"THE KEY-BOARD."_)

Five-and-thirty black slaves,
Half-a-hundred white.
All their duty but to make
Shindy day and night,
Now with throats of thunder,
Now with clattering lips,
While she thumps them cruelly
With stretched finger-tips.

When she quits the chamber
All the slaves are dumb,
Dumb with rapture, till the Minx
Back shall come to strum,
Dumb the throats of thunder,
Hushed chromatic skips,
Lacking all the torturing
Of strained finger-tips.

Dusky slaves and pallid,
Ebon slaves and white,
When Minx mounts her music-stool
Neighbours fly with fright.
Ah, the bass's thunder!
Oh, the treble's trips!
Eugh, the horrid tyrannies
Of corned finger-tips!

Silent, silent, silent,
All your janglings now;
Notes false-chorded, slithering slaps,
Pedal-aided row!
Where is Minx, we wonder?
Ah! those scrambling skips!
Back she's come to torture us
With her finger-tips!

* * * * *

CHARLEMAGNE AND I.

_Aix-la-Chapelle, Monday_.--CHARLEMAGNE was doubtless well advised
in selecting this town for his residence. However that be, it is not
a matter for us to dogmatise about. I have heard a lamented friend,
suddenly and all too soon lost, say there are few things more
regrettable than the tendency of the present age to review the actions
of great men, not lost but gone before, and to pass judgment upon them
without having enjoyed the opportunity of hearing what they might have
to say in justification or palliation of the proceedings challenged.

That is true and tersely put. Still I may observe that if C. lived
at this period and had his choice, say between Aix-la-Chapelle and
Homburg or Aix-les-Bains, it is doubtful whether he would have
built his cathedral here. Unlike the two latter watering-places,
Aix-la-Chapelle has other fish to boil besides the invalids who come
hither attracted by the fame of its hot springs. It is a manufacturing
town, and has all the characteristics of one. At Homburg or
Aix-les-Bains you walk up a street, turn a corner and find yourself
among pine-trees, or in a smiling valley with a blue lake blinking
at the sun. Here the baths are in the centre of the town, and, like
a certain starling, you feel you "can't get out."

But invalids musn't be choosers, and if RUSTEM ROOSE sends you
to Aix-la-Chapelle--he's always sending somebody somewhere--to
la-Chapelle you