One of the best of the minor things of Thackeray's—thrown off, doubtless before his temporarily-suspended cigar had gone out—is the following. It is a satire upon the circumstance of some fifty deer being penned into the narrow wood of some English nobleman, for Prince Albert to "hunt" in those confined limits. The lines are by "Jeems, cousin-german on the Scotch side," to "Chawls Yellowplush, Igsquire":
"SONNICK.
"sejested by prince halbert gratiously killing the stags at jacks cobug gothy.
"Some forty Ed of sleak and hantlered dear,
In Cobug (where such hanimels abound)
Was shot, as by the newspaper I 'ear,
By Halbert, Usband of the British crownd.
Britannia's Queen let fall the pretty tear,
Seeing them butchered in their sylvan prisns;
Igspecially when the keepers standing round,
Came up and cut their pretty innocent whizns.
Suppose, instead of this pore Germing sport,
This Saxon wenison wich he shoots and bags,
Our Prins should take a turn in Capel Court,
And make a massyker of Henglish stags.
Poor stags of Hengland! were the Untsman at you,
What havoc he would make, and what a tremenjus battu.
Jeems."
What is pleasure? It is an extremely difficult thing to say what "pleasure" means. Pleasure bears a different scale to every person. Pleasure to a country girl may mean a village ball, and "so many partners that she danced till she could scarcely stand." Pleasure to a school-boy means tying a string to his school-fellow's toe when he is asleep, and pulling it till he wakens him. Pleasure to a "man of inquiring mind" means, "a toad inside of a stone," or a beetle running around with his head off. Pleasure to a hard-laboring man means doing nothing; pleasure to a fashionable lady means, "having something to do to drive away the time." Pleasure to an antiquary means, an "illegible inscription." Pleasure to a connoisseur means, a "dark, invisible, very fine picture." Pleasure to the social, the "human face divine." Pleasure to the morose, "Thank Heaven, I shan't see a soul for the next six months!"
"Why don't you wash and dress yourself when you come into a court of justice?" asked a pompous London judge of a chimney-sweep, who was being examined as a witness. "Dress myself, my lord," said the sweep: "I am dressed as much as your lordship: you are in your working-clothes, and so am I!"
A good while ago that inimitable wag, Punch had some very amusing "Legal Maxims," with comments upon them; a few of which found their way into the "Drawer," and a portion of which we subjoin: