The next Race meeting requiring attention takes place at Doncaster this week, and the most important race, I take it—­at least, I don’t take it—­but the winner will—­another senseless expression—­is naturally the St. Leger, for which I make a poetic selection, which has cost me weeks of anxious thought, no “leger” task!—­(French joke)—­owing to the number of horses engaged, so few of which will run!

Yours devotedly, LADY GAY.

ST. LEGER SELECTION.

  The best of the classic events of the year
    We are told by the students of “form,”
  Is a foregone conclusion, ’tis perfectly clear,
    For the noble possessor of Orme.

[Footnote 1:  This should really be Burg_ee_, but then it wouldn’t rhyme, and a Poet may drop a syllable, if he or she mayn’t drop an H!]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE WOMAN THAT WAS!

Monsieur le Marechal (who, during the Forties, was a dashing young Military Attache at, the French Embassy in London).  “AH, DUCHESS, AND DO YOU REMEMBER ZE SO BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY MARY GWENDOLEN VERE DE VERE, ZAT EVERYBODY VENT MAD ABOUT VEN I VAS IN ENGLAND?  VEN I TINK OF ’ER, MY ’EARRT BEAT EVEN NOW!”

The Duchess (nee Mary Gwendolen Vere de Vere).  “OH YES, MONSIEUR LE MARECHAL, I REMEMBER HER ONLY TOO WELL!”

M. le Marechal. “VAT ’AS BECAME OF ’ER, MADAME LA DUCHESSE?”

Her Grace (with a sigh). “ELLE N’EST PLUS!”]

* * * * *

STUDIES IN THE NEW POETRY.

NO.  V.

It may be objected that Mr. Punch’s fifth example does not strictly conform to the canons laid down by him in his prefatory remarks to No.  I. Mr. Punch neither admits nor denies the charge.  He is convinced, however, that those who do him the honour to read these Studies, might justly complain if he failed to include in them an example of the work of a Poet who has shown our generation how rusticity and rhymes, cattle and Conservative convictions, peasants and patriotism, may be combined in verse.  It is scarcely necessary to add that the author of the following magnificent piece is Mr. A-FR-D A-ST-N.  Like others who might be named, he has not the honour to be an agricultural labourer; but no living man has sung at greater length of rural life, and its simple joys.  Many of his admirers have asserted that Britain ought to have more than one Laureate, and that Mr. A-FR-D A-ST-N ought to be among the number.  Others are not prepared to go quite so far.  They have been heard to complain that cows and trees, and woodmen and farms, and sheep and wains, and hay and turnips, do not necessarily suggest the highest happiness, and that it is not always dignified for an aspiring Poet to be led about helpless through the byeways of sense by those wilful, wanton playfellows, his rhymes.  The two factions may be left to fight out their quarrel over the present example, which, by the way, is not taken from the collected edition of the Poet’s works.