namely, the theatrical dramas of Hon'ble Ibsen. When, Madams and Misses, I make the odious comparison of these works, with which I am completely unacquainted, to the productions of Poet Shakspeare, where I may boast the familiarity that is a breeder of contempt, I find that, in Hamlet's own words, it is the 'Criterion of a Satire,' and I shall assert the unalterable a priori of my belief that the melodious Swan of Stony Stratford, whether judged by his longitude, his versical blankness, or the profoundity of his attainments in Chronology, Theology, Phrenology, Palmistry, Metallurgy, Zoography, Nosology, Chiropody, or the Musical Glasses, has outnumbered every subsequent contemporary and succumbed them all!"
With this, I sat down, leaving my audience as sotto voce as fishes with admiration and amazement at the facundity of my eloquence, and should indubitably have been the recipient of innumerable felicitations but for the fact that Miss Spink, suddenly experiencing sensations of insalubriousness, requested me, without delay, to conduct her from the assemblage.
I would willingly make a repetition of my visit and rhetorical triumphs, only Miss Spinkinforms me that she has recently terminated her membership with the above society.