A NICE YOUNG MAN FOR A SMALL PARTY.
Young BEn he was a nice young man,

An author by his trade ;
He fell in love with Polly-Tics,

And was an M.P. made.
He was a Radical one day,

But met a Tory crew;
His Polly. Tics he cast away,

And then turned Tory too.
Now Ben had tried for many a place

When Tories e'en were out ;
But in two years the turning Whigs

Were turn'd to the right-about.
But when he called on ROBERT PEET,

His talents to employ,
His answer was, “ Young Englander,

For me you're not the boy.
Oh, Robert Peel ! Oh, Robert PEEL !

How could you serve me so ?
I've met with Whig rebuffs before,

But not a Tory blow.
Then rising up in Parliament,

He made a fierce to do
With Peel, who merely winked his eye ;

Ben wink'd like winking too.
And then he tried the game again,

But couldn't, though he tried ;
His party turn'd away from him,

Nor with him would divide.
Young England died when in its birth :

In forty-five it fell ;
The papers told the public, but

None for it toll'd the bell. Punch, June 1845. (This parody was accompanied by a portrait of Mr. Benjamin Disraeli).

II
In France they called them Troubadours,

Or Menestrels, by turns ;
The Scandinavians called them Siulis,
The Scotchmen call theirs Burns.

III.
A strange coincidence is this,

Both names implying heat ; But had the Scotchmen call'd theirs Scald. 'Twere title more complete.

IV.
For why call'd Burns 'tis hard to say

(Except all sense to slaughter); Scald was the name he should have had, Being always in hot water.

V.
For he was poor,-his natal hut

Was built of mud, they say ;
But though the hut was buili of mud,
He was no common clay.

VI.
But though of clay he was (a sate

Each child of earth must share),
As well as being a child of earth,
He was a child of Ayr.

VII. And though he could not vaunt his house',

Nor boast his birth's gentility,
Nature upon the boy bestow'd
Her patent of nobility.

VIII.
It needed not for him his race

In heralds' books should shine ;
What pride of ancestry compares
With his illustrious line.

IX.
So he, with heaven-ennobled soul,

All heralds held in scorn,
Save one, the oldest of them all,-
“The herald of the morn.

X.
Call’d by his clarion, up rose he,

True liege of Nature's throne,
Fields to invest, and mountain crest
With blazon of his own.

XI.
His Vert, the morning's dewy green,

His Purpure, evening's close,
His Azure, the unclouded sky,
His Gules, “the red, red rose."

XII.
His Argent sparkled in the streams

That flash'd through birken bowers ;
His Or was in the autumn leaves
That fell in golden showers.

XIII.
Silver and gold of other sort

The poet had but little ;
But he had more of rarer store,-

His heart's undaunted mettle.

A FEW WORDS ON POETS IN GENERAL,

AND ONE IN PARTICULAR.
BY THE GHOST or T- H-D.
“What's in a name ?"-Shakespeare.

I.
By different names were Poets callid

In different climes and times ;
The Welsh and Irish call'd him Bari,

Who was confined to rhymes.

XIV.
And yet liis heart was gentle, too,-

Sweet woman could enslave him ; And from the shafts of Cupid's bow

Even Armour* could not save him.

XV.
And if that Armour could not save

lirom shasts that chance might wield, What wonder that the poet wise Cared little for a shield.

a

XVI,
And Sable, too, and Argent (which

For colours heralds write)
In Burns' uncompromising hands
Were honest black and white.

XVII.
And in that honest black and white

He wrote his verses bold;
And though he sent them far abroad,
Home truths they always told.

XVIII.
And so for “ honest poverty"

He sent a brilliant page down ;
And, to do battle for the poor,
The gauger threw his gauge down.

XIX.
For him the garb of "hodden gray'

Than tabards had more charms ;
Ile took the part of sleeveless coats
Against the Coats of Arms.

XX.
And although they of Oxford may

Sneer at his want of knowledge,
He had enough of wit at least,
To beat the Heralds' College.

XXI.
The growing brotherhood of his kind

He clearly, proudly saw that,
When launching from his lustrous mind,

“A man's a man for a' that !" Rival Rhymes, in honour of Burns ; by Ben Trovato (Routledge), London, 1859.

