ADVICE GRATIS.--DEAFNESS. (To "EXPERIMENTALIST.")--Yours seems a peculiar form of this painful complaint. We cannot understand why you should feel "as if wind were always coming from your left ear." Try blowing into the ear with the bellows three times a day. It may drive the wind back. For the "fulness, throbbing, &c.," we should advise ramming a good-sized darning-needle as far as it will go into the orifice. After that--or even before--it might be best to consult a competent medical man. * * * * * [Illustration: EARLY MISGIVINGS. _Newly-Married M.P._ "BY JOVE, TEN O'CLOCK! I _MUST_ GO DOWN TO THE HOUSE, IF ONLY TO FIND SOMEONE TO PAIR WITH." _His Wife._ "OH, DARLING, I THOUGHT YOU AND I HAD PAIRED FOR LIFE!"] * * * * * "WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK;" OR, MANOEUVRING FOR A HOLD. Ye who have read in HOMER's mighty song How sage ULYSSES, AJAX towering strong, Met at the funeral games on Trojan sands, With knotted limbs and grip of sinewy hands, To wrestle for the prize, attend, draw near, And a new tale of coming tussle hear! When great ACHILLES called them to the lists, Those men of massive thews and ponderous fists, "Scarce did the chief the vigorous strife propose, When tower-like AJAX and ULYSSES rose. Amid the ring each nervous rival stands Embracing rigid with implicit hands." Now Greek meets Greek again, but wrestling now Is not as on old Ilion's shore, I trow; Not now the olive crown, the long-wool'd sheep, Is prize; 'tis Power they strive to win and keep. By diverse dodges and by novel "chips," Subtler "approaches," and more artful "grips," The rival champions strive to lock and fell, Gallia's devices, found to answer well In wary onset and in finish slow, Old Attic swiftness, seen in hold and throw. Supplement or supplant. When AJAX stood Before ULYSSES, neither seemed in mood For long manoeuvring. To the clutch they came With sinews of snap-steel and souls of flame. "Close lock'd above, their heads and arm are mix'd; Below their planted feet at distance fix'd: Like two strong rafters, which the builder forms Proof to the wintry winds and howling storms; Their tops connected, but at wider space Fix'd on the centre stands their solid base." So in old days. Now wrestlers shift like snakes, And dodge _à la_ DUBOIS, for mightier stakes Than olive, parsley, or the champion's belt Can furnish forth. Long time hath it been felt That two superior champions, age-long foes, At last must come to a conclusive close. "Defiled with honourable dust they roll, Still breathing strife, and unsubdued of soul; Again they rage, again to combat rise,"-- For one must win; these cannot _share_ the prize. Great GLADSTONIDES--place allow to age!-- A chief of seasoned strength and generous rage, Fell, at their last encounter, to the skill Of him the swart of look, the stern of will,