Yes; yonder's the village, And there is the glade (It is now under tillage) In which I have played: And yonder's the spire, it's not altered a jot Yet, stay! Where, oh, where is my own native cot ? And there where it rose, For the Bubbleton Railway has purchased the lot- O'er my cheek there is creeping, All silent, a tear Yet deem not I'm weeping For scenes once so dear! "Tis because I reflect on debentures I've got "Putting the Cart before the Horse." We have just come upon a notice of the Professors' Soirée at University College, appearing in the papers last month. It invites to that festive gathering "Old Students of the College, who, in consequence of their addresses not being known, may not have received carts of invitation." We are curious to know what was to be conveyed by the vehicles mentioned. Was the last line of the programme, "carts may be ordered at half-past eleven?" We congratulate the professors on this display of their cart-and-horse-pitality. WHAT in the (Christian) World is the editor of that journal about to make the glaring error to be found in his notice which runs as follows: "The Editor of the Christian World ventures to ask a special personal favour of every reader of this journal-namely, that each one will purchase and examine the first number of Happy Hours,' and show it to their friends." Surely he must have been "dreaming the 'Happy Hours' away," as the poet says, when he asked "one" to show something to "their" friends. A Question for the Heralds' College. We see it mentioned in the Lady's Own Paper, that slippers may be purchased worked with the Royal Arms. There is a fitness in all things, and heraldic blazons were hardly meant for such a purpose. At any rate, private individuals have no right to the coat armour of Majesty. Those who have the Royal Arms on a slipper, must not be surprised if they put their foot in it. It was stated in a literary journal the other day that the present age could produce no poets because all the themes of poetry had been exhausted. I rather flatter myself I have struck out a new line.-N. C. P. OUR LIBRARY TABLE. THOSE who take an interest in caricature and humorous art, will find much to amuse or, at all events, to employ them in the collection of SEYMOUR'S Comic Sketches published by MR. HOTTEN. SEYMOUR was one of our early comic draughtsmen, and his proposed series of pictures representing the doings of an absurd club was the peg on which the immortal Pickwick Papers hung originally. The style of the collection under notice is different from that we are accustomed to nowadays in many respects, and we are hardly inclined to think it superior or even equal to it. The drawing is humorous, but the jokes are sometimes dull, and occasionally vulgar. The book is well printed and got up. The preface contains some inaccuracies, amongst which we may point out a passage which states that SEYMOUR illustrated HooD's Comic Annual for 1836, and his Comic Almanacks, of which latter we never heard before. MESSRS. ROUTLEDGE have published a neat collection of The Poems of the late N. P. Willis. Good type and paper and nice cover make it a presentable volume, and one that should be popular, for WILLIS had the true poetic instinct. Some of his Scripture stories are very fine. The same enterprising firm issue also a Ready Reckoner, a very handy and useful Topographical Directory, and a Practical Housekeeper, besides a very charming little Child's Country Book, with capital coloured illustrations, a most suitable gift-book. The cheap edition of LORD KNEBWORTH's novels completes the list. If the firm continues to be as prolific as this, we shall have to invent a new adverb, and say the seeds of the tree of knowledge are sown "Broadway" instead of "broadcast." VERSES ADDRESSED TO A "CERTAIN PERSON." WE are friends-but still memories wander To scenes of the times that are past; Are friends, and firm friends let us be! Our loves may have found their "last ends," When we can no longer be lovers, O why should we never be friends! But you, when we parted in anger, Looked as though we should ne'er speak again! And I wished you'd been settled at Bangor, Okolske, Timbuctoo, or Dumblane: Or anywhere far enough over The mountains-the desert-the sea, You're no longer "my fairest and dearest," And I'd no one to love, dear, but you! And so, my dear,-there! I was going, We are friends ne'er the less, although nameless So do for these rhymes hold me blameless, Seasonable Advice. We recommend our young friends who are anxious to begin the croquet season to wait a little longer. To venture on lawns in the present weather would be to commence an unpleasantly "croaky" season. MOTTO FOR BILLIARD PLAYERS.