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A FISHY CASE

Colonel Tyler:-"A SPLENDID HAUL! ONE-AND-TWENTY AT LEAST!"

D*sr**li (Aside) :—"SOME ONE COMING! (Aloud) I KNOW NOTHING OF YOUR NET PROCEEDS.”

[Enter P. C. Osborne. Sensation.

SONG.

Sung by Dodge-ero (COLONEL T-YL-R) in the Burlesque Play of "The Reform Rovers."

Ir is a most provoking do!

To think that I was potting 'em

The guileless DILLWYN and his crew, When who should twig us but the hu

morous M.P. for Nottingham

morous M.P. for Nottingham.

BULWER, G. E. E. L. B. By LORD LYTTON. The Baron and the Baronet are One. The classic words of the Poet are sweetest from the wreathed lips of the Peer. Poesy, thou art Patrician, 'tis of thy nature, as it is to be Immortal. The Novelist of Yesterday is the Noble of To-Day. The Inspiration drawn in bye-gone Eons from Castalian springs-'tush, I have found it as I mused, upon the Terrace of the Thames, weary of the Plebeian Babble of the Lower House, and sighing for the Senato's classic atmosphere where the Sage can Rest. The creative Imaginings of Art, as they issue, like MINERVA, from the brain of Jove, full-armed, from my Own Bright Intellect, are

[Weeps and pulls out a true blue Reform bill. Gazing tenderly at it, he Various-and yet One. The Truthful and the Beautiful-at least, I proceeds

Sweet Measure! checks of truest blue

They soon had found garotting 'em,

If they had helped to pass you through, Without detection by the hu

morous M.P. for Nottingham

morous M.P. for Nottingham.

[At each repetition of this line Dodge-ero cracks his whip in cadence. Bah! Bah! AS RAREY trotted Cruiser, I was calmly trotting 'em, When, hang it! who should enter-who? But that confounded pest-the hu

morous M.P. for Nottingham-
morous M.P. for Nottingham.

The very form, in which they drew
My words up, clearly spotting 'em,
He offered to the House, as scru-
tineers-he did indeed, the hu-

morous M.P. for Nottingham—
morous M.P. for Nottingham.

My eyes! (with soda corks, it's true,
I have a way of dotting 'em
At awkward times)-a rare to-do
Was thus created by the hu-

morous M.P. for Nottingham-
morous M.P. for Nottingham.

And since they can't escape the cruel sentence he's alloting 'em,

Their only chance is to abu

se, and heap strong terms upon the hu

morous M.P. for Nottingham

morous M.P. for Nottingham.

[During the last stanza Dodge-ero perceives that he has run his head against a wall, so hard as to produce a visible confusion. The curtain drops.

OUR BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.

BY MOST OF OUR EMINENT AUTHORS.

BEDFORD, PAUL. By DOCTOR CUMMING. It was the year 1897, and the immediate end of the world was at hand. False prophets had announced it regularly once a twelvemonth for a considerable period; and at length a distinguished soothsayer, addressing a crowd of the citizens near Hanover-square, had positively fixed the event for the day after to-morrow. If, in this announcement, there was any mental reservation, let us not blame the seer! The morning was bright and warm. The air was balmy with the soft breath of opening Spring. The bees-those living types of patient and useful industry-the bees were out. So was an excellent work on their truly interesting habits, chiefly reprinted from the Times. Wandering, with a flower in his button-hole, through the beautiful arcades of Covent-garden, an aged man, upon whose face an almost youthful bloom still lingered; upon whose lips an almost youthful smile still played-happened to encounter the soothsayer. "You smile," said the prophet, "and yet the end of the world is at hand. Are you not afraid?" "Afraid ?” was the answer, "not a bit, not a bit of it, my dear children. Why should old PAUL be afraid, eh, my bricksy-wicksy? No, no, quite on the contrary, vice versa, nil desperandum, never say die! All the dear boys are fond of their old PAUL, of their particularly popular predilection for old PAUL!" "Do you imagine, then, rash man," asked the noble soothsayer, "that this beautiful world will still be in existence the day after to-morrow?" "Inquisitive ecclesiastic," was the answer of the comedian, "yes, I do! I believe you, my bo-o-oy!!"

