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AIR LUCY was leaning against the dark bole

Of an aspen that, tremulous, whispered above her,

And looked so bewitching, I vow, on my soul,

There was naught to be done in the world but to love her!

And the sunbeams that rained on her, down through the leaves,

Like a flock of gold butterflies fluttered about her;
Her eyes were that grey which so sweetly deceives-
Yet it seemed an impiety almost to doubt her.

The breeze, as it lifted her frolicsome curls,

Seemed to love so to linger and loiter around her;

I protest that I thought her the dearest of girls

The dearest? Well, that was no more than I found her!

For when aspen and sunbeam and breeze were away,

And it came to the settlement, wedding, and trousseau,

I found she was dear-by the sums I'd to pay,
When it really was not quite convenient to do so.

A house, where in all things her taste she displayed
(Except in economy-that she'd no thought of);
The costliest dresses, most gorgeously made,

And trinkets the Jew-est of jewellers bought of;

A carriage, an opera-box! "There is the rub"
That takes all the polish off youthful romances!
I was really so very well off at the club,

'Twas a pity I nursed matrimonial fancies.

For Lucy, while leaning against the dark bole

Of the aspen that, tremulous, whispered above her,
Was such a sweet picture-I vow, on my soul,

I regret that I'd any ambition to move her!

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THE CABINET COUNCIL.

FROM OUR OWN OLD TRAITOR.

PAM.-Yes, that's true enough, CLARENDON, and of course a man might have got capital hedging, but practically I don't believe Kangaroo's the ghost of a chance. By the bye-pleasure after businessKangaroo reminds one of Australia, and Australia (naturally) reminds one of BOB LOWE, and Boв Lowe reminds one of reform. SIR CHARLES WOOD.-I cannot quite understand. PAM.-Naturally, CHARLES; but don't interrupt. Our position isn't precisely pretty.

GLADSTONE.-Personally, I should be rather inclined to say that it was disgraceful, but for three good reasons. In the first placeRUSSELL.-Talking of places, there's a relation of mine named-let's see-oh, yes, I am obliged-named GREY, whom I should like to see employed in the public service. He is not very clever.

SIR GEORGE GREY.-I beg your pardon. All the GREYS are clever; and, my dear RUSSELL, if you once drop a hint to the contrary, what on earth is to become of the Old Whigs?

SIR CHARLES WOOD.-Although I cannot altogether comprehendTHE LORD CHANCELLOR.-If any personal allusions are made to old wigs, I resign!

RUSSELL.-Not a bad idea. It is always a good thing for a Cabinet to get rid of an unpopular man.

PAM.-Yes, JоHN, but people are not thinking much about you at present! Seriously, though, we ought to go to the country with a great cry.

GRANVILLE. And little woolsack.

PAM.-Not bad for you! Between ourselves, of course, we stand to win on the Budget.

RUSSELL.-Do you know, I think we ought to say something about those principles of civil and religious freedom for which a HAMPDEN perished on the field.

PAM.-And a RUSSELL lost his head! Somehow it rather runs in the family still.

GLADSTONE.-It is not for me to depreciate the merits of the Budget, but I really think we want more than one cry. Three, for instance. SIR CHARLES WOOD.-There's an Indian budget, by the bye-something about taxing the talook dars, or the ryots-but what with COLONEL SYKES, and what with the telegraph, and what with those Indian names which I never could understand, and what with grey shirtings and the Gulf of Calico, and banyans and howdahs

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RUSSELL.-I doubt whether the public sufficiently appreciate the wisdom of our Foreign Policy.

PAM.-Oh, yes, they do, JOHN-sufficiently.

SIR GEORGE GREY.-And I am inclined to doubt whether the administration of justice at the Home Office is as popular as it deserves to be.

PAM.-Oh, yes, it is, GEORGE-as it deserves to be.

SIR CHARLES WOOD.-Please will somebody tell me whereabouts to look in the map for-dear, dear, I've forgotten the name of the place again-but you know the maps at the office are so big, one gets quite confused in looking at them, and then the names are so much alike, you know, all ending in "abad," or "patum," and beginning with an M or an A, or some letter of that sort, and then LAWRENCE Writes home in the most ill-natured manner-quite unconstitutional, I call itwhenever I make the slightest error, and I wish I'd never been born, for what with LAWRENCE

PAM.-Come, come, gentlemen, order; I take it that we go to the country on the Budget, with a promise of better behaviour in future. RUSSELL. And a few references to the past, surely! The Test and Corporation Act, Catholic Emancipation, Reform, Free Trade, and those principles for which

PAM.-The less we say about them the better, I rather fancy. No;
we shall win, I believe, and for two excellent reasons.
GLADSTONE.-Three!-three!-three!

