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A CANARD ABOUT A LITTLE DUCK. PALE, British penny-a-liners, pale! What are your coarse inventions, your huge cucumbers, gigantic gooseberries, and hurricanes of frogs compared to the exquisite feeling, taste, fashion, and finish of the following canard which we can 'ard-ly-(shame! shame!)-believe we read in a French newspaper, though our own eyes informed us of the fact. Please forgive the badness of our translation in consideration of our not being an English dramatic author.

"The famous Anonyma, whose strange beauty, facile manners, and the bewildering splendour of whose life have rendered her so celebrated in London, has recently fallen victim to an accident which might have

been fatal.

"Anonyma had brought from Senegambia, where she almost reigned as queen, a small serpent of the family of the Crotalus-Niger, of America. This serpent, though venomous, or perhaps because venomous is considered by the people in the south of Africa as sacred. It is a very rare species, and its possession is considered a precious talisman, and was thought so by Anonyma, no doubt, for she would never separate from it. For three years the dangerous reptile lived in a cage or casket, under the care of a negro attached to its person. Its mistress carried the key of this cage attached to the chain of her watch. She paid frequent visits to her rampant prisoner, and at the sound of her voice, so tender and thrilling, the snake would uncoil itself caressingly, and twine its folds round her beautiful hand, amid her rosy fingers, and divert itself among her rings and bracelets.

"It is known that music exercises an extraordinary influence over the Crotalus-Niger, and it is not impossible that Anonyma had the gift of charming her dangerous companion. She took a pleasure in frightening her visitors by the exhibition of the reptile. LORD S. and two or three of his friends were very much alarmed when one night after supper the serpent was served up asleep on a silver dish.

"Doubtless to some similar imprudence may be attributed the accident which we here relate. Perhaps the snake's mistress believed it to be asleep. Perhaps the humid climate of Ireland, in which country Anonyma was residing, exercised some strange influence upon the animal (sic). He bit his mistress in the arm, and in a fit of ungovernable fury fled from the room by the windows. Anonyma immediately felt all the symptoms of venomous poison. Happily the negro, who had been informed of the occurrence, rushed on the scene, and taking two or three dried leaves from a small bag suspended round his neck, used them to rub the wound of the unfortunate victim. It was life. Anonyma opened her eyes; the livid hues of her complexion melted away. She did not die-she was saved! As for the serpent, it was found dead upon the lawn; his fall from the window had broken his

vertebral column."

And the snake, who died? Had he not bitten his mistress-the ungrateful creature-and was he not a serpent of sentiment? What could he do but die immediately before the end of the paragraph? Confess, now, Messieurs les Anglais, that "these things, 'canards,' are managed better in France!"

LITERATURE.

MR. EDITOR, Sra,-What do benighted foreigners know about the beauties of our British poets? Nothing; absolutely nothing. Very good. Shall this be so any longer? You probably reply, "Yes." But I say "No." It shall be mine to introduce to the lively natives of an adjacent country (which for political reasons must remain for ever a secret) the beauties of our British minstrels. It is true that there have been translators before me, but what translators? Bah! Now here you get fidelity in rendering, you get rhyme, you get the original My specimen is MOORE's beautiful bacchanalian ballad "Fly not yet." metre, and you get all this in an accurate and flowing French idiom!

I call it

NE TEN VA PAS.

Ne t'en va pas, ce'st justement l'heure
Quand plaisir comme la minuit fleur (')
Qui dedaigne l'oeil de la lumière,
Et seul aux fils de nuit est clair

Et filles qui aiment la lune !
C'est pour benir ces heures ombrées
Que lune et beauté sont crées

Alors leurs douces enchainements brulants
Font les tasses et marées coulants-(*)

Re-stez! Re-stez!

La joie si rarement fait une chaine
Comme celle ce soir, que oh c'est peine
De la casser si tôt !

II.

Ne t'en va pas les eaux que l'on
Trouvait une fois dans l'ombre d'Ammon(3)
Quoiqu'elles bien froides par jour etaient
Comme touts les fils de joie, brulaient

Quand approchait la nuit !

Les yeux des filles doivent être ainsi :
Froids comme la glace dans le midi,
Jusqua 'ceque minuit revenant

Donne l'heure quand ils doivent être brulants-
Re-stez! Re-stez!

