But has not Hamlet his opinion given—
O Hamlet had a heart for Drapers’ servants!
“That custom is”—say custom after seven—
“More honour’d in the breach than the observance.”
O come then, gentle ladies, come in time,
O’erwhelm our counters, and unload our shelves;
Torment us all until the seventh chime,
But let us have the remnant to ourselves!
We wish of knowledge to lay in a stock,
And not remain in ignorance incurable;—
To study Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Locke,
And other fabrics that have proved so durable.
We long for thoughts of intellectual kind,
And not to go bewilder’d to our beds;
With stuff and fustian taking up the mind,
And pins and needles running in our heads!
For oh! the brain gets very dull and dry,
Selling from morn till night for cash or credit;
Or with a vacant face and vacant eye,
Watching cheap prints that Knight did never edit.
Till sick with toil, and lassitude extreme,
We often think when we are dull and vapoury,
The bliss of Paradise was so supreme,
Because that Adam did not deal in drapery.
SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION.
“An indifference to tears, and blood, and human suffering, that could only belong to a Boney-parte.—Life of Napoleon.
