ESLIE STEPHEN were perfect
in what, theatrically speaking, is termed "the heavy lead;" and
certainly their speeches were--ahem!--weighty. Pretty to note how His
Scarlet-robed Eminence entered the room, not only with a grace all
his own, but with His Grace of CANTERBURY as well. Never was the
President, Sir FREDERICK LEIGHTON, more effective in all his speeches,
and especially when replying to the toast of "The Academy," where the
perfection of his speech lay in the subtle concealment of its art, and
in the genuine earnestness of his advice to students _urbi et orbi_.

* * * * *

SPORTING ANSWER (_Garden_).--TOTTIE: The flower you have forwarded to
us is not a flower at all. It is an East African rhinoceros. We have
returned it as requested, by parcel post.

* * * * *

ALL-A-BLOWING!

(_A Cockney Pastoral in Spring time._)

_Who-o-o-f!_ It's hot amost as Summer-time; yet what a blessed breeze
Is a-whiffing round the corners, and a-whoostling through the trees!
And the sunlight on the roof-slates, all aslant to the blue sky,
Seems to twinkle like the larfter in a pooty gurl's blue eye,
When you swing in the dance, and she feels you've got 'er step:
And the trees--ah! bless their branches!--through the winter weeks
they've slep',
When the worrying winds would let 'em, all as black and mum as mutes,
A-waiting for the blackbirds, with their calls like meller flutes.
Just to whistle them awake like. Oh! but now they stir and rouse
Like a girl who has bin dreamin' of her lover in a drowse,
And wakes up to feel 'is kisses on 'er softly poutin' lips.
How they burst, all a-thirst for the April shower that drips
Tinkle-tink from leaf to leaf, washing every spraylet clean
From the sooty veil of London, which might dim the buddin' green
Of the pluckiest lime-tree, sproutin' o'er brown pales in a back-yard;
For these limes bud betimes, and they find it middlin' hard
To make way at windy corners, when the lamp as lights 'em through,
Like gold on green in pantomimes, is blown till it burns blue,
By the angry nor'east gusts. But the nor'east wind to-day
Is less like a rampin' lion than some new-born lamb at play.
Wy, the laylock's out aready, purple spires and creamy clumps.
Oh, that scent of shower-washed laylock! There's a somethin' in me jumps
As I ketch it round some corner, where the heart-shaped leaflets smal