* * * * * "RUNNING HIM IN." _By a Good Templar in the Force._ A groan was heard, like a funeral note, From a toper in mud half-buried, And our Serjeant "Drunk and incapable" wrote, When his form to the station we hurried. We hurried him swiftly at dead of night, And oft with our truncheons spurning, Under many a gas-lamp's flickering light, Through alley and crooked turning. In rags and tatters the toper was dressed, For in poverty drink had bound him. And he lay like a pig in a gutter at rest, With little pigs squeaking around him. We lifted him up, but he fell as one dead, And we tumbled him into a barrow; And the idle spectators shouted and said, "He'll be fined, with a caution, to-morrow!" Lightly they talk of the _spirit_ that's gone, And o'er empty bottles upbraid him; But little he'll reck, as they let him sleep on In the cell where the constables laid him. No curtains had he to his lonely bed, And a rough deal plank was his pillow; He will wake with parched throat and an aching head, And thirst that would drink up a billow. Roughly, yet sadly, we laid him down, That toper, worn, haggard, and hoary, And wished that the dissolute youth of the town A warning might take from his story. _Funny Folks._ * * * * * THE MURDER OF "MACBETH." Not a hiss was heard, not an angry yell, Though of both 'twas surely deserving-- When, cruelly murdered, _Macbeth_ fell By the hand of the eminent Irving. He murdered him, lengthily, that night, With his new and original reading. Till his efforts left him in sorry plight, And the sweat on his brow was bleeding. Five different garments enclosed his breast, Five brand-new dresses were found him, Though in never a one did he look at rest, Though the people might sleep around him. Many and long were the words he said, Till we wished in fervent sorrow, We could only get home to our welcome bed, And we vowed not to come on the morrow. We thought as he quivered, and gasped, and strode, And made us long for our pillow, That a taste of his tragic genius he owed To our cousins far over the billow. Even there, though his fame before has gone; He may find it melt in a minute; But little he'll reck, if they let him act on In a play with a murderer in it. But half the heavy play was o'er When we seized the chance for retiring, And left him grovelling about on the floor, With his friends all madly admiring. Sadly we thought as we went away, From his acting so dreary and gory, That the eminent I, if he's wise will not play, _Macbeth_ any more, if for glory. _The Figaro_, 16th October, 1875.