long as that can be said will be exposed to no serious danger. We are far from being at the end of the upper Thames. Oxford, were there no other namable place, is beyond us. But we have explored the denser portion--the nucleus of the nebula of historic stars that stretches into the western sky as seen from the metropolis. We lay aside our little lorgnette. It has shown us as much as we can map in these pages, and that we have endeavored to do with at least the merit of accuracy. EDWARD C. BRUCE. THE POET'S PEN. I am an idle reed; I rustle in the whispering air; I bear my stalk and seed Through spring-time's glow and summer's glare. And in the fiercer strife Which winter brings to me amain, Sapless, I waste my life, And, murmuring at my fate, complain. I am a worthless reed; No golden top have I for crown, No flower for beauty's meed, No wreath for poet's high renown. Hollow and gaunt, my wand Shrill whistles, bending in the gale; Leafless and sad I stand, And, still neglected, still bewail. O foolish reed! to wail! A poet came, with downcast eyes, And, wandering through the dale, Saw thee and claimed thee for his prize. He plucked thee from the mire; He pruned and made of thee a pen, And wrote in words of fire His flaming song to listening men; Till thou, so lowly bred, Now wedded to a nobler state, Utt'rest such pæans overhead That angels listen at their gate. F.A. HILLARD. SKETCHES OF INDIA. II. I had now learned to place myself unreservedly in the hands of Bhima Gandharva. When, therefore, on regaining the station at Khandallah, he said, "The route by which I intend to show you India will immediately take us quite away from this part of it; first, however, let us go and see Poona, the old Mahratta capital, which lies but a little more than thirty miles farther to the south-eastward by rail,"--I accepted the proposition as a matter of course, and we were soon steaming down the eastern declivity of the Gháts. As we moved smoothly down into the treeless plains which surround Poona I could not resist a certain feeling of depression.