nd bearing in
his mouth a piece of meat, suddenly swallowed the meat. He immediately
observed that the shadow of the aforesaid meat in the water had
disappeared.

Such is optics.

_Moral_: We learn from this fable that life is but a shadow.

THE ASS AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. A donkey one day was quietly munching
thistles when he heard the screaming whistle of a locomotive. Pricking
up his ears, he started into a gallop and raced across lots with his
tail high in the air.

_Moral_: This fable teaches what an ass he was.

THE MOUSE AND THE CAT. A mouse once peeped from his hole and saw a
cat. The cat was looking the other way, and happened not to see the
mouse.

Nobody killed.

_Moral_: This little fable doesn't teach anything.

SARSFIELD YOUNG.

A PICTURE WITH A HISTORY

In a number of _Punch_ for February, 1873, in the account of "Our
Representative Man's" visit to the Exhibition of Old Masters, occurs
the following sentence: "No 35. Oh, Miss Linley (afterward Mrs.
Sheridan), oh how lovely you are! Oh, Thomas Gainsborough, oh, Thomas
Gainsborough, oh! And if Baron Lionel de Rothschild, M.P., ever wishes
to offer a testimonial to one who knows nothing whatever about him,
and for no particular object, let him send this picture, carriage
paid, to the residence of your representative, who as his petitioner
will never cease to pray at convenient seasons, etc."

The picture thus apostrophized represents that "Saint Cecilia, the
beautiful mother of a beautiful race, [3] whose delicate features,
lighted up by love and music, art (Reynolds's and Gainsborough's) has
rescued from the common decay."

It is not unlikely that Sheridan or his wife may have presented this
picture to the Hon. Edward Bouverie.[4] A letter of Mrs. Sheridan in
1785 (she died in 1792) is dated from his seat, Delapre Abbey, and she
and Sheridan were _habitues_ of his house.

It was at the death of General Bouverie, grandson of Mrs. Sheridan's
friend, that her picture was sold, a few months ago, to Baron
Rothschild; and a romance might well be woven out of the circumstances
which caused this painting to be removed from the place which it had
so long occupied in the library of Delapre Abbey.

Delapre Abbey is a stately mansion occupying ground once covered by
a monastery, of which the only remains serve as offices of the more
modern edifice. Approaching the ancient borough of Northampton by the
old London road, you observe on your lef