C'est rarement le soleil levé

Trouve tant de beaux yeux reveillés

Que ceux qui brillent ici !(')

Whew! there is a sensation! What an admirable story from beginning to end; and how capitally dressed for the Parisian appetite. "The famous Anonyma" is a splendid opening; it arrests attention and excites curiosity. "Brought with her from Senegambia." What gorgeous Eastern local colouring! "A serpent of the family of Crotalus-Niger." Natural history all complete. "For three years," circumstantial, "it lived in a cage, under the care of a negro.' "Poor There you are, sir. This is a fair specimen of the rest of the work, LORD S. and his three friends, who were frightened." How very with small instalments of which I may, perhaps, favour you with from judicious, by the way, the introduction of a lord; and how fine the time to time. Each song is explained by notes, and all notes are as delicacy to the noble lord and his family not to give his name in full. learned as those quoted below. I think I shall prove to the natives of What a capital libretto for an opera might be converted from the the adjacent country (the name of which must, for political reasons, story! What a capital last ont! The serpent stings its mistress-remain for ever a secret) that there are other poets than BERANGER Scena Anonyma. Entrance of the negro, who turns out to be a and Alfred de MusSET! lover, who resolved, for love of its mistress, to watch over the snake. Duo. Anonyma and negro. Negro remembers the dried leaves to eight bars of symphony; rubs the wounded arm to expressive music. Entrance of LORD S. and three friends. "Base slave, retire!" Grand concerted piece-LORD S, Three Friends, Negro, Anonyma. through which is heard the hiss of the Crotalus-Niger. Chorus of Irish peasantry. Despair of patriotic tenantry at the revocation of the blessing conferred by ST. PATRICK. Introduction of old air with new words:

"Now fails the power of PATRICK's fist,
Who was the saint so clever,
Who gave the frogs and toads a twist,
And banished them for ever!"

Recovery of Anonyma, who opens her eyes to the flute aria.
Anonyma. Avowal of negro, who declares himself to be an Indian
prince. Chorus believes him. Resumption of old air:-

"Now bless the power of India's prince,

He is the boy so clever," &c.

Despair of LORD S. and his three friends. Violoncello obligato. Suicide of LORD S. and his three friends, agreeably to the English custom. Happiness of Indian prince. Anonyma and virtuous peasantry (LORD S. and his three friends were absentee landlords), and finale.

Votre vraiment,

A. DAPTER.

(1) Je ne connais pas cette fleur. Nous avons une fleur dite "Passion Flower," qui est ouverte pendant le jour, et qui se ferme quand la nuit approche, mais c'est probablement pas cette fleur la. Même si j'en connaissais le nom, je ne l'imprimerais pas, car SIR RICHARD MAYNE (big-wig Anglais), serait" down upon it" (idiom Anglais), comme un oisean, si elle etait ouverte entre une heure et quatre heures du

matin.

(2) "Font les tasses et marees coulants." Dans le prose on ne dit pas ordinairement "font coulants." Mais dans la poésie on dit ce qu'on veut.

(3) "Ammon." J'ai un "Lempriere" quelque part mais je ne sais pas ou le diable il est. Dans la prochaine redaction je vous dirai ce que cétait l'Ammon. Pour le moment je ne sais pas.

(4) This is the last line of the poem. How do you like it on the whole?

Nice Young Men for Tea Parties.

OUR readers have no doubt met with advertisements of a publica tion called the Anti-Teapot Review, though destiny, with its usual un kindness, may have denied them the bliss of a direct acquaintance with the paper. Having been particularly favoured ourselves, we consider it a public duty to explain the mystery of the title. The Anti-Teapot Review, then, is in the hands of gentlemen who desire to advocate the claims of the kettle and cream-jug, and, from what we have seen of it, we predict every success; in fact, there is hardly a line which fails to remind one of milk and water.

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MY PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM.

No. II. THE MAN WHO "DOESN'T GET ON SOMEHOW." We never met the man who questioned the ability-not to say genius of THEODORE THREADBARE; nor did we ever meet the man who could refuse to lend THEODORE half-a-crown.

Of most people who prowl about the streets of London in that "shabby-genteel" kind of costume which THEODORE has done so much to adorn, it is usual to say-and can be said with tolerable safety-that they have seen better days. Nobody can mount very high without a ladder, and nobody can come down very low without steps. An uncle from India, perhaps, behaves far from properly in the codicil way; or a tradesman conducts himself with characteristic brutality about money. The ocean of shabby-gentility is not an ocean into which people take headers; they enter step by step (as if from a bathingmachine), very gingerly and with a vague notion of picking their way. But THEODORE THREADBARE has never known, in the whole course of his wasted career, one day that was a bit better than any other day. His life has glided on at a dead-level of disappointment and failure. To him this ocean of shabby-gentility represents home; he sports about in it like a merman, "native and to the manner born." He knows every wave in it quite intimately, and it matters very little to him whether he spends his time in floating, swimming, or diving, as long as he spends it uselessly.

