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 ?
Its garden is thistles!

And there where it rose,
The steam-engine whistles,
The luggage train goes:

For the Bubbleton Railway has purchased the lot-
The line's on the site of my own native cot!

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 In the line that demolished my own native cot.

"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 a 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;
When we were both younger and fonder,
And thought our affection would last.
But Time, with his wide-sweeping pinions,
Fanned away those sweet visions, and we
Escaped out of Cupid's dominions,

Are friends, and firm friends let us be!
Hearts youthful and warm will be foolish,
And take fancies up for a while,
That when they begin to get coolish,

They look back upon with a smile.
But why, when each feeling discovers,
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, To be out of the way of your lover,

That was, but is not,-meaning me!

You're no longer "my fairest and dearest,"

'My darling,' my own," and all that! My eyes then were none of the clearest, Or I shouldn't have been such a flat! 'Tis true that I loved you sincerely, But, alas! you see, what could I do, "Besoin d'aimer" affected me clearly,

And I'd no one to love, dear, but you!

And so, my dear,-there! I was going,
I declare now, to pop out your name!
From the nibs of my pen it was flowing!
"Tis however exactly the same.

We are friends ne'er the less, although nameless
As "vor et preterea nil."

So do for these rhymes hold me blameless,
And let us be "bons amis" still!

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 are good-natured in their way), and the philosopher has never seen him since.

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 ::

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 arguments he contrives to convert and pervert himself over and over again. He will start with a proposition, 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. He has a profound contempt for everything that is amusing, and an equally 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

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 start. It is impossible to beat him in argument he has figures for everything in his red, shining, knobby skull you might as well attempt to punch the head of a knight in complete armour. The

other, on the right, is one of those amiable young fools who haunt stage-doors and theatrical taverns, and who are the pride and glory of small actors, and the unspeakable pest of great ones. He is very harmless in his way, Bab

and when he has dined with a clown he will be happy. It is, after
all, but a moderate ambition, and one that is really not difficult of
attainment.

Here is one of those unmitigated old nuisances who are sent into
the world to travel in railway carriages with the C. P. whenever a
stern fate decrees that that philo-

sopher shall go out of town. This
fearful old gentlemen haunts the
C. P. wherever he goes, and he sup-
poses that it will be so until the
philosopher is in a position to hire a
special train to himself whenever he
runs down to the sea-side a state
of things which is, at present, only
dimly shadowed forth. The travel-
ling Bore will always have the
windows up-can quote all the pre-
cedents on Smoking in Railway
Carriages-insist on foot-warmers in
the middle of July-directs your
attention to the impropriety of rest-
ing your legs on the opposite seat-
snores argues with the guard-
writes about you to the Times on
the smallest
provocation, and

generally makes himself such a

Bab

nuisance, particularly on the L. B. and S. C. railway, that the C. P.
has come to the conclusion that he is a creature in the pay of the pro-
prietors of the Brighton four-horse coach, whose mission is to dis-
courage railway travelling.

The C. P. is seldom reduced to the necessity of going to the stage
for specimens of the men he meets, because the people he sees there
are, as a rule, wholly unlike those he meets anywhere else. But he
ventures to think that he will have to go a long way before he will
come across so admirable a specimen of the loquacious, self-satisfied,
good-humouredly opinionated Bore, who, with a superficial air of being
unmistakeably right, is invariably wrong, as that embodied in MR.
HARE'S Fluker, in the very excellent drama, One Hundred Thou-
sand Pounds. It does not come within the C. P.'s province to dilate
upon this gentleman's abilities as a marvellous character actor, but he
may venture to take Mr. Fluker and put him into an initial letter,
as a specimen of a "man he meets a great deal too often in private
life, and not half often enough upon the stage.

SLEEP.

THERE! tell me not of the joys of Sleep,

Or sing of the rosy chains that bind him,
When MORPHEUS close to your side does creep,
A troublesome, worrying rogue you'll find him;
From the earliest days I can safely speak

Of bothers he's flung on my trusting shoulders,
Repetition at school-of a page of Greek,

And at college a rowing from DR. MOULDERS,
He has given me tastes of the governor's cane,
For being too late at the breakfast table;
For his sake I have suffered in catching a train,
From running faster than I was able.
This is all very well, but I hardly care

To utter by far his most mischievous function,
We've met in a carriage at Euston-square,
And parted in sidings at Mugby Junction.