CUMMING, DOCTOR. By NICHOLAS. The period of this party's birth do not much matter, he being quite old enough to know better, but where it says as he is a legitimate foreteller of future events, such is a gross exaggeration, for he have no connection with NICHOLAS, nor would I let him do so, he never coming right in his prophecies, and which such would injure the joint concern.

don't mean that, you know! PELHAM and PAUL CLIFFORD, GAWTREY and EUGENE ARAM, are Several; So are Others; yet, by the Unity of plastic Genius, the sacred Type remains. O Isis and Osiris! Likewise, O Brethren of the Rosy Cross! Leave me, leave my day-dreams, and leave, oh leave, my visions in the Dead of Night. Ŏ Eros, young God of Love! I was born in the year 1805. I have written many good Books; and also, the Critics say, some atrociously Bad Ones. The Critics lie. Avenge me, Spirits of the great ARCANA! Tear them, Limb from Limb. This is a Strange Story I do not know precisely what I mean. I was once Colonial Secretary. Oh, Colonos!

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ODE TO AN ENGLISH EASTER.

(After a Muscular Poet.)

WELCOME English Easter,
Cowards should we be,
Loving our vacations
Not to sing to thee;
Welcome English Easter
When we long to roam,
O'er the heights of Dover,
Far away from home.
Tired we are of working,
Sick and ill with care,
Weary of Reformers,

House of Commons air!

Sweep the busy city

Of the dust of years.

Prime with pluck and muscle
All our volunteers.
Shriek, ye snorting engines,
With your loads in tow,
Worried station-masters
Give the word to go!
Shriek, ye puffing engines,
For we want to see
Paris Exhibition.
Now that we are free.
Let the lazy summer
Tempt us by and by
With its cosy pic-nics,
Ice, and pigeon-pic.
Lengthy expeditions,

Put them off till then,
'Tis this doubtful weather
Pleases Englishmen !
What's the sunny summer?
'Tis the ladies' hour,
Bringing lawns and crôquet,
Tea and toast in power;
But an English Easter
Often takes us in,
And 'midst our enjoyment,
Soaks us to the skin.
Welcome, English Easter,
We must have our spree,
Cheap excursion-tickets.

By the land and sea,
Take us next to nothing
There and back again,
Blow the doubtful weather,
Never mind the rain!

A Stray Cast.

THE accusations of insincerity, so frequently brought against the M.P. for Birmingham, have, we fear, more truth in them than we have hitherto been willing to acknowledge. We are assured that though he would wish to be considered the last person who would be guilty of playing tricks with the borough or county franchise, yet he is never better pleased than when (north of the Tweed) he has either a six or fourteen pounder "on a line."

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MEN WE MEET.

BY THE CCMIC PHYSIOGNOMIST.

THE C. P. AT A WEDDING.

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married are as much alike as people who are being born. A man sinks his identity on these occasions, and becomes like unto all others in similar predicaments. Man that is being married is a shiftless, helpless, nervous, fidgety, uncomfortable, perspiring

stutterer. Woman that is
being married, is a shy,
blushing, damp, red-nosed,
sobbing, trembling, heaving
mass of white corded - silk
and
orange-flowers. Νο
man and no woman could
ever look to advantage under
such circumstances.

No. 1 is the gentleman who proposed the health of the young couple. He is the father of the bridegroom-a man of fabulous wealth, owing much, it is whispered, to Tallow. He is a jolly old boy with a fat unctuous look about him, and a way of treating the whole affair as if it were a good joke to be chuckled over. He is reported to have done the handsome thing by his son, and to have expressed an intention of disinheriting such of the bridesmaids as happened to be his daughters if they ventured to cry. He has given diamond lockets to all the ladies concerned, directly or indirectly, with the proceedings, and has, in short, made himself generally agreeable.

