Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs

That, being very proper, they were read by very few.
He was a famous Painter, too, and shone upon the "line,"
And even Mr. Ruskin came and worshipped at his shrine;
But, alas, the school he followed was heroically high—
The kind of Art men rave about, but very seldom buy—
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid—
This very great—this very good—this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!

He was a great Inventor, and discovered, all alone,
A plan for making everybody's fortune but his own;
For, in business, an Inventor's little better than a fool,
And my highly gifted friend was no exception to the rule.
His poems—people read them in the Quarterly Reviews—
His pictures—they engraved them in the Illustrated News—
His inventions—they, perhaps, might have enriched him by degrees,
But all his little income went in Patent Office fees;
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid—
This very great—this very good—this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!

At last the point was given up in absolute despair,
When a distant cousin died, and he became a millionaire,
With a county seat in Parliament, a moor or two of grouse,
And a taste for making inconvenient speeches in the House!
Then it flashed upon Britannia that the fittest of rewards
Was, to take him from the Commons and to put him in the Lords!
And who so fit to sit in it, deny it if you can,
As this very great—this very good—this very gifted man?
(Though I'm more than half afraid
That it sometimes may be said
That we never should have revelled in that source of proper pride,
However great his merits—if his cousin hadn't died!)

WHEN I FIRST PUT THIS UNIFORM ON

When I first put this uniform on,
I said as I looked in the glass.
"It's one to a million
That any civilian
My figure and form will surpass.
Gold lace has a charm for the fair,
And I've plenty of that, and to spare,
While a lover's professions,
When uttered in Hessians,
Are eloquent everywhere!
A fact that I counted upon,
When I first put this uniform on!"

I said, when I first put it on,
"It is plain to the veriest dunce
That every beauty
Will feel it her duty
To yield to its glamor at once.
They will see that I'm freely gold-laced
In a uniform handsome and chaste—
But the peripatetics
Of long-haired æsthetics,
Are very much more to their taste—
Which I never counted upon
When I first put this uniform on!"

SAID I TO MYSELF, SAID I

When I went to the Bar as a very young man,
(Said I to myself—said I),
I'll work on a new and original plan
(Said I to myself—said I),
I'll never assume that a rogue or a thief
Is a gentleman worthy implicit belief,
Because his attorney has sent me a brief
(Said I to myself—said I!).

I'll never throw dust in a juryman's eyes
(Said I to myself—said I),
Or hoodwink a judge who is not over-wise
(Said I to myself—said I),
Or assume that the witnesses summoned in force
In Exchequer, Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, or Divorce,
Have perjured themselves as a matter of course
(Said I to myself—said I).

Ere I go into court I will read my brief through
(Said I to myself—said I),
And I'll never take work I'm unable to do
(Said I to myself—said I).
My learned profession I'll never disgrace
By taking a fee with a grin on my face,
When I haven't been there to attend to the case
(Said I to myself—said I!).

In other professions in which men engage
(Said I to myself—said I),
The Army, the Navy, the Church, and the Stage
(Said I to myself—said I),
Professional license, if carried too far,
Your chance of promotion will certainly mar
And I fancy the rule might apply to the Bar