To-day our birthday poets are limited--not in numbers, for the publishers of cards are inundated with verses--but in those of merit. One firm, indeed, during the last twelve or thirteen years has received no fewer than 150,000 compositions, of which number only some 5,600 have been found usable; not a very great number, when it is remembered that something between ten and twelve millions of cards pass between well-wishers in this country alone every year, and that a similar quantity are exported to the United States, India, China, and the Colonies. From five shillings to two or three guineas represents the market value of a birthday poem, and the shorter such expressions are, the greater is their value. But eminent writers of course obtain much more. Lord Tennyson was once asked to pen a dozen birthday poems of eight lines each. A thousand guineas were offered for the stanzas--but, alas for birthday literature, the great poet declined to write verse on order, even at the rate of ten guineas a line. The Bishops, too, have been approached on the subject, for verses of a religious tendency are more sought after than any others; those of the late Frances Ridley Havergal are an instance. But the worthy bishops frankly admitted that the gift of poetry had not been allotted to them. The late Bishop of Worcester said: "I have not poetical talent enough to write short poems." Dr. King, Bishop of Lincoln, said: "I am sorry, but I am not a poet." The Bishops of Manchester and Liverpool also honestly confessed to being no poets, whilst Dr. Temple, Bishop of London, said: "I am afraid I should make a great mistake if at my age I began to write short poems;" generously adding, "the Bishop of Exeter is a genuine poet." [Illustration: MISS HELEN MARION BURNSIDE.] Perhaps the most popular writer to-day is the lady whose initials--H. M. B.--have been appended to many millions of cards--Miss Helen Marion Burnside, of whom we give a portrait. Miss Burnside was born at Bromley Hall, Middlesex, in 1843, and at twelve years of age was seized with a severe attack of scarlet fever, the result of which was that she lost her hearing. A year later she commenced to write birthday poetry, and her prolific abilities will be understood, when we mention that she has written, on the average, two hundred birthday poems yearly ever since. Miss Burnside, too, is clever with her brush, and before she was nineteen years of age the Royal Academy accepted one of her pictures of fruit and flowers, and, later, a couple of portraits in crayons. We now turn to the designs for birthday cards--for though the motto is the principal consideration, a pretty and fanciful surrounding is by no means to be despised.