Volume 2

The smoker's garland.

Date:
1889-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The smoker's garland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    50/76 (page 88)
    O, happy man ! O, cast-off quid ! is he Who, like as thou, has comforted the poor. Happy his age who knows himself, like thee, Thou didst thy duty—man can do no more. Theoderit. GERMAN SONG. [The following translation of a popular German song was published originally in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine. Tait's will be remembered as the great Liberal magazine, which numbered amongst its regular contributors William Howitt, Ebenezer Elliott, and De Quincey. The Autobiography of an English Opium Eater was first published in Tait's. The chapter on “Literary Connections and Acquaintances,” which contained some allusions to the Liverpool Literary Society, caused considerable excitement amongst the then existing members of that body. Had De Quincey lived to the present day this chapter might have been continued with advantage, somewhat after the fashion of the famous essay- on “ The Snakes of Iceland ; ”—there are none.] OF croaking fools that whine profanely At life’s disasters, there’s a pack: Me grief assails and pinches vainly, Blest with a pipeful of taback. But just to-day quite changed the case is— To-day my wonted taste is slack; And gladly for a maiden’s graces, I’d pledge my pipe of best taback ! The soldier ’gainst his will a-fasting, The sailor that his grog must lack, Beguiles the vain desire of tasting, With help of pipe and mild taback. But comes some pearl of pretty wenches— At once his heart begins, tick-tack ! The joy within him even quenches His smoking pipeful of taback.