That was a touch of delicate sarcasm which is recorded of Charles Lamb's brother, "James Elia." He was out at Eton one day, with his brother and some other friends; and upon seeing some of the Eton boys, students of the college, at play upon the green, he gave vent to his forebodings, with a sigh and solemn shake of the head: "Ah!" said he, "what a pity to think that these fine ingenuous lads in a few years will all be changed into frivolous members of parliament!"
Some spendthrifts belonging to "The Blues" having been obliged to submit their "very superior long-tailed troop horses" to the arbitrament of a London auctioneer's hammer, a wag "improves the occasion" by inditing the following touching parody:
"Upon the ground he stood,
To take a last fond look
At the troopers, as he entered them
In the horse-buyer's book.
He listened to the neigh,
So familiar to his ear;
But the soldier thought of bills to pay,
And wiped away a tear.
"Beside the stable-door,
A mare fell on her knees;
She cocked aloft her crow-black tail,
That fluttered in the breeze,
She seemed to breathe a prayer—
A prayer he could not hear—
For the soldier felt his pockets bare,
And wiped away a tear.
"The soldier blew his nose—
Oh! do not deem him weak!
To meet his creditors, he knows
He's not sufficient 'cheek.'
Go read the writ-book through,
And 'mid the names, I fear,
You're sure to find the very Blue
Who wiped away the tear!"
We believe it is Dryden who says, "It needs all we know to make things plain." We wonder what he would have thought of this highly intelligible account of blowing up a ship by a submarine battery, as Monsieur Maillefert blew up the rocks in Hellgate:
"There is no doubt that all submarine salts, acting in coalition with a pure phosphate, and coagulating chemically with the sublimate of marine potash, will create combustion in nitrous bodies. It is a remarkable fact in physics, that sulphurous acids, held in solution by glutinous compounds, will create igneous action in aquiferous bodies; and hence it is, therefore, that the pure carbonates of any given quantity of bituminous or ligneous solids will of themselves create the explosions in question."