A DRINKING SONG.
If ever your spirits are damp, low,
And bilious; you should, I opine,
Just quaff a deep bumper of Lamplough—
Of Lamplough’s Pyretic Saline.
The title is quaint and eccentric—
Is probably so by design—
But they say for disturbances ventric
There’s nought like Pyretic Saline.
Don’t bid me become exegetic,
Or tell me I’m only a scamp low,
If I can tell you more of Pyretic
Saline manufactured by Lamplough.
A second good specimen was published in a theatrical paper at the time when Mr J. S. Clarke, an American comedian, whose strength is in his advertisements, and who is well known this side the Atlantic, was playing in “The Rivals.” It is entitled
SAVED.
It was a chill November eve and on the busy town
A heavy cloud of yellow fog was sinking slowly down;
Upon the bridge of Waterloo, a prey to mad despair,
There stood a man with heavy brow and deep-lined face of care.
One ling’ring look around he gave, then on the river cast
That sullen stare of rash resolve he meant should be his last.
Far down the old cathedral rose, a shadow grey and dim,
The light of day would dawn on that but ne’er again on him.
One plunge within the murky stream would end the bitter strife.
“What rest’s there now,” he sobbed aloud, “to bid me cling to life?”
Just then the sound of stamping feet smote on his list’ning ear,
A sandwich-man upon his beat paused ’neath the lamplight clear.
One hurried glance—he read the board that hung upon his back,
He leapt down from the parapet, and smote his thigh a smack.
“I must see that,” he cried—the words that put his woe to flight
Were “John S. Clarke as Acres at the Charing Cross to-night.”