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 But Miss Ambition was, as I was saying, "Dèshabillée"—his bedside tripping near, And, gently on his nose her fingers laying, She roared out "Tammany!" in his frighted ear. The potent word awoke him from his nap, And then she vanished, whispering verbum sap.

The last words were beyond his comprehension, For he had left off schooling, ere the Greek Or Latin classics claimed his mind's attention: Besides, he often had been heard to speak Contemptuously of all that sort of knowledge, Taught so profoundly in Columbia College.

We owe the ancients something. You have read Their works, no doubt—at least in a translation; Yet there was argument in what he said, I scorn equivocation or evasion, And own it must, in candor, be confessed, They were an ignorant set of men at best.

'Twas their misfortune to be born too soon By centuries, and in the wrong place too;