MXX.—SALAD.
To make this condiment your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen-sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give;
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
And, lastly, o'er the flavored compound toss
A magic soup-spoon of anchovy sauce.
O green and glorious!—O herbaceous treat!
'T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl!
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
"Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day!"
MXXI.—ACTOR.
A member of one of the dramatic funds was complaining of being obliged to retire from the stage with an income of only one hundred and fifty pounds a year, upon which an old officer, on half-pay, said to him: "A comedian has no reason to complain, whilst a man like me, crippled with wounds, is content with half that sum."—"What!" replied the actor; "and do you reckon as nothing the honor of being able to say so?"
MXXII.—EPIGRAM.
That Lord —— owes nothing, one safely may say,
For his creditors find he has nothing to pay.
MXXIII.—CANDID ON BOTH SIDES.
"I rise for information," said a member of the legislative body. "I am very glad to hear it," said a bystander, "for no man wants it more."
MXXIV.—CARROTS CLASSICALLY CONSIDERED.
Why scorn red hair? The Greeks, we know
(I note it here in charity),
Had taste in beauty, and with them
The Graces were all Χαριται!