Odd Memories.

BY RAMBLER REDIVIVUS.

CONCERNING PARLIAMENTARY ETIQUETTE.

I REMEMBER very distinctly making a note of the subject of my last essay, but as unfortunately I have lost my memoranda, I am quite unable to recall what I was writing about.* But my readers who no doubt have the last number-I bought one, but inadvertently left it on the counter-will be able to refer to the paper. However I will now keep a promise I have made several times before, if not actually, at all events in intention, for I fear there are times when I am apt to forget that I have not remembered to do things that I intended to recollect not to overlook. As I was saying-what was I saying?-well, no matter, I will resume my story as near the point where I left off as I can recall. It was immediately after the events which I have narrated here or elsewhere, and probably the latter, that CROMWELL entered the House, and pointing with the mace to the Speaker, said, "Off with his head-so much for BUCKINGHAM!" Whereupon he was immediately executed by FELTON. There was some joke at the time about "head off," and "felt on," I forget exactly what, indeed, I have a very bad memory for jokes, odd as it may seem. But, at any rate, the habit of members keeping on their hats is supposed (or at least I am under the impression that it is) to have arisen from that occasion-or was it a saying-either will do, I do not doubt; so it is of little consequence to distinguish. At any rate the Mace to whom CROMWELL alluded was a person of family, for unless I am in error a descendant of his was champion of England subsequently, but whether he was the predecessor or successor of DYMOCKE or PINNOCK I am not sure, probably PINNOCK, for I have some idea that the name is connected with the history of England. Unless I am much mistaken he was also a clergyman of the Established Church, for I can most distinctly remember the life of the Pinnock of Wakefield (or the Pinner-I'm

VOL. II.

66

MY LOST OLD AGE.

BY A YOUNG INVALID.

I'm only nine-and-twenty yet,
Though young experience makes me sage;
So how on earth can I forget

The memory of my lost old age?
Of manhood's prime let others boast;
It comes too late, or goes too soon;
At times, the life I envy most

Is that of slippered pantaloon!

In days of old-a twelvemonth back!

I laughed, and quaffed, and chaffed my fill;

And now, a broken-winded hack,

I'm weak and worn, and faint and ill. Life's opening chapter pleased me well; Too hurriedly I turned the page;

I spoiled the volume.

Who can tell What might have been my lost old age?

I lived my life; I had my day;

And now, I feel it more and more, The game, I have not strength to play Seems better than it seemed of yore. I watch the sport with earnest eyes, That gleam with joy before it ends; For plainly I can hear the cries

That hail the triumph of my friends.

We work so hard, we age so soon,
We live so swiftly, one and all,
That ere our day be fairly noon

The shadows eastward seem to fall.
Some tender light may gild them yet;
As yet, it's not so very cold;
And, on the whole, I won't regret
My slender chance of growing old!

RED, BLUE, AND YELLOW.

THE French Blue Books have, if we may be allowed the Hibernicism, hitherto been yellow. In future they will be "Livres Rouges," which is a step beyond our volumes of the same class, for no one ever expects them to be Red.

not clear which) written by DR. GOLDWIN SMITH, better known for his animated nature or else for the letters of a Citizen of the World on our Colonial System. I am not sure that his name was not ALBERT, or indeed SYDNEY. For the SMITH, however, I can vouch, because it was of him DR. BEN JOHNSON wrote the celebrated epigram that he talked like a goldsmith and looked like poor Poll"-an allusion to MARY, but whether MARY, Queen of Scots, or MARY the maid of the inn at Orleans, I cannot say for certain, having lost the place in the biographical dictionary in which I had looked it up, and forgetting under what heading I had found it. But of the general accuracy of this curious addition to our antiquarian lore, I am, I believe, quite

X

assured.

Gang yer Gate!

We are sorry to hear that the Traitor's Gate at the Tower of London has been demolished. This should not have been unless the venerable antiquity expressed a wish to be done away with in consequence of the undignified gait of the Irish traitors who bolt from the police.