-"To the Rest-cue!" ing their ideas. He is a man whom you can't possibly insult-if you could, he would have ceased to haunt studios ages ago. He rummages among your life studies, brushes his coat over your colours, expectorates over your parquet flooring, chaffs your models, criticises your work in a strain of offensive candour, pokes at you, after the manner of a fencer, with his cane, leaving you to defend yourself with your maulstick, and generally plays the very deuce with everything. The C. P. has said that he is a man you can't insult, but a little judicious tact will rid you of him, nevertheless. The C. P. remembers once being bored with one of these nuisances, who being in the habit of keeping it up late every night, was usually extremely sleepy by the time that he paid the C. P. his customary visit at three in the afternoon. He spat, and stretched himself, and yawned about the place in a manner which irritated the philosopher beyond all bounds. (Nothing, by the way, is so grossly irritating to a busy man as to see a fellow yawn.) At length, the philosopher caught his Bore in the attitude represented in the margin, and exclaimed, "My dear fellow, just keep that pose for five-and-twenty minutes, while I sketch it-it's the very thing for The Awakening of Rip Van Winkle.' He stood to the C. P. (for most Bores has never seen him since. are good-natured in their way), and the philosopher HE C. P. has devoted some attention to the discovery of a neat and epigrammatic classification of the different descriptions of Bores, and he has arrived at a conclusion which he hopes and believes will be considered as nearly satisfactory as possible. He is much too good a philosopher to be guilty of the imprudence of habitually committing himself to a definition-his custom is to state his case, and leave it to his disciples to draw the inference. In almost every instance of an epigrammatic definition which has come under his notice, he has found that its ad captandum crispness is almost the only quality to recommend it. Take the case of the late MR. THACKERAY's definition of a Snob-one who meanly imitates mean things. This is admirable in its way; but does it go far enough? Is not he also a Snob who meanly imitates things that are not mean? Is not even he a Snob who grandly imitates grand things? Is not an imitator of every description a Snob, in one sense of the word? The C. P. has intentionally taken as an illustration one of the best pieces of epigram ever penned, by (the C. P. ventures to think) the most accomplished master of epigram of the century, because when the C. P. does express an opinion, he sticks to it like wax, and does not allow any consideration whatever to overawe him in doing so. Notwithstanding that the impossibility of framing an unimpeachable epigrammatic definition is fully before his eyes, yet, being this morning in a rather reckless mood, and being in the habit of purposely allowing himself to be influenced by the mood in which he finds himself when he writes these papers, he goes the following cropper:Bores are of four kinds : Bair 1. Those who neither amuse nor instruct. 2. Those who amuse without instructing. 3. Those who instruct without amusing. " Here is a blatant political Bore, who will hold forth, hour after hour, on matters which wouldn't possess the smallest earthly interest for any living soul, if LORD DERBY or MR. GLADSTONE were to undertake their exposition. A peculiarity of this shallow-pated nuisance is, that in the course of his self over and over again. He will start with a proarguments he contrives to convert and pervert himposition, and talk it over in his slip-slop way until he convinces himself that his original view was utterly wrong, and goes on to defend his new conviction until he ends by returning to the opinion with which he started. He is a literary critic in his way; that is to say, he reads the reviews on new books, and expresses, as his own, the opinions he derives from them-although he was never known to read a book through in his life. He has ready-made views on every subject you like to start, and don't hesitate to express them, as though they were the result of the study of a lifetime. tempt for everything that is amusing, and an He has a profound conequally profound admiration for everything that is solidly dull. 4. Those who profess to combine amusement with instruction. It will be objected that these four classes comprehend every intellectual and unintellectual variety of the human race, and that the inference that the C. P. wishes his readers to draw is, that All Men are Bores. But this is not so. A careful analysis of the four different heads under which the philosopher has