THEODORE THREADBARE has been most things in his day; at present he is chiefly occupied with music, literature, and the drama. There is a mild halo of genius about everything that he attempts, but not the faintest glimmering of practicability. Managers know better than to read his farces, and the editors of magazines have outgrown the weakness of lingering over the clerkly handwriting of THEODORE THREADBARE. He is given up on all sides as eccentric, paradoxical, and half-a-dozen other wicked things.

Yet nothing in the way of rejection seems to ruffle the serenity of

PROVERBIAL POETRY.

WE rather fancy that the "wisdom of nations" would gain a good deal by being put forward in the alluring garb of music and immortal verse. A proverbial philosopher at the pianoforte might be made a thing of beauty if not a joy for ever; and, in order to provide enterprising young men with the means of becoming popular at small tea parties, we have gone considerably out of our way to write rhyme. To save ourselves the trouble of going still further out of our way we have taken airs that are pretty well known, instead of stopping to hammer out new ones. Here is the result of our experiment:

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THEODORE's temper for a moment. He pursues his course as happily as though the path were ankle-deep in roses. His life could scarcely be more gay if it were a successful one; in fact, it is the opinion of those who lend him half-crowns that one stroke of good luck would ruin the disposition of this amiable being for ever.

Luckily for himself, THEODORE has no rich relatives to leave him fortunes, and he grows lazier and lazier every day; so there is every prospect of his remaining good-tempered and out at elbows for the rest of his existence. Meanwhile, half-a-crown is not much to pay for a peep at the artistic mind in its own element.

MAXIMS.

BY THE GHOST OF ROCHEFOUCAULD.

(Kindly transmitted by the medium of Mahogany.)

THE great ones of this world are never abandoned by their kind. In their prosperity we visit them from motives of interest-they may do us a service; in adversity, we look in on them from, curiosity, to see how they bear it.

A man may be an honest man and a good fellow without being a gentleman; but the reverse does not hold. To be a gentleman, he must be both good and honest.

It is unlucky to be near the woman of one's heart when she is admiring a cashmere shawl.

Some authors have too much talent. They make even their idiots talk wit, and utter repartees. The generality of authors, not having too much talent, go to the opposite extreme.

Some people are so fond of equality that they treat their equals as inferiors.

It is the delight of some men to prove that two and two make five, you refuse to believe them, they hate you, and would enforce your belief by imprisonment or flogging.

If

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19

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PARLIAMENT is apparently so tenacious of life that it will not dissolve until July, when I hope the hot weather will accelerate the process. But if I were an M.P. I should be rather shy of revisiting a rabid constituency in the dog days. The unearthly noises which are heard when MR. WHALLEY, or some other like orator whose length is very disproportionate to his depth, rises to address the House, will be something overpowering, unless all the members bitten by crazy constituents consent to actual cautery. I have no doubt many would burn for the distinction. WHEN this Parliament is no more what are we to inscribe on its tomb? I think "Honor est a Nihilo" would be the thing; being in Latin it might be taken for something laudatory. We really owe the House very little as yet; there's the Budget "Tea and Tuppence," and little advance in the matter of Union Chargeability which may save the agricultural labourer of the next generation from a five-mile walk every morning to the place of his work. The only real lasting monument the Ministry will leave behind it will be probably that very nice miniature Rotten-row in Birdcage-walk, which must be quite after MR. COWPER's own mind-it is so small! THE inquiry into the case of RICHARD GIBSON, who died of neglect and dirt in St. Giles's Hospital, has terminated. The public may be inclined to think that the guilty parties have been treated too leniently, and I'm not sure that the public will not be right. At any rate it must be clearly understood that the slightest approach to a repetition When we get a new of the case will be met with severe measures. Parliament let us hope it will turn its attention to the improvement of that portion of the statute-book which is aptly and emphatically styled the Poor Law-poor enough law in all conscience, if one may couple the idea of a conscience with workhouse authorities!

cause.