TO A VIOLINIST TUNING.

AN IMPROMPTU, WRITTEN THE FOLLOWING DAY. A PROVERB meant for day you take for night, In making thus your (h)A by candle-light.

A New Irish Jig.

THE latest reports about the Fenian conspiracy state that the Fenians are holding meetings which are disguised under the pretence of being dancing academies. We should have thought that experience would have taught them their liability to be " caught on the hop."

TOWN TALK.

BY THE SAUNTERER IN SOCIETY.

ONG bills have already been introduced to the attention of the House, but I trust it will not be long before a bill is introduced to curtail the ex

cessive powers of the police. I have more than once drawn attention to the despotism of Might and Mayne, in defiance of Right, which rules in our streets after dark. But hitherto the tyrants have, at least, been in official garb, and if one got knocked about and half throttled one knew that it was by a regularly appointed guardian of the peace. Now things have gone a step farther, and if you or I, my dear reader, had happened to be a hardworking pianist returning home to Norwood after a long night's work, we might have been attacked by what was apparently a garotter, but turned out to be a police constable, and we should have been sent to Maidstone Prison, bail being refused, for defending life and property. This is worse than the police systems of France, Italy, or Spain, where there is no pretence of the liberty of the subject. Detectives in plain clothes may be very useful for certain specific purposes, but they must not assume the general functions of the police, unless the mouchard system is directly sanctioned by the House of Commons. It is high time Scotland-yard were reformed. The police have been over and over again proved to "get up" cases, to take upon themselves magisterial functions, to exceed their duty (at the Crystal Palace, for instance), and to be notoriously incapable of tracing out crimes (e.g., the St. Giles's murder, not to mention twenty others). The plain-clothes tyranny is, I hope, the last straw which will break the back, and destroy the patience, of that much-suffering camel, JOHN BULL.

I HAVE received a pamphlet in which MESSRS. MAW and PAYNE lay claim to the design adopted in the arrangement and classification of the coming French Exhibition. Of course, it is only a statement of one side of the case; but I must say they seem to have some grounds for their assertions. Perhaps the Parisians have made up their minds to avenge on the English nation the piracies of our dramatic authorsin which case we have no right to complain. Why it was only the other day that an adaptation of SCRIBE's Gardien was billed as "new and original"-a dodge which has not even the charm of novelty, for has not MR. TOM TAYLOR worked that oracle ever since he began as a playwright?

x-(Do

THE munificent and magnificent PEABODY, Sweet PEA-BODYnot "the actions of the just smell sweet?")-has added to his trust. An additional sum confided to the committee will enable them to prove yet further to JOHN BULL what can be done-and at no loss-to improve the condition of the poor. I hope the nation will profit by the example, and that it will copy this PEABODY rather than that other P-Body, the Parochial.

THE Pall Mall has its faults, which I have once or twice taken the liberty of pointing out. But it has surpassing merit, too, and in especial is remarkable for its able and severe literary criticism. Reviews, like dramatic notices, are, as a rule, utterly untrustworthy; and, therefore, any paper which boldly and honestly plies the scourge deserves the thanks of all who wish well to literature. The notice which more particularly suggests my remarks is "The Twaddling School of Essayists," in the Pall Mall of the 12th instant-a masterly bit of deserved flaying. There is a great deal too much twaddle going nowadays, and all credit is due to those who, utterly disregarding misrepresentation and howls, set themselves to remedy the evil.

THE British Institution is open, and is worse than usual this year, which is rather a feat! Of course there are a few good picturesthere must be when the catalogue includes works by MIGNOT, NIEMANN, LONG, GILBERT, HAYES, GOLDIE, BARNES, WALTON, YEAMES, and FITZGERALD. I must not forget a picture by young TOPHAM, too, which is full of promise. One or two foreigners distinguish themselves also-CHAIGNEAU, THOM (American by birth, French by training), and BOEHM:-I don't include MIGNOT in this category, as he has been working over here some time.

