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AN EYE FOR COLOUR.

1st Art Student :-" FINE SUNSET THAT, JACK, BUT FANCY I'VE SEEN IT BEFORE." 2nd Ditto :-"OF COURSE; DECIDED CRIB FROM TURNER. SAW IT AT A GLANCE!"

TOPSY-TURVY PAPERS.

AN OLD CYNIC.

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Is CUPID quite the rosy god

That poets try to make him out? I've known him two-score years and odd, And, frankly, I begin to doubt. He has his prizes, I have heard;

I know he has his blanks as well;

In fact, I think, upon my word,

Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!

IS PLUTUS quite the hero-king

That money-worms would have us think? And is there, truly, anything

Of music in the metal's clink?

Perhaps you have a heart and brain,
And have a heart and brain to sell!

If not-I tell you yet again,

Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!

Is BACCHUS quite the handsome rake-
The gay and fascinating youth-
That poets paint him when they take
Poetic licences with truth?
When fevered pulses come with day,
And headaches at your breakfast-bell,

I rather fancy that you'll say,

Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!

And is APOLLO quite so kind

As people say to all his sons?

I think that now and then you'll find

He rather starves his younger ones.

To play the lyre is pretty hard;
It's harder still to play it well.
Depend upon it, brother bard,

Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!

Of course you can afford to burn
A rushlight, if the stakes be large;
And when you look for some return
In money for your rushlight's charge.
But will you lose or will you gain?
That's somewhat difficult to tell;
And, if you lose, it's very plain
Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle!

few people every year at steeple-chases and in the hunting field; but he has kindly promised to exercise that privilege only in modera

IV. THE SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY tion. TO HUMAN BEINGS.

BY AN ANIMAL.

THE time happily has at length arrived when philanthropy in the true sense of that much perverted word reigns supreme in every wellconstituted breast, from that of the lion to that of the white-bait. A society has accordingly been formed whose special mission it will be to shield the featherless biped, long known as man, from the outrages to which he has been subjected hitherto.

No candid tiger will deny that, pleasant as human flesh may be, if considered from a purely epicureah point of view, the infliction of unnecessary suffering upon the victim is unworthy of any benevolent wild beast. The man our instinct dooms to die to-day, had he our instinct would he skip and play? Let it not be conceived that we advocate the wild theory of such vegetarians as the Cow. Animal nature requires human food, and the writer of these lines will never allow a merely sentimental hypothesis to blind him to the gastronomical merits of a plump baby, raw. No; but let us put our destined meal to as little pain as possible. It is right to gratify hunger; it is reprehensible to mangle and to tear.

It is, therefore, with considerable satisfaction that we announce the accession to the Directorial Board of the Lion, the Tiger, the Wolf, the Puma, and the Jaguar. There has not yet been time to receive an answer from the Polar Bear; but there is reason to believe that he will readily embrace the proposal-unless he should have already embraced, a little too heartily, the messenger of this society.

Some difficulty has been experienced in dealing with the Horse, who still resents the insults to which he has been subjected, and declines to forget or to forgive the indignities of the whip, the bridle, and the spur. He has accordingly insisted upon retaining his right to kill a

The Dog-long notorious as the friend of man-has heartily co-operated with the committee. In a very lucid communication he asserts that it really does not give him the slightest personal pleasure to suffer from hydrophobia; that when, during hot weather, he runs about in an apparently rabid manner, it is not because he is ferocious, but merely because he is thirsty; and that if he were less frequently muzzled, he would not so often go mad. He complains bitterly of certain articles that have lately appeared in the columns of the public press; and he declares with truly cynical humour that if he encounters the writers thereof, he will try the effect, upon the public press, of a little private pressure. He will be delighted, however, to dwell in peace and amity with all other mortals; in fact, his ferocity will henceforth be entirely suspended-the public press alone excepted! The Bull declines to join; founding his objections upon the wellknown Doctrine of Design, and pointing (with his hoof) to his horns as evidences that he was meant to toss. On two conditions alone will he abstain from goring; namely, that the human race shall forthwith abandon the culture of horse-radish! and that the town of Durham shall be razed to the earth!

The domestic Cat also insists on a stipulation, which will involve the entire suppression by mankind of its police. Too long has Felis, Domestica been maligned for outrages really committed by that Force!

And with regard to the Entomological Fellows of this Society, assurances of future good conduct and humanity have been received from one of the most agile, lively, and industrious of their number.

