Giants was quite good enough;

But they've spoilt all the good things of life with their Science, and Progress, and stuff.

I see how it's drifting, dear MAGOG. The Munching House and the Gildhall.

Did use to be London's fust pride. Is it so in these days? Not at all!

Whippersnappers cock snooks at us, MAGOG; A ignerent pert L.C.C.,

To whom Calipash is a mistry, whose soul never loved Calipee,

A feller elected by groundlings, who can't tell Madeira from Port,

Some sour-faced suburban Dissenter—he, MAGOG, may make us his sport,

Without being popped in the pillory! Proper old punishment that!

As all the old punishments was. We're a-getting too flabby, that's flat.

The gallows, the stocks, and the pillory kept rebel rascals in hor,

But now every jumped-up JACK CADE, or WAT TYLER can give us his jor

Hot-and-hot, without fear of brave WALWORTH's sharp dagger, or even a shower

Of stones, rotten heggs, and dead cats. Yah! The People has far too much power

With their wotes, and free speech, and such fudge. Ah! if GLADSTONE, and ASQUITH, and BURNS,

And a tidy few more of their sort, in the pillory just took their turns,

Like that rapscallion, DANIEL DEFOE, what a clearance he'd have of the cads

Who worrit us out of our lives with Reform, and such humbugging fads!

[Left lamenting.

VERY CRUEL.—Mrs. R. was very much annoyed at something she said having been misreported by a friend. "I can't trust him," said the excellent Lady; "he twists and gargles everything I say."

OFTEN TALKED ABOUT BUT NEVER SEEN.—"A Clean Sweep."

ICHABOD!

GOG. "NO PRIME MINISTER! NO FURRIN SECKETARY! NO CHANCELLOR O' TH' EXCHEQUER!"

MAGOG (bitterly). "S'POSE WE SHAN'T HAVE NO LORD MAYOR NEXT!!"

THE MAN WHO WOULD.

I.—THE MAN WHO WOULD BE LAUREATE.

His name was LEGION. He had kept his eye on the Laureateship from his early boyhood, when he sent verses to the Poets' Corner of the Bungay Weekly Mail, which sometimes published them; then he cut them out, and pasted them neatly in a book, which he still possesses. He always wrote on an occasion. "Lines on the Recovery of My Sister EMILY from the Mumps"; "Dirge on the Decease of a Favourite Squirrel," beginning, "No more!" but there was always plenty more where that came from, and is still. At College he was one of the three men who wrote in College Rhymes, and secured for that periodical a circulation by taking a hundred copies each. LEGION sent dozens of his, marked, to every poet he heard of, generally addressing them "Dear ALURED" (if that was the Minstrel's Christian name), or, in verse, "Brother, my Brother, my sweet, swift Brother!" This annoyed some poets, who did not answer; others were good-natured, and would reply,—

"DEAR SIR,—I have to acknowledge, with many thanks, your Cebren and Paris, and anticipate much pleasure from its perusal."

LEGION kept all these letters in a book, and published some of them as advertisements of his Cebren and Paris (an unsuccessful Newdigate), when it appeared in a volume, with an astonishingly decorative cover. It was a classical piece, in blank verse. Cebren, the father of Œnone, is represented asking Paris what his intentions are as regards that lady. It was piece of classical genre, the author said: such interviews must have occurred when a young Trojan prince, with no particular expectations, paid marked attentions to the daughter of a River-god, like Cebren. Here is a specimen piece,—

Some accused LEGION of plagiarising the last line and a half, which reminded them, they said, of MARLOWE. But he replied that great wits jump, that it was an accidental coincidence. The public, which rarely cares much for poetry, was struck by Cebren and Paris. "There is in it," said the Parthenon, "an original music, and a chord is struck, reverberating from the prehistoric years, which will find an answer in the heart of every father of a family." The Clergy at large quoted Cebren and Paris in their charges and sermons, and the work was a favourite prize at seminaries for young ladies. Consequently all the other poets, whom nobody buys, arose, and blasphemed Cebren and Paris in all the innumerable reviews. This greatly, and justly, added to the popularity of LEGION's book. He followed it up by Idylls of the Nursery, a volume of exquisite pieces on infants as yet incapable of speaking or walking. This had an enormous success among young newly-married people, an