classified the genus Bore, will satisfy the discriminating reader that one very important class has been excluded those who unintentionally combine instruction with amusement. The C. P. will not enter at greater length into the matter, for fear that his definitions should, on closer inspection, meet the fate of all other definitions, and prove to be utterly untenable. He throws them out for the consideration of his disciples, to be taken for what they are worth. Here is a specimen of a loafing Bore who is to be met in great force about this time, in the studios of intending Royal Academy exhibitors. He has no ostensible occupation of his own, and the object of his life appears to be to interfere with everybody who has. He talks very loudly about matters that he don't understand, and expresses a great contempt for the technical expressions in which artists are in the habit of cloth Bal Here are two very opposite forms of Bores. The one on the left is a statistican, with a devout belief in per-centages, and an utter contempt for units. He is always on the look-out to nail somebody who will weakly listen to him-and when he has got him, he will pour into his unhappy victim's ear such a tirade of decimals as will have the effect of con vincing him of the truth of any proposition his tormentor chooses to he supuntil the to hire a enever he -a state sent, only ne travel have the 1 the pre- ects your ty of restsite seat-guard Times on tion, and f such a Bab the L. B. and S. C. nailway, that the C. P. n that he is a creature in the pay of the profour-horse coach, whose mission is to dis g. educed to the necessity of going to the stage en he meets, because the people he sees there like those he meets anywhere else. But he he will have to go a long way before he will Le a specimen of the loquacious, self-satisfied, mated Bore, who, with a superficial air of being invariably wrong, as that embodied in MR. e very excellent drama, One Hundred Thouot come within the C. P.'s province to dilate bilities as a marvellous character actor, but he Ir. Fluker and put him into an initial letter, a great deal too often in private n he meets enough upon the stage. SLEEP. not of the joys of Sleep, , worrying rogue you'll find him; ne tastes of the governor's cane, far his most mischievous function, in sidings at Mugby Junction. ght in a theatre's stalls I'm sitting, , the ears of the groundlings splitting. ne in church I'm a terrible sinner)- you think of this rascal, Sleep- o struggle when fates outnumber, e to be paid for that moment's slumber. THE LATEST FROM PALL MALL. J. PAKINGTON.-" Dieu et mon Droitwich." Or words to that effect. I owned that it was very sad; A little more or less. had Of course-it may be-I was rash; You see it all depends. "Under the Sea." Mr. BAZIN has carried focus-pocus to an extent hitherto unrival He has been taking photos of the bed of the ocean, descending for purpose in a strong, air-tight, sheet-iron case, and remaining u water for ten minutes: "Under the sea, under the sea, So says the bard. We may perhaps be pardoned, considering inclemency of the weather and the prevalence of influenza, i add that we consider the feat "a-Bazin'." Answers to Correspondents. [We cannot return rejected MSS. or sketches unless they are MOSES sends us a drawing of "Old Jones preparing for another panied by a stamped and directed envelope.] miles," by blowing down his horse's throat with a pair of bellows. the signature should have been AARON. M. D., who has doubts of the originality of his joke, is assured i by prescription, but M. D. has not made it up properly. SCALEY SLIME.-Don't try to be funny, and don't invent wor "extreem.' P. McL.-We cannot understand the point of your contributions A LAND'S-ENDER's joke is not of the first water. GAMMER GURTON.-The nursery rhyme is but so-so, like your n evidently wishes to be also an adventu "A SUBSCRIBER nothing. H. E. V. D.-If you must know, we don't think much of the lin don't know what "assuaging a bitter pill" is,-do you? G. W. sends us a "little poem of over twenty verses! Bu perhaps the adjective refers to quality not quantity. VIATOR.-Walker! FELIX must not be infelix because FELIX isn't in. "THE FLOODS" won't go down. BUTCHER. "The times are out of joint "-it's too late for jo the Cattle Show. A LUNAR CORRESPONDENT is rather too moony for us. A. H.-The lines "If we'll only try" have been tried by condemned, JACEKAY may be transported at his "Botany Bay," We are n E., Valencia.-We are truly sorry for you. R. H. T., Bath.-Not of the slightest use. NELSON STATUE must be content with his own column and no figure in ours. H. G. T., Tavistock, need not be in such terror about the disgr joke he forwards. It is not his joke, so he need not be ashamed. J. W., Stoney Batter.