When time began to play his usual tricks;
My locks, once comely in a virgin’s sight,
Locks of pure brown, now felt th’ encroaching white;
Gradual each day I liked my horses less,
My dinner more—I learn’t to play at chess.”
and as to his jingling style he mentions that Crabbe thus describes a thrifty house-wife:—
“Heaven in her eye, and in her hand her keys.”
THE THEATRE.
A Preface of Apologies.
If the following poem should be fortunate enough to be selected for the opening address, a few words of explanation may be deemed necessary, on my part, to avert invidious misrepresentation. The animadversion I have thought it right to make on the noise created by tuning the orchestra, will, I hope, give no lasting remorse to any of the gentlemen employed in the band. It is to be desired that they would keep their instruments ready tuned, and strike off at once. This would be an accommodation to many well-meaning persons who frequent the theatre, who, not being blest with the ear of St. Cecilia, mistake the tuning for the overture, and think the latter concluded before it is begun.