ROMANTIC RECOLLECTIONS. BY A MUSICAL CARD. I. WHEN I lay in a cradle and sucked a coral, I loved romance in my childish way; And stories with or without a moral Were welcome as ever the flow'rs in May. For love of the false I learnt my spelling, And braved the perils of ..... While matters of fact were most repelling, Romance was pleasant as aught could... II. My reading took me to desert islands, And buried me deep in Arabian Nights; SIR WALTER led me amongst the Highlands, Or into the thickest of Moslem fights. I found the elder DUMAS delightfulBefore the son had eclipsed the.... And HARRISON AINSWORTH finely frightful, And FENIMORE COOPER far from III. A few years later I took to reading But, healthy or not, I enjoyed them vastly; Upon horrible crimes and murders ghastly Which sent me terrified off to IV. Well; what with perils upon the prairies, And haunted ruins and ghosts in white, And wars with giants and gifts from fairies, At last I came to be crazed outright. VOL. V. And many a time, in my nightly slumbers, Bearing a glove as a lady's I held the lists against countless numbers, After the style of the middle..... V. I am changed at present; the olden fever Has left my brain in a sounder state; In common-place I'm a firm believer, And hunt for figure and fact and date. But still I can thrill at the recollection SPORTING INTELLIGENCE. NICHOLAS AT THE GREAT EXHIBITION. THE ORIENTAL REPOSITORY (LIMITED), HORSELAYDOWN. MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,-Your kindly note, ordering of me for to describe my visit to the gay capital of our lively neighbours, and to do it if possible like the French style more than in my usual way, such being a method of composition which requires a good deal of space, it have come safe to hand; but you have been grossly misinformed, Sir, or you would never go so far as to say as the Old Man have been leading an abandoned life and made himself notorious at half the drinking-shops of Paris, there being a good deal of exaggeration in the reports concerning of my conduct. Gay I may have been, having your own instructions to that effect in writing, deny it, my dear young friend, if your conscience will allow you; but with the exception of a fling or two, owing to the light wines, NICHOLAS being used to a more trustworthy description of liquor, and freely confessing that I went about "seeing life" like any other fine old English gentleman, all the rest is but the turpid calumnies of them which grudges me my situation. On one point, my dear young friend, it is impossible for the Prophet to be too explicit. There is no truth in the report that NICHOLAS have been photographed along of MENKEN, she never having offered the Old Man anything for to do so. Please contradict the rumour amongst the aristocracy. And so here goes for what they call a fooleytone." MONSIEUR LE REDACTEUR:-Such larks! Up all night, a-drinking of claret wine along of the Britannic exhibitors, than whom a more affectuous nor yet a more respectuous corps, though a little gay, but youth will be served. Toujours gai, ha! ha! ha! Bu qui s'avance; not as your Prophet quite knows why the words should keep on a-ringing in his head, and a-singing in his ears, except perhaps his having sat up all night with a sick friend than whom no one more fond of cheerful music and a social glass. Résumons. The Exhibition-it is the triumph of civilization, Napoleonic and august. So it says in the French papers, which they do not give you much for the money, and the Sporting Intelligence, my dear young friendI mean MONSIEUR LE REDACTEUR-it ain't fit for the lowest capacity. Bu qui s'avance. Ah, hospitality sympathetic of the old Gaulish nation! No sooner had the musicians of Paris heard of your Old Man's arrival, than they proposed to give a special performance in his honour, and out of compliment suggested "Le Prophete." NICHOLAS, however, do not like these public ovations, he having his own reasons for keeping just a little in the background for a while. Bu qui s'avance. Accept, Monsieur my dear young Redactorial Friend, the assurance of my most distinguished consideration, NICHOLAS. THE papers, under the heading "a gorilla hunt," state that three gigantic specimens of the species made their escape