EPIGRAM.
A few years ago a sign of one of the Durham inns was removed, and sent to Chester-le-Street, by way of a frolic. It was generally supposed that the feat was achieved by some of the legal students then in that city; and a respectable attorney there was so fully persuaded of it, that he immediately began to make inquiries corroborative of his suspicions. The circumstances drew forth the following epigram from our friend T. Q. M., which has never appeared in print.
From one of our inns was a sign taken down.
And sent by some wags to a neighbouring town.
To a limb of the law the freak caus’d much vexation,
And he went through the streets making wild lamentation;
And breathing revenge on the frolicsome sparks,
Who, he had not a doubt, were the “gentlemen clerks.”[363]
From the prophets methinks we may inference draw
To prove how perverse was this man of the law.
For we find it inscrib’d in the pages divine—
“A perverse generation looks after a sign!”
[363] A favourite expression of the legal gentleman alluded to.