Be this as it may, I can claim his aid

When at night in a theatre's stalls I'm sitting,

And fail to catch one syllable said

By an actor, the ears of the groundlings splitting.
He's all very well in a cosy pew———

(They tell me in church I'm a terrible sinner)-
And not a bad friend, 'twixt me and you,

When he comes surreptitiously after dinner.
But what do you think of this rascal, Sleep-
To Acheron shall he be sent or Hades ?-
For visiting me-oh! it was so deep!-

In a room full of pretty, designing ladies.
A hawk is nought in a cage of doves,

It's vain to struggle when fates outnumber,
For I find that a packet of WHEELER's gloves,
Will have to be paid for that moment's slumber.

THE LATEST FROM PALL MALL.

MOTTO FOR SIR J. PAKINGTON.-" Dieu et mon Droitwich."

A DEFINITE GRIEVANCE.
WAS that the place? I quite forget;
At least, I have my doubts.
Perhaps the spot on which we met
Was there, or thereabouts.

I cannot call the phrase to mind;
And yet I recollect

He did say something of the kind,
Or words to that effect.

I owned that it was very sad;

I pitied his distress,

And lent him all the cash I had-

A little more or less.

Of course-it may be-I was rash
For when a party lends
Another party any cash,

You see it all depends.

"Under the Sea."

;

Mr. BAZIN has carried focus-pocus to an extent hitherto unrivalled.
He has been taking photos of the bed of the ocean, descending for that
purpose in a strong, air-tight, sheet-iron case, and remaining under
water for ten minutes:-

"Under the sea, under the sea,
He like a bird uses photographee,
Under the sea, under the sea!
Isn't it coming it strong ?"

So says the bard. We may perhaps be pardoned, considering the
inclemency of the weather and the prevalence of influenza, if we
add that we consider the feat " a-Bazin'."

Answers to Correspondents.

[We cannot return rejected MSS. or sketches unless they are accom
panied by a stamped and directed envelope.]

MOSES sends us a drawing of "Old Jones preparing for another twenty
miles," by blowing down his horse's throat with a pair of bellows. Surely
the signature should have been AARON.
M. D., who has doubts of the originality of his joke, is assured it is his
made it up properly.

by prescription, but M. De hay to be funny, and don't invent words like

SCALEY SLIME.-Don't

"extreem."

P. McL.-We cannot understand the point of your contributions.
DA LAND'S-ENDER's joke is not of the first water.

GAMMER GURTON. The nursery rhyme is but so-so, like your needle.
"A SUBSCRIBER" evidently wishes to be also an adventurer-for
nothing.

H. E. V. D.-If you must know, we don't think much of the lines. We
don't know what "assuaging a bitter pill" is,-do you?

G. W. sends us a "little poem of over twenty verses! But-stop;
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 jokes about
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 us, and
condemned.

JACEKAY may be transported at his "Botany Bay," We are not.

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 not want to
figure in ours.

H. G. T., Tavistock, need not be in such terror about the disgrace of the
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 it ?

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 géner us.

E. D., Bolton.-Joke too local in character.

Declined with thanks-D. D.; C. S., Westminster; R. M.; R. A. F.;
Ginger; Littleton Tivy; Quartale; Cecil; F. A.; T. X. L., Aberdeen;
J. W., 17th Lancers; W. S., Pimlico; C. L. K.; W. Watery, Crick;
Tommy Traddles; M. M. B.; J. H.; H. W. B.; F. F., Kingston; H. G.,
East India-road; C. E. M., Shepherd's-bush; G. E. P.; Ethel; E. C. S.;
J. A. C., Junior Athenæum; J. W. H.; Jig; H. W. W.; F. M., Read-
ing; W. A., Bread-street-hill; W. G., Coventry; S. E., Luton; C. C. R.,
Worcester; P. S. S.; G. T. H., Shiffnal; Grymalkyn; H. B., Dublin;
R. B. F., Glasgow; M. R. S.; A. C. H. L., Hastings; Davy Mac,
Dundee; A Teaser; J. G., College-street; Galen; P. W.; P. M.;
H. S. C.; T. E. A. C. H. L. E. H.; H. F. W.; Shallow.

