claim,
Who flung against a world's time-hallow'd lies
The truth of English freedom--fain to give
Those last lone moments, careless of your pain,
Knowing that only so must England live
And win, by sacrifice, the right to reign--
Be glad, that still the spur of your bequest
Urges your heirs their threefold way along--
The way of Toil that craveth not for rest,
Clear Honour, and stark Will to punish wrong!
The seed ye sow'd God quicken'd with His Breath;
The crop hath ripen'd--lo, there is no death!

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE LINKS BEING DEVOTED TO ALLOTMENTS, MR. AND MRS.
BUNKER-BROWNE PRACTISE APPROACH SHOTS, WITH THE IDEA OF FILLING THEIR
BASKET WITH POTATOES AT THE SAME TIME.]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

_Marmaduke_ (HEINEMANN) has this peculiarity, that the title role is by
no means its most important or interesting character. Indeed it might
with more propriety have been called _Marrion_, since hers is not only
the central figure in the plot, but emphatically the one over which Mrs.
F. A. Steel has expended most care and affection. Moreover the untimely
death of _Marmaduke_ leaves _Marrion_ to carry on the story for several
chapters practically single-handed. I am bound to say, however, that at
no stage did she get much help from her colleagues, all of whom--the
gouty old father and his intriguing wife, the faithful servant, even
debonair _Marmaduke_ himself--bear a certain air of familiarity. But if
frequent usage has something lessened their vitality, _Marrion_ is a
living and credible human being, whether as daughter of a supposed
valet, adoring from afar the gay young ensign, or as the unacknowledged
wife of _Marmaduke_ and mother of his child, or later as an army nurse
amid the horrors of Crimean mismanagement. Later still, when the long
arm of coincidence (making a greater stretch than I should have expected
under Mrs. Steel's direction) brought _Marrion_ to the bedside of her
parent in a hospital tent, and converted her into a Polish princess, I
lost a little of my whole-hearted belief in her actuality. There are
really two parts to the tale--the Scotch courtship, with its intrigues,
frustrated elopements, _et hoc genus omne_; and the scenes, very
graphically written, of active service at Varna and Inkerman. I will not
pretend that the two parts are spec