"What would most vex and worry _him_, Dull, modeless Man, whose spark Long (beside Woman's) burning dim, Has now gone down in dark? Ha! He'd kick up the _greatest_ shine (If he _could_ kick) at--CRINOLINE. Were he recalled to breath, I'll have one last man-mocking spree By _donning hooped skirts_. Victory! _This_ takes all sting from Death! "Go, Sun, while Fashion holds me up, Swollen skirt and skimpy waist Shall fill--male--sorrow's bitter cup, And mortify--male--taste! Go, tell the spheres that sweep through space, Thou saw'st the last of EVE'S fair race, In high ecstatic passion; The darkening universe defy, To quench her taste for Toggery, Or shake her faith in Fashion!" * * * * * [Illustration: "THE GOVERNESS WHO, MA' SAID, WOULDN'T DO."] * * * * * A PLAINT FROM PARNASSUS. (_By an "Unrecommended" Resident._) [Mr. GLADSTONE (replying to Mr. JOHNSTON, of Ballykilbeg) announced that no recommendation had been submitted to Her MAJESTY upon the subject of the succession to the office of Poet Laureate, and that there was no immediate intention of submitting one.] Glorious Apollo! This is wondrous hard! Fancy JOHN BULL without Official Bard! His plight is sad as that of the great men Who lived, unmarked by the Poetic Pen, Before great AGAMEMNON. Ah, my HORACE, Britons are a Boeotian, heavy, slow race! As for the "Statesman" who treats bards so shabbily, 'Twill serve him right if thine "_illacrimabile_" Applies to him. A Premier, but no Poet? England, you are dishonoured, and don't know it. Void of a _Sacer Vates_ to enshrine In gorgeous trope and long-resounding line, Thy Victories, and Weddings, Shows and Valour? Parnassus shakes, the Muses pine in pallor. When foreign princelings mate our sweet princesses, When Rads of fleets and armies made sad messes, And stand in need of verbal calcitration; When--let's say ASHMEAD-BARTLETT--saves the nation In the great name of glorious Saint Jingo; When BULL gives toko or delivers stingo. To Fuzzy-Wuzzy, or such foolish savages; When our great guns commit most gallant ravages Among the huts of some unhappy village, Where naughty "niggers" have gone in for pillage; When SOMEONE condescends to be high-born, Or deigns to die, who now shall toot the horn, Or twang the lyre, emitting verse divine, For Fame and--say, about a pound per line? I must submit. I have not been "submitted," But poetless JOHN BULL is to be pitied. Of course self-praise is no "recommendation," (In GLADSTONE'S sense) or else, unhappy nation, I, even I, could spare you natural worry at, Your non-possession of a Poet-Laureate! * * * * *