Manipulation

Oh, my head! my head! my head!
Lack! for my poor unfortunate head!
Mister de Ville
Has been to feel,
And what do you think he said?
He felt it up, and he felt it down,
Behind the ears, and across the crown,
Sinciput, occiput, great and small,
Bumps and organs, he tickled 'em all;
And he shook his own, as he gravely said,
'Sir, you really have got a most singular head!

'Why here's a bump,
Only feel what a lump;
Why the organ of "Sound" is an absolute hump;
And only feel here,
Why, behind each ear,
There's a bump for a butcher or a bombardier;
Such organs of slaughter
Would spill blood like water;
Such "lopping and topping" of heads and of tails,
Why, you'll cut up a jackass with Alderman S.'
[Caetera desunt.]

Richard Harris Barham

Richard Harris Barham was an English cleric, novelist, and humorous poet. He is best known for his collection of humorous verse, "The Ingoldsby Legends." Barham was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and later became a minor canon of St. Paul's Cathedral and rector of St. Augustine's, Watling Street, London. His work was well-received in Victorian England both for its wit and its parodic take on medieval romances and legends.

Richard Harris Barham

To Late

Richard Harris Barham, Simple Poetry

The Hand Of Glory: The Nurse's Story

Richard Harris Barham, Simple Poetry

The Lay Of St. Odille

Richard Harris Barham, Simple Poetry

The Execution: A Sporting Anecdote Hon. Mr. Sucklethumbkin's Story

Richard Harris Barham, Simple Poetry

English

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Craniology.

'Tis strange how like a very dunce,
Man - with his bumps upon his sconce,
Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he
Has had, till lately, of Phrenology -
A science that by simple dint of
Head-combing he should find a hint of,
When scratching o'er those little poll-hills,
The faculties throw up like mole-hills;
A science that, in very spite
Of all his teeth, ne'er came to light,
For though he knew his skull had grinders,
Still there turned up no organ finders,
Still sages wrote, and ages fled,
And no man's head came in his head -
Not even the pate of Erra Pater,
Knew aught about its pia mater.

At last great Dr. Gall bestirs him -
I don't know but it might be Spurzheim -
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Phrenology.

"Come, collar this bad man -
Around the throat he knotted me
Till I to choke began -
In point of fact, garotted me!"

So spake Sir Herbert Write
To James, Policeman Thirty-two -
All ruffled with his fight
Sir Herbert was, and dirty too.

Policeman nothing said
(Though he had much to say on it),
But from the bad man's head
He took the cap that lay on it.

"No, great Sir Herbert White -
Impossible to take him up.
This man is honest quite -
Wherever did you rake him up?

"For Burglars, Thieves, and Co.,
Indeed, I'm no apologist,
But I, some years ago,
Assisted a Phrenologist.

"Observe his various bumps,
His head as I uncover it:
His morals lie in lumps
All round about and over it."

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The Legend Of Hamilton Tighe

The Captain is walking his quarter-deck,
With a troubled brow and a bended neck;
One eye is down through the hatchway cast,
The other turns up to the truck on the mast;
Yet none of the crew may venture to hint
'Our Skipper hath gotten a sinister squint!'

The Captain again the letter hath read
Which the bum-boat woman brought out to Spithead
Still, since the good ship sail'd away,
He reads that letter three times a-day;
Yet the writing is broad and fair to see
As a Skipper may read in his degree,
And the seal is as black, and as broad, and as flat,
As his own cockade in his own cock'd hat:
He reads, and he says, as he walks to and fro,
'Curse the old womanshe bothers me so!'

He pauses now, for the topmen hail
'On the larboard quarter a sail! a ...

Richard Harris Barham

Phantasmagoria Canto V ( Byckerment )

"Don't they consult the 'Victims,' though?"
I said. "They should, by rights,
Give them a chance,because, you know,
The tastes of people differ so,
Especially in Sprites."

The Phantom shook his head and smiled.
"Consult them? Not a bit!
'Twould be a job to drive one wild,
To satisfy one single child,
There'd be no end to it!"

"Of course you can't leave CHILDREN free,"
Said I, "to pick and choose:
But, in the case of men like me,
I think 'Mine Host' might fairly be
Allowed to state his views."

He said "It really wouldn't pay,
Folk are so full of fancies.
We visit for a single day,
And whether then we go, or stay,
Depends on circumstances.

"And, though we don't consult 'Mine Host'
Before the thing's arranged,
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The Cock And The Bull.

You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought
Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day -
I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech,
As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur
(You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?)
Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days.
Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,
And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same
By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange -
'Chop' was my snickering dandiprat's own term -
One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm.
O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four
Pence, one and fourpence - you are with me, sir? -
What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock,
One day (and what a roaring day it was
Go shop or sight-see - bar a spit o' rain!)
In February, eighteen sixty nine,
Alex...

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The 'Squire At Vauxhall.

Nothing so idle as to waste
This Life disputing upon Taste;
And most--let that sad Truth be written--
In this contentious Land of Britain,
Where each one holds "it seems to me"
Equivalent to Q. E. D.,
And if you dare to doubt his Word
Proclaims you Blockhead and absurd.
And then, too often, the Debate
Is not 'twixt First and Second-rate,
Some narrow Issue, where a Touch
Of more or less can't matter much,
But, and this makes the Case so sad,
Betwixt undoubted Good and Bad.
Nay,--there are some so strangely wrought,--
So warped and twisted in their Thought,--
That, if the Fact be but confest,
They like the baser Thing the best.
Take BOTTOM, who for one, 'tis clear,
Possessed a "reasonable Ear;"
He might have had at his Command
The Sympho...

Henry Austin Dobson