Part 2

_Tuesday._--Shall have a melancholy time this evening. Mrs. POGSON'S At Home, with recitations. Oh lord! Daren't offend old POGSON by refusing. It would not be so bad if there were not the five Miss POGSONS. Of all the awful, middle-aged young women----! Ha, by Jove! Never thought of it. Of course. The influenza. Telegraph at once. Deeply regret, illness, and so forth. I really have a slight pain in my back. Wonder what it is. Put on my thickest coat when I go out.

_Wednesday._--Awful joke this influenza. Shall escape old BLODGETT'S dinner to-night. Should have been bored to death. Now sixpenny telegram settles it all. The only thing is I really have a pain in my back. Reminds me of boy crying "Wolf" in the fable. Shall stay in this evening, and keep warm by the fire.

_Thursday._--Do not feel much worse, but pain still there. Shall not venture out. Can therefore, quite truthfully, excuse my absence from BOREHAM'S _matinée_. Good enough fellow, BOREHAM, but can't write a tragedy at all. So shall escape the awful infliction of his mixed imitation of IBSEN and SHELLEY. The worst of it is that, with this beastly pain in my back, I begin to think my influenza is no sham at all. Stop in all day in warm room. In the evening feel headache, as well as pain in back. Fear the worst.

_Friday._--No doubt about it. In bed. Must see the doctor. Letter from GADSBY. Wants me to go to the theatre to-night. Jolly party. Supper after at his house. Little dance to finish with. Jolly, lively fellow GADSBY. Knows lots of pretty actresses, and has all sorts of larks. Would have been good fun. And here am I in bed! Hang the influenza! But cannot risk anything. Get JONES fetched--JONES, M.D., my old chum. Tell him how I feel, and say I have the influenza. "Bosh!" says he, "you've been sitting in a draught somewhere, and got a little lumbago in your back. It's nothing. And you've stuck in a hot room till you've got a headache for want of fresh air. Get up and go out as soon as you can." Feel better already. Show him GADSBY'S letter. "The very thing," says he; "I'm going. We'll go together. With that influenza of yours, you oughtn't to go out without someone to watch the case."

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THE EASY CHAIR;

OR, MR. SPEAKER'S VALEDICTION.

["According to present arrangements the SPEAKER will deliver his valedictory address on the eve of the adjournment for the Easter recess."

_The Times_.]

AIR--"_The Cane-bottom'd Chair._"

Ah-h-h-h!!! Farewell to _the_ Chair, to the Mace, to the Bar! To tedious twaddle and purposeless jar!-- Away from the House, and its toils, and its cares, I hope to sit snug in my snuggest of chairs.

To mount that old Chair was my pride, to be sure; But--the House got ill-mannered, its air grew impure: And the sights I have seen there on many a day Were worthy a lot of young Yahoos at play.

Ah! yet that old Chamber had corners and nooks, Which seemed haunted by friendly, familiar old spooks. The GOSSETTS, O'GORMANS, and GLADSTONES! All ends! But escaping old bothers means missing old friends.

Old chums, like old china, though possibly cracked, With rickety tempers, and wits broken-backed, Old memory treasures. And when shall men see Such champions as DIZZY and W. G.?

No better divan need young ABBAS require Than this snug Easy Chair well drawn up to the fire. Off robes! Wig avaunt! Now I'm cosy!--And yet, If there's something to gladden, there's much to regret.

Why is it one clings to some genial old scamp? Why is it one sticks to a worn-out old gamp? Why is it, despite my relief, I feel drawn To that hard high-backed Chair I so long sat upon?

Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes Have I sat, yawned and ached in the tiresome old times, When faction and fog filled the House, and for me The Chamber was pitiless pur-ga-to-ree!

Now comfort and quiet will gladden my rest, And tedium no longer will torture my breast, For that finest of Seats ever padded with hair I am going to exchange for my own Easy Chair!

If Chairs had but speech it would whisper alarms To him who's next clasped in its stuffy old arms. How long there _I_ languished, and lolled in despair-- Till I wished myself wood like the rest of "the Chair!"