PAM.-No, only two. In the first place, we have lowered the
Income-tax and cheapened tea; and in the second place, although
many of our number are deplorably incompetent-
SIR CHARLES WOOD.-Name, name!
PAM.-At any rate the opposition's worse.

Laudatur ab Hiss.

Two persons have lately been fined forty-shillings apiece for expressing their disapprobation of MR. SIDNEY'S comic singing at EVANS's in a somewhat boisterous manner. We imagine that in future the public will have ample opportunity of hearing MR. SIDNEY (or S-s-s-s-IDNEY) perform his comicalities with a piano-forty-shilling accompaniment.

TO PEOPLE IN SEARCH OF A THRILL.

HERE is nothing more common than to hear blazé sensationists complain of the utter lack of any exhibition or event calculated to arouse their jaded emotions. A woman torn to pieces by machinery, or a baby crushed by an omnibus, would probably excite the necessary emotion in the bosom of the ordinary sight-seer, but as these are events of comparatively rare occurrence, and events, moreover, which you don't pay to see, they can hardly count as a material set-off to the national dearth of real legitimate sensation. But it often happens that we who complain have the very object whose absence we lament at our elbow. It is growing there, and is only waiting to be plucked. Take for instance the case illustrated by the subjoined advertisement:Modern Furniture.-Brilliant toned 7-octave Cottage Pianoforte, Two fine Gallery Paintings, "The Execution of FAUNTLEROY," and "The Reading of the Death Warrant," executed at Newgate by a convict, under sentence of death, and presented to the late LORD MAYOR KELLY; TIPPOO SAIB's Saddle, taken at the siege of Seringapatam; JERRY ABERSHAW's Pistol; and Curiosities.

MR. HOUSTON has been Honoured with Instructions to submit to PUBLIC

COMPETITION, on the PREMISES, Cottage, Wimbledor-common, Surrey, TO-MORROW (Wednesday), May 17, at One o'clock, the HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE and EFFECTS, comprising iron bedsteads and furniture, feather beds and bedding, mahogany chests of drawers, and the usual chamber appendages, rosewood, loo, and other tables, couches, easy chairs, and sets of chairs, book-case, chiffoniere, Brussels carpets and rugs, chimney-glasses, engravings, about twelve dozen of wines, a handsome double and two single-barrel guns, fishing-rods and tackle, two capital hives of bees, and numerous useful effects. -On view. Catalogues had at the Offices of the Auctioneer, 14, Thorne-road, South Lambeth, S.

The

the nucleus of another gallery of a cognate description. People in search of a thrill should find out the purchasers; they will probably be worth cultivating in time.

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THE DRAMA AT THE MUSIC HALL.

UNDER THE NEW PERMISSIVE BILL.

SCENE.-In front a music-hall. In the middle, a proscenium. At the back, interior of the tent of BRUTUS, in the camp near Sardis. BRUTUS and CASSIUS inside; outside, gents, and snobs of both sexes, and waiters rushing about with liquors and collations.

CASSIUS.-That you have wronged me doth appear in this.

(Proceeds). GENT (in front).-Here, waiter, I ordered a chop, and you've brought me a Welsh rabbit. Wish you'd keep your bees'-wax to polish your furniture.

CASSIUS.-In such a time as this, it is not meet

That every nice offence should bear his comment.
GENT (No. 2).-Remember the waiter, indeed! What, after two-and-
ninepence for a chop and stout?
BRUTUS.-

You, yourself,
Are much condemned to have an itching palm.
GENT.-Two sixes of gin, 'ot!

CASSIUS.-You know that you are BRUTUS that speak thus,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.
GENT.-Now do look at this steak! Why, it's really raw-raw, sir!
BRUTUS.-Did not great JULIUS bleed for justice sake?
Move your chair, 'Arry.
GENT.-Oh, here-come, you know. This is slow, I shall step
You forget yourself
To hedge me in.

CASSIUS.

another whisky and worter. 'ARRY. Oh, 'ang it, you know! Don't go yet. Sit still, and let's

have

sir.

CASSIUS.-Urge me no more; I shall forget myself.

Have mind upon your health; tempt me no further.
WAITER.-Two sixes is fourteen, rabbit, twenty; here's your change,

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CASSIUS.-Ye gods! ye gods! Must I endure all this?
GENT.-Wish they'd do something. Why don't they fight, or
tumble, or dance, or sing? I never see such a couple of dreary muffs.
Why, I'd do it better myself.

