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OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

We hereby present our thanks to MESSRS. ROUTLEDGE for giving to the British public one of the funniest books that we have met with for a long time The Celebrated Jumping Frog, by MARK TWAIN. The author is an American, and was, we believe, the editor of a paper called The Californian, in which many of the stories in the present volume appeared. "MARK TWAIN" is, of course, a nom de plume, like ARTEMUS WARD OF ORPHEUS C. KERR, for these American humourists seem shy of coming before the public with their real names, and prefer to assume fanciful soubriquets. The first story in this little book

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"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which belonged to a certain JIM SMILEY, a gentleman remarkable for his propensity to bet upon anything and everything. The frog's name was "DAN'L WEBSTER," and, though a wonderful jumper, we read, "You never see a frog more modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted." How SMILEY bet on him and how poor DAN'L was the victim of the most shameful foul play the reader must find out for himself, the story is too long to tell here, and too good to spoil by curtailment. "AURELIA'S Unfortunate Young Man" is equally good, and the item which the editor himself couldn't understand is a most delicious piece of mystification. In several of the sketches we get a charming insight into American usages. We are told, for instance, that young "bucks and heifers" always come it strong on panoramas because it "gives them a chance of tasting one another's mugs in the dark." Our readers will hardly recognise the seductive process of osculation in this expression. We learn also some facts about the dress of our fair cousins across the Atlantic, with which we are ashamed to say we were previously unacquainted. A young lady's attire at a ball is thus described:

"MISS R. P., with that repugnance to ostentation in dress which is so peculiar to her, was attired in a simple white lace collar, fastened with a neat pearl button solitaire. The fine contrast between the sparkling vivacity of her natural optic and the steadfast attentiveness of her placid glass eye, was the subject of general and enthusiastic remark."

There are no misspellings, no contortions of words in MARK SWAIN ; his fun is entirely dependent upon the inherent humour in his writings. And although many jokers have sent us brochures like the present from the other side of the Atlantic, we have had no book fuller of more genuine or more genial fun than the "Celebrated Jumping Frog." Onr advice to our readers, therefore, is immediately to invest a shilling in it, and over a pipe and what Mr. Swiveller called a "modest quencher," to sit down and have the hearty laugh that we can promise them from its perusal.

A Flat-tering Tale.

THAT estimable person NICHOLAS, whom (on the well-known and established principle of setting a-prophet-to catch a-well, nevermind-what) we have in these columns more than once allowed to denounce swindling prospectuses, seems to have put the fraternity on their guard. At any rate, if our reading of the following advertisement be right, its author has felt it necessary to couch it in guarded language to ensure its admission into the columns of our respectable contemporary, the Athenæum :

PARTNER WANTED, to work a valuable PATENT (not yet before the Public) for facilitating taking money off FLAT surfaces at Railways, Public houses, Shops, &c., and of almost universal applicability. Only a small outlay required, in combination with energy and perseverance.-Apply, by letter, to PATENTER, etc. Oh! a patent for getting money off flat surfaces is one of almost universal applicability, is it? Railways, public-houses, and shops, however, are, it would seem, the places where flats are chiefly caught! A small outlay and combination! Conspiracy would be more like the word, perhaps! And all this is artfully concealed under the guise of an invention for enabling that large majority of mankind and womankind (especially the latter) that will wear Berlin gloves to pick up coppers off a shiny counter! How artful!

Perhaps.

A CORRESPONDENT, come astray probably from Notes and Queries, writes to ask whether the Nore is so called because on passing it one feels the first approach of Nore-sea.

Joke v. Jest.

SONG FOR OCTOBER.

O WHERE are the people, can any one tell,
Where are they gone, where are they gone?
They were all here in August I know very well-
And I am left all alone.

This London they love whilst PAULINE LUCCA sings,
But the First of September the shooting time brings,
And the partridges wish they had two pair of wings-
Where are they gone, where are they gone?

By JOVE, when they're roasted they're rather good things,
And I am left all alone!

Whenever I go in the Park for a ride,

Where are they gone, where are they gone?
There's nothing but snobs to be seen on each side,
And I am left all alone.