A decade and more since I first filled the place![A] There's many a form and there's many a face Have vanished since I donned the wig of grey hair, And sat and looked stately, at ease in that Chair.

Men say I have honoured that Chair ever since, With the poise of a judge and the mien of a prince. Perhaps! But I'm weary, and glad, I declare, To make now a change to my own Easy Chair.

When the candles burn low, and the company's gone, In the silence of night I shall sit here alone, Or with you, _Mr. Punch_, many-memoried pair, And muse on old days in that high Speaker's Chair!

Eh? What, _Mr. Punch?_ Read me last night's debate? Oho! Order! Order!! I'm drowsy, 'tis late. For Ayes and for Noes, _Punch_, no more need I care; I may take forty winks in my own Easy Chair!

[_Left taking 'em._

* Mr. ARTHUR WELLESLEY PEEL was elected Speaker at the opening of the Session of 1884, upon the retirement of Sir HENRY BRAND.

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ANCIENT CUSTOM.--"A quaint practice exists" at the Episcopal Palace, Fulham, "of waking up the domestics by means of a long pole." "Stirring them up," apparently, as the keepers do the beasts at the Zoo. _The Sun_ reminds us of the existence of "_rousing staves_" for waking sleepers in church. About Regatta time riparian dwellers are frequently disturbed in their slumbers by "rousing staves," which, however, are sung by jolly young watermen, canoeists and house-boaters.

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TO A FLIRTGIRL.

_A Poem of Platitude._

Yes, girls will be girls, and flirts will be flirts, And coquette to the end of the chapter! "There's safety in numbers," the proverb asserts, And I'm sure that no saw could he apter.

The safety, I fear, is that DICK will fight shy, When he hears that you're flirting with HARRY; And HARRY will think, when you've TOM in your eye, That you're safer to flirt with than marry!

Nay, then you don't rest till you've JACK at your feet, Till he finds that he's WILLY for rival; The odds are that both, like the rest, will retreat, And at last there'll be _no_ one's survival.

For flirting's a game that is risky to play, At least from the standpoint of wedlock; When each is afraid your affection will stray To some other, the end is a deadlock!

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THE BOOT WAR.--"In consequence of the strike," observed Mrs. R., "I am afraid a great many hardworking men will be left with boots on their hands."

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CHECK!

"We air governed too much."--_Artemus Ward._

No! The old spirit is not dead, Though long it, trance-like, slept, While Peter Putright reared his head, And venom'd vigil kept.

Their despot yearnings retrograde Our tyrants label "Progress"; In specious robes of light array'd They hide a horrid Ogress;

And many simple souls and true By guile seduced to err, Or fondly trusting something new, Fell down and worshipp'd her.

And o'er their prostrate senses roll'd A monstrous idol car, Whose priests, in frenzy uncontroll'd, Still know not where they are.

The doughtier freeman of the past With wrath such bondage sees; Who freedom won with pike and gun From nobler foes than these.

Some bygone champions' pow'r benign Our waning strength restores; They forced from kings what we'd resign To County Councillors.

The heirs of those who won our right Inherit such a soul They'd starkly fight by day and night, But quite neglect to poll.

And so, in Law and Order's day The brazen crew intrudes, And London nigh becomes the prey Of pedants, prigs, and prudes.

But lo! the slip 'twixt cup and lip Has made their glory dimmer; Down, down goes the dictatorship Of _Stiggins_ and of _Trimmer_.

And threaten'd London joys to find The Incubus o'erthrown, The gang whose mandate 'tis to mind All business but their own.

With "shoulders to the wheel" alway, The grannies in a batch Can suck such comfort as they may From eggs they must not hatch.