I entered, and an opiate influence stole,

Like semi-palsy, over thought and feeling, And with inebriate haziness my soul

Seemer rapt almost to reeling. For over all there hung a glamour queer,

A sense of something odd the spirit daunted,
And said, like a witch-whisper in the ear,
“ The place is haunted !”.

II.
Those women, ah, those women! They were white,

Blue, green, an: grey, -all hues, save those of nature, Bony of Irame, and dim and dull of sight,

And parlous tall or stature. Ars longa est,--aye, very long indeeil,

And long as Art were all these High-Art ladies, And wan, and weird ; one might suppose the breed

A cross 'twixt earth and lades. Il poor Persephone to the Dark King

İlad children borne, after that rape from Enna, Much so might they have looked, when suffering

From too much salts and senna. Many their guises, but no various grace

Or changeful charm relieved their sombre sameness ; Of form contorted, and cadaverous face,

And limp lopsided lameness Venus was there ; at least, they called her so :

A pallid person with a jaw protrusive,
Who palpably had sound all passion slow,

And all delight delusive.
No marvel she looked passé, peevish, pale,

Unlovely, languid, and with doldrums laden.
To cheer her praise of knights might not avail,

Nor chaunt of moon eyed muiden. Laus Veneris! they sang ; the music rose

More like a requiem than a gladsome pan.
With sullen lip and earth-averted nose

Listened the Cytherean.
This Aphrodite? Then methought I heard

Loud laughter of the Queen of Love, full scornful of this dull simulacrum, straineri, absurd,

Green-sick, and mutely mournful. A solid Psyche and a Podgy Pan,

A pulpy Cupid crying on a column,
A skew-limbeci Luna, a Peona wan,

A Man and Mischief solemn;
A moonlight-coloured maiden-she was hight

Ophelia, but poor Hamlet would have frightened-
A wondrous creature called the Shulamite,

With vesture quaintly tightened ; These and such other phantasms seemed to fill

Those silk-hung vistas, which, though fair and roomy, Nathless seemed straitened, close, oppressive, still,

And gogglesome and gloomy. For over all there hung a glamour queer,

A sense of something odd the spirit daunted ; And said, like a witch-whisper in the ear. “ The place is haunted !"

III.

THE HAUNTED LIMBO.

Jay-Night Vision, after a Visit to the Grosvenor Gallery. (IVith acknowledgment of a hint from lloon.)

1. A World of whim I wandered in of late,

A limbo all unknown to common mortals; But in the drear night-watches 'twas my fate

To pass within its portals. Dusk warders, dim and drowsy, drew aside

What seemed a shadowy unsubstantial curtain, And pointed onwards as with pain or pride,

But which appeared uncertain.

I coulil no more ; I veiled my wearied eyes.

I said, “Is this indeed the High Ideal ? If so, give me plain faces, common skies,

The homely and the real."

a

a

But no, this limbo is not that fair land,

Beloved of soaring fancies, hearts ecstatic ; 'Tis the Fools' Paradise of a small band,

Queer, crude, absurd, erratic. I turned, and murmured, as I passed away,

“ Such limbos of mimetic immaturity Have no abiding hold e'en on to-day,

of fame no calm security.” For over all there hung a glamour queer,

A sense of something odd the spirit daunted, And said, like a witch-whisper in the ear, “This place is haunted !"

Punch, May 18, 1878.

Which we had a small game

And Ah Sin took a hand.
It was Euchre. The same

He did not understand ;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,

With a smile that was childlike and bland.
Yet the cards they were stocked

In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked

At the state of Nye's sleeve :
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,

And the same with intent to deceive.
But the hands that were played

By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,

Were quite frightful to see-
Till at last he put down a right bower,

Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
Then I looked up at Nye,

And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,

And said, “Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labour"

And he went for that heathen Chinee.
In the scene that ensued

I did not take a hand;
But the floor it was strewed

Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,

6 he did not understand.” In his sleeves, which were long,

lle had twenty-four packsWhich was coming it strong,

Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,

What is frequent in tapers-that's wax.
Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar-
Which the same I am free to maintain.

BRET TIARTE.

Bret Harte. The humorous writings of this author are as widely read, and as keenly appreciated, in England as in the United States, and when the prose portion of this collection is reached his Sensation Novels Condensed will be fully considered. In these he has admirably hit off the peculiarities of style of such varied writers as Miss Braddon, Victor Hugo, Charles Lever, Lord Lytton, Alexander Dumas, F. Cooper. Captain Marryat, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, and Wilkie Collins; whilst in Lothaw he produced a clever little parody of Lord Beaconsfield's Lothair.