FEW days ago the C.P. I went to a wedding. He really couldn't help it it was no morbid curiosity that took him there; he went in an official capacity, as a sort of reluctant and tenderhearted High Sheriff, to hand over the miserable bride into the custody of the officiating parson. She happened to be a near relative of the Philosopher's, and the only one whose relation to her warranted him in taking such a liberty. From his earliest years, he had been accustomed to wield a gentle authority over her; and he believes that he has, on various occasions, stood to her in the several capacities of guide, philosopher, and friend. He had come to regard himself almost in loco parentis, for her relation to him placed all tender considerations out of the question, while, at the same time, her youth and her beauty would have made her an object of especial interest to her earliest ancestor if he could have been brought to behold her. She was, in short, the philosopher's aunt. Not a scraggy old girl, but a maiden of nineteen summers, and consequently, by a freak of nature, considerably younger than the philosopher himself. And here the C. P. proposes to pause, in his playful way, in order to dilate upon a consideration which has frequently struck him, and which may probably, have struck a good many others too. He has said that to this young maiden he has always stood in the light of either guide, philosopher, or friend, or all or any of these. And this leads him to the consideration in how many different lights does the C. P. (or individuals at large-for the C. P. is, after all, but a type of mankind) appear to his various friends, his acquaintances, and his enemies. He feels that to every person he knows, he must appear in a totally different light. To PARKER he is a quiet, reserved man. There is something, he supposes, in PARKER, to check confidence. To FARQUHARSON he is a wag. There is something in FARQUHARSON that inspires the C. P. to pun. FARQUHARSON is weak, but appreciative, and upon him the C. P. rehearses good things, to be finally uttered under circumstances of remunerative publicity. To CoCKERELL he is a dull, heavy man. COCKERELL has acquired wealth by the invention of a putty of singularly adhesive properties, and cannot take a joke from a poor man. To BOYLE he is a man of clear, quiet intelligence-for he has, somehow, got into a way of looking at questions propounded by BoYLE, in a quasi-logical light, which impresses BoYLE, who is easily impressed. To old COLTER, he is a sad young dog; to young BAINES he is a rascally old scamp; to BARBER, he is the beau-ideal of what a young man should be; and to TILLOTSON, he is the incarnation of a hopeless ne'er-do-well. And all this without any hypocrisy on the C. P.'s part-his conduct in the presence of these individuals has been insensibly influenced by their demeanour to him. It is, no doubt, with them as it is with him. There is, probably a circle which considers COCKERELL a contagious wit, and PAKKER's the very bosom of all others into which to pour the full tide of unreserved confidence. Only the C. P. don't happen to belong to it.

Having satisfactorily disposed of this consideration, the Philosopher will take the liberty of recalling his wandering Muse to the subject of his aunt's wedding, and the people he met at it.

Of the bride and of the bridegroom he has little to say. People who are being

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No 1.

No. 2.

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in

con

No. 3.

No. 2 is the "best man," who proposed the "Bridesmaids." He is a confirmed bachelor, and as such, an immense favourite with all young ladies, on the customarily illogical principles of ladies' logic. He has an air of yielding a goodhumoured assent to a harmless foible, to which he is never likely to become a victim. He proposed "The Bridesmaids' words of facetious import, which, it need hardly be said, vulsed the assembly." The C. P. may mention, as a fact that bears upon what he has already said about the different lights in which the same individual may be regarded by his various friends, that he heard this gentleman alluded to, by different guests at the ceremony, as a duck, a conceited donkey, a most agreeable person, a curlybrained idiot, a young man of parts, a singularly well-informed person, and an unmitigated duffer.

No. 4.