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A SUGGESTION FOR IMPROVING THE STAGE. --M. COQUELIN for having played truant--not an absolutely new part for him--from the House of MOLIÈRE has been condemned by the Court of Appeal to pay five hundred francs every time he performs away from the Comédie Française. This may, or may not, be hard on M. COQUELIN, an artist whose absence from the stage would be much deplored: but could not there be, in England, some Court of Public Appeal, empowered to condemn an actor or two, _not_ artists like M. COQUELIN, in similar penalties for appearing at all? Great opportunity for a new court and new procedure. Witnesses for prosecution from stalls, dress circle, gallery, pit, upper boxes. Witnesses to be heard in defence of course also; and let the best evidence win.

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A GOOD BANK NOTE.--After the recent meeting of the gentlemen who manage the affairs of The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, the Bank of England may now be considered not as a bank which may be of sand or mud, but as a rock, and as firm. The Baring Straits having been safely passed, the look-out man cries, "All's well that ends well!"

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THE HIGHLY-ROUGED LADY'S CLAIM TO LITERARY DISTINCTION.--That she is well-read.

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LETTERS FROM THE SHADES.

Have just perused report of Commission on Library Wall-flowers. Appears that enterprising book-shop, resort of fashionable world for past century, has sent round urgent whip to Representative Men of Letters (and also Mr. LE GALLIENNE) asking for short list of best neglected books. Find that answers cover fairly wide ground, from HOMER to New English Dictionary. Feeling that it might please general public to have some expression of opinion from various defunct authors described with faint praise as undeservedly neglected, and finding it inconvenient to arrange personal interview, by reason of distance and other difficulties, have sent out circular requesting that they would interview themselves on the subject and kindly let me have result. Some answered evasively through secretaries. Subj in small assortment from letters of those who responded frankly:--

HOMER OBLIGES WITH A FEW HEXAMETERS.

Lo! in the hollows of Hades I hear the lamenting of LUBBOCK, Bart., who declares that HOMERUS (or somebody else of the same name, One or the other, or both, or perhaps a collection of poets)-- LUBBOCK, I say, who declares that the sale of my poems is paltry, Says he is sorry to see me reduced to the state of a wall-flower! But as a matter of fact I have got an immense circulation, Chiefly in Oxford and Cambridge and Eton and other _palæstræ_. SOPHOCLES pushes me close, but PINDAR is out of the running, Being a bit too stiff, though the cost is defrayed by the parents. As for the rest, I consider HERODOTUS very deserving; Quaintly enough at this moment I see he is writing about me, Writing to say he considers HOMERUS exceedingly clever. Who, by the way, is a Mr. LE GALLIENNE? He, as they tell me, Prattles a lot on his private affairs for the good of the public.

HERODOTUS FORWARDS A TRIFLING BROCHURE.

To me for my part it appears that of the other poets, both those before and after, no one, as the saying is, can hold a two-penny torch to HOMERUS. He, in the language of the Far-Western people, whips cosmos. But of those that write things not to be mentioned, no Then Man dwelling in the nether world can surpass the Now Woman. So at least they that are over the book-market tell me; but them I cannot easily believe. Further, to speak of such as collect history, but, being unworthy indeed of neglect do yet escape the notice of those that appoint to office, I give the front row to Mr. OSCAR BROWNING.

SHAKSPEARE SENDS AN OCCASIONAL SONNET.

Had I survived my well-contented age And lived to see the bettering of the times, And witnessed HENRY ARTHUR on the stage, Or read the latest confidential rhymes;

Small marvel were it that my tragic art Should lapse among a race of larger build; Or that the sonnet-echoes of my heart Should fail before the booming Bodley guild.

Yet have I lovers still, a faithful few; And here I take occasion for observing How greatly I have been indebted to The Cambridge Locals and to Mr. IRVING.

_Post-script._--The Temple SHAKSPEARE for the pocket Is selling now; I know of none to knock it.

LORD VERULAM KINDLY QUOTES HIMSELF.

You shall not ask better from me than that I should distil you these two extracts from my Standard Essays, amended to date.

1. _Of Studies._--Reading, and namely of the kitchen ware of AUTOLYCUS, maketh a full man; reviewing maketh a puffy man; and my _New Organ,_ now old and strangely unpopular, maketh an harmonious man.

