Interesting account of JOSEF ISRAELS in the _Magazine of Art_; but his portrait makes him look gigantic, which JOSEF is in Art, but not in stature. Those who "know not JOSEF," if any such there be, will learn much about him, and desire to know more. "Baroness," says the Baron, "you are right: let Hostesses and all dinner-givers read 'Some Humours of the Cuisine' in _The Woman's World_." The parodies of the style of Mr. PATER, and of a translation of a Tolstoian Romance in _The Cornhill Magazine_, are capital. In the same number, "Farmhouse Notes" are to The Baron like the Rule of Three in the ancient rhyme to the youthful student,--"it puzzles _me_." It includes a few anecdotes of some Farm'ous Persons; so perhaps the title is a crypto-punnygraph. All Etonians should possess _The English Illustrated Magazine_ (MACMILLAN'S), 1889-90, for the sake of the series of papers and the pictures of Eton College. There is also an interesting paper on the Beefsteak Room at the Lyceum by FREDERICK HAWKINS. Delightful Beefsteak Room! What pleasant little suppers--But no matter--my supper time is past--"Too late, too late, you cannot enter here," ought to be the warning inscribed over every Club or other supper-room, addressed chiefly to those who are of the Middle Ages, as is the mediæval BARON DE BOOK-WORMS. * * * * * FASHIONS IN PHYSIC. [The President of the British Pharmaceutical Conference lately drew attention to the prevalence of fashion in medicine.] A fashion in physic, like fashions in frills: The doctors at one time are mad upon pills; And crystalline principles now have their day, Where alkaloids once held an absolute sway. The drugs of old times might be good, but it's true, We discard them in favour of those that are new. The salts and the senna have vanished, we fear, As the poet has said, like the snows of last year; And where is the mixture in boyhood we quaff'd, That was known by the ominous name of Black Draught? While Gregory's Powder has gone, we are told, To the limbo of drugs that are worn out and old. New fads and new fancies are reigning supreme, And calomel one day will be but a dream; While folks have asserted a chemist might toil Through his shelves, and find out he had no castor oil; While as to Infusions, they've long taken wings, And they'd think you quite mad for prescribing such things. The fashion to-day is a tincture so strong, That, if dosing yourself, you are sure to go wrong. What men learnt in the past they say brings them no pelf, And the well-tried old remedies rest on the shelf. But the patient may haply exclaim, "Don't be rash, Lest your new-fangled physic should settle my hash!" * * * * *