parodies on this favourite enigmatical literature. Here is one which Cleon produces:—
"Son of Erectheus, mark and ponder well
This holy warning from Apollo's cell;
It bids thee cherish him, the sacred whelp,
Who for thy sake doth bite and bark and yelp"
Demus shakes his head with an air of puzzled wisdom; he cannot make it out at all. "What has Erectheus to do with a whelp?""That's me," says Cleon; "I watch and bark for you. I'm Tear'em, and you must make much of me"[1] "Not at all," says his rival; "the whelp has been eating some of that oracle, as he does everything else. It's a defective copy; I've got the complete text here:"—
"Son of Erectheus, 'ware the gap-toothed dog,
The crafty mongrel that purloins thy prog;
Fawning at meals, and filching scraps away,
The whiles you gape and stare another way;
He prowls by night and pilfers many a prize
Amidst the sculleries and the—colonies."—(F.)
"That's much more intelligible," remarks the master. Cleon produces another, about a lion, who is to be carefully preserved "with a wooden wall and iron fortifications:"—"and I'm the lion.""I can give the interpretation of that," says the other; "the wood and iron are the stocks that you are to put this fellow in.""That part of the oracle," says Demus,
- ↑ The speech of a late member for Sheffield—much missed in the House, and whom it would be most unfair to compare with Cleon—will occur to many readers: "I'm Tear'em."
