Two children in two neighbour villages, Playing mad pranks along the healthy leas; Two strangers meeting at a festival; Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall; Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease; Two graves, grass green, beside a gray church-tower, Wash'd with still rains and daisy-blossomed; Two children in one hamlet born and bred; So runs the round of life from hour to hour. A. TENNYSON. * * * * * CIRCUMSTANCE. (_After Tennyson_). Two children on Twelfth Night, all mirth and laughter, Obliged to take two powders the day after. Two strangers meeting at a morning call. Two lovers waltzing at a country ball. Two mouths to feed upon an income small. Two "lists to be retained" of various things Wash'd out of town to save home's direst curse. Two babies quite too much for one young nurse; So flies the time of life on rapid wings. _The Man in the Moon_, Volume 4, 1848. * * * * * THE PALACE OF ART. (_A Parody, which it is requested may not occur to anybody during the Inauguration of the Exhibition_, 1862). I built my Cole a lordly pleasure house, Wherein to walk like any Swell: I said, "O Cole, make merry and carouse, Dear Cole, for all is well." (_Here follows an exquisite description of the said pleasure-house, also known as the International Exhibition. After four hundred and ninety-seven verses comes the last_). But Cole, C.B., replied, "'Tis long, your story, And here's a Rummy Start; Dilke walks in glory with a Hand that's Gory, While I am _not_ a Bart." SHIRLEY BROOKS. The following parody graphically describes that singular phase of modern English art, known as the Æsthetic School, originated by the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, namely, Dante G. Rossetti, Holman Hunt, J. E. Millais, and Thomas Woolner. The works of the disciples of this school have recently found a home in the Grosvenor Gallery, founded by Sir Coutts Lindsay:-- THE PALACE OF ART. (_New Version_). PART I. I built myself a lordly picture-place Wherein to play a Leo's part. I said, "Let others cricket, row, or race, I will go in for Art!" Full of great rooms and small my Palace stood, With porphyry columns faced, Hung round with pictures such as I thought good, Being a man of taste. The pictures--for the most part they were such As more behold than buy-- The quaint, the queer, the mystic over-much, The dismal, and the dry. One seemed all black and grey--a tract of mud, One gas-jet glimmering there alone; Above, all fog; below, all inky flood; For subject--it had none. One showed blue chaos flecked with falling gold. Like Danaë's tower in dark; A painter's splash-board might more meaning hold Than this æsthetic lark.