to accept the stage-direction of the next European War with those nations bound together in the Treaty of the Triple Alliance.  Further—­DRURIOLANUS maximus is considering the transport to London of the North Pole, laying the Zoological Gardens under contribution for a service of bears to climb it.  Sir DRURIOLANUS mustn’t overdo it.  He holds a handful of cards, but he is so good a prestidigitateur that he is pretty sure to transform them into trumps.  Likewise Sir DRURIO knows how to perform on the Trump of Fame.

* * * * *

Toast—­We beg to propose the health of the liberal-minded purchaser of the Althorp Library, who intends to keep the books in a building open to all readers, adapting the toastmaster’s phrase for the occasion, and giving, “Our Noble Shelves!”

* * * * *

Lays of modern home.

No. 4.—­CHLOE’S appropriation claws.

[Illustration]

  A ye who bless the wedded state
    With tributes born of generous blindness,
  Bemourn the fate that well may wait
          Your gifted kindness.

  My CHLOE’s ultra-modern mind
  Transforms your Dresden’s grace and Chelsea’s,
  The toys for special use designed,
          To something else’s.

  For Chloe reads each weekly print,
    Where Art’s resource is blent with Scandal’s,
  Where decorative females hint
          Their cure for Vandals.

  Your large, expensive Wedgwood bowls,
    She bids her “Lor!"-exclaiming waitress
  To cram with large, expensive coals,
          The pretty traitress!

  On daintiest overmantel’s ledge
    She sets enshrined your prosy platter;
  Your salt-cellars she stocks with veg-
          etable matter.

  And when the Summer comes (if hail
    For once not hails the sunny swallows)
  Our fenders hold your statues pale
          Of chipped Apollos.

  With out-of-fashion toilet sets,
    Their sprigs of ringstands, bits of boxes,
  She picturesques her cabinet’s
          Quaint heterodoxies.

  My blue tobacco-jar she’ll hoard
    For party-nights, and on the basket
  Whereon my manuscripts are stored
          Will throne—­a casket!

  “Ingenious” Chloe, sure, opines
    Is Genius’ proper derivation;
  “Appropriate” with her defines
          Appropriation.

  Poor STREPHON, fond, bewildered wight! 
    He doubts, amazed by changes showy,
  If CHLOE’s own be STREPHON quite,
          Or STREPHON’s, Chloe!

* * * * *

Birds of A feather.

    ["He (Mr. Gladstone) has not as yet even secured the spoil,
    but the Vultures are already gathered together.”—­Mr.
    Chamberlain at Birmingham.]