["As to the course which the English Government should take in this matter, he was in favour of their acting on the principles enunciated in the Sermon on the Mount; but when it was found that a contrary course was necessary, then they must drop the sermon and have recourse to the sword."--The Bishop of DERRY, in Westminster Abbey, on the subject of Mashonaland.] Of old the bully swaggered free, He recked not how the fight arose; He wore his warlike panoply, A hireling and a man of blows. He knew no mercy, was not meek (The meek are blessèd, said the Lord); If one should smite him on the cheek, He turned, but turned to draw his sword. He trod the weaker in the mire, Nor stayed from blood his mailèd hand, And tramped in fury and in fire Through many a devastated land. I blame him not, it was his trade; Though small his care for wrong or right, At least he fought himself, nor stayed At home to bid the others fight. Long since we've placed him on the shelf; Behold instead, his crosier drawn, Within the sacred Minster's self A bully blustering in lawn. A broad-brimmed stirrer up of strife, "I hold," he cries, "of small account His sense who stoops to base his life Upon the Sermon on the Mount. "That is, if unprepared to strike. Some help that Sermon _may_ afford. You suit yourselves, and, when you like, You drop it and you draw the sword." Go to, you loud and foolish priest, Nor scorn the precepts you should keep. Still is it true that, west or east, The wolves are sometimes clothed like sheep. And here ('twas thus in ancient days) False prophets shame the Master still. And congregations chant the praise Of blatant Bishop BOBADIL. * * * * * WOODMEN, SPARE THOSE TREES! _New (New Forest) Version._ [Mr. AUBERON HERBERT says "the rapacious and spendthrift" woodmen of the Crown have recently felled two hundred oaks in the New Forest.] Woodmen, spare those trees! You're playing up rare jokes In felling, at your ease, Hundreds of British oaks. We'd ax you stay your axe. Come! no official rot! Or _Punch_'s wrath may wax, And then--you'll get it hot. Those old familiar trees Are glory and renown. Don't think your business, _please_, Is just to hew them down! We _ask_ you, for the nonce. If such appeal is vain, We'll bid you, sharp, at once, "Cut"--and _don't_ come again! * * * * * "GOOD SIR JOHN!" (_To Sir John Gilbert, R.A., on his receiving the Freedom of the City._ _By an Old Boy._)