PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

It may be this—that the Villain base

Has insulted the hero's girl;

It may be this—that he's brought disgrace

On a wretchedly-acted Earl.

I care not which it may chance to be,

Only this do I chance to know—

A cliff looks down at a canvas sea

And some property rocks below!

You say, perhaps, it is only there

From a love of the picturesque—

You hint, maybe, that it takes no share

In the plot of this weird burlesque;

But cliffs that tremble at every touch,

And that flap in the dreadful draught,

Have something better to do—ah, much!

Than to criticise Nature's craft!

The cliff is there, and the ocean too,

And the property rocks below.

(These last, as yet, don't appear to you,

But they're somewhere behind, I know.)

The cliff is there, and the sea besides

(As I fancy I've said before),

And yonder alone the Villain hides

Who is thirsting for someone's gore!

And now there comes to the Villain bold

The unfortunate Villain Two.

He's here to ask for the promised gold

For the deeds he has had to do.

But words run high, and a struggle strong

Sends the cliff rocking to and fro,

And Villain Two topples off ere long

To the property rocks below!

The scene is changed. The revolving cliff

Now exhibits its other side.

The corpse is there, looking very stiff—

Even more than before it died!

The crime is traced to the hero Jack,

Notwithstanding the stupids know

Deceased was thrown by the Villain black

To the property rocks below!

If the day's (as usual) pitchy,

Take up Anne Thackeray Ritchie!

If you're feeling "quisby-snitchy,"

Seek the fire—and read your Ritchie!

If your nerves are slack or twitchy,

Quiet them with soothing Ritchie.

If you're dull as water ditchy,

You'll be cheered by roseate Ritchie.

Be you achey, sore, chill, itchy,

Rest you'll find in Mrs. Ritchie!

May her light ne'er shine with slacker ray,

Gentle daughter of great Thackeray!

Are the Panama sentences rather hard?

So Monsieur Eiffel pro tem. disappears.

To walk round about a prison yard

Is the Tour d'Eiffel for a couple of years.

Oh, gaily did we hasten to the London Institution,

Expecting some amusement in our inartistic way,

And little did we reckon on the awful retribution

Which Mr. Henry Blackburn had in store for us that day.

We'd fondly looked towards him for an eulogistic blessing,

But got instead a general and comprehensive curse,

We are, as he informed us, with an emphasis distressing,

By nature inartistic, and are daily getting worse.

Thereafter he directed magisterial attention

Upon the hapless authors who a fleeting fame had got;

He drew no nice distinctions, nor selected some for mention,

But, with superb simplicity, he just condemned the lot.

Every man of them is sinning with an ignorance persistent,

Poet, novelist and critic, or whatever be their sphere,

Their "individuality" is almost non-existent,

And only on occasions, if at all, are they "sincere."

Well, what, then, is the remedy? Will Mr. Blackburn fix it?

Must all our fiction travel from the cultured Continent?

Or dares we snap our fingers at this haughty ipse dixit,

And read our inartistic books in very great content?

Girls and Matrons, who wins the day,

Now Winter and Jeune have had their