How to finish my evenings I'm sure I don't know;
The theatres are empty, the music halls slow.
"There's EVANS's, truly, a chop and a "go"-

Where are they gone, where are they gone?
Cremorne and my funds are both getting so low,
And I am left all alone!

And when on the subject I come to reflect,

Where are they gone, where are they gone?
An autumn in London is quite incorrect,
And I am left all alone."

But I think I've found out a most excellent way
To get out of town, tho' yet in it to stay;

And I've just got five pounds the expenses to pay-
Where are they gone, where are they gone?
The Greenwich boat leaves each half-hour of the day,
And I'll be no longer alone!

Going, a Sacrifice!

WE fancy the old adage, "If you want anything done, do it yourself," is the only possible answer the following advertisement can be expected to receive:

SERVANT-OF-ALL-WORK WANTED for a Widow Lady and her Daughter, in a small cottage 13 miles from London. She must be honest, truthful, active, civil, clean, and an early riser. Wages £3 a year. Address, stating name and address of last mistress, Miss B- -, C, Surrey. C

If the widow lady and her daughter cannot afford more than three pounds a year for such a model servant, we think they had better undertake the place between them. Honesty, truth, activity, civility, cleanliness, and early-rising all expected at somewhere about a penny three farthings a day! Come, we'll be generous-we don't mind engaging the lot at three farthings a-head per diem, and shall think we have made a very keen bargain then!

Answers to Correspondents.

[We cannot return rejected MSS. or Sketches unless they are accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. We can take no notice of communications with illegible signatures or monograms.]

folderiddle liddle! W. A. C. (Brighton.)—You're not so funny as our old friend, W.A.C. F. J. P. (Yeovil.)-Not good enough for the sequel to our joke; we don't think it's (e)equally funny.

W. W. (Liverpool.)-We are fully supplied with the article.

F. A. (Barnsbury.)-Our correspondence is large; you must wait your turn, but the chances are you have been answered long since. J. C.-It all depends upon their merit.

W. P. (Buckingham-gate.)-The pieces you call "filling-up pieces " want filling up sadly; there's nothing in them. S.-How could you write such a line as

"To we weary ones to rest"?

It's enough to disturb the rest of Lindley Murray in his grave.
J. C. R. (Ireland.)-We fear you cannot assist us.
C. A. L. E. P. (Colchester.)-We do not see your drift.
BEN ALLAH.-Perhaps they will be republished.
TWIDDLE.-Twaddle!

R. W. (Bedford-street.)-If that really is your first attempt, it is so

A FRIEND of ours being detected in a violent cough the other day, ereditable that you had better let it be the last, too! was asked if it was his chest; he replied, it was only a choke.

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Declined with thanks:-H. L. H.; Lancashire; Polar; T. K., Walsall; H. B.; P. Q. R.; H. R. K.; J. M., Tredegar; C. H., Nelson-square; H. B. S., Streatfield-road; Á. B.; J. D.; F. H., Manchester; W. C., Brighton; T. R., Navan; J. V., Junior; Schoolboy, Norwood; J. T., Bedford-street; Forty Two; R. Cornwall-road; Novice; S. S. s. S., Hereford; A. J. R., Northampton; A. B., Shrewsbury; S., Dublin; M. D., Dover; Reader, Great Queen-street; J. McJ., Glasgow; J. M.; J. G. D., Bishopgate-street; E. J. F., New Cross; N. É. K.; C. D., King William

street.

SHAMPOOING CHARLIE WAS HIS NAME." Hairdresser:-"WELL, MY LITTLE GENTLEMAN, AND HOW WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR HAIR CUT?"

Charlie:-"OH, LIKE PAPA'S, PLEASE-WITH A LITTLE ROUND HOLE AT THE TOP."

[Unutterable bliss of parent who sits within hearing.

FROM OUR STALL.

DETUR PULCHRIORI.

"IT is said that at the close of the Exhibition, Paris offers a prize of a pair of ear-rings, worth 600,000 francs (about £24,000), to be awarded to the fairest of the fair.""-Echoes from the Clubs.

