"There was a fresh tumult of applause. They begged for more; but I said, modestly, that I could not but feel that stanzas of this kind, grasping as they did comprehensively at the bases of all life, have, in the long run, a tendency to impress the hearts of delicate, impassioned women too strongly, so that I should prefer to quote a pair of epigrams, in which the distinctive feature of the epigram--the sudden flashing out of the species of squib which constitutes the tail--would not fail to be duly appreciated. I read--
"'WIT.
'The pudgy Master Schrein
Drank many a glass of wine,
But death cut short his thread.
Then quoth his neighbour Spry
(A gossip, deep and sly),
"Our pudgy Master Schrein
No longer drinks his wine,
And, why?--because he's dead."'