* * * * *

EPIGRAM.

  “I wonder if Brougham thinks as much as he talks,”
  Said a punster perusing a trial: 
  “I vow, since his lordship was made Baron Vaux,
  He’s been Vaux et praeterea nihil!”

* * * * *

THE TWO FATAL CHIROPEDISTS.

Our great ancestor, Joe Miller, has recorded, in his “Booke of Jestes,” an epitaph written upon an amateur corn-cutter, named Roger Horton, who,

  “Trying one day his corn to mow off,
  The razor slipp’d, and cut his toe off.”

The painful similarity of his fate with that of another corn experimentalist, has given rise to the following:—­

EPITAPH ON LORD JOHN RUSSELL, WHO EXPIRED POLITICALLY, AFTER A LINGERING ILLNESS, ON MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST 30, 1841.

          In Minto quies.

  Beneath this stone lies Johnny Russell,
  Who for his place had many a tussel. 
  Trying one day the corn to cut down,
  The motion fail’d, and he was put down. 
  The benches which he nearly grew to,
  The Opposition quickly flew to;
  The fact it was so mortifying,
  That little Johnny took to dying.

* * * * *

SHALL GREAT OLYMPUS TO A MOLEHILL STOOP?

Some difficulty has arisen as to the production of Knowles’s new play at the Haymarket Theatre.  Mr. Charles Kean and Miss Helen Faucit having objected to hear the play read, “because their respective parts had not been previously submitted to them.”—­Sunday Times.—­[We are of opinion that they were decidedly right.  One might as well expect a child to spell without learning the alphabet, as either of the above persons to understand Knowles, unless enlightened by a long course of previous instruction.]

* * * * *

THE LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.

    [From a MS. drama called the “COURT OF VICTORIA.”

Scene in Windsor Castle.

[Her Majesty discovered sitting thoughtfully at an escrutoire.—­

Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN.]

LORD CHAMBERLAIN.—­May it please your Majesty, a letter from the Duke of
Wellington.

THE QUEEN (opens the letter.)—­Oh! a person for the vacant place of
Premier—­show the bearer in, my lord. [Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN.

THE QUEEN (muses).—­Sir Robert Peel—­I have heard that name before, as connected with my family.  If I remember rightly, he held the situation of adviser to the crown in the reign of Uncle William, and was discharged for exacting a large discount on all the state receipts; yet Wellington is very much interested in his favour.

Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN, who ushers in SIR ROBERT, and then retires.  As he is going—­]