We have studied in classical fables

Vide LEMPRIERE passim and SMITH-
How JUNO, in turning the tables

On VENUS's kin and her kith,

Made a vow for revenge of Mount Ida,

Where an elegant youth-as we're told—

Called PARIS, was asked to decide a
Dispute for an apple of gold.

Young PARIS, the shepherd, was frisky,
And went in for love like a boy,
Never dreaming his choice might be risky
And hardest of lines for old Troy.
Never thinking ATHENA would grieve it,
Or HERA reap vengeance from pain;
And now-you will hardly believe it-
Young PARIS is at it again!

Some goddess of discord or folly

Fair women has set by the ears,

And the city, once happy and jolly,

Will be given to tongues and to tears.

For if the competitors wrangle,

Or sneer, snarl, or worry, or fuss,
Oh! who would the claims disentangle
Which PARIS will have to discuss?

There are noses like pug-dogs and parrots,
And skins like the dirt and the snow,

And hair with the gleam of young carrots,

Or sheeny with gloss of a crow.

There are some who like thin lips-poor creatures

And some, lips so poutingly full,

Wilt test all their mouths and their features ?

Then PARIS, my boy, you've the pull !

If the claims of the fat and the bony
They called upon him to decide,
I'd sooner have died with ENONE
Than fought before Troy for a bride.
But if with the lovely and witty,
The judge sits in pleasure and peace,
I'd sooner be Paris the city

Than PARIS the shepherd of Greece!

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MR. H. J. BYRON'S "William Tell" will no doubt fill the Strand for some time to come. It is full of fun, and the music is carefully and cleverly selected. MR. C. FENTON deserves to be singled out for separate praise; his performance of Sarnem is intensely humorous-a true bit of burlesque acting.

THE author of "Ours" and "Caste" has fairly earned the reputation of being our most polished and least conventional comedy-writer. He gives us dialogue that is natural; his conversations are made effective by their fitness as much as by their brilliancy. He possesses the The Adelphi is re-decorated! It really looks very nice-very nice rare art of raising a laugh-of drawing a tear sometimes-by the indeed! And MR. WEBSTER is playing Triplet again, as admirably as simplest means. MR. ROBERTSON's forte is pure comedy; the atmo- ever, in "Masks and Faces." MRS. MELLON plays Peg Woffington, sphere of drama disagrees with him. We rather doubt whether but not as admirably as ever; she has grown too loud and overwhelmWe look forward with eagerness exciting situations can be represented properly apart from a little clap-ing-her gestures are exaggerated. trap; it is a perilous experiment to throw stage tradition overboard to the production of a new piece under the altered management of this altogether. It was-probably is-a noble commonplace way that the theatre. brave soldiers on board the Birkenhead formed in line and sunk.

The

WHEN is it desirable to be on the sick list ?-When one is "laid up"

NOTICE.-On November the 4th, price Twopence,
FUN ALMANACK,
Sixteen pages, Toned Paper, with numerous Illustrations, engraved by
the DALZIEL BROTHERS.

sea and sky were the only witnesses, and there was no acting to them. But in putting such an incident on the stage, things are not to be done-in lavender. in the matter-of-fact manner. The audience wants a deal of talk about heroism, love of country, wives and families, et cetera. MR. ROBERTSON has not appreciated this dreadful necessity-or else he has defied it. The stage-management has done everything in its power to spoil the shipwreck scene; but not from the author's fault-an attempt to be natural. The vessel is a decent-sized yacht in the second act-and in the first it was a ship of at least fifteen hundred tons. The supers, too-a melancholy half dozen-are of the Adelphi pattern, and spoil every scene into which they are introduced. The performance of "For Love" is hardly up to our expectation. MISS HENRADE is unimpassioned, and MR. PRICE-usually so effective-plays coldly, and renders more obvious the comparative weakness of the last act. MR. MONTAGUE, MRS. STEPHENS, and MISS JENNY WILLMORE, are good; A Burlesque by H. J. Byron, W. S. Gilbert, T. Hood, H. S. Leigh, Arthur Sketchley, but the best bit of acting in the piece is that of MR. CUMMING, who plays a small part admirably. Though the drama contains plenty of writing that no dramatist but MR. ROBERTSON could have given us, we cannot say that it is one of that gentleman's artistic successes.