ANDREW JOHNSON is attempting to do what WILKES BOOTH failed in doing. He is trying to injure the cause of the North. The man who shot ABRAHAM LINCOLN did no permanent mischief to the Federal The man who would become executioner of ROBERT LEE will earn a general sentence of condemnation for the people who could permit such a murder. Unfortunately, the only hope we might entertain, that the new President is not serious, becomes very slight when we remember that he has taken the pledge, and can scarcely have returned to his failings since he dropped the Vice. The fact that the assassination of LINCOLN has placed him in the Presidential chair is quite enough to prove to any rational mind that the murder was not planned by the Southern leaders.

LET me give a passing word of praise to MR. M'GEE, the Canadian commissioner to the Dublin Exhibition. His recent speech at Wexford should be distributed as a tract (I'm sorry there's no better word) among the Irish with their i-M'GEE-nary grievances.

"FACT"-to borrow a phrase which I think I have met with somewhere "is stranger than fiction." The critics, some little while since, gave SIR BULWER LYTTON SO much trouble to prove that he didn't mean to say in a novel of his-I think A Strange Story-that a man was ever sentenced in his absence in an English Court of Justice! If the Honourable Baronet had only waited a little while he might MR. PARTRIDGE, of have adduced a precedent in support of his case. the Thames Police Court, has received a letter from one of the Essex constabulary touching the history of one, PRISCILLA CURZON, who lately applied at that court for assistance. In that letter it is distinctly stated that the Saffron Walden magistrates sentenced her husband and three others to six weeks' hard labour "without the option of paying a fine"--although the four delinquent navvies had thought proper to make themselves as scarce as spade guineas. Please to observe the fine touch of SHALLOW justice in the "without the option of paying a fine." It is hard to believe that this story is true, and it may be a blunder of the policeman's, for if there be anything more stupid than a rural magistrate it is a rural policeman.

We

WHO does not welcome the Fortnightly Review with its honest and impartial criticism, and good writing? There are capital names and capital articles in the first number, and I wish it all success. want some really critical periodical-though, by the way, the Reader is "A Popular doing its best to supply us with a good literary paper. are two articles which Reviewer" and "Catchpenny Literature" everybody should read-smart, to the point, and truthful. We want such a frank and conscientious journal-one that will not praise any man's trashy novels toto corde, simply because he is one of the staff. If anything, the Reader is a little too outspoken, but that is a fault which in this age is almost a virtue. Apropos of literary matters, I may just record that as a comic writer I was naturally greatly exhilarated and inspired by a little volume most thoughtfully and considerately forwarded to me by its publisher, MR. HOTTEN; its title will explain the reason of my delight-Mental Exertion, with a chapter on Dyspepsia in Literary Men.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT OF NICHOLAS.

son

WITH feelings of considerable pride we inform our readers that we NICHOLAS was originally (we have been enabled (at some expense) to secure the exclusive services of the celebrated NICHOLAS. are sure he won't object to our saying so) emphatically a of the people, with no father in particular to look after him; but, like the memorable MURRAY and the gifted LONGMAN, he made his fortune by his books; and, like GEORGE STEPHENSON, his wealth is identified with the progress of metallics. Raised by his general abilities and his particular obstinacy about Blair Athol to a pitch of prosperity which is faintly represented by the term Belgravia, NICHOLAS, that friend of man, has benevolently consented to impart (for a certain weekly stipend) the experience of well, let us say, middle age to the generous ardour of youth; AND THIS IS HOW HE Belgravia.

DOES IT:

SIR,-To your own NICHOLAS lucre have long been comparatively indifferent, and if I now accept your offer it is less with a view to personal emolument than to the generally creditable nature of the concern. My snug but capacious abode have long been environed by the emissaries of the great-from the MARQUIS OF H., as is nuts upon "The Duke," down to that worthy son of toil, H. C., as for private reasons is anxious to have his revenge upon the Marquis, and to defeat him upon a field where the doves of VENUS (a city on the Adriatic) and the arrows of CUPID is less effectual than the whip of CUSTANCE and Rich I am; richer I might have been, if the spur of FORDHAM. polluted and venal; but, sir, he will honestly do his best to land your noble sportsmen on the right shore of the River Stakes like a Sharon, which, if classical allusions seem inaccurate, drop one and carry two. His (N.'s) pen is somewhat out of practice, or would now dash off a few lines of poetical prophecy; but I have been myself informed as impromptwos is seldom done under two days' notice. At the general election I start for Parliament.

at

But still, bless you, I haven't a bit of pride about me, and the tip present is

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LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(PER PROJECTED INTERPLANETARY AND NONEXISTENT TELEGRAPH.) PRESIDENT JOHNSON has given the nation a quarter's notice. The little great man is at present in London, but will be sent to the post in general desire is to be governed by the rule of THUMB. The illustrious a few days.

