To be so great beyond the common span
It takes the plural to express the man;
And yet, alas, it happens oftentimes
A unit serves to number all his dimes!

But don't despise him; there may chance to be
An earthquake lurking in his simple
"we"!

In the close precincts of a dusty room
That owes few losses to the lazy broom,

There sits the man; you do not know his name,

Brown, Jones, or Johnson, it is all the same, ·

Scribbling away at what perchance may seem
An idler's musing, or a dreamer's dream ;
His pen runs rambling, like a straying steed;
The "we" he writes seems very "wee" indeed;
But mark the change; behold the wondrous power
Wrought by the Press in one eventful hour;
To-night, 't is harmless as a maiden's rhymes;
To-morrow, thunder in the London Times!
The ministry dissolves that held for years;
Her Grace, the Duchess, is dissolved in tears;

The Rothschilds quail; the church, the army, quakes ; The very kingdom to its centre shakes;

The Corn Laws fall; the price of bread comes down,— Thanks to the "we" of Johnson, Jones, or Brown!

TRAVESTIES.

18

TRAVESTIES.

ICARUS.

I.

A

LL modern themes of poesy are spun so very fine,
That now the most amusing muse, e gratia, such

as mine,

Is often forced to cut the thread that strings our recent

rhymes,

And try the stronger staple of the good old classic times.

II.

There lived and flourished long ago, in famous Athens town,

One Dædalus, a carpenter of genius and renown;

('T was he who with an auger taught mechanics how to bore,

An art which the philosophers monopolized before.)

III.

His only son was Icarus, a most precocious lad,
The pride of Mrs. Dædalus, the image of his dad;
And while he yet was in his teens such progress he had

made,

He'd got above his father's size, and much above his

trade.