It therefore should be all your aim to speak with ample care;

For who, however fond of game, would choose to swallow hair?

A fat man's gait may make us smile, who have no gate to close;

The farmer sitting on his stile no stylish person knows ;

Perfumers men of scents must be; some Scilly men are bright;

A brown man oft deep read we see, a black a wicked wight.

Most wealthy men good manors have, however vulgar they :

And actors still the harder slave, the oftener they

play:

So poets can't the baize obtain, unless their tailors

choose;

While grooms and coachmen, not in vain, each evening seek the mews.

The dyer who by dyeing lives, a dire life maintains; The glazier, it is known, receives his profits from

his panes:

By gardeners thyme is tied 'tis true, when spring is in its prime :

But time and tide won't wait for you, if

tied for time.

you are

Then now you see, my little dears, the way to make

a pun;

A trick which you, through coming years, should sedulously shun:

The fault admits of no defence: for wheresoe'er 'tis

found,

You sacrifice the sound for sense; the sense is never

So let

sound.

your

words and actions too, one single meaning prove,

And just in all you say or do, you'll gain esteem and love:

In mirth and play no harm you'll know, when duty's task is done;

But parents ne'er should let you go unpunish'd for a pun!

THEODORE HOOK.

The Cataract of Lodore.

"How does the water

Come down at Lodore?"

My little boy ask'd me
Thus once on a time;

And moreover he task'd me

To tell him in rhyme,

Anon at the word,

Then first came one daughter

And then came another,

To second and third

The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water

Comes down at Lodore,

With its rush and its roar,
As many a time

They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And 'twas in my vocation,
For their recreation,
That so I should sing;
Because I was laureate

To them and the king.

From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;

From its fountains

In the mountains,

Its rills and its gills;

Through moss and through brake

It runs and it creeps

For awhile, till it sleeps
In its own little lake;
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,

And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,

Hurry-scurry,

Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,

Till in this rapid race

On which it is bent,

It reaches the place

Of its steep descent.

The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging,
As if a war waging

Its caverns and rocks among:

Rising and leaping,

Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,

Writhing and ringing,

Eddying and whisking,

Spouting and frisking,

Turning and twisting,

Around and around,
With endless rebound!

Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in ;

Confounding, astounding,

Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.

Collecting, projecting,

Receding and speeding,

And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,

And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and spitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning.

And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering.

Dividing, and gliding, and sliding,
And falling, and brawling, and sprawling,
And diving, and riving, and striving,

And sprinkling, and twinkling, and wrinkling,
And sounding, and bounding, and rounding,
And bubbling, and troubling, and doubling,
And grumbling, and rumbling, and tumbling,
And clattering, and battering, and shattering.