There's something that I fear ought to be said,
Which may--which will arouse your indignation;
For you may not be happy when it's more than hinted
Your news is such that we can't read it when it's printed.

Yet I would have you fully understand
The real reason why I choose to quarrel
With what you print--your columns are not banned
Because their contents are at all immoral
Yet if there _is_ a scandal, though a small amount of it,
You sometimes soil your pages with a long account of it.

Far other reasons urge me to reveal
My feelings on this matter--to assail your
Too common practice, and say why I feel
Your daily efforts are a daily failure;
Your paper by its columns and its size confuses me,
And worse--there's nothing in it in the least amuses me.

Can you indeed in seriousness suppose--
To me, I tell you, naught could be absurder--
That anywhere at all there can be those
Who read the noisome details of a murder,
Or take delight in knowing that in such a county
Some teeming, triple mother earns the Royal Bounty?

Ibsenity! Amid the maze of words
I find it difficult to pick my way right;
_This_ critic at the Master only girds,
_That_ promptly hails him as the "premier playwright."
Whilst I don't mind confessing that I swear right roundly
At mention of a subject that I hate profoundly.

Then Parliament--without the slightest doubt
Of all dull things the dullest. What could be more
Distressing than to have to read about
The coming (?) KEAY, whose other name is SEYMOUR?
And now that Patriots' speeches flow with milk and honey,
They're very much less Irish, and of course less funny.

The Bye-Elections _are_ a little fun,
I laugh to note the jubilant precision
With which you tell me that a seat that's won
Exactly counts two votes on a division,
Though this is all I care for, and am bored at knowing
How pleased is Mr. GLADSTONE with the tide that's flowing.

Yet all these many, varied forms of pain
Are trifling, small and hardly worth attention.
One thing is so much worse--oh! pray again
The "epidemic" never, never mention,
And promptly tell your poet that the rhyme "cadenza"
Must never more be worked in for the Influenza!

* * * * *

DEFEAT--OR SOMETHING NEAR IT.

When a few months ago on the Thames with the oar
The 'Varsities met in a contest o