Cabby (to passenger who has complained of the pace):-"SLOW, SIR? YES, SIR. BUT, YOU SEE, THE FACT IS 'E 'AVE A-BEEN IN THE UNDERTAKING, BUT GIV UP THROUGH REDOOCED SUCKUMSTANCES, AND I REELLY 'AVEN'T THE 'EART TO 'URRY 'IM." Answers to Correspondents. SENEX, LLOYD'S, J. T., A SUBSCRIBER, &c.-In accordance with your wishes, "Gone from the Helm," will be reprinted on toned paper. MISS A. P., Dublin.-How A. P. we should be if we could use the contribution! Many thanks all the same. C. N., Strand.-We have, as you advise, "leniently committed the M.S. to the waste basket." It was not nigh good enough. S. S. C., Southport.-If it were in our power we should publish the verse, obeying your instructions "not to alter them in any way, excepting in errors of orthography," and "adhering strictly" to the punctuation. But what you sent us was not verse. T. D. B. kindly forwards an article which he informs us we are, if we think them good enough, welcome to use as we like, gratis. We appreciate, even in declining it, his generosity, the more especially as the M.S. is not his, but written by "a clever lady." A FLUTTERING QUERIST.-There is not the slightest foundation for your belief that our esteemed correspondent "Snarler" is deeply attached to MISS ANN THROPY. GOBEMOUCHE.-It was, as you suggest, on account of their possible employment by rebels in the event of the great Fenian invasion that the authorities directed the removal of all the pikes on the southern side of the Thames. A CANNY ONE.-Thanks! But we don't care about the Falkirk get on with their work in order to go out in the afternoon and flutter in the breeze." "Expectans" sees exquisite humour in the fact of an omnibus driver having a week's holiday and going out of town. For shame, gentlemen, both! Why shouldn't the poor girls get their outing, and why shouldn't a bus-driver have a trip in the country? If there is anything funny in the notions, it is to be found in the dignified way in which you look down on the inferior creatures-one from the commercial-room and the other from the knife-board. Good morning! THOSE REPORTERS AGAIN! In a recent police-case where a broker had behaved like a brute-or a broker, it was stated that his victim, in describing his evil practices, said he was "a second Dando." This is clearly a mistake of the reporters-she thought he was a pawnbroker, and said he was a Second-hand-o. Worth a Straw. A YOUNG gentleman has called at the office to ask us to tell him how to write a "chaffy" letter. He had better go to PARKINS AND GOTTO and get some straw paper. NOTICE.--Finely printed on TONED PAPER, with numerous illus- trations, shire something-or other, and other Scottish provincial papers, howling will appear on the 6th November. Price Twopence. at our lash to Sabbatarianism. In the words of their own bard, we reply "Hoot awa'!" CHARITY. When you give to a beggar in the street, first make sure that he is not an incorrigible one-there are several "mend-Ican't's" about. We have a word to say to two correspondents. "G. E.," of Manchester, who appears to be a commercial gentleman given to lying in bed late, thinks it "uncommonly good" that he should lie in bed at eleven to the annoyance of the inn servants "who were evidently anxious to Now ready, printed on TONED PAPER, price Twopence, In consequence of the demand, BUOYED WITH HOPE has been again London: Printed by JUDD & GLASS, Phoenix Works, St. Andrew's Hill, Doctors' Commons, and Published (for the Proprietors) by THOMAS BAKER, at 80, Fleet-street, E.C.-November 4, 1865. ONLY SEVEN. A PASTORAL STORY, AFTER WORDSWORTH. I MARVELLED why that simple child And clapt its hands, with moanings wild, Adopting a parental tone, I asked her why she cried, The damsel answered with a groan, "I thought it would have sent me mad Last night about eleven;" Said I, "What is it makes you bad? She answered, "Only seven!" "And are you sure you took no more, "Oh! please, sir, mother gave me four, "If that's the case," I stammered out, I wondered hugely what she meant, "Now, if you don't reform," said I, "I ain't had more nor seven!" POSTSCRIPT. To borrow WORDSWORTH's name was wrong, Or slightly misapplied; And so I'd better call my song, "Lines after ACHE-INSIDE.' A DIFFICULT COMMISSION. Charley:-"THEN HE WON'T HAVE THE FACE TO REFUSE.' OUR LIBRARY TABLE. A CONSUMMATION DEVOUTLY TO BE WISHED. A CONTEMPORARY says, "The Courts of Exchequer and Common Pleas are about to be ventilated." Oh, why don't they ventilate Chancery? TAYLOR, HAIN FRISWELL, and the author of "The Gentle Life." The last-named gentleman but one has this verse: "Until at last the sun goes down A great king died in pain." Not to mention the awkwardness of line