SHAKSPEARE AND THE WAR.

[Since the entry of the United States all the English-speaking peoples are in alliance for freedom.]

  I think our SHAKSPEARE, gone this many a year
    To some rich haven where the poets throng
    And Ruler of Ten Cities wrought in song
  And spired with rhythmic music, high and clear,
  Still finds his England something close and dear,
    Rejoicing when her justice baffles wrong
    And willing her to wrestle and be strong. 
  I think he bides by England and is near.

  And, in the purpose of his Overlord,
    His weaving spirit, still in cloudless youth
  With minstrelsy made perfect, throws a cord
    That rings the continents in its magic reach
    To gather all who share his English speech
  In one firm warrior bond of troth and truth.

* * * * *

“LET LAWS AND LEARNING...”

“I should add that Viscount Harberton sees a chance for his own order in the circumstance that, while the poor man’s child is driven to school by the inspector, the rich man can ’boot the spy out,’ and so confer on his children the priceless boon of complete illiteracy.  Shall we live to see a House of Lords that makes its mark?”—­Observer.

Some of them, we believe, are under the impression that they have done so already.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Unless you can share with me the sad immunity of the forties, I must despair of translating for you the emotion raised in my antique soul by the wrapper of a new RIDER HAGGARD story bearing the picture of a Zulu and the discovery inside that Quatermain is come again!  The tale that has so excited me is called, a little ominously, Finished (WARD, LOCK), and I could have better loved a cheerier title.  The matter is, to begin with, an affair of a shady doctor, of I.D.B. and an abduction; none of it, I admit, any too absorbing.  But about halfway through the author, as though sharing my own views upon this part of the plot, exchanges (so to speak) the Shady for the Black, and transports us all to Zululand.  And if you need reminding of what H.R.H. can do with that delectable country, I can only say I am sorry for you.  Incidentally there are some stirring scenes from certain pages of history that the glare of these later days has rather faded—­Isandhlwana and Rorke’s Drift among them; as well as the human drama of the feud between CETEWAYO (terror of my nursery!) and the witch-doctor Zikali.  Whether the old careless rapture is altogether recovered is another matter; at least the jolly unpronounceable names are still there, and the picturesque speech.  Most of the names, that is; Allan of course, and others, but I for one should have welcomed rare Umslopogaas—­or however he is rightly spelt—­and Curtis, for personal reasons my favourite of the gallant company that have so often kept secret rendezvous with me behind the unlifted lid of a desk at preparation time.  And now have we really come at long last to Finished?  I can only hope that Sir H. RIDER HAGGARD doesn’t mean it.