Oh, limp and leathery type of Social Sham,
      And Legislative Flam! 
  Which cunning CUNNINGHAME and MATTHEWS cool
      (Both prompt to play the fool,
  In free-lance fashion or official form)
      Prattled of, ’midst a storm
  Of crackling laughter, and ironic cheers,
      And sniggering, “Hear, hears!”—­
  Thou summest well the humbug of our lives. 
      The fistic “bunch of fives”
  Is not like JULIA’s jewelled “palm of milk”
      Shrouded in kid or silk,
  But JULIA was a sensuous little “sell,”
      And SMITH and PRITCHARD—­well,
  One would not like a clump upon the head
      From the teak-noddled “TED,”
  Or e’en a straight sockdollager from “JEM;”
      But somehow “bhoys” like them,
  Who mill three rounds to an uproarious “house,”
      And only nap “a mouse,”
  Though one before the end of the third bout
      Is clean “knocked out,”—­
  Such burly, brawny buffetters for hire,
      Who in ten minutes tire,
  And clutch the ropes, and turn a Titan back
      To shun the impending thwack,—­
  Such “Champions” smack as much of trick and pelf
      As venal JULIA’s self. 
  GRAHAM may be a “specialist,” no doubt,
      And “What is a knock-out?”
  May mystify ingenuous MATTHEWS much;
      But Truth’s Ithuriel touch
  Applied to pulpy “JEM” and steely “TED,”
      (Of “slightly swollen” head)
  As well as unsophisticated COBB,
      (If Truth were “on the job,”)
  Might find False Show and Pharisaic “Stodge,”
      And Law-evading dodge,
  Dissimulating “Innocence,” sham bravery,
      Blind Justice, lynx-eyed knavery,
  All the material the Satirist loves,
      In those same “four-ounce gloves”!

* * * * *

OMITTED FROM PORTRAIT GALLERY

AT THE ROYAL NAVAL EXHIBITION.

Portrait of William Hatley, Black-Eye’d Susan, and Captain Crosstree, R.N.

Portrait of Tom Bowline.  Also a picture of Davy Jones, to be presented by Mr. Frederick Locker.

A Horse Marine, A.D. 1815.

Portrait of William Taylor, as a gay young fellow.  Also his affianced bride, as “William Carr,” after she had “dabbled her lily-white hands in the nasty pitch and tar.”

Picture of somebody, name unknown, inquiring of Benjamin Bolt whether or no he happened to remember “Sweet Alice, sweet Alice with hair so brown, who wept with delight when you (B.B.) gave her a smile, and trembled with fear at your (B.B.’s) frown?” The portrait also of the aforesaid Alice, evidently rather a weak-minded young person.

Also pictures of “Pol” and “Partner Joe;” and a likeness of “Black Brandon,” very rare, in “penny plain” form, or “twopence coloured.”

* * * * *

WITH THE B.M.A.  AT BOURNEMOUTH.