BRUTUS.-Let it appear so, make your vaunting true,
And it shall please me well. For mine own part
I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

Now there is a house to have dined at! Think of the after-dinner ramble through this gloomy museum of horrors! Think of the thrill that a touch of the trigger of JERRY's pistol would have sent through your enervated body. Think of the quiver which would have wrung your withers for you as you gloated over "The Execution of FAUNTLEROY," and the "Reading of the Death Warrant," executed at Newgate, by a convict-also executed at Newgate, but by a hangman! gibbet painted by a man who had probably had nothing else before his eyes for weeks-who had no doubt strained his mental eyeballs to their fullest tension in order to realize to the utmost the grim spectacle (Symptoms of discontent among the audience. Derisive cheers, hisses, and in which he was so shortly to figure as first tragedian! Then the cries of "Off, off," and "Cut it short.") "Reading of the Death Warrant"-by none of your WARDS or CASSIUS (cutting it short in deference to public sentiment).-Oh, MILLAISES, mind you, people who have probably had no better BRUTUS! opportunity of realizing such a scene than your grandmother, but by a BRUTUS.-What's the matter? man who has actually had a death warrant read to him, and who is, therefore, as good an authority on the hideous emotions the operation is (Yells and frantic display of disapprobation by the audience. Curtain falls calculated to arouse as any man could well be expected to be. the "curiosities!" What an ugly word, coming as it does immediately after these works of art and this pistol of JERRY ABERSHAW's! We see the six-inch bits of stout, stiffened-horribly stiffened-rope, the second-hand manacles, the clothes in which a murderer was hanged, the life-preserver with the hair and dry blood still sticking to it, the knife with the dusky red stuff in the crevices of the handle and in the indentations in the blade; a murderer's hand in pickle at one end of the mantel-piece and the stomach of a poisoned wife as an appropriate pendant at the other. And finally the house itself, situated as it is on Wimbledon Common, and chosen, no doubt, in the first instance, because it commanded a full view of JERRY ABERSHAW as he swung in chains with the fat crows circling over his decomposing head.

Then

And as a foil to all this we have twelve dozen of wine, fishing-rods and tackle, and two capital hives of bees! It sounds odd at first to hear this rural "properties" bracketed with execution pictures and the paraphernalia of highwaymen, and it is difficult to see what any man who could take a pleasure in one of these groups could possibly have wanted with the other. But, after all, fishing is unobjectionable only when the fish are put quickly out of their misery, and there is some physical analogy between a trout dangling at the end of a line and a man dangling at the end of a rope. And the time must come when the bees must be smothered with sulphur fumes, and we can imagine the spirited proprietor carrying out the usual formula with all the burial-service accessories of a Newgate execution.

By this time the sale is over, the contents of this Chamber of Horrors are dispersed, and each sensation article is perhaps destined to form

to avoid a riot.)
FACETIOUS VISITOR.-Hor-ther! Hor-ther!

Enter BUFFOON, amid loud cheering.
AUDIENCE.-Hooray! it's all right! 'Ere's NEDDY BRAY!

(Neddy Bray dances maniacally, singing to the air of "The Cure.")

Once more again, admiring friends,

You see as 'ere we are;

I'll sing to you, to make amends,
The life of Jools Ce-sar.

The Hemp'r of the French, you know,
To prove himself a par

With hist'ry's greatest coves, has wrote
His "Wee de Jools Ce-sar!

De Jools Ce-sar-har-ar-har-har,

(Leaps ten feet high at each syllable.) His wee de Jools Ce-sar;

(Turns a somersault in the air.)

Oh, bless his jolly Roman nose,

(Dances on his head.)

And that of Jools Ce-sar!

(Spoken, "Oh, scissors!")

(Forms himself into a hoop, and trundles madly about the stage.)

(Enthusiastic applause, and shouts of "Stunnin'" from the audience. Scene closes.)

A BALLAD OF BOHEMIA.

SOLEMN city men and spinsters,

Dwelling in Belgravian bowers,
Keep, oh, keep your Kidderminsters
Undefiled by foot of ours.
Call us vagabonds or Chartists-
Any ugly name comes pat-
Call us everything but artists;
Mind you never call us that!

It's an easy thing to judge us,

Yet it seems to me a shame
That you model-folk should grudge us
Both our failings and our fame.
Harping upon faults for ever,
Can't you find a higher prize
Than the epitaph of "Clever!"
When a man of genius dies?

