Y.--One swallow does not make a summer--drink.

* * * * *

[Illustration: DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIES UNDER CIVILISATION.

'_Arriet._ "OW, 'ARRY! I S'Y! _H'YN'T_ 'E A UGLY COWVE!"]

* * * * *

NEWTON AND THE APPLE.

_A Modern Version of an Old Story._

ALL wisdom is not to be found,
In immortal philosopher's pages;
Common-sense in its common-place round
Sometimes floors all the saps and the sages.
The doses administered thus,
Are regarded as nauseous drenches,
But oftentimes folly and fuss,
Are discovered on woolsacks and benches;
And big-wigs in bumptiousness solemnly solus,
Will find themselves better sometimes for a bolus.

The dignified mazes of Law,
'Tis parlously easy to trip in,
The truth that a _savant_ once saw,
In the casual fall of a pippin,
The Bench's calm height ought to scan,
More clearly than mortals thereunder.
But--your Magistrate is but a man,
And Man is much given to blunder.
An obstinate Beak or a cynical Q.C.,
Sometimes plays the fool--that is wisdom _in nuce_!

This gentleman stretched at his ease,
Looked monstrously wise and complacent.
How green the umbrageous trees!
How verdant the country adjacent!
Would anyone hint, save a pump,
That he is not high equity's model?
"Stand down, Mr. Critic, or--" thump!
The Sage receives one for his noddle.
Gravitation from Magistrates' rules is exempt,
And a pippin you cannot commit for contempt.

Little Public Opinion will reck,
Though austere Rhadamanthus should chide it,
And even a haughty Home Sec.,
In vain will assume to deride it.
It does not fear satire or scathe
From Minos, though knowing and nobby,
And certainly won't pin its faith,
To the Bench's pet fetish, the Bobby.
To make _him_ an oracle's coming it strong,
For even a Constable sometimes goes wrong.

Our NEWTON'S "_Principia_" too,
_Punch_ rejects in a fashion emphatic.
No, _Shallow_, my boy, they won't do,
They're at least as absurd as dogmatic.
The Curfew you'd better restore;
You'd no doubt be delighted to do so,
But you won't close the West-End at four,
Until, like poor _Robinson Crusoe_,
Or _Selkirk_, you're "monarch of all you survey,"
Which won't be, my NEWTON, this many a day.

Na