The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

504
Oh MAGA!
And oh
Our noble selves!
"A BOOK IN A BUSTLE."
A TRUE TALE OF THE WARWICK ASSIZES. BY THE GHOST OF CRABBE.
PUNCH.
The partial power that to the female race
Is charged to apportion gifts of form and grace,
With liberal hand molds beauty's curves in one,
And to another gives as good as none:
But woman still for nature proves a match,
And grace by her denied, from art will snatch.
Hence, great ELIZA, grew thy farthingales;
Hence, later ANNA, swelled thy hoops' wide pales;
To this we must refer the use of stays;
Nor less the bustle of more modern days.
Artful device! whose imitative pad
Into good figures roundeth off the bad--
Whether of simple sawdust thou art seen,
Or tak'st the guise of costlier crinoline--
How oft to thee the female form doth owe
A grace rotund, a line of ampler flow,
Than flesh and blood thought fit to clothe it with below!
There dwelt in Liverpool a worthy dame,
Who had a friend--JAMES TAYLOR was his name.
He dealt in glass, and drove a thriving trade
And still saved up the profits that he made,
Till when a daughter blessed his marriage bed,
The father in the savings-bank was led
In his child's name a small sum to invest,
From which he drew the legal interest.
Years went and came; JAMES TAYLOR came and went,
Paid in, and drew, his modest three per cent,
Till, by the time his child reach'd girlhood's bounds,