If our paths are somewhat rougher
Than the paths cut out for you,
And our tradesmen have to suffer
(Which our tradesmen often do)—
If occasionally BACCHUS

Helps APOLLO guide the pen,
You should pity-not attack us,
You untempted city men.

If, when mirth and music kindle

What is best in each and all,

We should let the night-hours dwindle
Ere the mirth and music pall-
If our parties never break up

Till the larks sing overhead,
Why, of course we often wake up
When the lambs are off to bed.

Art, perhaps, may lessen slightly
Our belief in L. S. D.,

But it binds us pretty tightly
In its own freemasonry.
Farewell, city men and spinsters;
See that never foot of ours
Press the costly Kidderminsters
Of your trim Belgravian bowers.

FROM OUR STALL.

WHEN the names of MESSRS. BROUGH and HALLIDAY appear in connection with a new and original farce, we, who go pretty often to the theatre, know that the new and original farce in question is not to be criticised by those stern rules of probability and dramatic unity with which we are accustomed to test the plot of a three-act comedy. We go prepared to feel no surprise when we see a tyrannical old guardian bonnetted by a saucy lady's-maid in his own employ; and we agree to look upon such an incident as a total stranger walking into a respectable city magnate's drawing-room, and taking the magnate in question for his own butler, as a domestic event of every-day occurrence, on a par as to probability with the mistaking another man's hat for your own on leaving a house after a dinner party. With these dramatic twins nothing appears so probable as that a policeman in a tablecloth should be mistaken for an apparition, except, perhaps, that when an honest and otherwise respectable gentleman loses his clothes at an hotel he should break open the first portmanteau he comes across, and dress himself up in the jockey-clothes of its proprietor. But these "situations," obtained though they be at the expense of social probability, are always amusing, and in the laugh with which we recognize the difficulties into which MR. TOOLE's unpardonable behaviour invariably drags him, we forget the serious demands which they have made upon our credulity in order to bring about the necessary complication of events.

MESSRS. BROUGH and HALLIDAY's last farce, Up Stairs and Down Stairs, produced last week at the Strand Theatre, is as improbable and withal as laughable as the Area Belle and The Steeple Chase. One Sir Leicester Squaretoes resolves to abolish the system of percentages in his household, and informs his servants of his determination, to the intense disgust of the establishment in general, and of one Snipper, a footman, in particular. Snipper has a taste for cheap novel-reading, and becoming imbued with the spirit of the London Journal and other periodicals of a similar description, cheats himself into the belief that he is the long-lost son of a duke. Sir Leicester overhears his flunkey describing his probable origin to the lady's-maid, and with the view of curing him of his romantic folly he informs Snipper that

he (Sir Leicester) turns out to be a usurper, and that Snipper is the rightful owner of the property that has hitherto been looked upon as Sir Leicester's. Upon this Snipper calls the servants together, informs them of the change in his condition, and announces his intention of disallowing per-centage from tradesmen to servants. He then proceeds to make love to Sir Leicester's daughter, upon which Sir Leicester is driven to the humiliating confession that it was all a joke. We confess that our sympathies were throughout with the servants, and we rejoiced when we found their contemptible master utterly dumbfoundered by Snipper's behaviour to his daughter. May all baronets who condescend to play practical jokes on their own flunkeys meet with as severe a punishment! Whether the result of his manoeuvres was to check the system of extortion in his family, whether he retained in his establishment the flunkey who had kissed his daughter, whether Snipper ceased to consider himself the heir to a dukedom, and, if he did, what it mattered, are questions which are not satisfactorily decided. But as the dialogue is good, the "situations" funny, and the acting of MR. TOOLE as the self-possessed flunkey all that could be desired, it will be understood that the mystery in which these questions were shrouded detracted in no way from the perfect success of the piece.

What a time this is for revivals! High Life Below Stairs at the Olympic; the Miller's Daughter at the Haymarket; MR. STIRLING COYNE's capital comedy, Everybody's Friend, at the Olympic; Guy Mannering, The Beggar's Opera, and Midas at Astley's; Don Cæsar de Bazan at the Lyceum; Fazio at the Adelphi; and Comus at Drury Lane.

By the bye, M. GIOVANELLI, the proprietor of Highbury Barn, has done much to improve the taste of the "dancing-tavern" public by opening his new theatre, the "Alexandra," at Highbury. Of matters connected with his new venture we will speak next week.

It cannot be too generally known, we are sure, that MR. ARTHUR SKETCHLEY, who has for some weeks been incapacitated by severe hoarseness from relating the misfortunes of the immortal Mrs. Brown, has again taken up that injured female's case, and the Egyptian Hall is once more thronged with enthusiastic sympathizers.

