got a shoulder-knot
Imposed upon my arms.
"For John he had a footman's place,
To wait on Lady Wye,
She was a dumpy woman, tho'
Her family was high.
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