EPIGRAMS.

I do not please all my readers?—But see,——

Is it every reader that pleases me?——

The tolling of church-bells, O Doctor Ismenus,—dost find it a bore?

Write no more prescriptions, O Doctor, and then they will toll no more!

Here lies a cardinal

Who did more ill than good.

The good he did badly,

The ill as well as he could.

A monk to a dying sinner said, “Beware!

Just now, as I was coming up the stair,

I saw the devil come for you——” “But stay,—

What shape had he?” “An ass.” “Good father, nay!—

It was your shadow frightened you to-day!”

Professor Ardei’s ashes in this urn

Repose. Dame Nature intended him to teach——

So he was never able aught to learn.

Gian Maria’s ill-conditioned wife

Was bitten by a viper yester-eve.

“Then, I suppose, she’s yielded up her life?”

“No, sir—that ’twas the viper died, I grieve!”

“The abbey has been struck by lightning.” “Where?”

“’Twas in the library.” “Thank heaven’s care!——

The friars, holy men!—uninjured are!”——

284