'

Just like SEXTON."

_Business done_.--One Clause added to Land Bill.

* * * * *

"GREY APES OF AGE."

"Grey hair is fashionable for the youthful,"
Says a Mode oracle acknowledged truthful.
Strange that Society should have a rage
For that anomaly--artificial Age!
Dust on their heads our pretty women toss,
Just to deprive it of its pristine gloss.
Make ashen-white your eyebrows, there, and lashes,
Precocious hags! The world's but dust and ashes.
Wrinkles and crowsfeet next must have their turn
(To limn them in let toilette artists learn),
Then make each _belle_ bald, scraggy-necked and toothless,
Grey hair alone won't make Society youthless.
Let _belles_ turn beldams if they find it jolly.
But they might be consistent in their folly!

* * * * *

MUSICAL, THEATRICAL, AND JUDICIAL.--The _Daily Telegraph_, quoting
from the _Middlesex County Times_, last Saturday, stated that, "_The_
LORD CHANCELLOR had added the name of Mr. W.S. GILBERT, _Poet
and Dramatist, to the Commission of the Peace for the County
of Middlesex._" So is it said that another "W.S.," one WILLIAM
SHAKSPEARE--who, by the way, also had a GILBERT in the family--was, in
his latter years, made a J.P." Mr. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE GILBERT--if he
will kindly allow us so to style him, as uniting the qualities of poet
and dramatist--should receive a special and peculiar title. Let him,
then, be henceforth known as "The Poetic Justice of the Piece."

* * * * *

THE "HIRED PRIEST."

[Mr. GLADSTONE says, "If the priest is to live, he must beg,
earn, or steal."]

Now, here's a needy Vicar; who will hire him? He can preach,
Can confute a boat of infidels and crush them with a text.
If a Sunday school is started, he's the very man to teach,
If you snub him he may hate it, but he'll never show he's vexed.
He can spend his days in visiting the alleys and the slums,
And support his own existence, and his family's, on crumbs.

Come, come, Sir, you are generous. What! eighty pounds a year?
It's a fortune for a Vicar; I am sure he won't refuse.
Why it's sixteen hundred shillings, he will take it, never fear;
For though priests are scarcely beggars, yet they can't afford to choose.
He hasn't got a single vice; I'll guarantee him sound,
And he'll make a crown go farther than an ordinary pound.

And h