l know why.
And if you'll consent just to vote for _us_ now,
We'll put a new tune to your old 'Speed the Plough!'"
Singing dumbledumdeary, &c.

Then HODGE, slightly puzzled, beheld (in his dream)
A legion of faces that flowed with the stream.
"There's two WILLIAMS, and JOEY, and JESSE!" he cried,
"SOLLY, BALFY, and JOKIM talk, too, from the tide,--"
Singing dumbledumdeary, &c.

"They're making a vast sight o' noise, and I fear,
Whilst they all shout together, their _meaning's_ scarce clear.
They all drift one way, though, out yonder I'll sit!
And wait till the shindying slackens a bit."
Singing dumbledumdeary, &c.

So HODGE, like old HORACE's Rustic, still waits
Till the waters flow by, or their turmoil abates;
And then hopes to reach "Happy Home" o'er that stream.
Let _us_ hope that he mayn't find it _only_ a dream!
Singing dumbledumdeary, dumbledumdeary,
Dumble, dumble, dumbledumdee!

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE TRIALS OF AN ANXIOUS "JUNIOR."

PROMPTING A DEAF AND TESTY "CHIEF" IN OPEN COURT IS NOT HIS IDEA OF
PERFECT BLISS.]

* * * * *

"DICK" POWER.

When the House of Commons meets in February, it will find many vacant
places. Save, perhaps, on that sacred to the memory of OLD MORALITY,
none will draw towards it such sorrowful glances as the bench below
the Gangway, where, last Session, DICK POWER's smiling face was
found. Everyone in the House knew "DICK," and all liked him--a
modest-mannered, merry-hearted man, whom a strange destiny had not
only dragged into political life, but, as Whip of the Parnellite
Party, had made him the official representative of a body for the most
part socially unknown, and disliked with a fervour happily not often
imported into Parliamentary warfare. DICK POWER, whilst never swerving
by a hair's breadth from loyalty to his colleagues and his leader,
so bore himself that he was welcome in any Parliamentary circle, from
"GOSSET's Room" to the floor of the House, which he sometimes "took"
to deliver a witty speech in support of a Motion for adjourning
over the Derby. He was only in his fortieth year, married scarce a
fortnight, when comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears and
slits the thin-spun thread. "LYCIDAS is dead!"; but he will long be
remembered as shedding through seventeen years a genial light on
Irish politics, too often obscured by agg