Of all our tormentors, the Press is
The one that most tears us to bits;
And now, Mrs. Woolfrey's "excesses"
Have thrown all its imps into fits.
The devils have been at us, for weeks,
And there's no saying when they'll have done;--
Oh dear! how I wish Mr. Breeks
Had left Mrs. Woolfrey alone!
If any need pray for the dead,
'Tis those to whom post-obits fall;
Since wisely hath Solomon said,
'Tis "money that answereth all."
But ours be the patrons who _live_;-
For, once in their glebe they are thrown,
The dead have no living to give,
And therefore we leave them alone.
Tho' in morals we may not excel,
Such perfection is rare to be had;
A good life is, of course, very well,
But good living is also-not bad.
And when, to feed earth-worms, I go.
Let this epitaph stare from my stone,
"Here lies the Right Rev. so and so;
"Pass, stranger, and--leave him alone."
EPISTLE FROM HENRY OF EXETER TO JOHN OF TUAM.
Dear John, as I know, like our brother of London,
You've sipt of all knowledge, both sacred and mundane,
No doubt, in some ancient Joe Miller, you've read
What Cato, that cunning old Roman, once said--
That he ne'er saw two reverend sooth-say ers meet,
Let it be where it might, in the shrine or the street,
Without wondering the rogues, mid their solemn grimaces,
Didn't burst out a laughing in each other's faces.
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