NOVEMBER 23.
PANDORA’S BOX. (Iliad A.)
Prometheus once (in Tooke the tale you’ll see)
In one vast box enclosed all human evils;
But curious Woman needs the inside would see,
And out came twenty thousand million devils.
The story’s spoil’d, and Tooke should well be chid;
The fact, sir, happen’d thus, and I’ve no doubt of it:
’Twas not that Woman raised the coffer’s lid,
But when the lid was raised, Woman popp’d out of it.
“But Hope remain’d”—true, sir, she did; but still
All saw of what Miss Hope gave intimation;
Her right hand grasp’d an undertaker’s bill,
Her left conceal’d a deed of separation.
N. B. I was most horribly sea-sick when I took this view of the subject. Besides, grapes on shipboard, in general, are remarkably sour.