Uploaded November 2018 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago

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"The Acknowledgment" by Henry Livingston, Jr., the author of "Night Before Christmas. 1789. Read by Byron Nilsson, who portrayed Henry at the "Trial Before Christmas." The music "Lovely Nancy" is from Henry's Music Manuscript.


With the ladies' permission, most humbly I'd mention
How much we're oblidged by all their attention;
We sink with the weight of the huge obligation
Too long & too broad to admit compensation.

For us (and I blush while I speak I declare)
The charming Enchanters be-torture their hair,
Till gently it rises and swells like a knoll
Thirty inches at least from the dear little poll;

From the tip-top of which all peer out together
The ribband, the gause, & the ostrich's feather;
Composing a sight for an Arab to swear at
Or huge Patagonian a fortnight to stare at.

Then hoops at right angles that hang from ye knees
And hoops at the hips in connection with these
Set the Fellows presumptuous who court an alliance
And ev'ry pretender, at awful defiance.

And I have been told (though I must disbelieve
For the tidings as fact, I would never receive)
That billets of cork have supplied the place
Of something the Fair-ones imagine a grace;

But whether 'tis placed behind or before;
The shoulders to swell, or the bosom to shoar
To raise a false wen or expand a false bump
Project a false hip or protrude a false rump,
Was never ascertain'd; and fegs I declare
To make more enquiry I never will dare.