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 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; Are friends, and firm friends let us be! They look back upon with a smile. O why should we never be friends! But you, when we parted in anger, 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, 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 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 3 || ཋ 3 and when he has dined with a clown he will be happy. It is, after Here is one of those unmitigated old nuisances who are sent into sopher shall go out of town. This generally makes himself such a Bab nuisance, particularly on the L. B. and S. C. railway, that the C. P. The C. P. is seldom reduced to the necessity of going to the stage SLEEP. THERE! tell me not of the joys of Sleep, Or sing of the rosy chains that bind him, Of bothers he's flung on my trusting shoulders, And at college a rowing from DR. MOULDERS, To utter by far his most mischievous function, 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. (They tell me in church I'm a terrible sinner)- When he comes surreptitiously after dinner. In a room full of pretty, designing ladies. It's vain to struggle when fates outnumber, THE LATEST FROM PALL MALL. MOTTO FOR SIR J. PAKINGTON.-" Dieu et mon Droitwich." A DEFINITE GRIEVANCE. I cannot call the phrase to mind; He did say something of the kind, 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 You see it all depends. "Under the Sea." ; Mr. BAZIN has carried focus-pocus to an extent hitherto unrivalled. "Under the sea, under the sea, So says the bard. We may perhaps be pardoned, considering the Answers to Correspondents. [We cannot return rejected MSS. or sketches unless they are accom MOSES sends us a drawing of "Old Jones preparing for another twenty 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. GAMMER GURTON. The nursery rhyme is but so-so, like your needle. H. E. V. D.-If you must know, we don't think much of the lines. We G. W. sends us a "little poem of over twenty verses! But-stop; FELIX must not be infelix because FELIX isn't in. BUTCHER." The times are out of joint "-it's too late for jokes about A LUNAR CORRESPONDENT is rather too moony for us. A. H.-The lines "If we'll only try" have been tried by us, and 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 H. G. T., Tavistock, need not be in such terror about the disgrace of the J. W., Stoney Batter.-Do you not desire that you may obtain it ? H. M., Leeds.-But we don't follow his meaning. E. D., Bolton.-Joke too local in character. Declined with thanks-D. D.; C. S., Westminster; R. M.; R. A. F.; FREE EXHIBITIONS OF LONDON:-BOW STREET. The class of entertainment provided at Bow-street can hardly be ing the torso of a dirty HERCULES through the rents of a shirt so tat- The near neighbourhood of Covent-garden is productive of variety The visitor to Bow-street Court may study science as well as A visit to Bow-street-in the capacity of a spectator-will well NOTICE.-Now ready, the Eleventh Half-Yearly Volume of FUN, being London: Printed by JUDD & GLASS, Phoenix Works, St. Andrew's Hill, Doctors' Commons, and Published (for the Proprietor) by W. ALDER, at 80, Fleet-street, E.C.- 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. 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, 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! Was it the title that made you shy? "BEDGEBURY" isn't a pretty name, You have lived, we will say, so many years- Chaffed so often in Cockney rhymes;- If you won't be a peer, then, BERESFORD HOPE, 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. |