The Mirror

SETTING UP.

A chap once told St. Patrick's Dean,
While rising from his seat—"I mean
To set up for a wit:"
"Ah!" quoth the Dean, "if that be true,
The very best thing you can do
Is down again to sit."
Too many, like that would-be-wit,
Set up for what they are not fit.
And always lose their aim:
Set up for wisdom, wealth, renown,
But end the farce by setting down,
With poverty and shame.
A middling farmer thinks he can
Set up to be a gentleman,
And then set down content:
But after many turns and twists,
Is set down on the paupers' list,
A fool not worth a cent.
When farmers' daughters fair,
Set up with silk and Leghorn rare,
To look most wondrous winning,
They set upon a slippery stand,
Till indigence, with iron hand,
Upsets their underpinning.
Some city ladies, too, whose gear
Has made them to their husbands dear,
Set up to lead the ton,
Though they set high on fashion's seat,
Age, death or poverty, albeit,
Will set them down anon.
Some fools set up to live by law,
And though they are all over jaw,
Soon fail for lack of brains:
But had the boobies only just
Known where they ought to sit at first,
They'd saved a world of pains.
A quack sets up the doctor's trade—
But could he use the sexton's spade
No better than his pills,
The man might toil from morn to night
And find his match with all his might
To bury half he kills.
You may set up for what you choose,
As easily as wear old shoes,
If e'er so low at present;
But when you have set up in vain
And find you must set down again,
'Tis terribly unpleasant.

T.G. FESSENDEN.