Fun's Parliament.

We are happy to be able to furnish a prophetic report of the debat that will take place on the motion for adjourning over Derby day.

LORD PALMERSTON.—I rise, sir (laughter) to move (much laughter) that this House shall adjourn (roars of laughter) over Derby day. (Loud and long continued laughter, in which the noble lord heartily joined.)

MR. DISRAELI.-Sir, there are times when the genius of a free people rises superior to the trammels of faction and the claims of party; when the voice of the whole nation can be heard in no discordant accents and with no uncertain utterance. In seconding the motion, I would avoid all reference to questions that can provoke dispute. I will not hint that family affection, excellent in a private citizen, may occasionally be indiscreet in a Lord Chancellor; nor will I taunt the noble lord with being a minister on sufferance, a mere man in possession, placed by the opposition on the Treasury bench. No! MR. ROEBUCK.-Sir, I cannot forget that I represent the people of England. Sir, I am the watch-dog "Tear-'em." Sir, has this house forgotten, or is its ignorance so gross (cries of "Oh! oh!")-I repeat the expression-so gross, frightful, and admirably infamous, that it disregards the fact that a prominent favourite for the Derby is a French horse? Oh, England, my country! Oh, Sheffield, my constituency! I warn this House to beware. My sentiments and modes of expression but may perhaps be peculiar (loud and general cries of "Hear, hear!''); I warn you that you stand on the brink of a volcano, and that the agents of a foreign despot are undermining the integrity of the British turf.

MR. WHALLEY wished, before the question was put, to ask whether information had been received to the effect that a horse belonging to an eminent English Protestant was in danger of being poisoned by the emissaries of the Propaganda; also, whether it was true that certain Jesuits had been tampering with the religious opinions of FORDHAM and CUSTANCE; also, whether it was intended to bring in a bill making it illegal for a Roman Catholic to recover a bet from a Protestant; also, whether in case Gladiateur won, the stakes would be given to the next Protestant horse?

MR. T. B. POTTER.—Sir, I stand in the place of a great man; and I enter my protest against any delay of legislation for the sake of allowing the pampered oligarch, the greasy bishop, and the ruffian squire to attend a spectacle from which it is notorious that the middle and lower classes of this country are systematically excluded.

MR. Cox.-Werry well put, POTTER! (Cries of "Order !") SIR GEORGE GREY having answered MR. WHALLEY'S questions in the negative, the motion was agreed to, and The House adjourned.

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DARK folks! MAHOMET'S come to the mountain! On my manoeuvres there's no countin'!

I found these Arabs a queerish nation,

So I've come down here for their education.
(Walks round.)

I'm the novel MAHOMET, oh!
I'm the latest MAHOMET out!
I'm the last new MAHOMET-me voild!
I'm LOUIS MAHOMET, oh!

(Strikes an attitude.)

Dark folks! am you a-regardin' ob dis Arab?

I'm a Riddle-y card there's no denying-
It's hard to see at what I'm trying;
But as moonshine's my little game at present,
I'm throwing new light with the ancient crescent.

(Walks round the Algerians.)

I'm the fated MAHOMET, oh!

The destined MAHOMET, oh!

I'm the new French MAHOMET-me viold!
I'm LOUIS MAHOMET, oh!

(Strikes another attitude.)

Dark folks! am you a-realizing ob dis prophet?

A MAN OF POSITION.

OH, these advertisements! They'll be the death of us if we don't take care.

A

YOUNG single GENTLEMAN, of good position, keeping his brougham, saddle horses, and grooms, is desirous of meeting with a family of similar position in London, to whom he could offer the free use of the above, in exchange for PARTIAL BOARD and cheerful SOCIETY. References exchanged. Address M. A., Crosbyvilla, Twickenham.

Now, what in the world can a young single gentleman who can afford to keep brougham, horses, and grooms, want in a shabby genteel boarding-house? And how is it that, being able to keep brougham, horses, and grooms, he can't afford to pay for his bread and beef, and beer and bed, in recognized coin? The expenses of his carriage and stud must, at the most moderate computation, and taking the plurals "horses" and "grooms" to signify two, only, of each, be as follows:

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Besides liveries and tips. And this Croesus of good position, whose livery-stable bill is at the very least ten guineas a week, pants for admission into the bosom of a family because he wants friends. What has he done that he is reduced to these straits to gain admission into what he is pleased to term "society?" Let every shabby-genteel family, whose perceptions are likely to be blinded by having a brougham and horses and grooms thrown into their eyes, ask themselves that question, before they close with the young gentleman of good position.

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