And brought down on the combatants sundry gens d'armes,
Making seconds and principals promptly cut dirt.
The fair Marguerite, as it must be confessed,
Had caused a sad vacuum in many a man's chest.
So a sort of retributive justice was shown
When there turned out to be something wrong in her own,
Her drinking, and gaming, and flirting, et cetera,
Were not quite the remedies likely to better her;
But she went it while young" at the best pace, until
She took to her bed, and lay hopelessly ill.
There, plundered by servants, unhelped by a friend,
She lingered along to her desolate end.
At last, when grown weakest, and palest, and thinnest, her
Scruples induced her to send for a minister-
Or priest, I should say,
Who came the next day,
And "carried her sins and her fears all away."
And this is why the party prater
(As Colonel Pipes perchance might say)
Never saw fit to reprobate a
Although they anathematized Uncle Tom,
And hindered Dumas (that's the elder one) from
Going on with his tale of the Wandering Jew,
(Surnamed Isaac Laquedem, in which he'd a crack at 'em,)
That was bound to eclipse the famed story of Sue.
I've not yet been able to find that a priest
Has ever "pitched into" this drama the least,
Though the heroine's life a strict moralist shocks, he
Would hold that her death shows complete orthodoxy.
But if into this subject a writer inquires,
He'll be greeted with columns of "scoundrels" and "liars."
The sole line of argument some people know
My dear Bishop Feegrave now isn't it so?
To make her happiness complet
She saw her Armand at her feet,
The old papa confessed the cheat,
And, since she had not the least chance of recovery,
And his son was so ardent and constant a lover, he
Without any condition,
Took off his prohibition.
So she glided out of life,
Quite a saint, almost a wife.
MORAL OR ENVOY.
La Dame aux Camelias was so the rage,
And had such a run on the Vaudeville stage;
Nor only in Paris, but all over France;
(They played it all round everywhere en province,)
And in Italy, Belgium, and Germany, too,
Some dramatists thought it in England might do,
They got up a version extremely genteel
If I rightly remember they called it Camille.
Then, since law in England requires, with a high sense
Of morality's claims, for each new piece a license,
They called on the Chamberlain; this reply made he
"A very good play, of our own worth a score,
Like most of the dramas from Paris brought o'er;
But on this side the channel (the fact I deplore)
There's no lady-go-to-able name for a lady,
In Miss Marguerite's peculiar position, and so
You'll agree with me surely in short, it's no go."
Thus the conquering lady was run off the track;
That prude, Anglo Saxondom, drove her straight back.
But the worst was to come, for soon after she found
A strong opposition upon her own ground.
A vaudevillist, looking for something quite new,
Bethought him the "moral indignant" might do.
I'm not sure of his name,
Though 'tis one known to fame,
French names from one's mem'ry are so apt to steal.
Was it Clairville, or Bieville, or some other ville?
(It wasn't Bayard
For he isn't thar,
wherever dead Vaudevillists are.*)
*His mode of departure was so very French
That it seems to be fairly deserving of menti-
-on, at least in a note; he was first taken ill
With his foot in a waltz, and his hand on his quill.
He gave a big ball on a Saturday night,
The very next morning his spirit took flight,
And his posthumous play
In the course of a day,
Was brought out with no less than the greatest success,
At the l'audeville or the Varietes.
Ah, now I remember! the man is Barriere,
And his townsmen should pray he may ever be there, A permanent barrier against the attractions
Of innocent names for uninnocent actions.
For he in his "Daughters of Marble" has told.
How these creatures are worse than the sirens of old.
He shows a young man from the fairest position
Brought down to a very unseemly condition,
By a woman to evil so hopelessly wed
There isn't a word on her side to be said.
Till at last, stripped of all, and with scarcely a rag on his
Back, he expires in the greatest of agonies.
AN ANATHEMA A LA WALTER DE MAPES.
On the man who stole my purse in an Omnibus. Knickerbocker 1856.
MAY the man who stole my purse meet with all inflictions!
Friendship of the Sewer set, Feegrave's benedictions, Long harangues Congressional, full of wrath and passion Strikingly illustrated in the present fashion.
May his wife write several books and be counted clever, May his sons be candidates (well abused) for ever! May he be in prison shut, fasting without ere a can, And have nothing there to read except the North— American!
May he perish unabsolved of all sins confessible; May he have to write a leader for the Inexpressible May he be dissected by Bowie-Knives and handsaws, And sent off an Emigrant overland to Kansas!
When its earthly tenement yields his soul no shelter May it animate the corpse of an ancient pelter, Tackled to an omnibus, may 'neath whip and curb he Travel to eternity o'er the Russ in Urbe.
May he be devoured alive by the fiercest creatures Cimices domestici, Carribee mosquitoes!
May the railroads subdivide into sausage meal him And adopted citizens o'er their whis key eat him!
SONG OF THE BUCHANIERS. Fraser, December 1856.
THE day is past, the votes are cast,
The great result is known;
No more of fear, but joy and cheer:
The land is now our own.
Whatever powers to combat ours
And check our course were wont,
Both great and small, we put down all,
And first of all FREMONT.
We hate his fame, we scorn his name,
(As all that sounds like free;)
We therefore have put Fremont down,
And hey, then! up go we!
We'll put the Northern presses down,
Their awkward voice we'll stifle;
We're not the men for tongue and pen,
We go for knife and rifle;
For bludgeon and rope shall be full scope,
From Kansas to the sea;
We'll therefore put the Free Press down,
And hey, then! up go we!
We'll put free speech in Congress down,
In Bully Brooks' way;
The law of the cane shall make quite plain
What members must not say.
No man shall dare our plots declare,
Or show how black they be;
We'll put free speech entirely down,
And hey, then! up go we!
And next we'll put religion down,
(Except what does for slaves,
That they should obey for ever and aye,
Which sometimes bloodhounds saves,)
For the parsons preach free-toil and free-speech,-
A vile iniquity!
We'll therefore put religion down,
And hey, then! up go we!
We'll afterwards put marriage down,
For the neighbouring Mormon powers
Have their own peculiar institution,'
And sympathize with ours;
The patriarchs old who had slaves, we're told,
Had also polygamy.
Can one be well and the other of hell?
So hey, then! up go we!
We'll also put all learning down,
For scholars are our foes,
The men of thought set those at nought
Who can only reason by blows:
And learning gives us ill report,
It likes not slavery;
We'll therefore put all learning down,
And hey, then! up go we!
We'll put all decent envoys down,
And pack them straight away.
MIKE WALSH has claims to go to St. James,
To the Tuileries, Soulé;
And ATCHISON shall to Russia go,
(For the Czar fit company;)
Thus will we put good manners down,
And hey, then! up go we!
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