three's not rhyming, and ending in the monosyllable "if," which is not quite strong enough for the place, we should like to know whether the invariable effect of a fatal regal stomach-ache is to turn majesty purple? Or is "pain only a handy rhyme for "again," because if so, we are glad to hear it in the interests of royalty. Another fact of which apprentices in verse should not be ignorant is that verse should flow instead of halting, that "expletives their feeble aid do join" to the damage of lines, and that a rythmical accent should not be allowed to fall on a wrong word. These rules have been slightly overlooked by the sacred muse of MR. TOM TAYLOR in these lines: THE Christmas books, rather later than usual this year, are beginning to put forth their leaves like the Glastonbury thorn. Foremost of all, like the primroses that take the winds of March with beauty comes the Round of Days, amply deserving the flowery language in which we herald it. The cover, the paper, and the printing would constitute a treat in themselves. But the matter is as good as the manner-how delightful, now that his pencil is so rarely at work, to have half a dozen illustrations by WALKER in one book, and better still that two of them should be reminders of his lovely pictures in the two last exhibitions of the Old Water Colour-Spring and Autumn! Then we have also drawings by HOUGHTON, PINWELL, WATSON, MORTEN, GRAY, and BURTON, and T. DALZIEL drops in here and there with little strips of landscape and sea-coast. The engraving by MESSRS. DALZIEL is excellent, even for the first engravers in England. Among the contributors there are many poets of note. JEAN INGELOW, CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, and DORA GREENWELL seldom write anything that is not well worth reading: the latter, in this instance, has unfortunately got some echo of BROWNING, perplexing one in some of her titles, and speaks of some one singing "a song of love and death," which expression TENNYSON has made his own. AMELIA B. EDWARDS' verse is clever, and LOCKER's two poems are piquant. ROBERT BUCHANAN writes like the poet he is, and GEORGE MACDONALD'S contribution is finely thoughtful. There is also a good poem by WILLIAM ALLINGWe have ventured to point out these blemishes boldly, because we HAN. Then we meet again with old friends and favourites, WILLIAM feel that literary gentlemen should, if they can, be more conscientious, and MARY HOWITT, and MRS. NORTON. In one or two instances, how-in working for a book which is so admirably got up, so finely illusever, the writers have not done work worthy of the splendid setting trated, and in which their writing is associated with so much really prepared for their compositions. We can't all of us be poets, but we good poetry. can at least refrain from committing what is hardly verse even. mere apprentice in the art of versification ought to know that to give only two rhymes in every four lines is laziness and shirking. Such slovenly work was not fair to the spirited producers of this really splendid volume. The chief sinners in this respect are MESSRS. TOM VOL. II. A I "Hark, how outside the wind doth roar! In which, if rythmical accent means anything, we have such sensible music as "See how chill drives the sleet, He came for shelter to our door." A CON FOR PROFESSOR GAMGEE. WHY is a drowned monkey like a horse-doctor? Because he's a wet-an'-hairy-un ! TOWN TALK. BY THE SAUNTERER IN SOCIETY. HE Cabinet has met, and all is going smoothly. There are rumours of one or two alterations which are to be made in order to bring heads of Departments into the Lower House instead of the Upper, which will be an advantage. A little bird tells me that GLADSTONE (RUSSELL wisely playing his lordly second and behaving himself) will go forward now, and that the majority of the Min istry are prepared to do the same, they having all held back out of deference to the late Premier's known opinions on reform. In this case we may look for a terrific battle-the two great parties will be once more marshalled and blows interchanged vigorously. Of the result of the contest I for one have not the slightest doubt in the world. WHAT a contrast there is between the funeral sermons of DEAN STANLEY and DOCTOR CUMMING! I am not a great reader of sermons, but I confess I have gone through the reports of these two discourses with interest. The Dean's treatment of the theme is just what it should be I should say he preached like "a scholar and a gentleman," if the Blood and Culture School had not so misused the term, that it means nothing. But the Doctor! Why doesn't he stick to bees and pious Zadkielism? Do we want to hear that the late nobleman, who would