Mammie's darling, icky thing!
Coral lips that fret the coral,
Innocence completely moral.
Sweet Babe,
They say,
Naught rhymes to Babe,
In any lay
Save "astrolabe,"--
And Tippoo Saib!
Oh, tiny face,
And tiny feet,
Oh, infant grace,
So incomplete,
Kiss me, my Sweet!

In sequence to these effusions, LEGION poured forth Ballades, and
Rondeaux, and wrote a Chant Royal on a General Election which occupied
a whole column of a newspaper, and needed three men to read, with a
boy for the "envoy." But this ditty was not thought to have seriously
affected the voting classes in any direction. LEGION was now usually
spoken of as "the versatile Mr. LEGION," a compliment which never
failed to annoy him hugely. Sated with popular applause, he turned
into a vein of new poetry, and produced _The Song of the Spud_, which,
his admirers averred was "racy of the soil." A grand English Opera,
on the Pilgrimage of Grace, was performed, at immense expense, LEGION
being the Librettist. It was patriotic, but not exactly popular.
Still, with all these claims on his country, LEGION lived in hopes
which were wofully disappointed; for, when his chance came at last,
a Prime Minister of modern ideas declared that, as a Laureate is not
useful, he must be ornamental. Now, neither LEGION, nor any of his