A WIFE

Lord Erskine, at women presuming to rail,
Calls a wife "a tin canister tied to one's tail";
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his Lordship's degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? consider'd aright,
A canister's useful, and polish'd, and bright:
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That's the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

THE HONEY-MOON

The honey-moon is very strange.
Unlike all other moons the change
She regularly undergoes.
She rises at the full; then loses
Much of her brightness; then reposes
Faintly; and then ... has naught to lose.
Walter Savage Landor.

DIDO

IMPROMPTU EPIGRAM ON THE LATIN GERUNDS

When Dido found Æneas would not come,
She mourn'd in silence, and was Di-do-dum(b).
Richard Parson.