This cooking?-it's messing! The spinach wants pressing, And salads in dressing

Are best with good eggs.
And John-yes, already-
Has had something heady,
That makes him unsteady
In keeping his legs.

How shall I get through it!
I never can do it,

I'm quite looking to it,

To sink by and by.

Oh! would I were dead now,

A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS.

"Glorious Apollo from on high beheld us."
OLD SONG.

As latterly I chanced to pass

A Public House, from which, alas!
The Arms of Oxford dangle!

My ear was startled by a din,
That made me tremble in my skin,
A dreadful hubbub from within,
Of voices in a wrangle—
Voices loud, and voices high,
With now and then a party-cry,
Such as used in times gone by

To scare the British border:

When foes from North and South of Tweed

Neighbours and of Christian creed—.

Met in hate to fight and bleed,

Upsetting Social Order.

Surprised, I turn'd me to the crowd,

Attracted by that tumult loud,

And ask'd a gazer, beetle-brow'd,
The cause of such disquiet.

When lo! the solemn-looking man,
First shook his head on Burleigh's plan,
And then, with fluent tongue, began
His version of the riot:

A row!-why yes,—a pretty row, you might hear from this to Garmany,

And what is worse, it's all got up among the Sons of Harmony,

The more's the shame for them as used to be in time and tune,

[June! And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in Ah! many a pleasant chant I've heard in passing here along,

When Swiveller was President a-knocking down a song;

But Dick's resign'd the post, you see, and all them shouts and hollers

Is 'cause two other candidates, some sort of larned

scholars,

Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

Lord knows their names, I'm sure I don't, no more than any yokel,

But I never heard of either as connected with the

vocal;

Nay, some do say, although of course the public rumour varies,

They've no more warble in 'em than a pair of hen canaries;

Though that might pass if they were dabs at t' other sort of thing,

For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot sing;

But lork! it's many folks' belief they 're only good at prosing,

For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their

composing;

And when a piece of poetry has stood its public

trials,

If pop'lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven

Dials,

And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey,

It's chanted like the "Dog's Meat Man," or "If I had a Donkey."

Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither,

No ballad worth a ha' penny has ever come from

either,

And him as writ "Jim Crow," he says, and got such lots of dollars,

Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.

Howsomever that's the meaning of the squabble that arouses

This neighbourhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of Houses,

as is reason,

Who want to have their dinners and their parties, [season. In Christian peace and charity according to the But from Number Thirty-Nine-since this elec

tioneering job,

Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there's an everlasting mob;

Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creature passes by,

But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye;

And a pretty noise there is!-what with canvassers and spouters,

For in course each side is furnish'd with its backers and its touters;

And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried,

You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married;

Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms, If you're dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from the "Arms: "

While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their scholars,

To write about a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.

Well, that, sir, is the racket; and the more the sin and shame

Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the

same;

Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing

cup,

But they'll be the House's ruin, or the shutting of it up,