ELIA.
Ab agro Enfeldiense datum, Aprilis nescio quibus Calendis— Davus sum, non Calendarius.
P.S.—Perdita in toto est Billa Reformatura.
[Mr. Stephen Gwynn gives me the following translation:—
Good Sir, I have received your most kind letter, and it has entered my mind as I began to reply, that the Latin tongue has seldom or never been used between us as the instrument of converse or correspondence. Your letters, filled with Plinian elegancies (more than becomes a Quaker), are so alien to Pliny's language, that you seem not to have a word (that is, a Roman word) to throw, as the saying is, at a dog. Perchance the disuse of Latinising had constrained you more than is right to the use of the vernacular. I have determined to recall you to the recovery of your lost Latinity by certain well-known adages common in all mouths.
The cat's in the cupboard and she can't see.
All that glitters is not gold.
Set a beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the Devil.
Set a thief to catch a thief.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Now let us sing of weightier matters.
Tom, Tom, of Islington, wed a wife on Sunday. He brought her home on Monday. Bought a stick on Tuesday. Beat her well on Wednesday. She was sick on Thursday. Dead on Friday. Tom was glad on Saturday night to bury his wife on Sunday.
Little Jack Homer sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie. He put in his thumb and drew out a plum, and cried "Good Heavens, what a good boy am I!"
Diddle, diddle, dumkins! my son John Went to bed with his breeches
on; One shoe off and the other shoe on, Diddle, diddle, etc. (Da
Capo.)
Here am I, jumping Joan. When no one's by, I'm all alone.