learn whose fame so long has been surviving—   To read the name posterity will place In that blank void, and view the finished face. Even as I gazed, the year Three Thousand came, And then by acclamation all the people Decreed whose was our century's best fame; Then scaffolded the statue like a steeple, To make the likeness; and the name was sunk Deep in the pedestal's metallic trunk. Whose was it? Gentle reader, pray excuse The seeming rudeness, but I can't consent to Be so forehanded with important news.     'Twas neither yours nor mine—let that content you. If not, the name I must surrender, which, Upon a dead man's word, was George K. Fitch! 

 

 AN ART CRITIC

   Ira P. Rankin, you've a nasal name—   I'll sound it through "the speaking-trump of fame,"   And wondering nations, hearing from afar The brazen twang of its resounding jar, Shall say: "These bards are an uncommon class—   They blow their noses with a tube of brass!"   Rankin! ye gods! if Influenza pick Our names at christening, and such names stick, Let's all be born when summer suns withstand Her prevalence and chase her from the land, And healing breezes generously help To shield from death each ailing human whelp!   "What's in a name?" There's much at least in yours That the pained ear unwillingly endures, And much to make the suffering soul, I fear, Envy the lesser anguish of the ear. So you object to Cytherea! Do, The picture was not painted, sir, for you! Your mind to gratify and taste address, The masking dove had been a dove the less. Provincial censor! all untaught in art, With mind indecent and indecent heart, Do you not know—nay, why should I explain? Instruction, argument alike were vain—   I'll show you reasons when you show me brain. 

 

 THE SPIRIT OF A SPONGE

   I dreamed one night that Stephen Massett died, And for admission up at Heaven applied.   "Who are you?" asked St. Peter. Massett said:   "Jeems Pipes, of Pipesville." Peter bowed his head, Opened the gates and said: "I'm glad to know you, And wish we'd something better, sir, to show you."   "Don't mention it," said Stephen, looking bland, And was about to enter, hat in hand, When from a cloud below such fumes arose As tickled tenderly his conscious nose. He paused, replaced his hat upon his head, Turned back and to the saintly warden said, O'er his already sprouting wings: "I swear I smell some broiling going on down there!"   So Massett's paunch, attracted by the smell, Followed 

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