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NOTICE.-Now ready, price 1s., and may be obtained at the Fux Office, Lacy's
Theatrical Warehouse, and all booksellers,
ROBINSON CRUSOE;

OR, THE INJUN BRIDE AND THE INJURED WIFE.

and "Nicholas."

Performed at Theatre Royal Haymarket, on Saturday, July 6th.

N.B.-The proceeds of the sale will be added to the fund for the benefit of the widowed mother of the late Paul Gray.

LONDON: Printed by JUDD & GLASS, Phoenix Werks, St. Andrew's Hill, Doctors' Commons, and Published (for the Proprietor) by W. ALDER, at 80, Fleet-street, E.C.October 19, 1867.

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ALL IS NOT GOLD (OR SILVER) THAT GLITTERS. MR. FUN, SIR,-I am that there young man from the country as was made so much game of because of my sayin' that nobody wouldn't get over me. No more they didn't, except them there music-hall chaps; but I've been regular done, Sir, a-coming along to your office from the Temperance Hotel, where I puts up, at the back of Cheapside-as I takes my own licker in a wicker bottle and drinks in the bedroom after meals. I was ekonymising along of having promised my missis (for the best of us is got over by them that we loves, honours, and obeys,) to take her home a somethin' from London, as her wishes took the form of electro-plate for to stand on the sideboard along with our best chaney. As I say, I was on my way to your office when what should I see in a shop winder but just sech an article as would suit to a T, or I should say to a tea, which is a jocorous remark suited to your perioddicle. For if it warn't a sugar basin, a milk-pot, a coffee biggin, a teapot and all to match, as bright as the new shillin's that I'd drawed from the Bank that very morning. I was a-goin' in to ask the price when I hears somebody a-talking loud inside, and a chap at the door says, "The sale closes to-day, and there's some bargains going, I can tell you." Now, thinks I, he don't know who I am, and he thinks to get over me; so I winks to myself and walks in. There was two or three women there, and half a dozen men, three of 'em I was down upon in a minute. I know'd 'em by their hookey noses and by the look out of the corners of their eyes, and I winks to myself again, for they was a-takin' in two of the women, and a pale, silly-lookin' feller like one o'clock, a-selling 'em all sorts o' rubbish. Sometimes they bought a lot themselves, and the way they did it was worth looking at, I can tell you. A-pretending to quarrel who should have it, and a-payin' for it always in even money-half sovereigns or sovereigns, as they handed over to the chap that brought the things round on a waiter. That didn't get over me, though, for, says I to myself, "The money's only Brummagem counters, or else out of the common till."

There was two or three real han'some things, too, I can tell, and some as I could see had done duty before and not been cleaned afterwards. Thinks I, "dimond cut dimond." I see now what them gorgous tea-services is for, and if I don't have my bid and see whether I can't nick one of them show lots I ain't what I was five or six year ago. So I waits, and presently sure enough in comes the tea-things

VOL. VI.

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out of the winder. The young cupple bids, and one of the others bids, and then I looks hard at the auctioneer, and winks, as much as to say "I'm awake!" and he says, "Did you bid for this?" "Yes," I says, "I'll bid seventeen shillin's." And then he laughs, and says, "The gentleman there with the lady's offered a pound upon the sale." Just then in comes another party, and directly he was inside they draws a curtain that shut us all in, for there was a crowd round the door, and before I knew what was being done the lot was knocked down to the new comer. Come," says I, "that game won't do with me. You'll put that lot up again, for mine was the last bid of a guinea;" and the party, as was evidently a gentleman, says, "I've no objection, if there's any dispute." So away we goes again, and the young man, as had been a-consultin' with his wife, says, "I mean to have 'em if I can, for I've bought the spoons to match;" and I says, "Well, if I don't buy 'em over your head at the price as is being asked some of these chaps will; you ain't up to 'em, but they don't get over me;" and then there was a lot of bids all at once, and the goods was knocked down. "Would you like to pay for them at once?" says the auctioneer to the young feller; but the man as had come in says, "I beg your pardon, if they belong to anybody they're the property of this gentleman (meaning me) as have offered five-andthirty." There was a regular row, but I sticks to my text, and the stranger sticks to me; and out I walks triumphant, a-winkin' to myself, with the goods under my arm in a silk handkercher.