Bret Harte has ably described both the comic and the pathetic sides of the wild life of the Californian miners, with which he is thoroughly familiar; and his best known poems deal with phases of life in that part of the world, where the Chinese element enters largely into the population. For convenience of comparison, the original “Heathen Chinee" is given below, followed by the parodies :PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL. JAMES.

Table Mountain, 1870.
Which I wish to remark-

And my language is plain--
That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,

Which the same I would rise to explain.
Ah Sin was his name ;

And I will not deny
In regard to the same

What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,

As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
It was August the third,

And quite soft was the skies ;
Which it might be inferred

That Ah Sin was likewise ;
Yet he played it that day upon William

And me in a way I despise.

In the game

THE HEATHEN Pass-EE.

Being the Story of a Pass Examination.

BY BRED HART:.

Which I wish to remark,

And my language is plain,
That for plots that are dark

And not always in vain,
The Heathen Pass-ee is peculiar,

And the same I would rise to explain. I would also premise

That the term of Pass.ee
Most fitly applies,

As you probably see,
To one whose vocation is passing

The “ ordinary B. A. degree.

In the crown of his cap

Were the Furies and Fates,
And a delicate map

Of the Dorian States,
And we found in his palms, which were hollow,

What are frequent in palms--that is, dates ;
Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain,
That for plots that are dark

And not always in vain,
The Heathen Pass.ee is peculiar,
Which the same I am free to maintain.

Light Green (W. Metcalfe and Son) Cambridge.

Tom Crib was his name,

And I shall not deny
In regard to the same

What that name might imply,
But his face it was trustful and childlike,

And he had the most innocent eye.
Upon April the First

The Little-Go fell,
And that was the worst

Of the gentleman's sell,
For he fooled the Examining Body

In a way I'm reluctant to tell.
The candidates came

And Tom Crib soon appeared ; It was Euclid, the same

Was “the subject he feared ;" But he smiled as he sat by the table

With a smile that was wary and weird. Yet he did what he could,

And the papers he showed
Were remarkably good,

And his countenance glowed
With pride when I met him soon after

As he walked down the Trumpington Road. We did not find him out,

Which I bitterly grieve, For I've not the least doubt

That he'd placed up his sleeve Mr. Todhunter's excellent Euclid,

The same with intent to deceive. But I shall not forget

How the next day at two
A stiff Paper was set

By Examiner U-
On Euripides' tragedy, Bacchæ,

A Subject Tom “partially knew."
But the knowledge displayed

By that heathen Pass.ee,
And the answers he made

Were quite frightful to see,
For he rapidly floored the whole paper

By about twenty minutes to three.
Then I looked up at U-

And he gazed upon me,
I observed, “This won't do."

He replied, “Goodness me!
We are fooled by this artful young person."

And he sent for that heathen Pass-ee.
The scene that ensued

Was disgraceful to view, For the floor it was strewed

With a tolerable few of the "tips" that Tom Crib had been hiding

For the subject he partially knew.” On the cuff of his shirt

He had managed to get
What we hoped had been dirt,

But which proved, I regret,
To be notes on the rise of the Drama,

A question invariably set.
In his various coats

We proceeded to seek,
Where we found sundry notes

And—with sorrow I speak--
One of Bohn's publications, so useful

To the student of Latin or Greek.

A KISS IN THE DARK. Which I wish to remark,

That a pleasure in vain Is a kiss in the dark

When it leaveth a stain : And a maid who strikes quickly her colours

When pressed, I shall never maintain. It was at a “surprise,"

Where fair ladies are found To kill time, while it Nies,

With their beaux, who were bound On having a social re-union,

At the cost of-well, more than a pound. Just here let me say

To the ladies below, Who in polka display

Their fantastic light tow, That their husbands, upstairs, also “poker”

Yes, ladies, you well may cry “Owe!"
If the husbands but knew

How their wives flirt below,
They would sing to them—“Glou !"