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ATHER to the surprise of
some people the elections,
as far as they have gone
up to this present writ-
ing, do not quite cor-
roborate the accounts we

have heard of the great
Conservative Reaction.

spirit and fun into the performance of their not very prominent duties. To me there is more really comic singing in this than in the coarse buffoonery of many of the stars of the music-halls.

THE other day, apropos of music halls, I dropped in at the Olympic, and I am not surprised that MR. HORACE WIGAN finds those places of entertainment dangerous rivals. Despite the prodigal recklessness with which MR. TAYLOR has knocked two novels and a play into one "original" drama, I think The Serf anything but a surfeit of pleasure; and as for Glaucus, it has neither mirth, metre, nor madness even. The Olympic company has no chance with such pieces as these, and such parts as they have in them.

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THE Haymarket season at an end, Brother Sam takes a tour in the Literature has made its provinces. Brother Sam, like Dundreary, is a creation, and perhaps a mark, however, which is more natural one than the great nobleman. As the embodiment of more than I expected-well-bred ruffianism he has never been equalled, and the way in which JOHN STUART MILL for he is rewarded for his misdeeds at the end, if not poetical justice, is Westminster, and Toм exactly true to life. A fine touch, indeed, is his ordering up breakfast HUGHES, for Lambeth, for himself in another man's house, but sitting down to eat it on his may be taken as fair re- portmanteau, because he hasn't been asked to take a chair! Ease and presentatives of the politeness could not be more happily combined. MR. SOTHERN's bypowers that pen, though play is, of course, excellent, and his finish of the minutest details of I could have wished the the character exquisitely careful. I should think that in the prolatter gentleman had not vinces, as well as in London, the Hon. S. Slingsby will be as popular allowed his friends to as his titled brother, and that is no small pippins of popularity. apply to SPURGEON for a written character. A certain MR. ALFRED AUSTIN, who made himself notorious some time since by some satires on society, in which he did not move, has had the impudence to put up for Taunton, and has issued addresses and made speeches which are no better (they could not be worse) than might be expected of the author of The Season. He must not be mistaken for a representative of literature, which has no more reason to be proud of him than the Conservative cause that he has suddenly espoused. I have had some very funny anecdotes forwarded to me about the election. One relates how a long-shore voter was prepared to plump for the Conservative candidate for the excellent reason that waterside

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work had been improved, and the river better managed ever since the
establishment of the Board of Conservancy. You'll hardly ask
"What's in a name?" after that. In another case a coster, who could
evidently read a little, addressed a brother-professional who couldn't
read at all, in these words:-" Well, I'm blest! Finsbury's a-comin'
to summat, here's a woman been and put up for it!" "That be
blowed," replied his friend. "Why here's the bill," continued the
first speaker, "Vote for ALDERMAN LUSK and Poll Early!" One more
election joke and then I've done. A certain MR. REARDEN, in an
address to the electors of Galway, has the following fine passage:-
"But in the meantime, to stem the torrent of emigration, and prevent the further
desolation of our country by turning it into sheep-walks, and our noble people into

emigrant ships, I should, &c."

After that I should think he ought to have had no difficulty in persuading any Hibernian constituency that he was "the man for Galway."

MR. PANIZZI retires from the office of librarian and secretary of the British Museum, and if it be true that he has been interfering with the liberty of refreshment hitherto enjoyed by the obliging and intelligent gentlemen who conduct the business of the Reading Room, I can't say that I regret it. The War-office authorities or the Treasury, who treat their servants less courteously, and less honestly, than a tradesmen treats his errand-boy, act according to their lights, but the librarian of the B. M. should know more of that which "softens the manners, nor allows men to be ferocious."

I VISITED the Oxford the other evening to hear the new selection of Offenbach's operetta "Sixty Six." It is very charming music, and most creditably performed. The appreciation shown by the audience makes me hope that the managers of the music-halls will find courage to offer the public more of this class of entertainment and less of the dreary "comic talent" of persons like the GREAT VANCE, or MESSRS. RANDALL and SIDNEY, and such smaller stars. Vulgarity and dulness cannot surely have any charm for those who applaud the best passages of "Sixty Six" to the echo, and I feel sure that if the managers would but try it they would find their public better pleased with works like the "Orphée," and "Sixty Six," than with the expensive and nasty so-called comic singing of the day. It is a pity that MR. MORTON has not thought fit to have a better translation in the shape of a libretto. The one used is simple trash-it is difficult to sing, and grossly ungrammatical. With good words the selection would have had additional attraction-and profit. I cannot quit this subject without recommending for a rise of salary three members of the chorus who stand near the harmonium, and who throw infinite

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

NICHOLAS BECOMES DISCURSIVE.