2. _Of Gardens._--Very delightful for sweetness is the Wallflower; likewise the Bonny Briar-Patch. But of those flowers such as the Aster and the Carnation, of which the perfume is such that they are best trodden upon and bruised, there is yet another that you shall take heed of. It is the Sweet Earl Lavender. You shall pass by a whole alley of them and find nothing of their sweetness: they are like precocious odours, most desirable when incensed or crushed.

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Sortes Shakspearianæ.

SHAKSPEARE in the Commons--

"God speed the Parliament! Who shall be the Speaker?"

_Henry the Sixth,_ Part I., Act iii., Sc. 2.

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A FORGOTTEN MELODY.--A once popular negro song that might come in as a chorus if Mr. BANNERMAN does _not_ accept the Speakership, is to the tune of "_Old Bob Ridley, O!_" and could be evidently neatly adapted to "O WHITE RIDLEY, O!"

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AWFUL REVELATIONS!

[Mr. LESLIE STEPHEN, speaking at Toynbee Hall the other day, stated that the members of the Athenæum had deserted the classics for the pages of _Punch_ and the latest French novel.]

SCENE--_The Library of a well-known Club, where are discovered a few Bishops, Judges, M.P.'s, and other persons "distinguished in literature or art."_

_Academician_ (_chuckling over_ MARCEL PRÉVOST'S _latest audacity, to_ M.P., _who is puzzling out the "Journal du prince" in_ DAUDET'S "_La Petite Paroisse_"). I say, old man, lend me your pocket dictionary for a moment, will you?

_M.P._ Certainly; only it doesn't give half the words. (_Sighs, aside._) Why didn't I learn more French at Eton! These _moeurs conjugales_ beat me every now and then at the most interesting point!

_A Professor of Metaphysics_ (_who has concealed_ J. H. ROSNY'S _"Renouveau" behind a file of the "Times," and is sitting on_ LAVEDAN'S _"Les Marionettes," to himself_). I really cannot go home till I have cleared up the relations between _Chagny_ and _Madame d'Argonne!_

_A Judge_ (_caught reading "Le Mariage de Chiffon" by a Bishop, apologetically_). Ah, I find my French gets rusty without systematic daily practice. Why, would you believe it, I found yesterday I had forgotten what _en goguettes_ meant!

_Bishop._ Ahem, I believe it is a synonym for _en ribote_, with nearly the vulgar connotation of _gris_ or _soul_--tipsy, you know! (_Hastily, to_ Waiter, _aware that he has displayed a rather too close acquaintance with Gallic slang_.) Kindly fetch me to-day's number of _Punch_.

_Waiter._ They are all engaged, my Lord.

_Bishop._ Then let me look at last week's issue again.

_Head Master of Public School_ (_dubiously_). Dare I be seen with _Madame Chrysanthème?_ (_Noticing that all the quiet corners are occupied with students of French literature._) No--another time!

_Leading Novelist._ Here's LESLIE STEPHEN been betraying us! He says, what is only too true, that we've abandoned the standard authors, including myself, for _Punch!_

_Cabinet Minister_ (_as a deus ex machinâ_). Well, _Mr. Punch_ IS a classic. To read him is a liberal education!

[_They do so, with a general sigh of relief._

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ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

_House of Commons, Monday Night, March 11._--A great cloud fallen over House to-day. Soon the stately presence that fills the Chair will step forth, never to return. The sonorous voice that can still the storm in its angriest mood will no more resound through the hushed Chamber. The best Speaker the House of Commons in its long history has known, will be merged in the mediocrity of the House of Lords. A hard succession of blows to fall on an assembly. First Mr. G., then GRANDOLPH, and now ARTHUR PEEL, three men of wholly varied type, each unique, in his way reaching the highest level.

