Ah, cherubic little curate, in your surplice spick and span,
Who has struck that happy medium 'twixt an angel and a man,
Would it bore you much to tell me how you managed to attain
To that turret of perfection which in time I hope to gain?
For I see you in the pulpit, and I dote upon your word,
And I listen to such eloquence as rarely I have heard;
But at times there comes a whisper, like the flutter on the wind,
Were you always, little curate, such a pattern of your kind?
When a schoolboy, young and noisy, did you never tell a fib,
Or use a KELLY'S literal "key" (ah, call it not a crib!)?
Did you never, at a season when your age was hardly ripe,
Encircle with your rosy lips a surreptitious pipe?
And when you went to Cambridge was your 'Varsity career
As spotless as your surplice, and as uniformly clear
From a vestige of a blemish? Oh, you _properest_ of men,
Were you never, never proctored--were you _always_ in at ten?
* * * * *
THE NEW LORD MAYOR ELECT.--A congratulatory chorus to the New Lord Mayor
elect, Sir WALTER WILKIN, should be at once written, composed, and
rehearsed in order to be sung on November 9, to the accompaniment of the
"trained bands." The words may be selected from SHAKSPEARE and MILTON;
the solos, consisting of a verse apiece, may
"Amaze the Wilkin with their broken staves."
While some military poet could be fitly employed to celebrate the
glorious deeds of the New Lord Mayor, Sir WALTER WILKIN, Wictorious
Wolunteer, telling how
"With feats o arms
From either end of London the Wilkin burns!"
* * * * *
Pardonable Error in Orthography.
DEAR SIR CRŒSUS,--Mamma begs me to tell you that EMILY is to be married
on the 20th at Hanover Square, and hopes she may count on your presents.
Yours truly, JEMIMA SMITH.
_To_ Sir CRŒSUS DIVES, Bart., _Goldacre, Mintshire_.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "GOOD DOG!"