-Do you not desire that you may obtain H. M., Leeds.-But we don't follow his meaning. TAO-SZE.-Your derivation is a little too far-fetched. MEDICUS JUNIOR won't be called in by us, we fancy. JEANIE USS is calculated to gêner us. E. D., Bolton.-Joke too local in character. Declined with thanks-D. D.; C. S., Westminster; R. M.; Ginger; Littleton Tivy: Quartale; Cecil; F. A.; T. X. L., J. W., 17th Lancers; W. S., Pimlico; C. L. K.; W. Wat Tommy Traddles; M. M. B.; J. H.; H. W. B.; F. F., Kingst East India-road; C. E. M., Shepherd's-bush; G. E. P.; Ethel J. A. C., Junior Athenæum; J. W. H.; Jig; H. W. W.; F ing; W. A., Bread-street-hill; W. G., Coventry; S. E., Luton Worcester; P. S. S.; G. T. H., Shiffual; Grymalkyn; H. R. B. F., Glasgow; M. R. S.; A. C. H. L., Hastings; Dundee; A Teaser; J. G., College-street; Galen; P. W H. S. C.; T. E. A. C. H. L. E. H.; H. F. W.; Shallow. NDON:-BOW STREET. ent is situated in the immediate use and Old Drury. The proair of rural innocence, which is contiguity of the purlieus of Bow-street Police Court, comtwo theatres just named, might vernment when arranging this › consideration very wisely that t would seldom be overcrowded. comfortably-as far as we could the acute members of the Force the fullest statistics-exactly ety of the sum total; especially efore plenty of standing room. ur reader, if he visits the court, me other part than the auditohe other divisions. There are He can either pick a pocket or The visitor to Bow-street Court may study science as well as some one connected with the character. He will learn that flat-irons are a very transitory property e latter method is perhaps the on account of the peculiar readiness with which they are convertible nt constables are more affable into gin. Our artist has selected for his picture a subject of this class. former mode of proceeding may The highly respectable female in the dock has swallowed two flat-irons agistrate, which may result in-in a liquid form-the said flat-irons unfortunately belonging to a neighbour, mother of the small boy whose head scarcely shows over the witness-box, and who is chief witness against the scientific lady. ing the torso of a dirty HERCULES through the rents of a shirt so tattered that it is a wonder it holds together at all. He has been induced to take a part in the Bow-street entertainment, because having been refused a penn'orth of beer at a public house, he demolished a sheet of plate-glass, and then, running to a neighbouring cabstand, took a horse by its forelegs and set its hoofs on his shoulders (a fact)! Like all people of genius, he is so modest that it required the persuasive powers of four policemen to prevail on him to appear in public. The near neighbourhood of Covent-garden is productive of variety in the entertainments produced. MRS. POMONA O'FLAHERTY, who sells apples, having fallen out with MISS FLORA O'RAFFERTY, who vends flowers, has flown at that lady, torn her bonnet, and aspersed her character. MISS FLORA is loud in her desire that MRS. O'F. should "prove her words "-meaning, of course (the lady is Irish), exactly the reverse-i.e., show her inability to prove her words. MRS. O'F. is discursive and aggressive, and the dialogue would (if it passed the Lord Chamberlain) make the fortune-or otherwise-of a dramatist in these realistic days. of entertainment, liberally proid although a glimpse of the the place is apt to pall slightly it for six months or more withI at Bow-street can hardly be is a rule it abounds in interest, nd picturesque-sometimes too amusing; so that it does not 78 produced in the present day. in evening costume, and well e, seldom figures at Bow-street. 1 so refined a form here. It is K O'SOMETHING, who has been ght in his alley, or to beat his The dresses at this place of entertainment are, as a rule, effective, and may owe some of their inspiration to MR. S. MAY, the wellknown costumier, whose shop is hard by. The mise en scène is simple, not to say plain, and does not seem to owe its inspiration to the neighbouring theatres so much as to the Adelphi. A visit to Bow-street-in the capacity of a spectator-will well repay any man, if only because it is calculated to make him contented with his own mode of life, for he is sure to go away blessing his stars that he is not a police magistrate. NOTICE.