Is that the humour o 't, O learned Nym?

Well, these be days of mad and morbid whim,

When would-be wits strain wildly at a joke

As an o'erladen ox against the yoke.

But "a baccilophil humour"!—in the air!

Science does love the unlearned soul to scare,

But what does this thing mean? With fear to fill us?

Can aught thus love and cherish the Bacillus?

O "atmospheric envelope" thy humour

Is worse than—Blank's—if we may trust this rumour.

Since microbe "humour" fills both air and earth,

Farewell to honest fun and wholesome mirth!

Adieu to genial Dickens, gentle Hood!

Hail to the peddling pessimistic brood

Whose "nimini-pimimi" mouths, too small by half

To stretch themselves to a Homeric laugh,

Mince, in a mirror, to the "Paphian Mimp!"

Momus is dead, and e'en that tricksy imp

Preposterous Puck hath too much native grit

To take the taste of Osrick turned a wit.

Humour baccilophil, microbic merriment,

Might suit him better. He will try the experiment.

His mirth's a smirk and not a paroxysm;

"Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism"

Do not disturb the "plie" of his prim lips,

Neither do cynic quirks and querulous quips.

Mirth would guffaw—when hearts and mouths were bigger,

Osrick would shrink from aught beyond a snigger,

Such as is stirred by screeds of far-fetched whim.

Ay! that's the humour o't, sententious Nym.

Let's hail a dying century's latest birth,—

The Newest Humour—purged from taint of Mirth!