_Wednesday_.--"I wonder," said SAGE OF QUEEN ANNE'S GATE, curiously regarding CHAMBERLAIN discoursing on the Eight Hours Bill, "whom JOE meant by his reference at Birmingham on Saturday night to 'the funny man of the House of Commons,'--'A man who has a natural taste for buffoonery, which he has cultivated with great art, who has a hatred of every Government and all kinds of restraint, and especially, of course, of the Government that happens to be in office.' Couldn't be HENEAGE, and I don't suppose he had JESSE in his mind at the moment. Pity a man can't make his points clearly. JOE used to be lucid enough. But he's falling off now in that as in other matters. Made me rub my eyes when I read his remarks about House of Lords, and remembered what he used to say on subject when he and I ran together. Certainly JOE is a man of courage. There are topics he might, with memory of past speeches, easily avoid or circumnavigate. But he goes straight at 'em, whether fence or ditch, takes them at a stride regardless of his former self, splashed with mud in the jump, or smitten with the horse's hoof. Makes me quite sentimental when I sit and listen to him, and recall days that are no more. _Mrs. Gummidge_ thinking of the Old 'Un is nothing to me thinking of the Young 'Un who came up from Birmingham in 1876, and who from '80 to '85 walked hand in hand with me. We were patriots together.--Ah! placeman and peer Are the patrons who smile on your labours to-day; And Lords of the Treasury lustily cheer Whatever you do and whatever you say. Go, pocket, my JOSEPH, as much as you will, The times are quite altered we very well know; But will you not, will you not, talk to us still, As you talked to us once long ago, long ago? We were patriots together!--I know you will think Of the cobbler's caresses, the coalheaver's cries, Of the stones that we throw, and the toasts that we drink Of our pamphlets and pledges, our libels and lies! When the truth shall awake, and the country and town Be heartily weary of BALFOUR & CO., My JOSEPH, hark back to the Radical frown, Let us be what we were, long ago, long ago!" "Bless me," I cried, "how beautiful! I didn't know that, among your many accomplishments, you were given to dropping into poetry." "Tut, tut!" said the SAGE, blushing, "it isn't all my own; written years ago by MACKWORTH PRAED, about JOHN CAM HOBHOUSE. I've only brought it up to date." _Business done_.--Eight Hours' Bill thrown out on a Division.