ld voluntarily step down from high social
position at the bidding of a vulgar, selfish, self-seeking, and,
according to some hints dropped here and there, grossly immoral man,
should, at beck of his fat forefinger, go forth to a strange land
to live amid sordid circumstances, and with uncongenial company, to
work as a common, farm-labourer, to peddle strawberries at a railway
station, passes belief. With respect to Mr. HARRIS, one feels inclined
to quote _Betsy Prig's_ remark touching one who may, peradventure,
have been a maternal relation. "I don't believe," said _Betsy_,
"there's no sich a person." But there was, and, stranger still,
there was a LAURENCE OLIPHANT to bend the knee to him. Not the least
striking thing in a book of rare value is the manner in which Mrs.
OLIPHANT has acquitted herself in a peculiarly difficult task. No man
would have had the restraining patience necessary to deal with the
HARRIS episodes as she has done.

The Assistant Reader has been refreshing himself with _Lapsus Calami_,
by J.K.S., published by MACMILLAN and BOWES. It is a booklet of light
verse, containing here and there some remarkably brilliant pieces
of satire and parody. The first of two parodies of ROBERT BROWNING
is unsurpassable for successful audacity. The last poem in the book
is "An Election Address," written for, but apparently not used by,
the present POSTMASTER-GENERAL, when he was Candidate for Cambridge
University, in 1882. He says of himself, after confessing to a dislike
for literature and science,--

"But I have fostered, guided, planned
Commercial enterprise; in me
Some ten or twelve directors, and
Six worthy chairmen you may see."

All the pieces are not so good as those cited--that would be too much
to expect--but "get it," say

BARON DE BOOK-WORMS & Co.

* * * * *

MORTUARY.

ANDREW LANGUAGE--no, LANG!--who the classics is pat in,
Suggests to our writers, as test of their "style,"
Just to turn their equivocal prose into Latin,
As DRYDEN did. Truly the plan makes one smile!
Reviewers find Novelists' nonsense much weary 'em.
Writers of twaddle
Take DRYDEN a model--
Turn your books into some great "_dead_ language"--and _bury_ 'em!

* * * * *

WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN TOLD DOWN EAST;

_OR, A MAUVAIS JEW D'ESPRIT._

Will you, if you please, point out to me the way to the streets which,
I am told, are pave