rnished metal, on which is inscribed, "_Hostellerie des Vieux Plats,
Souvenir d'Aubourg_," which _truelle_, if not large, "yet will serve"
to help fish, or _pommes soufflees_, or _pommes Anna_, and, mark ye,
my masters, will also serve to recall to my memory a right merrie,
even tho' 'twere an all too short, holiday.

* * * * *

[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S PARLIAMENTARY ARTIST FAILS TO ESCAPE FROM
HIS MODELS.]

* * * * *

PICTURESQUE LONDON; OR, SKY-SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

(_AN EXTRACT FROM THE "TRIVIA" OF THE FUTURE._)

"But when the swinging signs your ears offend,
With creaking noise."
GAY's _Trivia; or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London_.

Offend our _ears_? Pedestrian Muse of GAY,
Had you foreseen the London of to-day,
How had you shuddered with ashamed surprise
At "swinging signs" which now offend our _eyes_!
Long have Advertisement's obtrusive arts
Pervaded our huge maze of malls and marts;
But now the "swinging signs" of ogre Trade,
Even the smoke-veiled vault of heaven invade,
And sprawling legends of the tasteless crew
Soar to the clouds and spread across the blue.
See--if you can--where Paul's colossal dome
Rises o'er realms that dwarf Imperial Rome.
Cooped, cramped, half hid, the glorious work of WREN
Lent grandeur once to huckstering haunts of men,
Though on its splendour Shopdom's rule impinged,
And plaster, had they power, kind heaven's clear vault
With vulgar vaunts of Sausages or Salt.
Picture the proud and spacious city given
Wholly to Shopdom's hands! 'Twixt earth and heaven
Forests of tall and spindly poles arise,
With swinging signs that almost hide the skies.
Huge letterings hang disfiguring all the blue
To vaunt the grace of SNOBKINS's high-heel'd Shoe.
A pair of gloves soar to a monstrous height,
Long have its letterings large, its pictures vile,
Possessed the mammoth city mile on mile;
Made horrors of its hoardings, and its walls
Disfigured from the Abbey to St. Paul's,
And far beyond where'er a vacant space
Allowed Boeotian Commerce to displace
Scant Urban Beauty from its last frail hold,
On a Metropolis given up to Gold.
But till of late our sky at least was clear
(Such sky as coal-reek leaves the civic year)
If not of smoke at least of flaming lies,
And florid vaunts of quacks who advertise.
Not these sky-horrors, hu