TOO PARTICULAR.
Reading edition
"Look here—confound it, Isaacson! You've played me a pretty Trick with this Ancestor you sold me! Showed it to a friend yesterday, and told him it was the Portrait of my Ancestor who came over with William the First; and he said, 'What a funny thing he should have dressed himself in the style of William the Fourth!'"
"Vell that'th nothing. I jeth made a mithtake of a few yearth—Villiam the Firtht and Villiam the Fourth; only hith Great-Grandthon!"
A Contribution to the celebrated Pickwickian Examination Paper.—To Students of Pickwick.—On what (as far as this questioner is aware) solitary occasion is champagne mentioned in Pickwick? who drank a bottle of it? where was it consumed? after what exhilarating performance?—Ed.
"Ta ta'd and Feathered."—"A soft thing that waves" was the description of a feather given by a Lady Correspondent—and therefore a perfectly Fair One—in the Times last Saturday. But surely "a soft thing that waves" is evidently a lady's hand bidding somebody "Ta! ta!"
By Our Own Crammer.—In unsuccessful candidates for Army and Navy Exams. England may have lost some of her best "pluck'd" soldiers and sailors.
BRIC-À-BRAC.
(By a Gallio.)
["Poetry will degenerate into mere literary bric-à-brac, such as the composition of rondels and triolets."
—Dr. C. H. Pearson.]
Literary odds and ends Will for lays be scribbled! Pearson thus ahead portends "Litter"-ary odds and ends. Pessimist, you owe amends For this forecast ribald:— "Literary odds and ends Will for lays be scribbled!" Call you then mere bric-à-brac Triolet and rondel? All that's knocked off with a knack Call you then mere bric-à-brac?" Man of prose, you thus attack Villon, Dobson, Blondel. Call you then mere bric-à-brac Triolet and rondel?! 'Pon my word, I don't much care If you prove your thesis. Poetry's not my affair— 'Pon my word, I don't much care! My three triolets pray tear As you please, to pieces! 'Pon my word, I don't much care If they prove your thesis!
The recent illuminations in Paris, it is said, were a very costly matter. Naturally, as an "affaire de LUX(E)."