" to "Mrs."

So I'm unmarried to this day,
And live without the great felicity
Which, as TOM used of old to say,
Can't fail to wait on domesticity.

That joy is his alone, not mine,
Misogynist he liked to call himself,
Whilst I thought every girl divine--
Yet TOM has been the first to fall himself.

I've missed the sweets of married life,
The bills, the coos, and all the rest of it!
I cannot boast, like TOM, a wife,
I wonder, tho', who's got the best of it?

Fair MAUDE, I willingly allow
I thought my heart for ever riven.
It wasn't so at all, and now
Your Ladyship is quite forgiven.

And TOM, old friend--tried, trusty, true,
Across the seas these lines will carry
All New-Year greetings, TOM, to you
And yours, from Yours, as ever, HARRY.

* * * * *

Should there be a hard frost, lady-skaters in Hyde Park will be able to
give quite a new turn to the "Serpentine Dance."

* * * * *

CRINOLINE is gradually coming in again. She re-enters to the air of
"_Steel so gently o'er Me steeling_."

* * * * *

Montagu Williams.

BORN, 1834. DIED, DEC. 23, 1892.

["He will be missed far more by lawyers and the world at large than many
men who hold more important offices in his profession."--_The Times._]

Companions of his ardent youth,
Or comrades of his riper years;
The poor who felt his kindly ruth,
And mourn him with unpurchased tears;
Men of the world whose mordant sense
Shorn of all maudlin sentiment
Seemed the sharp touchstone of pretence;
Soft hearts on swift world-bettering bent,
All miss, all mourn the man whom all
Responsive found to each high call.

Old long-dead days of boisterous mirth,
Far dim-seen hours of arduous fight
When gaiety possessed the earth,
When morning felt no fear of night;
School-form, field, footlights, club! _Eheu
Fugaces!_ These, indeed, are fled,
But thoughts of dashing MONTAGU,
That dauntless soul now lying dead,
After long fight with pitiless pain
Make the old memories live again.

Before the triumphs of the Court,
Before the honours of the Bench,
Wild days there were of toil and sport,
Long ere our brows had learned to blench
At threatenings of the first grey hair.
Ah! cordial comrade, champion stout,
The fierce ordeal you had to bear