Egerton-Warburton, Rowland Eyles

THE BOAR AND THE SINGINGBIRD

1. A MILLIONAIRE of much pretence,
2. Of great conceit, and little sense—
3. For ignorance, as oft we see,
4. Walks hand in hand with vanity—
5. A savant in his own esteem,
6. In every art a judge supreme,
7. Of genius gold he thought the test,
8. And wealth with taste and talent blest.
9.  
10. Assembled round his table sit
11. Men fam’d for science and for wit.
12. No artist could his sketch complete
13. Till he had laid it at his feet;
14. No sculptor could a Venus cast
15. Till compass he had o’er it pass’d;
16. The architect his plans outspread;
17. The author there his poem read.
18.  
19. Their voices they in chorus raise
20. His judgment and his taste to praise;
21. And while he feasts them, one and all
22. Their patron a Mæcenas call.
23.  
24. One noon, as, ‘neath the forest spray,
25. He rambled in the month of May,
26. A Woodman his attendant guide,
27. Whose head with brains was well supplied;
28. Behold! a boar, who now with toil
29. Of snout upturn’d the forest soil,
30. Now deep in earth was seen to wedge
31. His tusk, to give it keener edge;
32. Around him, fluttering as he plough’d,
33. The wood-birds carroll’d sweet and loud;
34. From forest-tree, from hawthorn-bush,
35. Came linnet, nightingale, and thrush;
36. Where’er he roam’d the tuneful throng
37. Pursued him with unceasing song.
38. The brute, a connoisseur profound
39. In music, listen’d to the sound,
40. Now raised his head, as if to tell
41. The birds he liked their voices well,
42. Now shook it in disapprobation
43. While he resumed his occupation.
44. “They choose,” said Dives, “much amiss,
45. An animal so gross as this;
46. Their music and themselves they wrong
47. To make this brute a judge of song.”
48. “Excuse me,” said the Woodman, “they
49. But show the tact which men display;
50. The soil upturn’d, his grovelling snout
51. Brings many a dainty morsel out;
52. ‘Tis that which tunes their hungry throats,
53. And prompts the music of their notes;
54. The labour of his tusk they need
55. Fresh worms to find on which they feed,
56. The brute, with much self-satisfaction
57. Deems his own merit the attraction.”

EPIGRAMS

1. QUEEN’S PIG
2.  
3. OF old, when the church-building coffer was full, **
4. Ere the work was begun, they requir’d a Pope’s Bull;
5. Nowaday, when supremacy rests with the Whig,
6. Congregational chapels require a Queen’s pig!

** On hearing that two pigs from the Home Park, Windsor had been presented, by command of Her Majesty, for the benefit of the Building Fund of the Victoria Congregational Chapel (1864).

1.  
2. CROSS-QUESTIONING
3.  
4. HIS wardrobe from Moses and Son, spic and span,
5. The witness stood up, quite an exquisite man:
6. “A broker, I think, Sir, and worth a Jew’s eye ?”
7. “I ham, Sir, I ham,” the emphatic reply.
8. “And indeed,” said the Counsel, “it must be confest
9. I ne’er in my life saw a ham better drest.”