Suppose we shall get along somehow, though for all concerned in business of House, in maintaining its usefulness and supporting its dignity, the future without PEEL in the Chair not to be regarded without foreboding. He has every quality and gift that go to make the ideal Speaker. A noble presence, a fine voice, a courtly manner, a resolute will, a full knowledge of the forms of the House, a keen though decently suppressed sense of humour--a scholar and a gentleman. These things are seen and recognised from outside. Only those who live and work in the House of Commons know how marvellous is the combination, how infinite in its magnitude the loss impending.

_Tuesday._--Talk to-night all about successor to the SPEAKER. A dozen names mentioned; general conclusion that whoever may be selected, he's not to be envied. The Member for SARK, turning up to-night for first time this Session, brings strange news. Has been on the Riviera, daily expecting influenza. Saw Mr. G. yesterday; the talk at Cap Martin, as here, all about the soon-to-be emptied Chair, and who is to fill it. SARK tells me he is quite certain Mr. G. is thinking of coming forward as candidate; is (so SARK says, and he is a most reliable person) evidently eating out his heart in voluntary retirement. Now he's got his Psalter out, doesn't know what to do next.

"I asked him," SARK says, "whether there was any precedent for an ex-Prime Minister, however young in years and untamed in energy, becoming Speaker."

"Not exactly," he said; "but there is the case of a Speaker who became Prime Minister. ADDINGTON, you will remember, Speaker in 1789, was Premier at the turn of the century. It was said of him, by the way, that he never quite overcame the force of old habits. When engaged with the Cabinet in consideration of foreign affairs he had difficulty in refraining from saying 'The French to the right, the Austrians to the left.' Don't see why the case shouldn't be taken the other way about, and an ex-Premier become Speaker. Fancy I may take it that I have some qualifications for the post. Know the House pretty intimately; have been familiar with it for some years. Am told I never looked so picturesque as when, on public occasions, I wore official gown of Chancellor of Exchequer. Think the Speaker's dress would suit me. But that a mere trifle. What I hanker after, at my time of life, at the close of a career not absolutely free from hard work, is some post not too arduous. Seems to me the Speakership would be the very thing; just enough to do, and not too much."

If it had been anyone but SARK had said this, would have listened with incredulity. But SARK most respectable man.

_Business done._--ROBERTSON in excellent speech explained Navy Estimates.

_Thursday._--The Silence of SILOMIO. No, it's not the title of a novel. You're thinking of the late Dean MAITLAND. This quite another story; equally tragic. Came about this way. House met to deal with Army Estimates. CAWMEL-BANNERMAN in his place, after ten days in his bedroom with a cold. The cold must have had most amusing companion, that is if CAWMEL was as pawky with it as he was to-night with the semi-military horde led by Private HANBURY, who swooped down and barred approach to Committee, These deployed in the open; placed their amendments on the paper. House knew what to expect. Never suspected SILOMIO in ambush.

As soon as questions over, plot disclosed. COCHRANE, a harmless, perhaps necessary, man, put up to move adjournment, in order to discuss the Swazi question. That in itself a stroke of genius. Had SILOMIO personally moved, game would have seemed too stale. Probability is forty Members not been found to stand up in support of motion. Looks much better to have such action taken on one side of House and supported from the other; invests it with air of impartiality and unanimity. On challenge from the SPEAKER, Conservatives rose in body to support COCHRANE'S request. Having secured that object, and being on their legs, they strolled out, leaving SQUIRE OF MALWOOD, SYDNEY BUXTON, and about a score of others all told, to listen to COCHRANE'S urgent message. Amongst them sat FRANK LOCKWOOD, with tender gleam in eyes that roamed with curious intentness about Speaker's chair.

Whilst COCHRANE spoke, SILOMIO sat with inspired look on his face, making voluminous notes. He would come on by-and-by. Let others keep the thing going as long as possible; just when hapless Ministers thought it was over, and they might get to business, they should hear a well-known war-whoop; should discover SILOMIO at the table, in for a good hour's speech. Meanwhile he sat piling notes upon notes, pausing occasionally to cheer COCHRANE, anon humming softly to himself

"Swaziland, my Swaziland!"