For they'd stick to them so
That the popinjays all would look elsewhere,

Nor want for a trip of the toe. In the waltz I embraced

A fair maid with soft eyes ;
O! the size of her waist

Made me waste many sighs :
And I likened her cheeks to red roses,

And whispered, “Sweet love never dyes.". Then together we strayed

In the light of the moon,
Where I kissed that sweet maid ;

She pretended to swoon,
But her faint was a feint, so I kissed her

Again, for I relished the boon,
Back again on the Noor,

With my sweetheart I danced,
While the people there wore

Merry smiles, as they glanced
At my partner, so stayed—in her manner,

And at me, so completely entranced.
When my love turned around

I was shocked at the sight;
Where the roses were found,

One had met with a blight;
While a cheek was still blooming and rosy,

The other was fearfully white.

Which is why I remark

And my language is plainThat for ways that are dark,

And for tricks far from vain. The Germany Jew was peculiar,

But he won't soon be at it again.

From my good-looking lass,

Filled with fright, I straight flew
To a bad looking.glass,

Where I gazed : then I knew
That my nose, which was f rmerly turn-up,

Was radish-bright crimson in hue.
Which is why I remark,

That a pleasure in vain
Is a kiss in the dark

When it leaveth a stain ;
And a maiden who runs when you kiss her,
Is fast-which I'll ever maintain.

Merry Folks.

Jon Duan.

THAT GERMANY JEW.

London, 1874. Which I wish to remark

And my language is plainThat for ways that are dark,

And tricks far from vain, The Germany Jew is peculiar,

Which the same I'm about to explain. Eim Gott was his name ;

And I shall not deny
In regard to the same,

He was wonderful “fly,"
But his watch-chain was vulgar and massive,

And his manner was dapper and spry.
It's two years come the time,

Since the mine first came out ;
Which in language sublime

It was puffed all about :-
But if there's a mine called Miss Emma

I'm beginning to werry much doubt.
Which there was a small game

And Eim Gott had a hand
In promoting! The same

He did well understand ;
But he sat at Miss Emma's board-table,

With a smile that was child-like and bland. Yet the shares they were “bulled,"

In a way that I grieve, And the public was fooled,

Which Eim Gott, I believe, Sold 22,000 Miss Emmas,

And the same with intent to deceive.
And the tricks that were playeci

By that Germany Jew,
And the pounds that he made

Are quite well known to you.
But the way that he flooded Miss Emma

Is a “watering” of shares that is new.
Which it woke up MacD-

And his words were but few, For he said, “Can this be?"

And he whistled a " Whew !" “We are ruined by German-Jew Swindlers !"'

And he went for that Germany Jew.
In the trial that ensued

I did not take a hand;
But the Court was quite filled

With the fi-nancing band,
And Eim Gott was " had ” with hard labour,

For the games he did well understand.

Sr. Denys OF FRANCE (A.D. 272). N.B.—The following lay was composed in humble imitation

of the popular bard of Transatlantica,
Which I mean to observe-

And my statement is true-
That for ways that unnerve,

And for deeds that out-do,
$t. Denys of France was peculiar,

And the same I'll explain unto you.
Dionysius his name,

And none will deny
That Denys the same

Does mean and imply ;
And he fell in the hands of the pagans,

Who doom'd him a martyr to die.
'Twas century third,

As the history states,
That Denys incurr'd

This saddest of fates;
With one Eleutherius, deacon.

And Rusticus, priest, for his mates.
Yet the woes that were laid

On those Christians three,
And the pluck they display'd

Were quite frightsul to see,
And at first you would scarcely believe it,

Rut the same is asserted by ME.
'Twas one of their foes'

Diabolical whims,
To the flames to expose

The martyr's bare limbs.
But Denys, for one, didn't mind it,

He lay and sang psalms-likewise hymns,
And then he was placed

In a den of wild beasts
With a preference of taste

For martyrs and priests ;
But Denys, by crossing, so tamed them,

They turned from such cannibal feasts.
Next Denys was cast

In a furnace of fire ;
All thinking at last

He'd have to expire ;
But the flame sank so low in a minute,

No bellows could make it rise higher.
And when he'd been hung

On the cross for a spell,
St. Denys was flung

With his friends in a cell,
As narrow and close as a coffin,

And dark as H E double L.
Said the judge, stern and curt,

“Bring the captives to me.
When he found them unhurt

He cried, “Can this be?
We are ruin'd by Christian endeavour ;"

And he meant to destroy the whole three.