So they lie about until you get
sick of the sight of them, and end by thrusting some cold scrap of
a final couplet upon them, and turning them out of doors. I
suspect a good many "impromptus" could tell just such a story as
the above.--Here turning to our landlady, I used an illustration
which pleased the company much at the time, and has since been
highly commanded. "Madam," I said, "you can pour three gills and
three quarters of honey from that pint jug, if it is full, in less
than one minute; but, Madam, you could not empty that last quarter
of a gill, though you were turned into a marble Hebe, and held the
vessel upside down for a thousand years.
One gets tired to death of the old, old rhymes, such as you see in
that copy of verses,--which I don't mean to abuse, or to praise
either. I always feel as if I were a cobbler, putting new top-
leathers to an old pair of boot-soles and bodies, when I am fitting
sentiments to these venerable jingles.
. . . . youth
. . . . . morning
. . . . . truth
. . . . . warning
Nine tenths of the "Juvenile Poems" written spring out of the above
musical and suggestive coincidences.
"Yes?" said our landlady's daughter.
I did not address the following remark to her, and I trust, from
her limited range of reading, she will never see it; I said it
softly to my next neighbour.
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