ream o' the filth-heap--Faugh!
Aie, aie, aie, aie! [Greek: otototototoi],
('Stead which we blurt out, Hoighty toighty now)--
And the baker and candlestick maker, and Jack and Gill.
Blear'd Goody this and queasy Gaffer that,
Ask the Schoolmaster, Take Schoolmaster first.
He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad
A stone, and pay for it _rite_ on the square,
And carry it off _per saltum_, jauntily
_Propria quae maribus_, gentleman's property now
(Agreeable to the law explained above).
_In proprium usum_, for his private ends,
The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit
I' the face the shilling; heaved a thumping stone
At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by,
(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,)
Then _abiit_--What's the Ciceronian phrase?
_Excessit_, _evasit_, _erupit_--off slogs boy;

Off like bird, _avi similis_--(you observed
The dative? Pretty i' the Mantuan!)--_Anglice_
Off in three flea skips. _Hactenus_, so far,
So good, _tam bene. Bene, satis, male_,--
Where was I with my trope 'bout one in a quag?
I did once hitch the Syntax into verse
_Verbum personale_, a verb personal,
_Concordat_--ay, "agrees," old Fatchops--_cum_
_Nominativo_, with its nominative,
_Genere_, i' point of gender, _numero_,
O' number, _et persona_, and person. _Ut_,
Instance: _Sol ruit_, down flops sun, _et_ and,
_Montes umbrantur_, out flounce mountains. Pah!
Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad.

You see the trick on't, though, and can yourself
Continue the discourse _ad libitum_.
It takes up about eighty thousand lines,
A thing imagination boggles at;
And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands
Extend from here to Mesopotamy.

_Charles Stuart Calverley._

BALLAD

The auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her apron'd knees.

The piper he piped on the hilltop high,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
Till the cow said "I die," and the goose asked "Why?"
And the dog said nothing, but search'd for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard--
The connection of which the plot one sees.

The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her