BELGRAVIA.

HAVING now returned in health and comfort to my home, thanks be, so many subjects present themselves requiring either a prophetic or a retrospective treatment that, remembering the words of MR. DISRAELI, than whom I am sure a more eloquent gentleman, though perhaps a little inconsistent, that "there is such a thing as arrangement of subjects." NICHOLAS will act in accordance.

1.-CONCERNING OF POLITICS.

for the worse!
O Britain, oh, my country! What a change have come over thee
abroad; the legitimate influence of position and property is laughed
to scorn; the capitalist is clean knocked out of time; and NICHOLAS
himself have been insulted in the streets, despite of wealth and age in
unison, by a radical mob whom I would not demean myself by
answering in the very lowest terms of abuse conceivable, nor touch
with a pair of tongs. The Throne is quivering to its roots; the Altar
is a-wobbling about just like so much blanc-mange; our Institutions
would be dear at eightpence; and our Palladium itself is menaced by
the deadly Upas-tree of political sedition.
they won't much matter to me.
Your Prophet, sir, is an elderly man. Have what changes you like,
The British Constitution will last my
country, oh, my editor, what will become of your children after
time, and can sip my sherry wine in peace; but oh, Britain, oh, my
NICHOLAS is gone?

The most insidious and democratical notions are

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Well, my downy birds, my noble sportsmen, my best of all good company, are you getting a little anxious for to receive your tips? All in good time, my brave adventurers. The old man's weather-eye is open, and I will keep it steadily fixed until it lands you in triumph on the safe side of every important event. Deeds, however, and not words, are the Prophet's motto, and such likewise are his recommendations.

Who sent you Gladiateur for the Derby? Who stood by that horse through thick and thin, through good repute and evil repute? Was it NICHOLAS or the Pope of Rome?

Who prophesied a dead-heat at Ascot between General Peel and
Ely, with the subsequent triumph of the latter?
Was it NICHOLAS or the Lord Chief Justice?

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

ONE would hardly expect to find a book on Finance, not written by

You know, my constituents, the metaphor being pardonable at MR. GLADSTONE, at all amusing or interesting. But The Bubbles of election time; so will now conclude with his

TIP FOR THE GOODWOOD CUP.

The absolute winner will be Gladiateur.

4.-RELATIVE TO CRICKET.

Now then, brother cricketers, look out! The old man is a going to have his innings at last, and may stop a few hours at the wicket, though the bowling is a good deal changed since NICHOLAS' younger days, when it was trundled along in a honest and underhanded manner. The contrary having now become the case, and having a proper regard to my own safety and time of life, your Prophet would much rather run hastily from the field, under the pretence of sudden and severe indisposition, than stand up against an over of JACKSON or TARRANT. Still, how delighted was NICHOLAS the other day when, for the first time for twelve years, the Gentlemen beat the Players! How it carried me back to old times, having once been engaged as a professional bowler at Biggleswade after misfortunes on the turf, though always sympathising with the upper classes, amongst whom I am now one of them. But will only say that your Prophet never wants to see better play than MR. B. B. COOPER's; that he looks on MR. R. A. H. MITCHELL (whose precise height he does not know, not being able to measure with the naked eye above seven feet two) as a good and great man; and that the HONOURABLE MR. C. G. LYTTELTON is a thing of beauty, and plays the game all around like a Cynosure. As for Eton and Harrow, I was not myself educated at a public school, it having been more of a Sunday tendency, through my father being then reduced; but it did the old man good to see the boys on Friday last, and I may return to the subject.

5.-MY HISTORY OF KNURR AND SPELL.

This book is in active progress. Any communications relative had better be addressed, under cover to the office, not having quite got the painters out in Belgravia, though myself returned.

I have a good thing for the St. Leger.

THE PLEASURE-GARDEN.

NICHOLAS.

A FRESHER, brighter spot of earth, wherever you may travél,
Is seldom, very seldom, I can tell you, to be seen.
Well kept, well swept and tended are its paths of tawny gravel,
And velvet is the simile that answers to its green.

I fancy of a garden that the "lily is a lady;"

The queen, there's not a question for one moment, is the rose. I'd like to cull a nosegay from these bowers cool and shady; But nobody's allowed to pluck the flowers, I suppose.