No. 3 is a specimen of that blatant nuisance, the "friend of the family who has known the bride and bridegroom from their cradles." This disgusting bore (about whom, the C. P. is bound to admit, there appeared to be no two opinions) talked for three-quarters of an hour about the early history of the bride and bridegroom, in a fashion which completely covered them with confusion. He recalled anecdotes of their early years, their budding youth, and their final adolescence, and then went on to picture their future, and all the possible blessings which might surround it. He said "that the blessing of being a father was only to be equalled by the blessing of being a son, and that when these two blessings were combined (as he had no doubt they shortly would be) in the person of the young friend on his right -who was already a son-" (and who, by-the-bye, was blushing loud enough to be heard)-"Fortune could do no more for him." He was eventually pulled down to his seat by a considerate friend, and subsequently left in a

huff.

No. 5.

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propose The Ladies.''

No. 4 is the gentleman who remarked that it would be out of the question to think of separating until the health of "The Ladies" had been drunk with the fullest honours. "It was they," he said, "who nursed us in our babyhood, who comforted us in our youth, who kindly came and married us in our prime, and who smoothed our declining pillow (whatever that was) in our old age. He had not the advantage of being married himself, but that was not his fault-he supposed he had not yet attained his prime-but he knew somebody who had, and that somebody said he liked it. He would, without further delay, Amendment proposed by the father of the bride, and carried nem con. "God bless 'em." No. 5 is the couple who couldn't tell the philosopher, after the breakfast, what any of the speeches were about. They were, in short, making so much weak love through the medium of pastrycooks' mottoes during that meal, that the discharge of a six-pounder from the dinner waggon would hardly have arrested their attention. They will go home-dream of each other-dodge about after each other at botanical fêtes and horticultural meetings of all kinds; they will go in search of each other to Zoological Gardens and Crystal Palace, until August, when they will each go their ways to different out-of-town places, fall in love again, and again, and again, until they come to speak of each other as "that pleasant fellow (or 'that rather jolly girl') I met at So and So's wedding."

Last scene of all that ends this strange, eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, in the person of the waiter who was moved to tears by the speeches. He made two or three abortive attempts to address the assembled guests on the subject of matrimony considered in relation to fowls and champagne, but a superior menial succeeded in extinguishing him before the subject of his remarks had time to take a distinct form. He was banished to a remote portion of the kitchen department, but was discovered at a later period of the day in the act of shaking the umbrella-stand in the hall, by one of its pegs, and assuring it that "married or single, it should always find a friend in him.”

AD PERDITAM.

I saw thee-loved thee! and believed that thou
Didst prize the love I gave. 'Twas early spring,
Before the new-born buds were blossoming
To furnish wreaths to twine around thy brow,
Or nestle in thy hair. But when the flowers

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Bloomed bright and sweet among their circling leaves, So "grow like mushrooms" did this love of ours, That we, by that time, were "as thick as thieves!" Then basking in thy sunny smile I lay,

The nectar of thy rosy lips did taste;

But ah! those precious hours are passed away,
And I have dipped into the bitter cup

Of disappointment-just a little sup!

And now my arms enclose, not thine, but Memory's waste!

As you Plays.

AMONG the preparations now making on a grand scale for the coronation of the EMPEROR of AUSTRIA at Buda-Pesth, as King of Hungary, two fountains are mentioned, which will play the whole day, one throwing up white and the other red wine. We trust this mistaken policy is not to be taken as an omen that the EMPEROR still continues ignorant of the real wants of the people. To judge from the erection of these fountains, he seems to labour under the belief that he is to be King of the thirsty, not Hungary.

Coming of Age.

THE Government measure of Reform, though rather a short measure for its age, has attained its majority-twenty-one. We are not sure whether it can be said to have reached years of discretion.

Theatrical.

IT is stated that the Long Strike is the Easter piece at the Plymouth Theatre. We'll hope it will not be such a "brief hit" as it was in London.

Edification.