THE following is an early example of the formula at present employed at Paris for the signature of Imperial decrees:

"It is decreed,-That a revolution which has gained considerable head in the matter of the bonnet be promptly suppressed. All crowns are to be restored, and the rightful hairs (at present in a most uncomfortable position) are to be no longer exposed for want of them.

"That our well-beloved EUGENE RIMMEL be immediately scent back to Paris, when he has accomplished his mission by turning the Thames into lavender-water, and rendering the Trafalgar Fountains, which must always offend the eye, quite an-odour thing to the nose. "Done at a Council of Ministers at the Palace of the Tuileries, this 20th day of May, 1865,

"For the Emperor, "And in virtue of the powers confided to us, "EUGENIE.

"On the part of the EMPRESS-REGENT,

(L)archæological.

"FUN."

HERE's a pretty pass! An F.S.A. has just dropped in to ask if we Opoponox." What don't we know? But know the meaning of " surely an antiquary ought to be aware that the, to him, mysterious sentence is only the remark made by CHARLES THE FIRST to the executioner, "Oh, pop on axe!"*

*NOTE BY OUR OWN PRINTER'S DEVIL.-Not a bit of it. The governor's all wrong. It's the new vermin-destroyer. You can see that by the x-termination.

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The West London Industrial Exhibition.

Ir is just possible that there are some who haven't yet seen the interior of this very curious and very excellent exhibition, although the admirable advertisement, kindly given by the Bank of England authorities to the curiosities therein exhibited, crams the building with visitors, who are all anxious to see the very curious specimens of imitative penmanship which the obstinate stupidity of the Bank directors has caused to be mutilated. An ingenious man-a clerk, we believe-has copied with astounding accuracy the externals of various magazines and periodicals, together with bank cheques and a Bank of England note. This is done, not upon cheque paper, or on bank paper, but on stiff cardboard, and yet MR. FRESHFIELD, the Bank Solicitor, has insisted on the destruction of the bank note, and consequently of the ruination of the whole work, lest any one be deceived by the clerkly imitation. Everybody knows that there is no difficulty whatever in engraving a fac-simile of the letter-press of a bank-note; the real difficulty lies in the difficulty of imitating the peculiar paper on which it is printed. When the imitation is printed or drawn on stiff cardboard, the Bank ought to consider itself tolerably safe against imposition. If it isn't, it must be shaky indeed!

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TO A TIMID LEECH. BY OUR INVALID CONTRIBUTOR.

NAY, start not from the banquet where the red wine foams for thee-
Though somewhat thick to perforate this epidermis be;
'Tis madness, when the bowl invites, to linger at the brink,
So haste thee, haste thee, timid one. Drink, pretty creature, drink!
I tell thee, if these azure veins could boast the regal wine
Of Tudors or Plantagenets, the draught should still be thine!
Though round the goblet's beaded brim plebeian bubbles wink,
Twill cheer and not inebriate. Drink, pretty creature, drink!
Perchance, reluctant being, I have placed thee wrong side up,
And the lips that I am chiding have been farthest from the cup.
I have waited long and vainly, and I cannot, cannot think
Thou would'st spurn the oft-repeated call: Drink, pretty creature,

drink!

While I watched thy patient struggles, and imagined thou wert coy,
'Twas thy tail, and not thy features, that refused the proffered joy.
I will but turn thee tenderly-nay, never, never shrink.
Now, once again the banquet calls: Drink, pretty creature, drink!

Horticultural Mem.

Derby Day-sy, which will be met with on the turf in large quantities. IN about a week's time we may look for the Cockneia Champanensis, or A good deal of it may be cut next Wednesday afternoon.

A CON BY AN ANGLO-GALLICAN.

WHY are Toм THUMB and family like a Terpsichorean evolution? -Because they are a Pouce-set.

Printed by JUDD & GLASS, 80, Fleet Street, and Phoenix Works, St. Andrew's Hill, Doctors' Commons, and Published (for the Proprietors) by THOMAS BAKER, at 80 Fleet Street.-May 27, 1865.

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