Should the learned judge
Sit on me like fury,
Still I’d never budge—
There’s the British Jury!
Should that stay prove rotten,
Bowen, Brett, and Cotton [{143}]
Would upset them all,—then give that brief to me.
ON CIRCUIT.
Two neighbours, fighting for a yard of land;
Two witnesses, who lie on either hand;
Two lawyers, issuing many writs and pleas;
Two clerks, in a dark passage counting fees;
Two counsel, calling one another names;
Two courts, where lawyers play their little games;
Two weeks at Leeds, which wear the soul away;
Two judges getting limper every day;
Two bailiffs of the court with aspect sour—
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.
AT THE “COCK” TAVERN.
Champagne doth not a luncheon make,
Nor caviare a meal;
Men gluttonous and rich may take
These till they make them ill.
If I’ve potatoes to my chop,
And after that have cheese,
Angels in Pond & Spiers’s shop
Serve no such luxuries.
IMPROMPTU IN THE ASSIZE COURT, NOTTINGHAM,
On seeing Bret Harte come upon the Bench.
Thanks for an hour of laughing
In a world that is growing old;
Thanks for an hour of weeping
In a world that is growing cold;
For we who have wept with Dickens,
And we who have laughed with Boz,
Have renewed the days of our childhood
With his American Coz.