wreaths before the Temple Bar specimen. A Dragon's Day would be a
most useful National Institution. The object would not be to exalt
the beast, but to celebrate our own (and GEORGE'S) triumph over it.
Everybody has his own private Dragon, and some people have public ones
as well. For example, Sir WILFRED LAWSON, in laying down his wreath,
would be commemorating the introduction of the Veto Bill; Mr.
GLADSTONE would be slaying (in spirit) the Leader of the Opposition
in the House of Lords, who is evidently the "Dragon of the Prime
(Minister)" referred to by TENNYSON; Lord CRANBORNE would be Mr.
DAVITT'S Dragon, and so on. The fun would be that nobody would
be expected to say _what_ Dragon he meant. If a law were passed
establishing such a festivity, perhaps it would be denounced as "too
Dragonic"!

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

[Illustration: Going to the Booking-Office.]

Poet WILLIAM WATSON'S _Excursions in Criticism_ are cheap Excursions.
He himself describes them as "Prose Recreations of a Rhymer." "Prosy"
would have been the truer epithet. The meeting of an Interviewer
with Dr. JOHNSON is the best, and it is also the last. Poet WATSON'S
criticism of _Tess of the D'Urbevilles_, his Essay on IBSEN'S Plays,
and another on GEORGE MEREDITH, may have been recreations to the
writer, but, like most of the other papers in this volume, they will
never be so considered by the lightheaded and unbiassed reader. What
is recreation to WILLIAM WATSON is boredom to the Baron, and, as the
latter is inclined to think, to the majority of such of the public as
may attempt the perusal of W. W.'s recreations. Let W. W. make no
more cheap excursions in criticism,--excepting, of course, for his own
private amusement, with which no one has a right to interfere,--but
let him "thank the gods he is poetical," and so let him remain. His
second best Essay, is on _The Punishment of Genius_, in which he
advocates the post-mortem destruction of every scrap of composition,
which its author had never intended for the public eye.

* * * * *

"We've had no rain to speak of for some weeks," observed Mrs. R.;
"and, if this goes on, I heard some scientific gentlemen say, the
other day, we ought to have the land irritated by hydras."

* * * * *

MELANCHOLIA.

(_Modern French Version: After the celebrated Picture "Melencolia" by
Albert Duerer._)

[I