"_Come_, _come you wasp; i' faith you are too angry!_" So, in _Petruchio's_ words, say France's friends. Whilst foes and half-allies look doubtful on, From the chill Eastward or more genial North, Wondering what stable faith, in love or hate, May rest upon such shifting shrewishness. Where waits _Petruchio_, and will he come In purple velvet, or in soldier steel, Or simple, civic, hero-covering cloth, To tame this _Katharine_ of the Phrygian cap, And smiling, in the mocking calm of power, Say of the shrew, like him of Padua:-- "_Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?_ _Have I not in my time heard lion's roar?_ _Have I not heard the sea_, _puff'd up with winds_, _Rage like an angry boar chafèd with sweat?_ _Have I not heard great ordnance in the field_, _And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?_ _Have I not in a pitched battle heard_ _Loud 'larums_, _neighing steeds_, _and trumpets' clang?_ _And do you tell me of a woman's tongue;_ _That gives not half so great a blow to th' ear_ _As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?_ _Tush! tush! fear boys with bugbears_.-- _I fear none!_" * * * * * THE UNVEILING OF ISIS. There was a Vice-President, JUDGE, Who proved a big fraud _à la Sludge:_ But good Mrs. BESANT Sighed "Let's keep things pleasant!" And _Punch, à la Burchell_, cried "Fudge!" "My dear ANNIE BESANT--or is it BES_ANT_?-- Theosophy's trick, superstition and cant." To lift Isis's veil was a difficult task, But BLAVATSKY'S fox-nose Is not hard to expose, For that vulgar Isis wore only--a mask! * * * * * SHAKSPEARE FOR THE CURTAIN-LECTURED. --"The _rest_ is silence!" * * * * * [Illustration: THE UNTAMED SHREW; OR, WANTED A PETRUCHIO. "HER ONLY FAULT (AND THAT IS FAULTS ENOUGH) IS, THAT SHE IS INTOLERABLY CURST, AND SHREWD, AND FROWARD."--_Taming of the Shrew_, Act I., Scene 2.] * * * * * TALL TALES OF SPORT AND ADVENTURE. I.--THE PINK HIPPOPOTAMUS. (CONTINUED.)