✓ THE MISOGYNIST

« Il était un jeune homme d'un bien beau passé.”

WHEN first he sought our haunts, he wore

His locks in Hamlet-style;

His brow with thought was "sicklied o'er,"We rarely saw him smile;

And, e'en when none was looking on,

His air was always woe-begone.

He kept, I think, his bosom bare

To imitate Jean Paul;

His solitary topics were
Esthetics, Fate, and Soul;-
Although at times, but not for long,
He bowed his Intellect to song.

He served, he said, a Muse of Tears:

I know his verses breathed

A fine funereal air of biers,

And objects cypress-wreathed;—
Indeed, his tried acquaintance fled
An ode he named "The Sheeted Dead."

In these light moods, I call to mind,
He darkly would allude

To some dread sorrow undefined,—
Some passion unsubdued;
Then break into a ghastly laugh,
And talk of Keats his epitaph.

He railed at women's faith as Cant;
We thought him grandest when
He named them Siren-shapes that "chant
On blanching bones of Men";—
Alas, not e'en the great go free
From that insidious minstrelsy!

His lot, he oft would gravely urge,
Lay on a lone Rock where
Around Time-beaten bases surge
The Billows of Despair.

We dreamed it true. We never knew
What gentler ears he told it to.

We, bound with him in common care,
One-minded, celibate,

Resolved to Thought and Diet spare
Our lives to dedicate ;-

We, truly, in no common sense,
Deserved his closest confidence!

But soon, and yet, though soon, too late,

We, sorrowing, sighed to find

A gradual softness enervate

That all superior mind,

Until,-in full assembly met,
He dared to speak of Etiquette.

The verse that we severe had known,
Assumed a wanton air,-

A fond effeminate monotone

Of eyebrows, lips, and hair;

Not ἦθος stirred him now or νοῦς,
He read "The Angel in the House"

Nay worse.

"!

He, once sublime to chaff,

Grew ludicrously sore

If we but named a photograph

We found him simpering o'er ;
Or told how in his chambers lurked
A watch-guard intricately worked.

Then worse again. He tried to dress;
He trimmed his tragic mane;
Announced at length (to our distress)
He had not "lived in vain ";-
Thenceforth his one prevailing mood
Became a base beatitude.

And O Jean Paul, and Fate, and Soul!
We met him last, grown stout,
His throat with wedlock's triple roll,
"All wool," enwound about;

His very hat had changed its brim ;

Our course was clear,-WE BANISHED HIM!

A VIRTUOSO

BE seated, pray. "A grave appeal"?

The sufferers by the war, of course; Ah, what a sight for us who feel,

This monstrous mélodrame of Force! We, Sir, we connoisseurs, should know, On whom its heaviest burden falls; Collections shattered at a blow, Museums turned to hospitals!

"And worse," you say; "the wide distress!"

Alas, 'tis true distress exists,

Though, let me add, our worthy Press

Have no mean skill as colourists ;

Speaking of colour, next your seat

There hangs a sketch from Vernet's hand; Some Moscow fancy, incomplete,

Yet not indifferently planned;

Note specially the gray old Guard,
Who tears his tattered coat to wrap
A closer bandage round the scarred
And frozen comrade in his lap ;-

But, as regards the present war,-
Now don't you think our pride of pence
Goes may I say it ?—somewhat far
For objects of benevolence?

You hesitate. For my part, I—
Though ranking Paris next to Rome,
Esthetically-still reply

That "Charity begins at Home."
The words remind me. Did you catch
My so-named "Hunt"? The girl's a gem;
And look how those lean rascals snatch
The pile of scraps she brings to them!

"But your appeal's for home,"-you say,For home, and English poor! Indeed!

I thought Philanthropy to-day

Was blind to mere domestic need—

However sore-Yet though one grants

That home should have the foremost claims, At least these Continental wants

Assume intelligible names;

While here with us-Ah! who could hope
To verify the varied pleas,

Or from his private means to cope
With all our shrill necessities!
Impossible! One might as well

Attempt comparison of creeds;
Or fill that huge Malayan shell
With these half-dozen Indian beads.