Ir is much to be regretted, I think, that people should select so sad a calamity as the loss of the London for the display of their bad taste. KING has been pounced on by photographers and managers in the

most unseemly way until a very proper and moderate protest has been wrung from the other survivors. The apppearance of KING on the boards of the Britannia and of DADDY at the Marylebone must be looked on as the result of the realism which is so fiercely studied on the stage nowadays. If the treadmill, why not the mutton-broth bath? If Pentonville, why not Lambeth? If convicts, why not paupers ? All got up as much like the real thing as possible. This is art just as much as photography is.

I AM glad to see MR. SOTHERN is going to prosecute the libellers in the Spiritual Magazine. I hope the damages will be swingeing ones sufficient to close the career of that organ of a blasphemous and debasing imposture.

THE SURGEON'S REVENGE.

I LOVED her, and she knew it well;
She'd made a careful diagnosis,
And gave me, like a naughty belle,
Her smiles in very little doses.

I sent her notes and tender rhymes,
With bottles of her father's tonic;
And I had told her many times

I loved her-so the case was chronic.

She scorned me. I need hardly say

That oft in anguish I would leave her; My love would ebb and flow each day, A sort of intermittent fever.

I used all remedies I knew

Took stimulants, and then tried ices; But no refrigerants would do,

The case was one eternal crisis.

I had a rival, woe is me,

The fact I must, perforce, acknowledge A Homoeopathist was he

A wretch who never passed the College.
And though I often called him quack,

He used to say how much I taught him;
But laughed at me behind my back,
With her, I know it, for I caught him.

We were good friends in outward guise,
For in the village we were fixtures;
And to such heights did friendship rise,
We even took each other's mixtures!
Of that arrangement I'd the best,

His globules were a harmless present;
But the poor fellow oft confest

My compounds were by no means pleasant. We used to take long walks with her

We two who loved her to distraction-
And pleasant smiles her lips would stir,
To us 'twas hardly satisfaction.
When incompatibles agree,

And soda isn't riled by acid,
At that time-not till then-shall we
Agree to love her, and be placid!

So things went on, the end drew near,
They came one morn-her face was prouder;
He said in fun that he felt queer,

I rose and waved a Seidlitz Powder.

A powder wrapt in papers two

I gave him in the loved one's presence;
He took the white one, then the blue,
And died a death of effervescence!

FROM OUR STALL.

LAST Wednesday deserves to be marked with chalk of the whitest in the theatrical calendar. At no house in London could the critical playgoer have discovered the least ground for blame. No manager bullied the gentlemen in the stalls. No actor was imperfect in his part, so that even the Glowworm paled its intellectual fires, and admitted the impossibility of sharpening its arrows on Emery. There was not the slightest vulgarity apparent on that glorious evening in the dialogue of BELLINGHAM and BEST, not the slightest inefficiency in the stage management at the Adelphi. Neither Charles nor Joseph Surface made his appearance in an ebon moustache and lily-white wig. Not an actress winked at the side boxes, not a side box reciprocated. In fact, the impartial critic of stage plays and stage players who enriches the world through these pages, can point with unalloyed satisfaction to the brilliant evening of last Wednesday-Ash Wednesday, by the way-as a period of absolute perfection in dramatic

matters.

On Thursday night, however, our hope of a theatrical millennium was dispelled by the production of a very conventional and unexciting farce at the Haymarket. The notion is of the stalest, and the dialogue of the least brilliant. MISS ADA CAVENDISH, late of the Royalty Theatre, made her first appearance at this house in the character of the heroine, and was cordially received. The lady's acting would be much better if her self-possession were a little less. A certain soupçon of nervousness would have made her nearly perfect. MR. COMPTON was funny in a very un-funny character.

That lively play, The Stranger, by the late unlamented KOTZEBUE, has been attracting moderate audiences to Drury-lane for some nights past.

