"Nor shall we overlook the earlier masters. Professor CHAMBERLIN, whose thrilling lectures on QUEEN ELIZABETH and Lord LEICESTER have been the talk of the town for the last fortnight, has kindly undertaken to organise a new _variorum_ version of the Plays of SHAKSPEARE, with the assistance of Mr. LOONEY, the writer of the recently-published and final work on the authorship of the plays. MILTON will be presented in both verse and prose, Mr. MASEFIELD having promised to re-write his epic in six-lined rhymed stanzas, shorn of Latinisms; while a famous novelist, who does not wish her name to appear at present, has consented to recast it in the form of a romance under the title of _The Miseries of Mephistopheles_. "Returning to the eighteenth century, I am glad to be able to say that a brilliant reconstruction of POPE'S _Dunciad_ is promised by the SITWELL family, in which the milk-and-water school is held up to ridicule, with TENNYSON in the place of dishonour formerly occupied by THEOBALD. With a magnanimity that cannot be too highly commended, the staff of _The Times_ has undertaken to adapt another forgotten work under the title of _Grey's Eulogy_, with special reference to the work of the League of Nations. "I confess to feeling rather doubtful as to the possibility of reviving any interest in the works of SCOTT, DICKENS and THACKERAY. They are at once too near and too far. Still I hope to persuade Miss REBECCA WEST to try her hand at _Vanity Fair_. Then there is GEORGE ELIOT, another uncertain quantity, though perhaps something might be made of _The Mill on the Floss_ if it were renamed _Tulliver's Travels_, and given an up-to-date industrial atmosphere by Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT. I have my eye on Mr. LYTTON STRACHEY as the man who could make a fine modern version of _Tom Brown's Schooldays_. At the moment he is too busy with his _Life of Queen VICTORIA_, but I feel sure he will not lightly abandon so splendid an opportunity of unmasking the pedantry and pietism of Dr. ARNOLD and throwing the white light of truth on 'Rugby Chapel.'" * * * * * BIRD CALLS. III. The robin helps to brighten Winter days And, if you listen carefully, he says, "Oh please, oh please do leave some crumbs for me;" It's greed, but still he says it cheerily. The starling rolls his "r's" with unctuous joy And, preening, wonders whom he may annoy, Then imitates a hen, a water-fowl And next the "Be quick" of a white barn-owl. The heron has a fierce and yellow eye And eats up all our fishes on the sly; There seems to be but one he deigns to like, For all I hear him say is simply "Pike." Tree-creepers, like some busy brown field-mice, Unwearying chase the furtive fat wood-lice, Then round the oak-tree's bole they slyly peep And tell you what you thought you knew--"We creep."