Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
RUDD & CARLTON,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

I, Q. K. P. Doesticks, of No Hall, Nowhere;

No Castle, no Villa, no Place, Court, or Terrace;

Who didn’t write “Junius,” or “Nothing to Wear,”

Who never have visited London or Paris;

Who am not a phantom, a myth, or a mystery,

But a “homo,” as solid as any of history;

As real as Antony, Cæsar, or Brutus,—

A wide-awake Yankee, so “tarnation ’cute” as

To always write Nothings, while Nothings will pay,

Am the author of this Nothing—Nothing to Say.

I mention this fact in advance, that Miss P***

May not strive to embezzle the laurels from me.

That her Reverend friend may attend to his Litany,

And leave me my fame, if perchance I shall get any.

I deemed it best, to set at rest,

This question before it was started, lest

Some terrible girl from the far countree,

Without proper regard to veracitee,

Should haste to town, to drag me down

From my envied post of poetic renown.

Miss P***, I’ve a favor to ask.—If ’tis true,

That “Nothing to Wear,” and “Nothing to Do,”

And “Nothing to Eat,” were all written by you,—

Let those three Nothings content you I pray,

Say nothing yourself; leave me “Nothing to Say.”

From time immemorial, people of fashion

Have been the target of poets and penny wits,

And been lampooned without stint or compassion,

From Dan to Beersheba—from Dublin to Dennevitz;

And our now-a-day rhymsters, taking the cue,

Have aimed all their shots at the Fifth Avenue,

Till the clever author of “Nothing to Wear,”

Fired his broadside at Madison Square.

Now I don’t consider this sort of thing personal,

I’m not a bit of a dandy or fop;

But the seed it is constantly sowing, is worse than all

Others, and bears a most plentiful crop;

For it all goes to strengthen the popular fallacy

That, because a man lives in a “brown stone palace” he

Must be a miser, a rogue and a knave,

Without soul enough to condemn or to save—

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