et T.T.B.R.: I.I.,
Does intend to give artists and authors and people
A little bit more of a show
Than has hitherto fallen to their lot.
His Majesty,
My dear Mr. Leno,
Has always been noted for his tact,
And in opening the ball with you, as it were,
His Majesty has exhibited an amount of tact
Which leaves absolutely nothing to be desired.
Had he commenced with Mr. Swinburne,
Or myself,
Or Mr. Hall Caine
What howls there would have been!
Whereas as it is
Everybody is delighted,
And the Halls resound nightly with his Majesty's praises.
Furthermore,
Besides being tactful,
The King's choice of you,
My dear Mr. Leno,
For an invitation to Sandringham
Has its basis in a profound common sense;
For I am acquainted with nobody in the movement,
My dear Mr. Leno,
Who could have done the Sandringham turn
With anything like the success which appears to have been yours.
I gather from interviews
That the King "laughed heartily" at your jokes,
And that "it was a treat to see him enjoying himself."
It is just here that Mr. Swinburne, myself, and Mr. Hall Caine
Would have broken down.
It seems to me unlikely
That the King would have laughed
At Mr. Swinburne's jokes;
My own jokes, as everybody is aware,
Are constructed on a principle
Which entirely prohibits laughter;
While, as for Mr. Hall Caine's jokes,
They have such a tremendous sale
That it is not good form to laugh at them.
Mr. Leno, my boy,
You have been the humble means
Of doing us all
A great kindness.
Those jokes of yours
Which have tickled Royal ears
Will be nectar to me
When next it is my pleasurable duty
To sit under you;
That hand which Royalty has shaken
I shall grasp
With an added fervour;
That smile will cheer me all the more readily
Because it has cheered
My liege Lord and Sovereign;
Those feet——
But, after all, the great point
Is the scarf pin.
I suppose you would not care to lend it to me
For a week or two
While I have one made
Like it?

TO THE POPE

May it please your Holiness
There are possibly two,
Or it may be three,
Men
In Europe
Who could indite this Ode
Without treading on anybody's corns.
After mature reflection,
I am inclined to think that I am those three men
So that you will understand.
Well, my dear Pope, I hear on all hands
That you are engaged, at the present moment,
In the cheerful act and process
Of having a Jubilee.
I have had several myself
And I know what pleasant little functions they are,
Especially when the King
Sends a mission to congratulate one on them.
To proceed,
You must know, my dear Pope,
That, by conviction
And in my own delightful country,
I am a rabid, saw-toothed Kensitite Protestant;
All my ancestors figure gloriously
In Foxe's "Book of Martyrs,"
And, if they don't, they ought to.
Also, I never go into Smithfield
Without thinking of the far-famed fires thereof
And thanking my lucky stars
That this is Protestant England
And that the King defends the Faith.
But, when I get on to the Continent,
To do my week-end in Paris,
Or my "ten days at lovely Lucerne,"
Or my walk with Dr. Lunn
"In the footsteps of St. Paul,"
Why, then, somehow
The bottom falls clean out of my Kensitariousness
And I become a decent, mass-hearing, candle-burning Catholic.
That is curious, but true,
And may probably be accounted for
By differences of climate.
However, we can leave that;
Here, in England, my dear Pope,
We all like you,
Whether we be Catholics or Protestants or Jews or Gentiles or members of the Playgoers' Club;
And we all see you, in our minds' eye,
Seated benevolently upon your throne
Giving people blessings;
Or walking in the Vatican Garden
Clothed on with simple white.
We all think of you, my beloved Pope,
As a diaphanous and dear old gentleman
Whose intentions are the kindest in the world.
And yet, and yet, and yet—
The memory of Smithfield
So rages in our honest British blood
That, in spite of your white garments
And your placid, gentle ways,
We feel quite sure that you do carry,
Somewhere about your person,
A box of matches;
And that, if certain people had their way,
You would soon be lighting such a candle in England
That we should want a new Foxe
And a new Book of Martyrs
Of about the size of a pantechnicon.
Hence it is, my dear Pope,
That we—er—Englishmen remain Protestant
And make the King swear fearful oaths
Against popery and all its works,
Although, for aught one knows to the contrary,
He may have Mass said twice daily
Behind the curtain, as it were.
All the same, I wish you good wishes
As to this your Jubilee
And
Nihil obstat.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN

(Touching his Audience of the King)

My dear Mr. Chamberlain,
Since you last heard from me,
Many curious things have happened,
Both in Birmingham and abroad.
As to the happenings in Birmingham,
Nobody cares tuppence for them.
The happenings abroad, however, are a different matter,
Inasmuch as they have brought you great fame,
And cost us a lot of money.
Your influence in the governance of this great country, my dear Mr. Chamberlain,
Is undoubted.
When you say things,
It is understood that all your fellow-ministers
Sit up and look good.
"We don't like it," they say in their decent hearts;
"But Joseph says it must be so, and be so it must."
To the delicate souls of Arthur James,
And George, and Broddy, and the rest of 'em,
You must, my dear Mr. Chamberlain, be a good deal of a trial,
But, somehow, they have to put up with you,
Even as the honest martyr has to put up with his shirt;
And, for my own part, I rather like to see it:
At any rate, in a sort of way, don't you know.
But, my dear Mr. Chamberlain,
In the daily papers of Monday morning,
What did I read? Why, I read:
"Mr. Chamberlain had an audience of the King
Yesterday afternoon."
And yesterday afternoon was Sunday afternoon.
Now, my dear Joseph, I do not mind in the least
What you do to Arthur James,
Or what you do to George,
Or what you do to Broddy,
Or whether you do it on Sunday afternoons,
Or on any other afternoon.
But I really must draw the line somewhere,
And I wish you to understand
That if you go to see His Majesty the King
On Sunday afternoons
(On the afternoon of the Sabbath, as they would say in Birmingham),
You do so entirely without my approval.
I think it is scandalous, and, not being a politician,
I have no hesitation in saying what I think.
Somehow, while I know you to be a competent man of business,
You never figure in my mind's eye, Joseph,
As the sort of man who ought to have
Personal communication with his Sovereign,
Particularly on Sunday afternoons.
Birmingham men were not born to grace the Court;
And, when it comes to the furnishing of Pleasant Sunday Afternoons for Monarchs,
In my opinion, they are quite out of it.
When business presses,
As it no doubt did press on Sunday, Joseph,
It is your business, as a Birmingham man,
To remember your origin,
And, if you have anything on your mind
Which really must be communicated
To His Gracious Majesty King Edward the Seventh,
To look up the