Excellent advice! How many hats there are—and not of music-grinders only—in which we should be delighted to see the button dropped! The next in order is very good, and equally intelligible on this side of the Atlantic. We give the greater part of it:—
THE TREADMILL SONG.
"They've built us up a noble wall,
To keep the vulgar out;
We've nothing in the world to do,
But just to walk about;
So faster now, you middle men,
And try to beat the ends,
Its pleasant work to ramble round
Among one's honest friends.
Here, tread upon the long man's toes,
He shan't be lazy here—
And punch the little fellow's ribs,
And tweak that lubber's ear,
He's lost them both—don't pull his hair,
Because he wears a scratch,
But poke him in the further eye,
That isn't in the patch.
Hark! fellows, there's the supper-bell,
And so our work is done;
It's pretty sport—suppose we take
A round or two for fun!
If ever they should turn me out,
When I have better grown,
Now hang me, but I mean to have
A treadmill of my own!"
"The September Gale," "The Ballad of an Oysterman," "My Aunt," all solicit admission, but we have no space. A few of the verses "On the Portrait of 'A Gentleman,' in the Athenæum Gallery," we will insert. Perhaps we may see the companion picture to it on the walls of our own Exhibition at Trafalgar Square:—
"It may be so, perhaps thou hast
A warm and loving heart;
I will not blame thee for thy face,
Poor devil as thou art.
That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose,
Unsightly though it be,
In spite of all the cold world's scorn,
It may be much to thee.
Those eyes, among thine elder friends,
Perhaps they pass for blue;
No matter—if a man can see,
What more have eyes to do?
Thy mouth—that fissure in thy face,
By something like a chin—
May be a very useful place
To put thy victual in."