We have heard a good deal about the rapid spread of education, but were not quite prepared to find to what an extent it has been carried, as exemplified in the following

education at the Free Grammar School, situate near the station, and within

To be LET, a genteel semi-detached eight-roomed convenient HOUSE, entitled to forty-five minutes' ride of London.-Apply to, &c. We shall expect to see SHAKESPEARE'S schoolboy creeping to school very like a snail, with his house on his back, going to take its share of education. The Government might turn the idea to some account in the Reform Bill. Household Suffrage, pure and unadulterated, they the basis of an extended franchise. Suppose they give a vote to every would avoid, though they consider Household Suffrage of some limits householder whose house can pass an examination in the three R'sreading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic;-the R's not calculated celare artem.

A Bad Look-out for Brand.

IN COKE'S Institutes it is stated that "if a lieutenant or other that hath commission of marshall authority in time of peace hang or otherwise execute any man by colour of marshall law, this is murder." It is rumoured that the Jamaica Committee intend to use this against LIEUTENANT BRAND, arguing that there is a slight misprint in the passage, which should run "execute any man of colour by marshall law.'

A Puzzle.

My Second was out in my First,

And got such a soaking, poor soul,

That his best clothes were soon made his worst, And looked all the hues of my Whole.

A Literary Lord.

IF MR. BERESFORD HOPE had been raised to the Upper House as LORD BEDGEBURY, it is to be presumed that the Saturday Review would have been created a peer-iodical.

Answers to Correspondents.

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

J. M. H., Bury St. Edmunds.-If the acrostic is a sample of the stuffs you supply we had rather not deal.

W. H. D.-"A tale without much varnish" has too much size.

R. L. P.-We have our eye on the swindle, which shall be exposed by and by.

COM.-Uncommon bad!

PHIX does not succeed in phixion.

K., Bayswater. We have attempted over and over again to bring about an improvement in the Queen's English of The Court Newsman, but in vain!

A.S.-See last answer; and J. D. D., ditto.

R. C. B., Lincoln's-inn, says, "Sir, I send the enclosed at your discretion. Yours truly, etc." R. C. B. seems to have modelled his style on that of the burglar who wanted, the other day, to send his boot at Baron Bramwell's "intellectual capacity."

BLUNDERBUSS may consider himself discharged with a caution.
PISCATOR.-That fish has been landed before, we fear.

ROB ROY sends us a joke about a chignon. Can he be Rob Roy McGregarine?

W. W. CRICK.-We have nearly got a crick in our neck, in our contortions to see your fun.

R. P., New Cross.-Since you don't wish us to give you pain, we will only say declined with thanks.

CERBERUS.-Surely with your triple capital you can know little of the necessity for "Going a Head." We have not three heads, and our single one is awfully muddled by your statement that your "present effort is before your earlier attempts."

A. S., Great James-street.-If your friend NIVES wants an advertise

ment he had better fork out.

FLAME might have had more intelligence than to send us sporting ditto. "THE GHOST OF LORD BYRON" has not got the spirit of the poet, so we suppose he is only HOME-made.

LEX.-We have inspected your sketch, and all we can say for it is "law!"

G. E. P.-You are an insidious party-but we can't!

Declined with thanks-W. G. S.; S. S. N.; R. R.; J. E. B.; Mann; P. S., Liverpool; T. M.; W. T. C.; J. H., Liverpool; J. C., Dorchester; Amina, Belgrave-road; U. C. S.; Sligo; B. Upper Close; Prestich; Bep Nevis; A. V. C.; W. O.; J. B., Elmore-street; E. D. T., St. James's; Anonymous; S. D. P., Edinburgh; R. E. H., Scalpless; J. A. Haverstock-hill; J. H. H., Manchester; E. E., Sloane-square; K.; H. E. V. D.; H. J. T., Islington; Q. E. D., Kensington; G. E. C., Purton; Henry; W. H.; E. H.; E. G., Kentish Town Road; H. E. C., Ipswich; G. E. P.; W. M., Brighton.

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