Volume 101 — TOLD IN TAGS.

We have recently been favoured by a communication from a firm of Publishers, which informs us that, in a story sent for review, "by an oversight of the binder," the Epilogue was omitted, and inclosing that interesting document. We have perused the four pages with so much pleasure, that we suggest that, instead of writing the whole story, novelists, in future, should only publish the final chapter, which might be beneficially compressed into a few lines. As a lead, we print a few conclusions, to serve as models:—

Specimen of a Happy Ending.—And so there was nothing more to do but to get married, and consequently EDWIN led no happier bride to the altar than his much persecuted and greatly tried ANGELINA. So the bells of Tinkleton rang out their merriest chimes as the sun went down on the stately towers of Castle Sympleton.

Specimen of an Unhappy Ending.—So, at peace with all the world, still holding the hand she loved so well, and smiling a smile that brought tears into the eyes of the good old Colonial Bishop, FLORA faded away into the Golden Dream she knew so well!

Specimen of a Mysterious Ending.—And so HUGH, carrying a lamp in his right hand, and grasping the blade of his sword in his left, entered the cave of which he had heard so much. Will he ever return? Who can tell?

Specimen of a Comic Ending.—"So it was you, after all!" cried the Cheesemonger, with a shout of laughter.

EGERTON SWELLINGTON smiled an assent.

"Then all I can say," continued the worthy trader, "is, that a miss is as good as a mile."

And, for once in his life, Mr. DOUBLECHIN was absolutely right!

Specimen of the Poetical Ending.—So with the blue-bells sighing soft music, and the stars chanting their soothing lullaby, the sweet soul of MARIA realised the truth that—

Specimen of the Shocker's Ending.—And with a gasp and a reel, Sir RALPH fell back, back, back, down the precipice, and an hour later was found by the patrolling coast-guardsman a quivering mass of senseless humanity!

Specimen of the Christmas Ending.—And so, linked hand in hand, father and mother, son and daughter, husband and wife, nephew and niece, bowed their heads beneath the holly and mistletoe, and wished one another, with a heartiness that told volumes, "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

QUERIES FOR CAMBRIDGE EXAM. PAPER.—

1. If the Vice-Chancellor's authority to punish immorality within the bounds of the University town of Cambridge is to be done away with, will he still retain the then quite superfluous title of Vice-Chancellor?

2. On the abolition of "The Spinning-House," as plucked candidates are often spoken of as men who were "spun" for such-and-such an examination, might not the Senate-House be known as "The Spinning-House"?

A FEW ONE-POUND NOTES; OR, THE QUICK-CHANGE CHANCELLOR.

BY GEORGE!

[In a recent libel action, brought against an author by an African merchant, Mr. GEORGE MEREDITH was called as a witness. He said:—

"The story in dispute passed through his hands as reader for the publishers. Asked in cross-examination if he thought that the opening of the story relating to the hero's mother did not offend against the canons of good taste, the witness answered that it was the attempt of a writer of serious mind to be humorous. It might be almost called a stereotype of that form of the element of humour. It was a failure but still passed with the public.—The Judge: A kind of elephantine humour?—The Witness: Quite so. I did not like it, but one would have to object to so much."

There the report of Mr. MEREDITH'S evidence ends. Exigencies of space apparently caused the omission of a great deal of it. Fortunately it is in our power to supply this deficiency.—ED.]

Very much En Évidence; or, George in the box.

The Judge. Quite so, Mr. MEREDITH. I may say for myself that I fully understand you. But perhaps it would be well to explain yourself a leetle more clearly for the benefit of the jury.

Mr. George Meredith. My Lord, I will put it with a convincing brevity, not indeed a dust-scattering brevity fit only for the mumbling recluse, who perchance in this grey London marching Eastward at break of naked morn, daintily protruding a pinkest foot out of compassing clouds, copiously takes inside of him doses of what is denied to his external bat-resembling vision, but with the sharp brevity of a rotifer astir in that curative compartment of a homoeopathic globule—so I, humorously purposeful in the midst, of sallow—

The Judge. One moment, Mr. MEREDITH. Have you considered—

Mr. G.M. Consideration, my Lord, is of them that sit revolving within themselves the mountainously mouse-productive problems of the overtoppingly catastrophic backward ages of empurpled brain-distorting puzzledom: for puzzles, as I have elsewhere said, come in rattle-boxes, they are actually children's toys, for what they contain, but not the less do they buzz at our understandings and insist that they break or we, and, in either case, to show a mere foolish idle rattle in hollowness. Nor have the antic bobbings—

Sir Charles Russell (cross-examining). Really, Mr. MEREDITH, I fail to follow you. Would it not be possible—

Mr. G.M. Ay, there you have it. In truth, the question looks like a paragraph in a newspaper, upon which a Leading Article sits, dutifully arousing the fat worm of sarcastic humour under the ribs of cradled citizens, with an exposure of its excellent folly. For the word. That is it. The word is Archon, with extended hand summoning the collaboratorically ordained, misbegotten brood of shock-shilling pamphlets to his regal presence—

The Judge (testily). No doubt that would be so, but it brings us no nearer to a decision upon the question of humour in the particular passage of the book which contains the alleged libel.

Sir Charles Russell. Perhaps I can shorten matters, my Lord. Now, Mr. MEREDITH, will you be kind enough to explain the following passage from a book with which you may perhaps be acquainted. (Reads.) "This he can promise to his points. As for otherwhere than at the festive, Commerce invoked is a Goddess that will have the reek of those boards to fill her nostrils, and poet and alderman alike may be dedicate to the sublime, she leads them, after two sniffs of an idea concerning her, for the dive into the turtle-tureen. Heels up they go, poet first—a plummet he!" Is that humorous, or, if not, what is it?

Mr. G.M. Elephantine, I think; yet not elephantine altogether, since of them that crash amid jungle of atrophied semi-consciousness, strivingly set upon an overtopping mastery—

Sir Charles Russell (interrupting). Thank you. The passage is from One of our Conquerors. Here is another:—"Reverting to the father and mother, his idea of a positive injury, that was not without its congratulations, sank him down among his disordered deeper sentiments, which were a diver's wreck, where an armoured livid subtermarine, a monstrous puff-ball of man, wandered seriously light in heaviness; trebling his hundredweights to keep him from dancing like a bladder-block of elastic lumber." And while you are about it, pray inform the Court what you mean by "the vulgarest of our gobble-gobbets," or by "a trebly cataphractic Invisible."

Mr. G.M. Truly, the louder members of the grey public are fraternally instant to spurn at the whip of that which they do not immediately comprehend. But to me, plunged chokingly in translucent profundities of aquamarine splendour, not of a truth that in the heights above splendour resides not, chidingly offering a fat whiskerless cheek to the blows of circumstance, this was ever the problem of problems. How to write. How not to write. This way and that the raging fates tug the hapless reader, pillowed he upon the vast brown bosom of his maternal earth, or lurefully beckoning the dim shadow-shapes of dodecahedronic cataplasmatic centipede fatally conditioned to the everlasting pyramid of a star-pointing necessity. So—

The Judge (with determination). Mr. MEREDITH, the Court is sincerely obliged to you for your extremely valuable evidence. We are unwilling to detain you any longer. Besides, after what you have said, the point is as clear as daylight. Good morning, Mr. MEREDITH, good morning. You may become a trebly cataphractic Invisible.