Finance, by a City Man, is not only amusing and interesting but most instructive into the bargain. In these days, when few people are so fortunate as to be quite free from the importunities of persons connected with Joint Stock Companies of a limited character as regards their genuineness as well as their liability, such a series of papers as this cannot be too widely circulated. The style is simple and straightforward, the humour unforced, and the classification of the varieties of the genus rogue with which "a City man' " has to deal is exhaustively as well as clearly defined. The "bubble bank" chapters are really excellent. Those on "borrowing" and "bill-discounting" are capital; they should have been studied by the author of a pamphlet now lying before us, entitled The Vampires of London, in which indignation has outstept prudence, and the writer spends a good deal of CAPITAL and Italic on the abuse of the vampires, instead of warning their victims. We have received The Lifeboat; or, Journal of the National Lifeboat Institution, and take the opportunity of urging upon our readers the great claim which that society has upon the humane. In 1864, and the first five months of the present year, no less than six hundred and fourteen lives have been saved by the society's lifeboats; and it has also granted rewards for three hundred and ninety lives saved by shore boats and other means. The cost of this is upwards of two thousand pounds, and subscriptions are earnestly solicited. We feel sure our readers will not disregard this appeal.

There is some pleasing versification in The Lady Ina, though passages, here and there, betray inexperience and occasionally, we fear, a defective ear for rhyme and rhythm. Thus, for instance, on the second page we find "adorn" coupled, as a rhyme, with "lawn," and in third line of "The Reproof," we find the accent falling upon the unimportant little word "on," with jarring emphasis. We point out these failings with the less scruple because there is promise in the book-much "poetry," nowadays, is not worth the trouble of criticism. One of the best things in the volume is "Aspiration," though even in this an occasional misplacement of accent mars the flow. The dedication is to LONGFELLOW, whom it describes as "a great genius," and the writer of "ennobling poems." The author, if she would rise to real poetry, must select a higher model than the gifted and melodious song-writer of America.

An elegantly turned-out pamphlet of The Politics of the People seems to have a slight error in its sub-title. It should be "Rhymes by a Radical," instead of "Rhymed Reason by a Radical." The author has forgotten at times that violence is not strength, nor a free selection of epithets satire. In some lines addressed to CARLYLE he is discourteous, and in speaking as he does of LEE and JACKSON untruthful. Yet there are here and there passages of great merit and considerable humour, and evidences of skill which lead us to imagine that though here anonymous the author is favourably known for something better than attacks upon those "whose offence is Rank." He does not appear to advantage in these verses, which will not for a moment bear perusal after the late ROBERT BROUGH's Songs of the

No weeds are here. No weeds-egad! With slightly altered meaning, Governing Classes, a work of the same school.

Their lack I am inclined to mourn, as, underneath this oak,

I loll along the mossy turf, and, on my elbow leaning,
Peruse the notice, "Persons are requested not to smoke."

My attitude recumbent is for once deserving credit,
My laziness a virtue, which it seldom is, alas!

For there's a rule most stringent-as I sauntered here I read it-
Forbidding any visitor "to walk upon the grass."

I'll take another turn, though, for the air is getting chilly.
Ah, had I some companion, guide, philosopher, or pup,
My faithful Skye-descendant of the celebrated Billy-
But "Dogs are not admitted," so I give the notion up.

We are requested to state that a new book just announced, under the title of Little Songs for Me to Sing, is not to be dedicated to MR. WHALLEY, but to the PRINCESS OF WALES.

So TUPPER is henceforth to publish at Moxox's! What has come to a name once famous for publishing the best poetry? SHELLEY, WORDSWORTH, KEATS, HOOD, TENNYSON-and TUPPER! We might have forgotten and forgiven the publication of poems by a THOMAS MOORE, who might well have been called LITTLE, by MAJOR LUMLEY, MR. POYER, and other less conspicuous bad versifiers-but TUPPER! And it is not because there are no poets now-a-days, for BUCHANAN, SWINBURNE, and LOCKER have dated from Dover-street, and MESSRS. MACMILLAN Counted among their authors no less than six of the poets mentioned in a recent review in the Times. We trust that MR. TUPPER'S betaking himself to MESSRS. MOXONS' is not to be regarded

It's growing late; there'll be a storm. I'll go. What's this? By as any confirmation of an awful rumour we heard lately-that he is

heaven!

I see the words, and spell them in an irreligious light,

"The gates are shut at ten." It's now a quarter to eleven; And I'm locked in, a prisoner, this rainy summer night.

"SCOTS, WHA HAE FOR WALLACE BLED!"

