the Universe.  But the family I have been best acquainted with, since the removal from this trying sphere of a Chinese circle at Brentford, reside in the densest part of Bethnal Green.  Their abstraction from the objects among which they live, or rather their conviction that those objects have all come into existence in express subservience to fowls, has so enchanted me that I have made them the subject of many journeys at divers hours.  After careful observation of the two lords and the ten ladies of whom this family consists, I have come to the conclusion that their opinions are represented by the leading lord and leading lady:  the latter, as I judge, an aged personage, afflicted with a paucity of feathers and visibility of quill, that gives her the appearance of a bundle of office-pens.  When a railway goods van that would crush an elephant comes round the corner, tearing over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from under the horses, perfectly satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air, which may have left something to eat behind it.  They look upon old shoes, wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets, as a kind of meteoric discharge, for fowls to peck at.  Peg-tops and hoops they account, I think, as a sort of hail; shuttlecocks, as rain, or dew.  Gaslight comes quite as natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion that, in the minds of the two lords, the early public-house at the corner has superseded the sun.

DRINKING SONG
[Sidenote:  J.K.  Stephen]

  There are people, I know, to be found,
    Who say and apparently think
  That sorrow and care may be drowned
    By a timely consumption of drink.

  Does not man, these enthusiasts ask,
    Most nearly approach the divine
  When engaged in the soul-stirring task
    Of filling his body with wine?

  Have not beggars been frequently known,
    When satisfied, soaked and replete,
  To imagine their bench was a throne
    And the civilised world at their feet?

  Lord Byron has finely described
    The remarkably soothing effect
  Of liquor, profusely imbibed,
    On a soul that is shattered and wrecked.

  In short, if your body or mind
    Or your soul or your purse come to grief,
  You need only get drunk, and you’ll find,
    Complete and immediate relief.

  For myself, I have managed to do
    Without having recourse to this plan,
  So I can’t write a poem for you,
    And you’d better get some one who can.

LETTERS OF T.E.  BROWN
[Sidenote:  T.E.  Brown]

Thank you very much for the satire.  Satire is an undoubted branch of poetry; but I do not affect it much.  There is a strong, healthy, noble satire, the saeva indignatioof the Latin classics.  But, short of that, satire seems only an element of discontent and unhappiness.