The Spirit of the Public Journals: Being an Impartial Selection of the Most ...

In vain, without a patron's aid,

I've pray'd, and preach'd-and preach'd, and pray'd,
Applauded, but ill fed!

Such vain eclat let others share;
Alas! I cannot feed on air;

I ask not praise, but bread!

You'll sure allow, 'tis most provoking,
"To see roast, boil'd, and dainties-smoking;
Fools, knaves, and jugglers, carving ;"
While learning, almost prov'd a curse,
"With hungry guts and empty purse,"
On Hebrew roots is starving!

'T were better sure, if many a father
Would make his son a cobbler, rather
Than needy learning give:-
Since all the science gain'd at college,
Cannot impart that needful knowledge,
"The knowledge bow to live!"
For me, unless hard fate's obduracy,
Relenting, grant me some snug curacy,
No more my gown I'll use;
The cure of human souls resigning,
Prebends for cobbler's stall declining,
I'll mend the soles of shoes!

Yet scarcely nine dark lustres" past, a
"T were hard to see me at my last,

An awful warning giving;

Such dire reverse, good Lord! forbid it;

Help me, and let me say,

you

did it;"

On whom depends my living!

Chapter Coffee-house.

HUMPHRY BANYAN, A. M.

OPTICAL DECEPTIONS..

[From the Morning Chronicle, Oct. 5.]

OM runs from his wife, to get rid of his trouble;

TOM

He drinks and he drinks till he sees all things double;

But when he has ceas'd wine and brandy to mingle,

O! what would he give could he see himself single! J.

IMPROMPTU

ON THE MARRIAGE OF MISS SNOW TO MR. FROST
[From the British Press, Oct. 9.]

NOW Snow is turn'd to Frost, she finds
Now How firm the metamorphose binds;

And, though dissolv'd in ecstacies,

Yet faster still she feels the ties; Nor less is Frost, by all advice, Because her husband breaks the ice. October 8.

ON A LATE RETURN FROM INDIA.
[From the Morning Chronicle, Oct. 8.]

WITH scarce a covering o'er his b―m,
Tom into foreign climes would roam,

And in some years return'd again,
Pride, pomp, and fortune in his train;
But so much alter'd with his lot,
Tom's old acquaintance knew him not;
Now, where's the wonder? since his pelf
Has made the fool forget himself.

LEXICON FISTY-CUFF-GLUTTON.

IN USUM STUDIOSÆ JUVENTUTIS,
[From the Morning Herald, Oct. 10.]

་

THE Fancy. This is the general term for the fistycuff art itself, and the love of it. One in the fancy means a practitioner, whether for love or money. Sometimes the epithet elegant is used; but we disapprove this as pleonastic; for it should seem to imply, that the elegance of the art might be disputed, which is impossible.

A Glutton.-This is one immoderately greedy of the passive delights of a fisty-cuff battle; one so addicted to the luxuries of being beaten, that he will continue to feast upon them long after every ordinary appetite

could

could be satisfied; and will thus give more trouble to the person who entertains him, than any reasonable guest would require of his host.

A Milling. A sound threshing...

A Doubler. A blow that makes the modest, but grateful, receiver, double himself up.

A Floorer.-A knock-down flat, in any way or mode of execution in the art.

The Knock-down was clean.This is when the merit of a blow is so decisively intelligible, that the receiver, without one moment's allowance for criticism or hesitation, demonstrates the fact by an immediate fall.

Nobbing. Giving smart, but not the most effective, blows, on the skull.

A Rally Fighting on the offensive, instead of the defensive, after a supposed inferiority in the preceding round.

Fibbing Getting an adversary's head under the left arm, and then being as bountiful to it as possible: with the right.

TANTUM FOR TANTUM.

[From the Morning Chronicle, Oct. 10.]

HERE are more ways than one of thriving

THE

In crowded towns, 't is said:

Some villains rob and cheat the living,

And others steal the dead.

Whoe'er in London town has been,

Has heard of resurrection-men,

Fellows who raise dead bodies from their lodgment,
Anticipation of the day of judgment!

One of this sacrilegious pack,

Savage in mind as any Turk,
Before he sallied to his work,

With mattock, shovel, and a sack,

Stept into a gin-shop, the sign of the Whale,
To harden his bowels with hollands and ale.

Here,

Here, as it happ'd, a hardy tar

Had been so often to the bar,

That Jack at last no more could pour in,
But on a bench lay fast and snoring;
The watchful resurrectionist
Straight the landlady address'd,
And bargain'd with her, for a crown,
To rid her of the drunken loon.
The paction made, the money paid,
The thing was done as soon as said:
The exhumist, half rogue, half wag,
Depos'd his bargain in his bag;
And, just like fishmonger with sturgeon,
Hied off with him to H-
the surgeon.

The signal-tap Albinus hears,

With joy elate he trips down stairs,
Receives the sackful in a trice,
And pays the customary price;
Then lays the bag upon his shambles,
And back to bed Albinus ambles.

But, lo! în the morning, how great his surprise,
To see the sack tumbling at terrible size;
To hear honest Bowline, a d- -g his peepers,
And flound'ring about as bit by the creepers,
Vociferously bg his barbarous lot,

By his mess to be sew'd up alive in his cot.

The Doctor, though stagger'd, unloosen'd the sack,
And restor❜d to the light the still more stagger'd Jack;
Muttering, "Last night had I stuck my knife in you,
I should not now wail for the loss of a guinea."
Next day, the sly chap who had sold him the tar,
Pass'd by the søre-nettled anatomist's door;
Who, calling him back, complain'd of the trick
He had serv'd him, by bringing

a man that was quick.”

"It is so much the better," returns Resurrection;

"To so much convenience why start you objection? If I've had your guinea, Sir, you have had tantum; And you've only to slaughter the man when you want

him."

EPIGRAM

could be satisfied; and will thus give more trouble to the person who entertains him, than any reasonable guest would require of his host.

A Milling. A sound threshing,

A Doubler. A blow that makes the modest, but grateful, receiver, double himself up.

A Floorer.-A knock-down flat, in any way or mode of execution in the art.

The Knock-down was clean.-This is when the merit of a blow is so decisively intelligible, that the receiver, without one moment's allowance for criticism or hesitation, demonstrates the fact by an immediate fall.