_Prince Bismarck._--German Security by arrangement, with the seasonable wishes of the Five Great Powers. _President Carnot._--A Ministry that will last him a fortnight with the good will of the two Chambers. _Lord Salisbury._--"A Hundred New Ways of Governing Ireland by Coercion." Christmas Edition. _Mr. O'Brien._--An Emerald-coloured Tweed suit, in which to sing by himself on Christmas Eve, "_The Wearing of the Green_." _Mr. Chamberlain._--A very pretty kettle of fish, daintily and appropriately decorated with Canadian mottoes. _Mr. Gladstone._--The Donnybrook Fair Suit, "with Shillelagh complete," as advertised, done up in a neat parcel and addressed to him with the compliments of "the Party." * * * * * A LEARNED PROTEST. RESPECTISSIME PUNCHI! Tu habes admissum, olim, Latinas litteras in tuis columnis. Memini unum TOMMIUM scribentem de Etone (istâ super-ratâ scholâ) et nunc forsitan accipies hanc contributionem antiqui Westminsterensis? Semper ego auditor tantum (JUVENALIS) quum nobilis ars Latinorum versorum est attacta? Non pro JOSEPHO! Volo nunc intrare meam protestationem contra aliqua verba Baronis BRAMWELL, alterâ die. [Illustration: _Facilis ascensus Parnassi sed revocare gradum._ "It's very easy to be a Poet, but you must have recourse to your gradus."] Baro dixit (Anglicè, quia, imagino, non noscit Latinum) ut "he never got any good from the Latin verses he was obliged to write when a boy, and if a boy is to be made a poet, he had better begin in his own language." Dixit quoque, "it may be knowledge to know the names of those who killed BECKET (_sic_), and the precise date, but it is not wisdom or useful." (Quare, viâ, "BECKET," et non "Sanctus TOMMIUS À BECKET, proprium nomen? Quid cheekum! Vel forte dicerem, quæ bucca! Vocabimusne Baronem BRAMWELL in futuro "BRAMWELL" simpliciter; vel, ut omittit "à," potius "BRAM'L"?) Quoto has Philistinas deliverationes de "Tempora," et Editor "Temporum" propriissime scribit, "We should for our part (pro nostrâ portione) venture to doubt whether some of Lord BRAMWELL'S (peto veniam, BRAM'L'S) remarkable keenness of mind is not to be accounted for by the drilling which his Latin verses gave him--by the habit of twisting and turning (habitus contorquendi et vertendi) and adjusting thoughts and phrases which that old-fashioned exercise implies." Bene! Sum ipse nunc Undergraduatus, et abandonavi Classicas linguas pro Scientiâ. Sed retineo meum Latinum--ut tu vides--et invenio id facile esse excellens in chemicis odoribus et in CICERONE simul. Cogito ut Britannicus Publicus debet noscere _quam multum bonum_ Latini versus sunt ad pueros.