Well, Sir, I write this from home, which I reached by the night train. When I opens my handkercher and shows the things to my wife she was uncommonly pleased to be sure, for she thought they was real silver, and they looked it, too; for I forgot to say as they'd been kept spick and span new in that winder under a glass shade.

How we did laugh, my wife and me, at the way as I'd got over that set at the Mock Auction; for bless you, Sir, I was up to it from the very first, and we pictered to ourselves their rage at being done out of their show lot. Sir, let me out with it at once. In the mornin', while I was a-shavin', I heard my wife give a scream, and nearly cut my chin off. Down I goes, and if the silver service hadn't all turned black in the night, as was only zinc and quicksilver. I see it all now. That pale young cupple was in the gang, and they'd got over me, and I don't know as I shall ever come to London any more, but remain

A YOUNG MAN IN THE COUNTRY.

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Now when they reached the whaling ground,

The Homeopath says he,
"Leave all to me, you'll be astound-

Ed, at what you soon shall see!"
He dropped some "globules" in the sea,
In the midst of a "school" of whales :

In minutes twenty-one they be

Came all of them dead as nails!
They filled the vessel to the decks,
And started for home express;
Rejoiced at having had such ex-
Traordinary success!

And when ashore they came to go,
Each rushed away to invest
Some of his earnings in a Ho-
Moeopathic medicine chest!

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

We have received from Messus. ROUTLEDGE a batch of books, which we may take as the avant courier of the great flood of Christmas literature about to be launched on the devoted heads of the reviewers. Every Boy's Annual, a handsome and attractive volume, may claim to be the first. It abounds in interesting papers on sports as well as science, and there are some admirable short sketches and stories. Of the longer tales we like "The Boy Cavaliers" best. "The Orville College Boys" is by MRS. HENRY WOOD, who does not seem to know much about either boys or colleges. We can fancy how many hearty laughs there will be over the passage in which she talks of a master's trencher cap having "two tassels, one over the other," and makes one of her schoolboys catch up a master's cap in mistake for his own! The majority of the illustrations are excellent, especially the coloured natural history cuts, and the pictures belonging to the burlesques. MR. BURNAND, the author of those burlesques, should have furbished up his Latin a bit before he aired it in the presence of boys fresh from their Latin grammars. It is hardly correct to say "Lictores, amove!" Moreover, Dominus is not a vocative, nor is ferre the imperative of fero. Another capital boy's book is Barford Bridge, by the REV. H. C. ADAMS, in which boat-races, football, fighting, and cricket take their proper place and interest, and the moral is not too obtrusively displayed. For the smaller folks we find The Multiplication Table in Verse, an attempt to make that nauseous draught palatable, The Old Courtier, the ballad on whose lines "The Fine Old English Gentleman" was built, and Old King Cole, “with which is incorporated" that very old and well-beloved story of the Queen of Hearts and the Tarts. This last is, perhaps, the best as well as most brilliantly illustrated. Original Poems, illustrated, is prettily turned out. Some of the pictures are very charming, but we do not (with all deference to the author of the Family Pen) care about the "poems." They are "only for children we shall be told, but that is all the more reason in our opinion that they should be good. It is most important that the child's ear should be trained to an appreciation of verse by faultless rhythm and careful rhyme, and in neither of these respects do Original Poems shine. Last, but not least, in the batch comes a book for us old fogiesa cheap edition of the immortal Tristram Shandy. The edition is unmutilated by that judicious editing which in cutting out the naughty passages generally contrives to snip away a great deal of the good with them. We commend the Shandean volume to those who are not acquainted with it, if only that they may perceive, when they have read it, how very much our modern humourists are indebted to STERNE.