have taken off his hat to a civil crossing-sweeper, once shook hands with DR. CUMMING? Or of what value is it to the world at large that LORD PALMERSTON, who, good judge as he was of most things, probably knew little about sermons, once said that a discourse of the Doctor's was "very useful and very instructive"? Snobbery is bad enough anywhere, but hateful in the pulpit; and what shall we say about a preacher, who goes out of his way to lug in the fact, that he was once associated with the DUKE OF ARGYLE on the committee of a charity? It doesn't quite bring this small talk up to the sermon standard, even to let off a firework out of Revelation at the end. WHILE I am on the subject, I must put in my protest against such an article as the Pall Mall published on the very day of the late Premier's funeral. Even Blood and Culture might respect the feelings of his lordship's surviving relations. What would the Pall Mall have said to anyone, not connected with B. and C., raking up the private life of a public man, in order to point a moral, with sins, of which, at all events, the editor of the P. M. G. has not been appointed judge in any gazette I ever saw. MR. SAMUEL LUCAS-who, report says, is to edit Moxon's Miniature Poets (it's time somebody did, but I hope he'll do it better than he does the Shilling Magazine)-was apparently very anxious to inform the world that he was literary critic of the Times, but I should say he will be equally desirous of disclaiming the reviews that have appeared there of late. Here's an extract from a notice of Miss Berry's Journals "Miss Berry gives many a graphie anecdote confirming (if confirmation were needed) the impression made on the people by the ill-used and ill-conducted consort of that selfish and profligate King of the Fair Star of Brunswick."" If this mean anything (and the construction is rather queer), it means that the anecdotes now related confirm an impression in the minds of people who have been dead any number of years. THE Saturday-oh, usually correct Saturday!-also made a queer blunder the other day. "The most prominent difference between ourselves and our next neighbours is the rate at which population increases. At the present rate of progress the French would only double themselves in two years, whereas we should do so in a little over fifty." That is to say population increases twenty-five times as fast in France as it does in England. This is a discovery! A NEW giant! ANAK the Anakim, as he is called, which is much the same as calling him "Giant the Giants." He is a fine specimen, but the dwarf is a mere precocious baby. Why does not PROFESSOR ANDERSON Occasionally try something original? It is not in the best taste for one who is just retiring from the profession to display so much of the dog-in-the-manger temperament. His opposition cabinet séances in the time of the DAVENPORT Swindle were fair enough; but their success seems to have induced him to repeat the dose, and now he does the basket trick and the giant and dwarf business. I think it a great pity. I HAVE taken a stroll through the two winter exhibitions. They are both good, but MR. WALLIS, having a larger gallery to fill, has more "padding." As his is the original exhibition, I'll notice it first. There are a couple of pictures by PETTIE, very fine; one of ORCHARDEON not so good; a noble painting by BARNES, "Never Again," and some beautiful landscapes by LEADER. TOURRIER has a clever Turk smoking, and there are good WATSONS, better than he has been on the wood of late. VICAT COLE and WARREN have both got exquisite specimens of their style in oil, and water. MR. DAVIS has an excellent painting of sheep in a drought, and there are promising works by other rapidly rising artists. Two rooms of water-colours contain many charming things-some BIRKET FOSTERS for example, and there are some good paintings in the room devoted to foreign artists. In the room devoted to the works of female artists, the most noticeable features are a picture of ROSA BONHEUR's, one by MISS ELLEN EDWARDS (hardly as lovely as the drawing of the same subject which she did for London Society) and a clever bit of still life by MISS COLEMAN. The gallery is really a marvellous collection, when you think it is all got together by the taste and energy of an individual. HER MAJESTY'S OPPOSITION. (Marks of disapprobation.) OMNES.-Bravo, bravo! Ever so much better than POPE'S. NEWDEGATE.-If the wicked occupants of the Vatican are mentioned in such terms of levity, I shall consider it my Christian duty to withdraw. DISRAELI.