While inwardly I cursed――thus my feelings I disbursed―― I set about to rummage and to busily explore; But I couldn’t find the strop, and someone had nailed the soap, Which completely put a stop to my shavin’――horrid bore! And my razor, too, was blunter than it ever was before―― Than it ever was before! As I rushed about half raving, I bethought me of this shaving, And I wondered that I hadn’t stopped the practice long before: So I made an inward vow, that from this moment now, My beard should, like my pow, grow at pleasure evermore, And my resolution echoed as I ope’d my bedroom door―― “I shall shave, ah! nevermore!” JOHN F. MILL. The above Parody appeared, some years ago, in a Scotch magazine called _The People’s Friend_. ―――――――― CHATEAUX D’ESPAGNE. (_A Reminiscence of “David Garrick” and “The Castle of Andalusia.”_) Once upon an evening weary, shortly after Lord Dundreary With his quaint and curious humour set the town in such a roar, With my shilling I stood rapping――only very gently tapping―― For the man in charge was napping――at the money-taker’s door. It was Mr. Buckstone’s playhouse, where I linger’d at the door; Paid half-price and nothing more. Most distinctly I remember, it was just about September―― Though it might have been in August, or it might have been before―― Dreadfully I fear’d the morrow. Vainly had I sought to borrow; For (I own it to my sorrow) I was miserably poor, And the heart is heavy laden when one’s miserably poor; (I have been so once before.) I was doubtful and uncertain, at the rising of the curtain, If the piece would prove a novelty, or one I’d seen before; For a band of robbers drinking in a gloomy cave, and clinking With their glasses on the table, I had witness’d o’er and o’er; Since the half-forgotten period of my innocence was o’er; Twenty years ago or more. Presently my doubt grew stronger. I could stand the thing no longer, “Miss,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore. Pardon my apparent rudeness. Would you kindly have the goodness To inform me if this drama is from Gaul’s enlighten’d shore?” For I know that plays are often brought us from the Gallic shore: Adaptations――nothing more! So I put the question lowly: and my neighbour answer’d slowly. “It’s a British drama, wholly, written quite in days of yore. ’Tis an Andalusian story of a castle old and hoary, And the music is delicious, though the dialogue be poor!” (And I could not help agreeing that the dialogue _was_ poor; Very flat, and nothing more.)