Influenza has come like the wolf on the fold, And the duke and the ditcher are down with the cold. The doctor is smiling, for business is here, And the chink of the guinea resounds in his ear. No household is spared: both the villa and cot Their quota of swollen-nosed patients have got. The clerk of the weather is gloating on high At the lords of creation that bed-ridden lie. Each chamber resounds with the echo of sneezing, With deep-laboured coughing and bronchial wheezing. While, loading the table, the victim can spy Lotions, tonics, and ointments confusedly lie. The druggist (douce man) is thanking his stars For this nice epidemic of paying catarrhs, He's making his hay, though no sunshine is seen, And his till gleams with silver where copper has been. A WORD IN SEASON. This dismal piece of verse effectually cleared the smoking-room, and filled me with a great sorrow, since I had just recollected three or four stories of my own. I now take the liberty of laying these before the ingenuous reader. If he says they are dull, let me tell him (i.) that he has no perception of humour, and (ii.) that occasional dulness is the inalienable privilege of every free-born Briton. Many a spry wight thinks it his duty to be _continuously funny and monotonously merry_. Let a quiet and demure dulness be the foil of your side-splitting sallies. Learn to keep the peace, yea for hours at a time. If you are in a mixed company, cultivate the dictum of "give and take." Be not for ever doling out your scraps of mirth to the dyspeptic stomachs of your associates. A wise reciprocity and interplay of merriment is the best rule--a fair share among the entire party. Burns himself, sparkling talker as he was, is recorded to have been at times sunk in gloom and shadow. But anon emerging from his moodiness, he would utter such words as set the table in a roar. And now for these masterpieces of humour. A NAIRN CRITIC.