Comma-ntory.

AS HORACE, had he lived in this day, would have undoubtedly been one of our honoured contributors, we venture, on behalf of that deceased poet and his latest translator, DR. SMITH, to point out a slip which the Athenæum has made. The Athenæum does make slips at times. Recently, when noticing a mention of tubular bridges in a novel, it spoke as if STEPHENSON's were the only tubular bridges, quite forgetting BRUNEL'S. In this instance, the critic says that DR. SMITH has mistaken the meaning of

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He'll mourn her troth and gods invoked forsaken." Surely our Athenaic friend must see an implied comma after "invoked!" He-forsaken-will mourn her troth and the gods he invoked. If he were not forsaken, he would have no reason to lament either the invoked gods or her troth. Oh, classical criticism, what nonsense is perpetrated in thy name! A scholar would have seen that "mutatos" applied both to "deos" and to "fidem," and that DR. SMITH, by giving the effect of those changes on the mourner, met the difficulty in the best possible manner admitted by our English construction.

DOUBLE ACROSTIC.

No. 33.

Ar early dawn they run and ride,
And shout along the river side,
While steadily the oarsmen strain
Each nerve the leading place to gain.
But all their strength and skill it needs-
Now one and now the other leads:
But, see, the race is done-and, hark!
What cheering hails the victor-bark.
And yet I hear amid the shout
One prudent voice expressing doubt,
Though scarcely will the lads, I fear,
Those warning words of wisdom hear.

1.

This sort of fellow troubles very greatly
Departments that would fain go on sedately:
About the offices for ever grubbing

With schemes and plans, he gets a deal of snubbing.

2.

In distant lands

The traveller knowing
Well understands

Where this is growing,

Is learned in the art of grinding it,
And feels quite sure of food, in finding it.

3.

Some one has written reams about him,
But though renowned for piety,
He's lots of roguish schemes about him,
And tricks in great variety.

4.

According to PLINY,
Who was not a ninny,

Of all the Italians this race was the oldest.'
But then of the tribes
That PLINY describes,

If they were the most ancient, they were not the boldest. 5.

A drinking-horn ancient, of curious shape-
Oft in classical pictures you'll view it,
For the juice of the grape had a hole for escape
In the bottom, and used to flow through it
Straight into the mouth of the drinker agape-
Just try with a funnel to do it!

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CORRECT SOLUTIONS OF ACROSTIC NO. 31, RECEIVED 16TH OCTOBER:-C. R. H.; Amicus; Returns 54; Froggy; Betsy H.; Merry Andrew; Ruby; Valentine; D. P. H.; E. D. J. M.; Long Jack; Holdfast; F. R.; 4 Boobies; M. D. S.; Julia; Bunnie P.; A la mode; Etihw; H. C.; Parkhurst; Varney the V.; Garry; The Roman; 3 Carshalton Fools; Neptune 22; Ned; Long Firm; 2 Barnacles; Katie; Nanny's Pet; The Chichester Cockles; Kate C. H.; Pedro; Gyp; A Gowk; Anna L.; C. C. B.; Keg Meg; Rose and Kittie; Head of the Family; Skelmorhe; E. M. H.; Borva; Drum; Pal o' Mine; Constance; Muckle Pickle; Exon, Oxon; "I'm Sure I'll Try"; Vampyre; Snuff-box; Two Clapham Contortionists; Engineers Out of Work; Brick-court; A. B.; Breakside and Hamish; T. S. C.; J. A. W.; The Monaline Lynx; Bundle; 89th; Polar; Bampton Beck; Bravo, Ned; J. R.; D. E. H.; P. and C. S.; W. S.; Salterns; 3 Bluebottles; Greensleeve.

Another Suffering Manager!

MR. WEBSTER is not the only ill-used manager. We have it on the best authority that MR. WEBSTER'S neighbour, the Manager of the Lyceum, is being shamefully used. We are assured that poor MR. FECHTER, having engaged a "scratch" company, is Clawed nightly in

his own theatre.

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