On seeing the Speaker asleep in his chair in one of the debates of the first Reformed Parliament.

SLEEP, Mr. Speaker! 'tis surely fair

If you mayn't in your bed, that you should in your chair.
Louder and longer now they grow,

Tory and Radical, Ay, and No!

Talking by night, and talking by day,

Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; slumber lies
Light and brief on a Speaker's eyes.
Fielden or Finn in a minute or two
Some disorderly thing will do;

Riot will chase repose away—

Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker. Sweet to men

Is the sleep that cometh but now and then;
Sweet to the weary, sweet to the ill,

Sweet to the children that work in the mill.
You have more need of repose than they―
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; Harvey will soon.
Move to abolish the sun and the moon ;
Hume will, no doubt, be taking the sense
Of the House on a question of sixteen pence.
Statesmen will howl, and patriots bray-
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker, and dream of the time,
When loyalty was not quite a crime;
When Grant was a pupil in Canning's school,
And Palmerston fancied Wood a fool.
Dear me! how principles pass away-
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!

RICHARD OF GLOSTER.-JOHN G. SAXE.

PERHAPS, my dear boy, you may never have heard
Of that wicked old monarch, KING RICHARD THE THIRD,—
Whose actions were often extremely absurd;

And who led such a sad life,

Such a wanton and mad life;

Indeed, I may say, such a wretchedly bad life,

I suppose I am perfectly safe in declaring,

There was ne'er such a monster of infamous daring;
In all sorts of crime he was wholly unsparing;
In pride and ambition was quite beyond bearing,
And had a bad habit of cursing and swearing.

And yet Richard's tongue was remarkably smooth;
Could utter a lie quite as easy as truth ;
(Another bad habit he got in his youth ;)
And had, on occasion, a powerful battery
Of plausible phrases and eloquent flattery,
Which gave him, my boy, in that barbarous day,
(Things are different now, I am happy to say,)
Over feminine hearts a most perilous sway.

He murdered their brothers,

And fathers and mothers,

And, worse than all that, be slaughtered by dozens
His own royal uncles and nephews and cousins;
And then, in the cunningest sort of orations,
In smooth conversations,

And flattering ovations,

Made love to their principal female relations!
'Twas very improper, my boy, you must know,
For the son of a king to behave himself so;
And you'll scarcely believe what the chronicles show
Of his wonderful wooings

And infamous doings;

But here's an exploit that he certainly did do
Killed his own cousin NED,

As he slept in his bed,

And married next day the disconsolate widow !

I don't understand how such ogres arise,
But beginning, perhaps, with things little in size,

Such as torturing beetles and blue-bottle flies,
Or scattering snuff in a poodle-dog's eyes,—
King Richard had grown so wantonly cruel,
He minded a murder no more than a duel;
He'd indulge, on the slightest pretense or occasion,
In his favorite amusement of decapitation,
Until "Off with his head!"

It is credibly said,

From his majesty's mouth came as easy and pat-
As from an old constable, "Off with his hat!"

And now King Richard has gone to bed;
But e'en in his sleep

He can not keep

The past or the future out of his head.
In his deep remorse,

Each mangled corse

Of all he had slain,—or, what was worse,
Their ghosts, came up in terrible force,
And greeted his car with unpleasant discourse,
Until, with a scream,

He woke from his dream,

And shouted aloud for "another horse !"

But see! the murky Night is gone!

The Morn is up, and the Fight is on!

The Knights are engaging, the warfare is waging;
On the right-on the left-the battle is raging;
King Richard is down!

Will he save his crown?

There's a crack in it now!-he's beginning to bleed!
Aha! King Richard has lost his steed!
(At a moment like this 'tis a terrible need!)
He shouts aloud with thundering force,

And offers a very high price for a horse.

But it's all in vain-the battle is done-
The day is lost!—and the day is won!—
And Richmond is king! and Richard's a corse.

QUEER PEOPLE.-ANON.

"L 'Oh, dear, oh! this world quite strange is
Every day brings forth new changes!"

THAT'S a fact! Indeed, these changes sometimes come so fast that a fellow can't keep up with them.

Well, well; this is a queer world. No, it isn't, either. I've made a mistake,-'tis a pretty snug little affair, after all. 'Tis the people that are queer. Ah, now I have the right end of the rope! Yes; there are a great many queer people in this pretty, rolling world of ours.

But, of all the queer people here below, the croaking, growling, grumbling, gossiping, snarling, snapping, sour, sulky, fidgety, fretful, fault-finding, tattling, back-biting species, are the queerest. And they are queer; or else I don't understand the word.

They think every body wrong but themselves; and I'm sure that's queer. 'Tis queer they can't see that the best people in the world are the most candid, open-hearted, affable, kind, charitable, free, and unsuspecting; but then they wouldn't be queer, if they saw it; and, as they love to be queer, they won't see it!

It is queer they don't know that people who deserve the most censure themselves, are most apt to be always blaming and scolding their neighbors.

It is queer they never found out that those who are so keen-sighted as to see only other people's faults, are stoneblind in seeing their own.

'Tis queer they never learned the application of the Savior's words to their own case: "Thou hypocrite, first cast the