-Now ready, the Eleventh Half-Yearly Volume of FUN, being THE FOURTH VOLUME OF THE NEW SERIES. Swell Commercial (who "travels in the hardware"):-"HERE, WAITER! WHAT DO YOU CALL THIS?" Waiter:-"FISH, SIR; SOLE, SIR." Swell Commercial :-" OH! I THOUGHT YOU'D COOKED SAMPLE PACKETS OF NEEDLES BY MISTAKE!" FROM OUR STALL. ONE OF MY MORE mines and miners! MR. WATTS PHILLIPS's Lost in London drags us again into the bowels of the earth on an expedition in search of the picturesque. However, the drama was manufactured so long ago-as the announcements took very good care to tell us-that nobody can accuse MR. PHILLIPS of putting forward a second-hand sensation. The greatest fault of this piece (and of most pieces nowadays) lies in the comparative weakness of the last act. The situation at the close of the preceding one is highly effective, and the remainder of the play comes as an anti-climax. There is a heroine to be disposed of, and there is a low-comedy couple to be married. Of course, the heroine dies, according to the infallible remedy prescribed by DR. GOLDSMITH for cases in which lovely woman stoops to folly. She might as well have died at the end of the second act; in the second act, also, the low-comedy people might easily have been made man and wife. What the drama requires-or did require on the night of its production-is a good deal of judicious carving with a large knife and fork. The writing of Lost in London is full of cleverness; MR. WATTS PHILLIPS never disappoints us in the quality of his dialogue. Here and there, perhaps, the slightest possible tendency towards clap-trap may be discovered; but, after all, the folks in the gallery pay their shillings, and most of the miserable critics are on the free list. The piece is well acted, especially in the parts given to MR. HENRY NEVILLE, MR. TOOLE, and MRS. MELLON. MR. ASHLEY shall be included if he will only promise to leave off singing, and playing on the pianoforte. To betray a confiding woman is wicked enough, in all conscience; to make her listen to your songs (if you happen to sing like-some people) is to add insult to injury. The drama has been well put on the stage; in fact, the scenery surpasses anything that we have seen at the Adelphi lately. This may look like extravagant praise to people who never visit the Adelphi. BERESFORD HOPE. "There is no truth in the statement that Mr. BERESFORD HOPE is to be raised to the peerage with the title of LORD BEDGEBURY." BEAUTIFUL BERESFORD HOPE, they said, DERBY the Earl would make a peer; This, is a coronet-that, his headJoining the two would be rather queer; Filling the Lords with wonder mild. Little would yet be changed, I think, Is it too soon, then, BERESFORD HOPE? For the pottery town of Stoke-on-Trent, No-the time will come-at last it will When, BERESFORD HOPE, what use, they will say, Are you in a House, where you won't sit still, And will get into CAVENDISH BENTINCK'S way? And when you might do so much, in fine, In the new House come in the old one's stead! "BEDGEBURY" isn't a pretty name, You have lived, we will say, so many years- Chaffed so often in Cockney rhymes;- THE BILL NO ONE WILL HONOUR.-A sham Reform Bill. MR. AND MRS. GERMAN REED have produced a new entertainment by MR. ROBERTSON, entitled a Dream in Venice. The Dream itself is good, but the introduction is a little tedious, as must always be the case where the author has at any cost to provide "character illustrations" for the performers. It appears to be a sine qua non at the Gallery of Illustration that all entertainments should open with MR. and MRS. GERMAN REED travelling in search of novelty; and MR. ROBERTSON has adhered to the harmless fiction, turning it, indeed, to good account in the nightmare (or night-gondola, or whatever the equivalent may be in a city where there is nothing equine) under which MR. REED labours. The scenery is really magnificent. MR. O'CONNOR, of the Haymarket, has seldom been seen to better advantage, while MR. TELBIN, perhaps, surpasses all his former successes with a view of the Piazza of Saint Mark. JOHN PARRY, inimitable JOHN PARRY, winds up the treat with The Wedding Breakfast at Mrs. Roseleaf's-one of those things of which we can never tire. business.-Apply by letter, etc. "The Times are out of Joint." THERE'S no accounting for tastes! A young lady, in particular, must be permitted to have odd fancies. Here's an instance :A YOUNG LADY is desirous of an ENGAGEMENT as Book-keeper in a butcher's We must own that it rather takes our breath away to read this. "A YOUNG LADY" quite so, bless her-" is desirous of an ENGAGEMENT exactly, and matrimonial, of course-but no! an engagement as bookkeeper to a butcher. We should as soon expect to hear of a duchess wanting to turn dairymaid, or of a countess who would be a cheesemonger. A butcher's business is not exactly a pleasant employment for a refined and delicate mind, and we cannot conceive the reason for such a choice; unless, indeed, the young lady was on the look out for a joint, sure. |