Gilbert with his famous
"Nonsense-Rhyme in Blank Verse." We quote from memory:--
"There was an Old Man of St. Bees,
Who was stung in the arm by a wasp.
When they asked, 'Does it hurt?' he replied, 'No, it doesn't,
But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet!'"
Passing over the lines referring to the "Young Person" of Crete to whom the
epithet "ombliferous" is applied, we may be pardoned--on the ground of the
geographical proximity of the two countries named--for quoting together two
stanzas which in reality are separated by a good many pages:--
"There was a Young Lady of Norway,
Who casually sat in a doorway;
When the doors queezed her flat, she exclaimed, 'What of that?'
This courageous young person of Norway."
"There was a Young Lady of Sweden,
Who went by the slow train to Weedon;
When they cried, 'Weedon Station!' she made no observation,
But thought she should go back to Sweden."
A noticeable feature about this first book, and one which we think is
peculiar to it, is the harsh treatment which the eccentricities of the
inhabitants of certain towns appear to have met with at the hands of their
fellow-residents. No less than three people are "smashed,"--the Old Man of
Whitehaven "who danced a quadrille with a Raven;" the Old Person of Buda;
and the Old Man with a gong "who bumped at it all the day long," though in
the last-named case we admit that there was considerable provocation.
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