the other day from a caravan at Belper. The account goes on to state that "after consulting together on the top of the caravan they all set out for Derby." The noble Earl no doubt received the deputation with his usual urbanity, but, as yet, no account of what transpired at the meeting has appeared in those organs, which would of course be supplied with the monkeys. Cad (to Curate on his way to his duty) :—" Now's YER CHANCE, SIR. HERE'S THE 'OSS AS'LL TAKE YER ALL ROUND THE 'EATH IN A CANTER BEFORE CHURCH TIME!" DOUBLE ACROSTIC. No. 15. Go and visit Trafalgar-square 1. A city where the sunlight smiles On leagues of long canals, and tiles. 2. Well has SHELLEY told the awful story Of a father's guilt, a daughter's woe; When a great crime won immortal glory For a lovely maiden long ago. 3. You hear it when you pace the village street, When summer eventides are fresh and sweet, Still loud resounding with the blows, the theme Once of a great musician's tuneful dream. 4. The artist may have done his work with skill, There's something wrong and so you look CORRECT SOLUTIONS OF ACROSTIC No. 13, RECEIVED JUNE 12:-M. C. P., Truro; F. W.; Blind Cat; Benhill; Three Furies; Ah, that Rascal; F. and P.; Gyp Spodger; Middle Stump; H. McP.; Acute; N. L. R.; Kiss Polly Twice; J. B. D. W.; Sandy Shin; T. B.; Nikns, etc.; D. N. O. B.; G. W. M. H.; Entrave; J. S.; O. and Sons; Covent Garden; W. D., Jockey Club; Tzatleca; Lechuga; P. L. A. T.; Hat and Jin; Jumper; Fides; Vampyre; W. H.; Jock; Mountain Heath; Kate V.; BKLKK.; A Voice from Bradbourne; A Gowk; Nem; M. T.; Bumplepuppy; The Old Man; Pater; S. S. N.; Anser; W. F., Croydon; Ginger; Bob de Vichy; H. B. P.; Harrow Weald; Dio dell' or; Miles; R. S.; Quartette; Clara B.; Portobello; Constance; Old Trafford; Nobs; Rhoda; Shorncliffe; Ruby; L.A. K.; Never No More; Brick Court; Snooks; South Side; Trissie; Warming Pan; Penalverne; W. B.; Caterham; Breakside and Hamish; Mike; Liverpool; Icks; F. A. B.; Jib Jobbey; Three Glasgow Bodies; Mammy Muff; Rose S.; C. M.; Knurr and Spell; Four Boobies; Thomas à T.; Two Marine Dealers; D. E. H.; Wisbechensis; Corporal Chalks; O. K., Brighton; Mem Jay; Regento; F. W.; Leo Minor; Tsatlee; Correct Kyard; H. B. C.; Tootle Three; Myrtle; J. H. and A. L. S.; Tommy; A. H. Y.; He Who Is; E. G. C.; Bow Wow; A Gowk; D. C. L.; Snip; B. W. S. H.; Ormskirk; Xarifa; F. J. G. W.; Cerevino. PARLIAMENTARY.-There is no truth in the report that MR. DISRAELI is about to be raised to the peerage under the title of Baron De Veer! o be a concert at the Crystal hortly in aid of the fund for the damage done by the autumn. It is fixed for the ., and there will be a gathermusical stars, including, I he harmonious comet, whose - orbit is shortly to give ment to the gentlemen of the e, as our friend the penny-aEs it. I sincerely hope that ic will come forward handand support the concert. It ften that the public has the aity of doing a beneficent and getting the full value of y at the same time, as it will is case. The Palace is full of d curiosities, the programme d and extensive, and the look lovely. But one cannot ssing the Tropical Departnd feeling that the People's shorn of some of its glory. ooner we put our shoulders lding the better for all of us. to OLMAR, of whom, apparently, by a change of tenses, necessitated by the standing-over of the article, it was made to speak as if he had appeared, whereas his performance was put off, like the article, till a later date. Thereupon our old and revered friend the Pall Mall Gazette waxes moral, and says, "It is dangerous to write reviews of notices of public performances without seeing them, on the simple faith of advertisements or programmes." Quite so. And nobody ought to be more aware of the danger than the Pall Mall, for to add to its previous blunders, whose name is Legion, it, a few days ago, reported a public festival, "with MR. CHARLER DICKENS in the chair," whereas that gentleman was not near the spot. But to trifle with a bishop is even a more serious matter than to take liberties with an author; and the P. M. G., on a recent occasion, gave a report of the installation of certain bishops at Canterbury Cathedral. It was hardly possible that it could have received even a telegraphic report of