A CORRESPONDENT, in whose handwriting we detect a strong Irish brogue, and whose animus therefore is evident, states that there is a difficulty about getting enough money in Scotland to erect the WALLACE monument. He says WALLACE could raise the country more easily than his admirers can raise the coin or the statue. We would recommend our correspondent not to call at the office, as one member of our staff is an enthusiastic Scot, and is quite capable of blowing his brains out with a pibroch.

going to finish COLERIDGE'S Christabel.

Objection having been made to the advertising of a collection of MISS EDWARDS's contributions to All the Year Round as a new novel, that lady has written to the editor of the Star on the subject, and a copy of her letter has been forwarded to us. We feel sure no one suspected her for one moment of having any share in what may be described as an advertising dodge. But her publishers who are "not aware of the form of their own trade announcements, are to blameat all events for negligence if nothing else. Who advised MISS EDWARDS to alter her proposed title Waste Paper-an unmistakeable reprint, or collection title-for that of Miss Carew, which has a novellike sound?

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THE BEST TARGET FOR MARINE PRACTICE IN SUMMER.-The waterbutt.

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Lady of House :-"VERY NICE AIR, IS IT NOT? So EXTREMELY CLEAR!"

Old Gent (who thinks she refers, like everybody else, to the weather):-"WELL, SOME PEOPLE LIKE IT. I THINK IT'S FRIGHTFUL; AND IF THERE IS NOT A CHANGE SOON I DON'T KNOW WHAT I SHALL DO!"

OUR OWN ESOP.

FABLE 4.-THE DOG IN THE MANGER.

Ar the close of a bright autumnal day, just as the last rays of the declining luminary tipped the western hills with gold, a Dog might have been observed lying at full length in a manger. At the moment when our story commences, an Ox happened to enter the stable. "Pretty Ox," observed the Dog, "I wish I could induce you to come and lie down on this new-mown hay and tell sad stories of the deaths ef kings." "Now I call that very kind," replied the grateful Ox, "but as it appears to me painfully evident that your brain requires rest, I would cut off my right horn sooner than intrude upon you." And with a graceful bow he left the stable, shutting the door carefully

behind him.

MORAL.-Don't make a point of going to sleep in mangers, and read PINNOCK's Abridgement if you are anxious to get some notion of the deaths of kings.

FABLE 5.-THE ASS AND THE SICK LION,

guinea and presented it to the Ass, saying, "Ah, doctor, if ever a man deserved his fee, by Jove you're the party."

MORAL.-Always patronise those physicians who give advice gratis to the poor, and ask any respectable anatomist where the lumbar regions are.

FABLE 6.-THE FROG AND THE OX.

"Shut up the box of puppets, my dear young friend, and let us all go home to bed. Which of us is happy, after all? What is life? Vanitas vanitatum!" Thus moralised a young and highly intellectual Frog, standing upon a delicious mud-bank, and sunning himself. Just at that moment there came by a bloated Ox. Now the frogs and the oxen have hated each other from time immemorial, which is about the only respect in which they resemble the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, or the Mohicans and the Hurons. "My eyes," exclaimed the Frog, who possessed an acute perception of the ridiculous, "there goes a figure!" "Well, I can't help it if I am fat," replied the Ox, goaded (not literally, but metaphorically) into repartee; "I've looked everywhere for BANTING'S pamphlet, but alas! the booksellers tell me it's out of print." At this lamentable exhibition of imbecility and weakness the Frog set up such a roar that he literally split his poor dear sides, and expired in the flower of his age, leaving a wife and family to lament his loss.

MORAL.-Corpulence is no crime, but it is a failing, and the man who lays his hand upon a "Banting" (second-hand), save in the way of buying it, is a wretch it were gross flattery to call an alderman!

The medical men said that it was bronchitis. I know better than the medical men, and I beg to assure the constant reader that it was nothing of the kind. Still this grand fact remains, the Lion was awfully indisposed. When the Ass was sent for to feel his pulse and prescribe for him, the affectionate creature left home in such a hurry that he actually forgot his stethoscope. There was only one way open to him, so he administered a terrific kick to his patient, not very far from the lumbar regions, "Does that hurt you?" he enquired in his blandest professional tone. "What a brute this doctor must be," said a Fox who stood by. "As bad as the late ABERNETHY," acquiesced a DIAMONDS and other precious stones are of a peaceable nature, yet Goose. But the Lion, with tears in his noble eyes, took out a golden when placed in the earring they may be set by the ears.

A STRANGE FACT.

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