Volume 25 — THE WAITS TO THE CZAR.
Reading edition
Word of Peace!—on Earth first spoken nigh two thousand years ago, Art thou at this moment broken?—and who dares belie thee so? 'Tis a tyrant, cruel, scheming, whose ambition takes the field In the very name, blaspheming, which that message then revealed. Frost and snow, keen Christmas weather, and the biting winter wind, Bid us lovingly together huddle closely, all mankind; Blood is on the Danube freezing; wounds are agonized with cold, Only for the sake of pleasing one proud felon uncontrolled. All good souls are now beseeching blessings on their fellow man, But one savage, overreaching, brutal despot, thousands ban. On the field of battle lying, torn and mangled for his whim, Hear we not the tortured dying call down curses upon him? Nations now like kindly neighbours should, as round the Yule log, close. Must we take to guns and sabres? Will the tyrant make us foes? Hear the wounded writhing under Cossack hoofs and lances then, Gracious Heaven! and may the thunder of our cannon roar Amen!
Originality.
Originality (says Goethe) provokes originality; and we must say, that at Billingsgate, and in the House of Commons, the provocation sometimes is exceedingly strong. The smallest provocation we know of the kind is in the British drama; in fact so small is it, that we doubt if it amounts to any provocation at all. We only wish some one would provoke somebody else to write an original play, by writing one first himself.
The Golden Age of Life.—Youth is the season for active exertion; and all those who emigrate to the Diggings ought to be Minors.
RURAL SIMPLICITY.
Legal Gentleman. "Hm! not a bad glass of Port for a country inn."
Boots. "Noa, zur, I thinks they meakes thur own Wine here. I knaw they Bree-ews."
IN A VERY BAD WAY.
"Why, you seem quite wretched, Frank!"
"Wetched, my Boy! Ah, you may imagine how wetched I am, when I tell you I don't even care how my Twowsers are Made!"