If Dr. Johnson were alive to pronounce sentence, we know what would become of the burlesque writers: they would swing every man Jack—or shall we say Joe?—of them. It is to be laid to their charge that they have familiarized the educated public with the use of slang. Slang words and phrases are now of frequent occurrence in our literature. We meet with them not alone in a low class of publications, but in the leading articles of newspapers, in the orations of senators, and even in books of a solid and standard character. If these burlesques have done us this amount of harm, and have done us no other good than to excite the “loud laugh” indiscriminately at the expense of things worthy and unworthy, what shall we say of them? May we not sigh for those palmy days of the drama which are past and gone? Nevertheless, we can have no sympathy with those who complain that these burlesques have elbowed the legitimate drama off the stage. The true legitimacy of the drama may well be questioned, when it cannot maintain its claims against this bastard pretender. We have seen (on rare occasions) that good sterling plays will always draw the public; and if, in default of these, the public prefer comparatively harmless puns and parodies to the pollution of translations from the French, perhaps it may be allowed that, of the two evils, they choose the least. FOOTNOTES [2] _History of University of Edinburgh._ When thou Sleepest. When thou sleepest, lulled in night, Art thou lost in vacancy? Does no silent inward light, Softly breaking, fall on thee? Does no dream on quiet wing Float a moment mid that ray, Touch some answering mental string, Wake a note, and pass away? When thou watchest, as the hours Mute and blind are speeding on, O’er that rayless path, where lowers Muffled midnight, black and lone; Comes there nothing hovering near, Thought or half reality, Whispering marvels in thine ear, Every word a mystery, Chanting low an ancient lay, Every plaintive note a spell, Clearing memory’s clouds away, Showing scenes thy heart loves well? Songs forgot, in childhood sung, Airs in youth beloved and known, Whispered by that airy tongue, Once again are made thine own. Be it dream in haunted sleep, Be it thought in vigil lone, Drink’st thou not a rapture deep From the feeling, ’tis thine own? All thine own; thou need’st not tell What bright form thy slumber blest;— All thine own; remember well Night and shade were round thy rest. Nothing looked upon thy bed, Save the lonely watch-light’s gleam; Not a whisper, not a tread Scared thy spirit’s glorious dream. Sometimes, when the midnight gale Breathed a moan and then was still, Seemed the spell of thought to fail, Checked by one ecstatic thrill;