version of a Shakspearean song the name
is subject to alteration:--

Who is Bertie? What is he
That all the girls commend him?
Handsome, brave and wise is he;
The heavens such grace did lend him
That he might admired be.

Examples might be adduced from many poets, but two more will suffice. A
female TENNYSON might have begun a song in the following terms:--

It is the youthful miller,
And he is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the pencil
That trembles on his ear:
For 'midst his curls by day and night
I'd touch his neck so warm and white.

Finally, let us look at the very prince of love poets--ROBBIE BURNS.
Two of his most famous songs might as well have been written of swains
as maidens. Here is one in which in the most natural way in the world
lassie becomes laddie, and Mary, Harry:--

Go, fetch to me a cup o' tea,
And take it from a silver caddie,
That I may drink a health to thee,
A service to my bonnie laddie!
The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith,
Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry,
The ship rides by the Berwick-Law,
And I maun leave my bonnie Harry.

Is that injured by the change? Not a bit. And here is another in which
we have successfully introduced a variation of the original name:--

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw
I dearly like the west,
For there the bonnie laddie lives,
The laddie I lo'e best.
There wild woods grow, and rivers row
By mony a fleecy flock,
But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jock.

After reading these famous stanzas in their amended form our women poets
may perhaps take heart and emulate them: to the immense delight of their
_fiances_, who like to be wooed as well as to woo, and have never shied
very much at adulation.

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH'S HOLIDAY STORIES.

III.--THE FIGHT OF THE CENTURY.

For weeks past the press had discussed little but the coming boxing
contest between Smasher Mike and the famous heavy-weight champion,
Mauler Mills, for a purse of L20,000 and enormous side stakes.
Photographs of the Mauler in every conceivable attitude had been
published daily, together with portraits of his wife, his two children,
his four maiden aunts and the pink-eyed opossum which he regarded as his
mascot. Full descriptions of his training day by day, with details of
his diet, his readi