THIS is, perhaps, the coolest instance of advertising impudence we have ever come across :

TAKEN by MISTAKE on 12th Feb., from one of the carriages of the S.E. Railway, an UMBRELLA. The owner can have the same by describing it and paying for this advertisement. Apply at 54, Queen Anne-street, Cavendish-square.

A person takes an umbrella "by mistake" from a railway carriage, and will not give it up unless the owner pays five shillings for it. Moreover the advertiser says nothing about the umbrella that most people leave behind them when they take another "by mistake," so it is reasonable to suppose that he entered the carriage without one, and came away with one. Is the advertiser aware that he is open to a charge of wrongful possession if he refuses to give up the umbrella for nothing?

WANTED, A RAILWAY POET.

TRAVELLERS by the Underground Railway must have noticed with awe the promptness with which the company post up, in the most conspicuous part of their stations, the names of those who have been unhappy enough to offend against their bye-laws, with the full particulars of the crime in each case, and its appalling punishment. There is a terrible significance in these terse records. Weak, underground humanity, which has escaped this awful penalty, reads and trembles, and thanks its stars that Fate, overruling its proclivities, never permitted it to jump out of a train in motion, or assault the company's servants, or forget to take its ticket. Fancy being placarded-up in that way! Imagine the consternation, not unmixed with morbid curiosity, with which his friends would regard the man who had passed through the phase of being "a caution!" But the company are certainly at fault in one point. The "cautions" are, if anything, too dry and matter-of-fact. They do not seem to possess that thrilling interest that crime-which has been shown to be capable of immense sensational development-ought to possess. Few people read them; and those who do read, do so, we fear, not in the pure spirit of intellectual enthusiasm we should expect, but rather because they have to wait for a train, and have exhausted all the "flamers," and are tired of watching the flirtations of the young ladies behind the refreshment counters. We have a suggestion to offer. It is evident these notices will do little good unless they are more generally read. Why not introduce the sensational element into them? Does not the million delight in versification? See what the mighty MOSES has Let the Metropolitan Railway Company boldly follow his example, and KEEP A POET. Give him to understand that his principal duties will be "pointing morals,” and “adorning tales." Let them lose no time, but advertise at once: "Salary, £100 a-year, and the poet's beer. N.B.-No one of the name of TUPPER need apply."

achieved with verse.

We can imagine the difficulty of preserving order among the dense crowds that would constantly surround the subjoined specimens:

CASE 1.

Conviction of JOHN STUBBS, Poet, for defacing the interior of one of the
Metropolitan Railway Company's Carriages.
Bleak was the night: low fall'n the glass;
The poet took the train-third-class
(King's-cross to Notting-hill)-

He did not dare to walk so far
On such an eve, for dire catarrh
Had made him rather ill.
He sighed, as on the hard, cold seat
He cast his weary form: his feet

Uncomfortably damp

Roman his nose: his eye deep blue:
Complexion rather bad, 'tis true
('Twas thought that cast that pallid hue,
And not our new gas lamp).
What noble thoughts pervade his breast,
And leave him not a moment's rest!

See, see-he writes them all!

Ah, no! The words seem all the same--
'Tis but one dear, repeated name

He scratches on the wall:-
"Eliza Jane "--with deep-drawn sigh-
Nor heeds he how the moments fly,
But scrawls "ELIZA JANE."
The train is stopping-neck and heels
Sudden himself pulled out he feels,

With breathless sense of pain.
Next day, before the awful face
Of MUGGINS, Alderman, his case

Was brought-on, number one.
His worship said, and justly, too,
""Tis right such vagabonds as you

Should pay for what they've done;
These tricks won't suit a public line,
I'll, therefore, give the utmost fine,

Five pounds, or forty days!

A name so vulgar, too! Scarce meet
To shout along the public street."

(His worship scorns to praise.)
"What's in a name ?" the bard cried out;
His worship felt 'twas right to scout
Such interruption rude;

And sentenced him, in sternest sort,
For such supreme contempt of Court,
To penal servitude!

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