An awful army, artfully array’d,
  Boldly by battery besieg’d Belgrade;
  Cossack commanders cannonading come,
  Dealing destruction’s devastating doom,
  Every endeavour engineers essay,
  For fame, for fortune, forming furious fray. 
  Gaunt gunners grapple, giving gashes good,
  Heaves high his head heroic hardihood;
  Ibraham, Islam, Ismael, imps in ill,
  Jostle John Jarovlitz, Jem, Joe, Jack, Jill. 
  Kick kindling Kutusoff, king’s kinsmen kill;
  Labour low levels loftiest, longest lines,
  Men march ’mid moles, ’mid mounds, ’mid murd’rous mines. 
  Now nightfall’s near, now needful nature nods,
  Oppos’d, opposing, overcoming odds. 
  Poor peasants, partly purchas’d, partly press’d,
  Quite quaking, “Quarter!—­quarter!” quickly ’quest. 
  Reason returns, recalls redundant rage,
  Saves sinking soldiers, softens signiors sage. 
  Truce, Turkey, truce! truce, treach’rous Tartar train! 
  Unwise, unjust, unmerciful ukraine! 
  Vanish, vile vengeance! vanish, victory vain! 
  Wisdom wails war—­wails warring words.  What were
  Xerxes, Xantippe, Ximenes, Xavier? 
  Yet, Yassy’s youth, ye yield your youthful yest,
  Zealously, zanies, zealously, zeal’s zest.

* * * * *

  Ye learned, pray say, who dark mysteries unfold,
  Why razors cut better with hot water than cold.

Every kind of knife or razor is a fine saw, though we cannot possibly see it with the naked eye; and on all the edges of those fine polished tools there sticks a kind of resinous substance, which, when put into warm water, takes off the same, and makes the razor cut more easy and free.

* * * * *

A father had three sons, in whose company he was walking when an old enemy of his came running out of an ambush, and inflicted a severe wound upon him before any of the bystanders could interfere.  The eldest son pursued the assassin, the second bound up his father’s wound, and the third swooned away.  Which of the sons loved his father best?

* * * * *

MRS. BILLINGTON.

At a rehearsal of As You Like It, Mrs. Billington, who sustained the principal female character, called out in a very peremptory manner, “Fellow, bring me my crook.”  Mr. Simmonds, the property-man, immediately replied, “Madam, your fellow is not here.”  She felt the rebuke, and made the request more successfully in more proper language; thus by hook or by crook obtaining it.

* * * * *

Cato the Censor only repented of three things during his life—­to have gone by sea when he could go by land, to have passed a day inactive, and to have told a secret to his wife.

* * * * *

“GONE TO JERICHO.”