RT PUBLISHERS.--"TUCK
in!"

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[Illustration: FOOTBALL FEVER. SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN THE MIDLANDS.]

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TO "THE LAZY MINSTREL"

_On the publication of his Eighth Edition, with therein
Nineteen Poems originally written for Mr. Punch._

[Illustration: The Lazy Laureate of the Thames.]

Who would not be a Minstrel Lazy?
A trifle crazy,
The best of them! Ah!
Here's ASHBY STERRY, in punt or wherry,
He's ever merry! sing "hey down derry,"
Or anything very
Like Tra! la! la! la!

On sunny days he trolls his lays
With gay guitar and Tra! la! la! la!
From groves and glades come meadow-sweet maids,
None of your saucy minxes or jades;
The poet is there
Without a care.
With no regret, with mild cigarette.
With gay guitar, and whiskey from Leith,
Will he be crowned with the Laureate wreath?

(_The Nymph Pantalettina is heard singing_.)

Come where my ASHBY lies dreaming,
Dreaming for hours after lunch.
Softly! for he is scheming
Poems for _Mister Punch_!
Graceful is his position--
Hark! how he sweeps the strings,
While of his Eighth Edition
The Warbler STERRY sings:--

(_The Bard chirpeth his roundelay_.)

"On 'Spring's Delights' in 'Hambledon Lock'
'My Country Cousin' may hap--
With her I'll go
'In Rotten Row,'
Stop on an 'oss
'At Charing-Cross,'
For a 'Tam O'Shanter Cap.'

No gout? Oh no! But I'm 'Taken in Tow,'
And suffering from dejection,
'Spring Cleaning' I'll use for a pair of old shoes
(Queer rhyme upon reflection),
'Sound without Sense,' I've no pretence,
To write Shakspearian Sonnets.
Of her and him,
As suits my whim,
I sing, and I hymn her bonnets!"

(_Chorus of Pantalettina and River Nymphs._)

So, hail to the Bard so merry,
To Lazy Laureate STERRY!
He'll sing of a Lock on the Thames! oh rare!
Or hymn a Lock of his Lady's hair.

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CONVERSATIONAL HINTS FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS.

The subject of Lunch, my dear young friends, has now been exhausted.
We have done, for the time, with poetry, and descend again to the
ordinary prose of every-day shooting. Yet stay--before we proceed
further, there is one matter apart from the mere details of sport,
which may be profitably considered in this treatis