I must soon to the city his,
    And trudge to some horrid store,
  A smart new tile to buy,
    With a heart exceedingly sore,
  For I cast off a long-tried friend,
                         A close friend,—­
  I’m ashamed of a trusty old friend.

  Ah, let me remember with tears
    The day thou wast first my own,
  When I settled thee over my ears,
    Then with soap-locks overgrown. 
  “Hurra for a beaver hat,
                         A sleek hat! 
  A cheer for a sleek beaver hat!”

  That day is in memory green
    Among those that were all of that hue;
  Sweet days of my youth!  Ah!  I’ve seen
    But too many since that were blue. 
  How smooth was our front, my hat,
                         My first hat! 
  Unbent were our brows, my first hat!

  The first dent,—­what a sorrow it was! 
    Were it only my skull instead! 
  Indignant I think on the cause,
    And pommel my stupid head. 
  I was new to the care of a hat,
                         A tall hat,—­
  Unworthy to wear a tall hat.

  The omnibus portal, low-browed,
    Had ne’er grazed my humble cap,
  But it knocked off my beaver so proud,
    Which into a puddle fell slap. 
  Alas for my dignified hat,
                         My proud hat! 
  Woe to my lofty-crowned hat!

  It survived, but it had a weak side,
    And so had its wearer, perchance,
  Since I left it on stairs to abide,
    At a house where I went to a dance. 
  A lady ran into my hat,
                         My poor hat! 
  She demolished my invalid hat!

INNOCENT SURPRISES.

I am somewhat inclined to the opinion, that, if positive legislation could be brought to bear upon this subject, making it a criminal offence for one person deliberately to concoct and designedly to spring a surprise upon another, society would derive incalculable benefit from the act.  For the ordinary and inevitable surprises of every-day life are sufficiently frequent and startling to content even the most romantic disposition; entirely dispensing with the necessity of those artfully contrived, embarrassing little plots which one’s friends occasionally set in motion, greatly to their own diversion and the extreme discomfort of the surprised unfortunate.  For he who has ever broken his skull on a treacherous sidewalk, or received from the post a dunning missive when he expected a love-letter, or arrived one minute late at the car-station, or taken a desperately bad bill in exchange for good silver, or been caught in a thunderstorm with white pantaloons and no umbrella, knows that the unavoidable surprises of life are in themselves staggerers of quite frequent occurrence, and require not the aid of human invention.  But the surprises which we most dread are not those which naturally fall to us as part of the misfortune