HISTORY BURLESQUED.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 497, 14 August 1871, Page 2

HISTORY BURLESQUED.

] The Nexo York Leader is responsible for the following little sketch:— .{{ ,-. ,r, : Qneen Elizabeth is dead. It doesn't make _any t matterj kww: get the'in-< formation. This is none of our fight, this (juarrel between the Associated Press and its rival. We've received the news and that's en'oiig-hi She" diedr^268 ryea¥s ago]*' the 24th of last month. She survived until the vital spark had fled, and then she saw it was no use resisting the inscrutable decree of fate, and so her unfettered soul" took its flight into the mysterious void and settled down to that" "bourne from which no traveller.returns unless he has a mission to jerk chains arotind and'rap bn' tables for the benefit of mediums and other longhaired wild-eyed inmates.,.; . „,.. v Queeu Elizabeth was a virgin—avergin' on seventy \ and ,yet the fire gleamed as brightly as ever.in her cream-colored eyesY and the dolicato sheen of her finely-tinted maroon nose contrasted as foroibly as in her youth with the albaster of her brow • and the plugs in her teeth were just as valuable as when gold was at 156. She had no small vices. She did not smoke or chew, or belong to the society for the promotion of cruelty to animals. And when she swore she never descended to the vulgarity of Horace Greeley—Q ue en Elizabeth didn't: ? When she"used pro-: fanrty she gave it as^a, finish, an elegance, a delicate, airy grace, and infused into it a luxurious abandon, and rounded it off carelessly at the corner, and dressed it up with well-selected .poetical adjectives, so that it sounded; like at strain i from' some sweet singer, like some sweet singer straining himself, in fact. And sfe had red hair. Her chignon was burgular proof. And often m the dim twilight of evening? when the sun had sunk to rest, when th# western sky was filled with tender radiance and lambent light, and the bulbul wooed the r rose in the back yard, showould play a few notes upon her harpsichord, or write a JJatin hymn or an essay upon the Harrison boiler. She was supposed to be the author of 'Rock Af o to Sleep, Mother," und" Beautiful Snow," and" Fi yo o'clock in the Morning. But, nevertheless, she was a very estimable woman, and with all her faults we love her still—better indeed

than if she was still fooling around Queen Elizabeth was not proud. ghg always insisted upon cleaning her teeth evenif she was a queen; and she always did it once a week, every Sunday rooming, with her own tooth-brash. What lesson does it teach to those who are haughty and rain and belong to thfft>on ton ? She never for! got that she was mere perishable dust, and" the sheep and the silk-worm wore her fine clothes long before she got them. She read every BHnday-school book that taught these facts; and she once trod on Sir Walter Baleigh's cloak to remind him of them, because he was so set up with big new fancy cassimeres.

Queen Elizabeth was not sorry ft> die. .- She foresaw, that George, F. Train was coming to England, and she said to her physicians that she would prefer the enduring peace of the cold and iilent grave to three weeks of George and the Alabama claims controversy and the Schleswig. Holstoin question all at the same time. IJer.last words were : " Kill Horace Greeley/ 1 before he has a cbancor.to write 'Wiat I know about Farming.']" There Warf not a dry eye in that second-story front room. Everydody was thinking bow impossible it'wasto fulfil her dyingrequest,.auiLto escape so much misery. But she has now gone ; she has left us'• we shall see her no more. Perhaps, it ig for the best, was a vigorous womaii, and if she had lived she might have cpine to America, and we might have given 'her* offence, and might have pranced around* here and flogged us like the very nation. For she was a woman who followed closely in all the prevailing fashions. And so ure are glad she is dead, and has four tons of marble planted on her to hold her down; Rest in peace, old girl! Best in peices!