Classic Poem

There is a little moral thing in France,
Called by the natives bienseance ,
Much are the English mob inclined to scout it,
But rarely is Monsieur Canaille without it.

To bienseance 'tis tedious to incline,
In many cases;
To flatter, par example , keep smooth faces
When kicked, or suffering grievous want of coin.

To vulgars, bienseance may seem an oddity —
I deem it a most portable commodity;
A sort of magic wand;
Which, if 'tis used with ingenuity,
Although a utensil of much tenuity,
In place of something solid, it will stand.

For verily I've marveled times enow
To see an Englishman, the ninny,
Give people for their services a guinea,
Which Frenchmen have rewarded with a bow.

Bows are a bit of bienseance
Much practiced too in that same France:
Yet called by Quakers, children of inanity;
But as they pay their court to people's vanity,
Like rolling-pins they smooth where'er they go
The souls and faces of mankind like dough!
With some, indeed, may bienseance prevail
To folly — see the under-written tale.

THE PETIT MAITRE, AND THE MAN ON THE WHEEL.

At Paris some time since, a murdering man,
A German, and a most unlucky chap,
Sad, stumbling at the threshold of his plan,
Fell into Justice's strong trap.

The bungler was condemned to grace the wheel,
On which the dullest fibers learn to feel;
His limbs secundum artem to be broke
Amid ten thousand people, perhaps, or more;
Whenever Monsieur Ketch applied a stroke,
The culprit, like a bullock, made a roar.

A flippant petit maitre skipping by,
Stepped up to him, and checked him for his cry —
" Boh! " quoth the German, " an't I 'pon de wheel?
D' ye tink my nerfs and bons can't feel? "

" Sir, " quoth the beau, " don't, don't be in a passion;
I've naught to say about your situation;
But making such a hideous noise in France,
Fellow, is contrary to bienseance . "