Heaven knows when your sight will be valid again,
You may throw down the pencil and take up the pen,
And you cannot have too many strings to your bow.'
—'A-a-amen!' says young William to Mrs. Barlow.
So we're treated (our feelings we needn't define)
To a beastly slow book called the 'Fall and Decline'
By a fellow called Gibbon, be d——d to him; then
Comes the 'Esprit des lois et des moeurs,' from the pen
Of a chap hight Voltaire—un pédant—qui je crois
Ne se fichait pas mal et des moeurs et des lois.