-The Roman Empire has passed away; the Venetian oligarchy is a tradition of the past; kingdoms have risen; kingdoms have fallen; and the one fact which is eternal is that of Race. Proscribe him, banish him, trample him under foot, the Jew is sure to come back, and as certain to conquer. The Sybil demanded for her last Book more than she had asked for all the rest. Conciliate the Hebrew whilst there is yet time; or when he has even less to give you than at present he will ask you cent. per cent. He mocks your clumsy occidental systems; he despises your traditions of yesterday; he tolerates your creed with an equable disdain; he NEWDEGATE.-I don't care a straw, I tell you, NORTHCOTE, whether the party needs him or not; but I will not sit here, and listen to such abominable language. I'm an old man, I know; but if anybody else spoke ill of the Church of England anywhere outside these walls, by George, sir, I'd knock him down! DERBY.-AS when NEWDEGATE.-Oh, all right, my lord, I won't make any only I ask you, is he quite right in his mind? disturbance; DISRAELI (rousing himself for a supreme effort).-Yes, the Venetian oligarchy is, indeed, no more; nor could even the genius of HANNIBAL perpetuate the power of Carthage; yet Carthage was the Great Britain of the Mediterranean, and Venice was the England of the Adriatic. A similar fate may yet be our own under the incapable rule of a minister whose policy is precarious and whose antecedents are disgraceful. Sir, when I look around meOMNES.-Hear, hear! That's it! That's what we want! Hear, guidance of a CHARLES WOOD-there, gentlemen, I think that's the best plan for us, eh? No case for the defence; abuse the plaintiff's attorney; is it not so? CRANBORNE. You don't seem to have cared to say anything which might lead to a personal encounter between yourself and GLADSTONE -how's that? DISRAELI. Perhaps I had my reasons! At any rate, we've no policy and no cry. Unfortunately, nobody believes that the man you named means to rob the Church; in point of fact, some people appear to think that his piety is rather more sincere than my ownDERBY.-By Jove, yes! I beg your pardon, DISRAELI. You were saying? DISRAELI.-Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. I've nothing to propose, I know that, Possibly BULWER may, he's a man of genius, quand même ! SIR. G. E. L. BULWER LYTTON (after five minutes of intense and moody deliberation).-The Truthful and the Beautiful are ONE! MALMESBURY, PAKINGTON, WALPOLE, GENERAL PEEL, NORTHCOTE, WHITESIDE, CAIRNS, CRANBORNE, ROBERT MONTAGU, &c., &c.Adjourn, adjourn! DERBY.-All right. Personally, I don't care two pins about office. I'd rather not have it-I want to get on with the Odyssey; but I'll do the best I can. Though, by Zeus, you are a rum sort of team to drive! Next week, then? OMNES.-Agreed, agreed! NEWDEGATE (with solemn earnestness).-I have listened to a lot of profane rubbish about the heathen mythology; I have heard a jocular allusion to the Man of Sin; my feelings as a Churchman have been outraged by a Hebrew Jew; and a nobleman, from whom better things might have been expected, has incidentally alluded to me as an old ram. If you ever see me here again I wish I may SCENE CLOSES. SPORTING INTELLIGENCE. FAILURE OF GLADIATEUR. THE PROPHET UNDER A CLOUD AND A BERMONDSEY. REVERED AND HONOURED EDITOR,-It is of no use attempting to deceive you, Sir, and the old man will not try such. Sir, he has lost enormous! The sex has always been peculiar fatal to NICHOLAS, and, figuratively speaking, it is again a woman's hand that deals the avenging blow, alluding, of course, to Gardevisure, the mare that won the Cambridgeshire on Tuesday fortnight. You may have noticed he was absent from your columns in Numbers 24 and 25; in fact, I have a rather harsh and vituperatory letter from you to that effect; but, Sir, revered and honoured Mr. Editor, the fact is, the Prophet was out of town, and up to his old games. What's bred in the bone, Sir, will come out in the flesh; and despite his ample recent means, when once you've been a tout, a tout you'll ever be; and he was hanging about the stables just as in the old days; and the cold getting into his head, not to speak of whiskey and water affecting him more than it did before he generally could partake of sherry-wine when he liked, the old man, Sir, overslept hisself, and was too ill to send his usual countrybution. I wouldst, Sir, that this were the worst! But no! the Star of NICHOLAS have set, perhaps to raise no more; and Newmarket Heath has been his Waterloo, not from the point of view of the late occupant of Apsley House, but more Napoleonic in its character. It is easy to say, after the event, "Why did you go and do so, oh NICHOLAS, you good but fond old man?" Why? Because I had a blind faith in a noble animal; because JENNINGS himself