PUNCH,
OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

"Though cold the coxcomb, and though coarse the boor,

Though dulness haunts the rich and pain the poor,

In this colossal city,

Yet London is not Rome, O Shade!" I said.

"A later Juvenal should not find her dead

To purity and pity."

"Satire, of shames and follies in sole quest,

Is a one-eyed divinity at best,"

My guide responded, slowly.

"The tale of Zoïlus hath its moral still.

Such critics are but blowflies, their small skill

To carrion given wholly.

"Not all the Romans of Domitian's days

Were such as live in Juvenal's savage lays;

Not all the Latian ladies

Were Hippias or Collatias. Neither here

May all be gauged by satire's rule severe,

Or earth would be a Hades.

"The scalpel hath no terrors for the sound,

Nor is the hand that wields it harshly bound

To ceaseless vivisection.

The Cynic sharply sees, but sees not far;

The eye that hunts the mote may miss the star

Too great for scorn's detection.

"Dream not, oh friend, because I let the light

On lurid London through the cloak of night

(As was my undertaking.)

That I've a spirit wholly given to scorn,

Or blind to all, save sin, that with the morn

Will see a bright awaking.

"Yet could the freedman's son but wield his flail

In London, there are those might shrink and pale

As did Domitian's minion.

Paris lives yet, pander and parasite

Still flaunt in bold impunity, despite

A custom-freed opinion.

"Dull in the drawing-room, our beardless boys

Can sparkle in the haunts of coarser joys,

Coldness and muteness vanish

When Tullia dances or when Pollio sings.

With riotous applause the precinct rings,

There chill restraint they banish.

"Behold Lord Limpet in his gilded Box,

His well-gloved palms and scarlet silken socks

Actively agitated;

He who erewhile about the ball-room stood

A solemn, weary, whispering thing of wood,

And sn

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