the ceremony in time for the same day's edition, but it nevertheless gave its readers an account, mentioning three bishops, and then next day coolly corrected the bungle, by stating that "its Canterbury Correspondent" had fallen into an error, and that, in fact, only two bishops were present, the third had been kept away by illness, or some such circumstance. Yes-it is dangerous to write reviews of public performances without seeing them! SOME time since, in discussing the mismanagement of the pension-list, I drew attention to a paragraph in a Perth paper which stated that a retired military officer residing near the Bridge of Allan had received a literary pension with but slender claims to it. I questioned the statement at the time, and I have since learnt that the paragraph was incorrect the pension was given for "distinguished service," as the local journal should have known; there is no excuse for a provincial paper's mis-statement of facts which it has the means of investigating, and the Perth print would do well to be more scrupulous. SCHOOLMASTERS are not at first sight the sort of people we should consider to be allied to the poets, but they belong to the genus irritabile, notwithstanding. There has been a pretty little stir at Hanwell, got up by a local pedagogue, who wishes to change the name of the little village because the 'bus-cads chaff him when he desires to ride in the direction of the lunatic asylum. A public meeting was held, and the inhabitants present decided that they preferred to be called inhabitants of Hanwell rather than Bishopstown, and quite right too! It is an honour and not a discredit to a place to bear the same name as an institution founded and supported for the care and cure of one of the saddest of all human afflictions. Sensible folks are not made miserable by the stale wit of 'bus-cads-besides, some people may give Hanwell as their address without the least chance of being suspected of residing at the asylum; to become qualified for a mad-house, one must at some time or other have had a reason to lose! "WHAT is the Broadway ?" is a question which the papers have been putting to us lately. Well, it is a new magazine to be published by MESSRS. ROUTLEDGE, who stand with one foot in Broadway, Ludgate-hill, and the other in Broadway, New York, like an Atlantic Colossus. The wrapper is one of the best I've seen since the Cornhill, and the list of authors' names the strongest ever published, for it includes most of the American as well as of the English writers of note. The line it is to take is sufficiently foreshadowed by this:-it will be essentially international, and will, I hope, strengthen our fraternal relations with Brother Jonathan. There is room and a career for so novel a project, even though we have so many magazines already. I have mentioned lately that whatever may be its drawbacks in the financial sense, the London, Chatham, and Dover line is unrivalled in its treatment of the public. From recent experience, I'm sorry to find I can't say as much for the London and Brighton. It happens to have a good many branches, and is therefore a confusing line to those who do not ordinarily travel by it, but the porters, with scarcely an exception, are utterly incapable of giving one any information that can be relied upon, and to judge from a case that came under my notice, the station masters contrast most unfavourably with those of the L., C., and D. R. on the score of civility. At by-stations, tickets are not issued until about a minute before the train arrives, and in the consequent hurry, mistakes and overcharges (I have not heard of undercharges) arise, and are not likely to be discovered until too late. As for the changes, and the number of trains going in different directions, heaven help the unprotected female at-East Croydon let us say for example, bound for Three Bridges! A thought occurs to me of which I will give the benefit to the L., C., and D. R.-the funds of the company might be honourably augmented if its employés were set to give lessons in intelligence and civility to those lines that may happen to need them. Certainly the L., B., and S. C. might advantageously lay out the proverbial "twopence." We shall in all probability shortly publish |