THE MENAGERIE.-J. HONEYWELL.

Did you ever! No, I never!
Mercy on us, what a smell!
Don't be frightened, Johnny, dear!
Gracious! how the jackals yell.
Mother, tell me, what's the man
Doing with that pole of his?
Bless your precious little heart,
He's stirring up the beastesses!

Children! don't you go so near!

Goodness! there's the Afric cowses. What's the matter with the child? Why, the monkey's tore his trowsers! Here's the monstrous elephant,I'm all a tremble at the sight; See his monstrous tooth-pick, boys! Wonder if he's fastened tight?

There's the lion!-see his tail! How he drags it on the floor! 'Sakes alive! I'm awful scared

To hear the horrid creatures roar! Here's the monkeys in their cage, Wide awake you are to see 'em ; Funny, ain't it? How would you Like to have a tail and be 'em?

Johnny, darling, that's the bear

That tore the naughty boys to pieces; Horned cattle!-only hear

How the dreadful camel wheezes! That's the tall giraffe, my boy,

Who stoops to hear the morning lark! 'Twas him who waded Noah's flood, And scorned the refuge of the ark.

Here's the crane,-the awkward bird!
Strong his neck is as a whaler's,
And his bill is full as long

As ever met one from the tailor's.
Look !—just see the zebra there,
Standing safe behind the bars;
Goodness me! how like a flag,
All except the corner stars!

There's the bell! the birds and beasts
Now are going to be fed;

So, my little darlings, come,
It's time for you to be abed.

"Mother, 'tisn't nine o'clock !
You said we needn't go before;
Let us stay a little while,-

Want to see the monkeys more!"
Cries the showman, "Turn 'em out!
Dim the lights!-there, that will do:
Come again to-morrow, boys;

Bring your little sisters too."
Exit mother, half distraught,

Exit father, muttering “bore!”

Exit children, blubbering still,

"Want to see the monkeys more!"

A SISTER PLEADS FOR A BROTHER'S LIFE.

SHAKSPEARE.

Isabella. I am a woful suitor to your honor, Please but your honor hear me.

Angelo. Well; what's your suit?

Isab. There is a vice, that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war 'twixt will and will not.

Ang. Well; the matter?

Isab. I have a brother is condemned to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it!

Why, every fault's condemned, ere it be done:

Mine were the very cipher of a function,

To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record,

And let go by the actor.

Isab. Oh just, but severe law!

Must he needs die?

Ang. Maiden, no remedy.

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,

And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.

Ang. I will not do 't.

Isab. But can you if you would?

Ang. Look! what I will not, that I cannot do.

Isab. But might you do 't, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touched with that remorse

As mine is to him?

Ang. He's sentenced; 'tis too late.

Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again. Well, believe this:
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one-half so good a grace
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel, should it then be thus?'
No! I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.

Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words.

Isab. Alas! alas!

Why all the souls that were were forfeit once;
And He that might the 'vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? Oh, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

Ang. Be you content, fair maid;

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:

Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him;-he must die to-morrow.

Isab. To-morrow? Oh, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him! He's not prepared for death! Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven

With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves! Good, good, my lord, bethink
Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There's many have committed it.

you:

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept ; Those many had not dared to do that evil,

If the first man that did the edict infringe
Had answered for his deed: now, 'tis awake;
Take note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceived,
And 30 in progress to be hatched and born,)
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, where they live, to end.

Isab. Yet show some pity!

Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismissed offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied:

Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Isab. So you must be the first that gives this sentence, And he, that suffers! Oh, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.-Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.
Merciful heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt

Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,

Than the soft myrtle:-But man, proud man.
Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,!
His glassy essence,--like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:

Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them,
But, in the less, foul profanation.

That in the captain's but a choleric word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?

Isab. Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself.

Go to your bosom:

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

That's like my brother's fault; if it confess

A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

Against my brother's life.

Ang. [Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis

Such sense, my sense breeds with it. [To her.] Fare you well. Isab. Gentle, my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me.-Come again to-morrow.

Isab. Hark how I'll bribe you! Good, my lord, turn back.

Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor,
As fancy values them: but with true prayers,
That shall be up at heaven, and enter there,
Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

Ang. Well; come to me

To-morrow.

Isab. Heaven keep your honor safe!
Ang. Amen,

TROUBLE YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR OWN AFFAIRS.

ELIZA COOK.

You all know the burden that hangs to my song,
Like the bell of St. Paul's, 'tis a common ding-dong;
I don't go to college for classical tools,

For Apollo has now set up national schools.

Oh! mine is a theme you can chant when you may,

Fit for every age and for every day;

And if rich folks say, "Poor folks, don't give yourselves airs !”

Bid them "trouble their heads with their own affairs."

Oh! how hard it appears to leave others alone,
And those with most sin often cast the first stone;

What missiles we scatter wherever we pass,

Though our own walls are formed of most delicate glass!
Let the wise one in "nature's walk," pause ere he shoot
At scampering folly in harlequin suit;

He'd find "motley," no doubt, in what he himself wears,
If he'd "trouble his head with his own affairs."

Our acquaintance stand up with reproving advice,
Where the friend of our soul would be sparingly nice;
But people will see their own farthing-dip shine,
Though they stick it right under a gunpowder mine.
Faults and errors choke up like a snow-storm, I ween,
But we each have a door of our own to sweep clean;
And 'twould save us a vast many squabbles and cares,
If we'd "trouble our heads with our own affairs.”

The "Browns" spend the bettermost part of the day
In watching the "Greens," who live over the way;
They know about this, and they know about that,
And can tell Mr. Green when he has a new hat.
Mrs. Brown finds that Mrs. Green's never at home;
Mrs. Brown doubts how Mrs. Green's money can coine;
And Mrs. Brown's youngest child tumbles down stairs
Through not "troubling her head with her own affairs."

Mr. Figgins, the grocer, with sapient frown,
Is forsaking the counter to go to "the Crown;"
With his grog and his politics, mighty and big,
He raves like a tory, or swears like a whi:

He discusses the church, constitution, and state,

Till his creditors also get up a debate;

And a plum of rich color is lost to his heirs

Through not "troubling his head with his own affairs."

Let a symptom of wooing and wedding we found,
And full soon the impertinent whisper goes round;

i