FREE EXHIBITIONS OF LONDON:-BOW STREET.
THIS interesting place of entertainment is situated in the immediate
neighbourhood of the New Opera House and Old Drury. The pro-
pinquity of Covent-garden lends it an air of rural innocence, which is
slightly counterbalanced by the close contiguity of the purlieus of
Drury-lane. The dimensions of the Bow-street Police Court, com-
pared with the accommodation of the two theatres just named, might
be styled small. But a paternal Government when arranging this
place of amusement, probably took into consideration very wisely that
as the exhibition would be a free one, it would seldom be overcrowded.
The auditorium is calculated to contain comfortably-as far as we could
ascertain from the courteous usher and the acute members of the Force
connected with it, who kindly gave us the fullest statistics-exactly
about twice as many as double the moiety of the sum total; especially
as there are no seats, and there is therefore plenty of standing room.
As standing is rather fatiguing work, our reader, if he visits the court,
will do well to obtain admittance to some other part than the audito-
rium, there being numbers of seats in the other divisions. There are
two ways of obtaining admittance. He can either pick a pocket or
assault a constable, or he can ask for some one connected with the
court in some capacity or other. The latter method is perhaps the
preferable of the two, as the attendant constables are more affable
under the circumstances. Besides, the former mode of proceeding may
lead to an interview with the worthy magistrate, which may result in
a free admission to some other place of entertainment, liberally pro-
vided by a paternal Government; and although a glimpse of the
interior of a prison may be interesting, the place is apt to pall slightly
when one is monotonously confined to it for six months or more with-
out the option of a fine.

The class of entertainment provided at Bow-street can hardly be
said to be of a theatrical character, for as a rule it abounds in interest,
is furnished with dialogue of a brisk and picturesque-sometimes too
picturesque-nature, and is frequently amusing; so that it does not
clash much with the general run of plays produced in the present day.
The ruffish swell, sometimes attired in evening costume, and well
known to a Marlborough-street audience, seldom figures at Bow-street.
Intoxication does not present itself in so refined a form here. It is
represented by MR. DENNIS or PATRICK O'SOMETHING, who has been
stimulated by drink to get up a free fight in his alley, or to beat his
wife and a few policemen. Or its exponent is a gigantic fellow, show-

ing the torso of a dirty HERCULES through the rents of a shirt so tat-
tered 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 drama-
tist in these realistic days.

The visitor to Bow-street Court may study science as well as
character. He will learn that flat-irons are a very transitory property
on account of the peculiar readiness with which they are convertible
into gin. Our artist has selected for his picture a subject of this class.
The highly respectable female in the dock has swallowed two flat-irons
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.
The dresses at this place of entertainment are, as a rule, effective,
and may owe some of their inspiration to MR. S. MAY, the well-
known 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.
Magenta cloth, 4s. 6d. ; post free, 58. Cases for binding, 1s. 6d. each.

Waiter:-"FISH, SIR; SOLE, SIR."

Swell Commercial :-" OH! I THOUGHT YOU'D COOKED SAMPLE PACKETS OF NEEDLES BY MISTAKE!"

FROM OUR STALL.

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.

VOL. V.

BERESFORD HOPE.

"There is no truth in the statement that Mr. BERESFORD HOPR 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,

Of the sudden start and the gesture wild,
And the comic voice, and the playful wink!

Is it too soon, then, BERESFORD HOPE?
What, the title was clear in view,
And the Morning Post, in your horoscope,
Seemed to imply the news was true;-
And just because you preferred to sit

For the pottery town of Stoke-on-Trent,
In the House of Commons to show your wit,
You turned aside from the offer sent?

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?
Why you shun the Peerage I can't divine,
If a coronet still awaits your head,

And when you might do so much, in fine,

In the new House come in the old one's stead!

Was it the title that made you shy?

"BEDGEBURY" isn't a pretty name,
But you'd find it pleasant when, by-and-bye,
From the Saturday's lips of love it came!
In the House of Lords there are scanty cares,
Little of labour and much of state,
And often the Chancellor, unawares,
Dozes away through a dull debate.

You have lived, we will say, so many years-
So many days been abused in the Times-
Greeted so often with dubious cheers-

Chaffed so often in Cockney rhymes;-
Yet one thing, one, in your mind's full scope,
That you still refuse, Sir, puzzles me:-

If you won't be a peer, then, BERESFORD HOPE,
What on earth do you want to be?

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.