said, "He'll do it, MISTER N., if they was to put a PICKFORD's van on the top of him!" because the COUNT DE LAGRANGE said, with his own lips, Coorage, mong voo!" Sir, my belief in Gladiateur was almost idolatryastical! It was vainly they told me he couldn't do it with 9 stone 12; your NICHOLAS put the pot on heavy, and is now, speaking comparative, an abject pauper and a broken-hearted ruinous old man! It's lucky for me as I've no one to come after me, in the way of children at least (there are a good many after me in another way), former allusions to olive-branches having only been hypothetic and good-humourous. On the morning of the race I was so sanguine that I burst into song. You may like, Sir, to hear the plaintive warble, even now, of a broken-hearted minstrel's loot: Gladiateur, Gladiateur, Go it, my pippin! Your victory's sure! You ought to be painted by ROSA BONHEUR ! Look at him racing along! Look at him? I did. These old eyes, that are now bedewed with On the course I had met your young French countrybutor, Moosoo JEAN GODIN. It's little enough he knows about racing, though than whom perhaps I am sure a more affable gentleman; but he began a-declaiming against insular justice and narrow minded jealousy Britannic, at which I offered to punch his head, and would have done such had it been twenty years ago when more suitable to your Prophet's period; but I found he was only grumbling about the 9 stone 12, so I shook hands along of him sewer le shong, as we say at Paris; and when, being a little down upon his luck financially, though than whom perhaps I never saw a brighter necktie or a nattier pair of lavender kid gloves upon a human frame, it was not in the heart of your Prophet to refuse him a couple of glasses of sherrywine, besides lending of him half-a-quid.5 Do you remember-very likely not, for you know no more than a babe just unborn about sportive matters, though the best of editors and the most indulgent of masters I am sure-do you remember the odds that were laid against the winning mare, Gardevisure? They were 33 to 1. Murder will out. They were laid by NICHOLAS! There. I feel easier in my mind after the confession. Ruin (again speaking comparative) stares me in the face with a vulgarity of aspect to which the contemptuous expression of unpaid landladies in former years was RIMMEL'S fountain to a rotten egg; the colossal edifice of Prophetic Wealth is rudely shaken by the breeze of Adverse Fortune; but this emotion unbecomes a NICHOLAS, who, if he have known better days have also known worse, and was never ashamed of honest Poverty, whatever may be said by the pens of the detractorial. I have thought it quite as well not to go back to Belgravia just at present. The fact is, that a little seclusion will do me no harm, so shall lie by and try to pull it off over the Liverpool Cup. He has always borne a honest name, praise be; and if the worst comes to the worst he has still his abilities as a public writer to fall back upon. MRS. CRIPPS, the landlady, has got me a life of SIR WALTER SCOTT, Baronet, from the circulating library round the corner, and it almost brings the tears into a poor ruinous old Prophet's eyes-thankye, MRS. CRIPPS, yes; a little more sugar in it this time, please !-to read how And will that good and great man paid off his debts by his novels. write one himself against any Prophet of his age or size bar none! Well, well, it's a long lane that's got no turning; and what says the classic bard, as I heard him quoted by an affable young gent from Cambridge College on the Heath itself?— How d'ye? my eye! Crass Tibby!9 Thanks much, my dear MRS. CRIPPS. If the offer of a old man's heart and hand-where the deuce is MRS. CRIPPS? Shall make up to old gal, hang me if I don't. My clothes is all right; and still I looks the cynicsure of fashion with my light autumnal overcoat;" and, I say, MRS. FUN-CRIPPS I mean-if a old man's honest hadoration, if a fond heart's gentle throb, if-oh, I say, old boy, of course you won't print this, which is purely confidential-can't write any more to-night-sight's not what it was, you know-only I was a-thinking, Sir, you might have it put in large type as I sent you GARDEVISURE FOR ABSOLUTE WINNER, only you was out of town, and so such never saw the light;12 but anyhow you'll not desert the old one in his adversity? You'll keep him on, noble Captain, as your Sportive Editor? Eh? Thankye; there's a dear good soul, MRS. CRIPPS! If a old man's fervent-but will now conclude. So no more at present from, yours, THE RUINOUS NICHOLAS. P.S. 1.-You don't happen to know Moosoo GODIN's address, do you, Sir P13 P.S. 2.-I have a good thing for next year's Derby. EDITORIAL NOTES. |