[Dr. FURNIVALL announces that the Browning Society is about to
be dissolved.]
Hark! 'tis the knell of the Browning Society,
Wind-bags are bursting all round us to-day;
FURNIVALL fails, and for want of his diet he
Pines like a love-stricken maiden away.
Long has he fed upon cackle and platitude,
FURNIVALL sauce to a dish full of dearth,
Still, in the favourite FURNIVALL attitude,
Grubbing about like a mole in the earth.
Now must he vanish, the mole-hills are flat again,
(Follies grow fewer it seems by degrees);
Lovers of BROWNING may laugh and grow fat again,
Rid of the jargon of Furnivallese.
* * * * *
NEW AND OLD TERMS.--"Slate, Slite, Slote, Slitten," is the title of
an amusing article in the _Saturday Review_, on the derivation of the
verb "to slate." How "slote" comes in is not quite evident, but that
when the pages of a dull book are "slitten" by the paper-knife, it
will be read and slated by a critic, and then "slited" (or "slighted")
by the public, is quite sufficient without "putting a penny in the
'slote'" on the chance of getting something better.
* * * * *
SO LIKE HIM!--Tuesday last week was the seventieth birthday of
Professor VIRCHOW. He has refused all titles and emoluments, observing
that "VIRCHOW is its own reward."
* * * * *
VERY POP-ULAR!--Through the _Times_ came the information that, since
the famine, the Russian Officers have given up drinking champagne.
Their conduct is really quite Magnuminous!
* * * * *
[Illustration: "GRANDOLPH AD LEONES."]
* * * * *
"ADSCRIPTUS GLEBÆ."
["He (Mr. GOSCHEN) was in favour of giving the agricultural
labourer every opportunity of becoming more attached to the
soil."--_Mr. Goschen at Cambridge_.]
Attached to the soil! Pretty optimist phrase
We are so, and have been, from _Gurth's_ simpler days,
Though now platform flowers of speech--pleasant joke!--
May wreath the serf's ring till men scarce see the yoke.
Attached to the soil! The soil clings to our souls!
Young labour's scant guerdon, cold charity's doles,
The crow-scarer's pittance, the poor-house's aid
All smell of it! Tramping with boots thickly clayed
From brown field or furrow, or lowered at last
In our special six-feet by the sexton up-cast,
We smack of the earth, till we earthy have grown,
Like the mound that Death gives us--best friend--for our own.
We tramp it, we delve it, we plough it, this soil,
And a grave is the final reward of our toil.
Attached? The attachment of love is one thing,
The attachment of profit another. _Gurth's_ ring
Is _our_ form of attachment at bottom, Sir, still,
And to favour _that_ bond HODGE doubts not your good will.
But when others talk of improving our lot
By possession of more than a burial plot,
By pay for our toil, and by balm for our troubles,
You ban all such prospects as "radiant bubbles."
Declare "under-currents of plunder" run through
All plans for our aid save those favoured by you,
Attached to the soil! Ah! how many approve
_That_ attachment, when founded on labour and love!
But about "confiscation" they chatter and fuss
At all talk of attaching the soil to poor us!
* * * * *